tv Politics Public Policy Today CSPAN October 26, 2012 10:30pm-6:00am EDT
from where will my help come? my help comes from the lord he will not let your foot be moved. he who keeps israel will not shall not strike you by day nor
chapter 40 versus 28 have you god the creator of the he does not faint or grow weary unsearchable. even youths be faint and wary. like eagles. they shall walk and not
>> i'm congressman jim mcgovern from massachusetts. when eleanor roosevelt died it was said that i've lost more than a friend, i've lost an inspiration and that's the way i feel today. deep down i know george mcgovern is in a better place. he's with eleanor and terri and steve. who knows, he may even be president. but for so many of us it is difficult to say goodbye. it was always comforting to know that he was around reminding us we can do better, making it seem possible we could end all wars, eliminate hunger and poverty and create a world where all god's children
are respected valued and loved. in 1972 as a seventh grader in massachusetts i did what i could to elect him president of the united states which i remind you all he did win massachusetts. [applause] [applause] i was later an intern in his senate office and i had the privilege to work with the incredible staff he assembled in washington d.c. and south dakota, some of the finest people i have ever known. we weren't related it was just a co-incidence we both had the same last name. but people would tell me they were long-time supporters of my dad. and they always seemed shocked when i told them my dad owned a liquor store in massachusetts. i urged them to keep supporting him.
for 35 years i have been honored to call senator mcgovern my most treasured friend and i loved him very much. he was a great man but more importantly he was a good one. he had about him a decency, he was generous and kind. he was funny and had no patience for cynicism. he was passionate and principled but not dogmatic or self-right courthouse. he loved his family and friend and faith and american history and a good steak. he loved this great state of south dakota and my god, did he love his country. even after the 1972 campaign, even after losing 49 states and losing his senate seat in 1980, he maintained his optimism and faith in government and his belief that america's best days
were always ahead which he became a war hero a prd and congressman and a presidential nominee of his party. but he wasn't a don't you know who i am type of guy. we can all hear him saying to someone who knew perfectly well who he was, you know fred, i ran for president fred in 1972 which is not to say that he was about pride. this is a man who jumped out of an air plain at age 88. while he did that to raise knowledge about hunger. he wanted to prove he still had a little fly boy in him. he had a way with words, come home america, don't throw away your conscious. he was eloquent in moving but his actions were more powerful. there were millions and millions around the world who are not starving to death who have hope because of george
mcgovern's actions. perhaps because he witnessed the horrors of war, he was a champion for peace. not because he opposed all wars but because he knew that war all represents a failure of human imagination. even when some have the audacity to question the war heroes patriotism. he refused to dream up new wars for men to die in. to susan and mayor and all the grandchildren, thank you for sharing him with us when it wasn't easy because there are many across the country who consider us his children. his incredible public service is also your public service and we will for ever be grateful. thank you for giving thus public servant. as was said in the 1972 campaign he wanted a mcgovern
presidency because george is such an ordinary man not in a regular sense but the presidency was designed for ordinary men not for larger than life men on horse back. if george mcgovern were president he wouldn't stand for a c.i.a. pushing people around. he wouldn't stand for price fixing or the people who work for wages and pay their taxes and he wouldn't try to prove his manhood by prolonging a war that shouldn't have started in the first place. it's a dam shame this happened to george because i don't know how long it will be until we have a president who feels like that. he was right. our country missed an incredible opportunity in 1972. [applause] [applause] but even though george mcgovern lost that election, that loss is not his legacy.
right now there is a family in new jersey that can put food on their table. that's his legacythere is a little girl who has never heard his name who has . enough to eat and is getting an education. that's his legacy. and it is up to us to each and every one of us to carry that legacy forward. we love you senator. [applause] i'm garry heart of colorado. [applause] nations even great nations
sometimes require a voice of conscience. george mcgovern was the voice of conscience for our nation in our time. the voice of conscience began with israel with it's profits call israel back to their purpose and cause. in america george mcgovern stood in the tradition of henry david author row of william brian and more recently of robert kennedy and of martin luther king. when the wounded veteran in vietnam needed a voice he was there. when the hungry child in american poverty needed a voice, he was there. when women, minorities and young people sought to
breakdown the barriers of a closed political system, his voice was there. when sinister voices corrupted the political system and haunted the corridors of power in washington, he was there to warn us. voices of conscience make us uncomfortable. our political system forces them to the march. those made uncomfortable by george mcgovern's voice of conscience dismissed him as a liberal in an age which rids liberalism. he was larger than any liberal particularly a non-niesed one. liberals did not get elected and re-elected in conservative states which they did not take on unpopular causes particularly in recent years
and most of all liberals did not fly dangerous missions in defense of our nation. this made his many critics who avoided military service especially uncomfortable. somewhere in some small town in this great land is the young man or a young woman who will learn of george mcgovern and his voice. some day that young man or woman drawn to action by his life as a shoice of conscience will rise up to call america home, to summon the better angels of our nature, to confront us with poverty and injustice and inquality.
and to challenge us to live up to our constitutional promise. george mcgovern's voice is not gone, it's simply baiting the voice of conscience that have the voice of their conviction. [applause] good afternoon.
at his funeral about his life george's father was born in stern figure, not the kind of man who would toss a baseball around with the boys in the brother were talking baseball said let me see that baseball and they thought they were in trouble because their dad did
and through -- threw it on a straight line to the corner of apparently a transformative experience. either 65 or 66 years old told the boys that in an earlier life he had been a professional des moines, iowa that had an affiliation with the st. louis to the formation dals minor league system. cardinals and listened to them on the radio but now he had a much more personal connection with the whole notion of the st. louis cardinals.
was it like to be a boy of 12 that's not unknown to a lot of over and read it back to front looking for the box scores and a and often game, he would call our house
cardinals managed to sneak into the playoffs and win the world we had when they're in the late one day, george said, another spring training game. would you like to go with him? i said, sure. other side of the state, to their spring training
we got what family members will getting to the game which i will not go into great newspaper story, it would have the headline, late, on time, and 100 miles per hour in the we had a wonderful time at the we sat in the sun, we got the cardinals won. there was a close play at baseman got knocked over. george's dad had been a second to play second base, like his you got run over all time.
at the end of the game, we got would you like to meet tony la the game was over, we walked the atlanta braves coach. we sat around and talked
it was just a wonderful happened rest of the year. would say, can you believe it, but he got to me tony la russa. this was really a wonderful they became sort of telephone y
anyway, the last few weeks, george ended up in the cardinals ended up in the again. the hospice, his eyes were the cardinals are ahead, they talk to us about how good he felt that the cardinals were it to the world series this unfortunately, george did not d
they both just sort of ran out as a great privilege to we were real fans of his, [applause] >> i am deeply honored to be here today and to have the opportunity to share some thoughts. i joined congressman mcgovern, senator hart, all of those
assembled here, and all the thousands who wished they could be here, to express our heartfelt condolences and deep sympathy to you and the extended family. i know i speak for the family in expressing our gratitude and deep appreciation to all of those very distinguished visitors, who in some cases have traveled great distances to be here, on the celebration of george's life. when george accepted his party's nomination, he offered this benediction. may god grant each of us the wisdom to cherish this good land and meet the great challenge that beckons us all home. now that he is beckoned home,
we will always be grateful for the ways that, through his life, through his work, and through his vision, and george lifted us far higher in meeting that challenge. someone asked st. francis of assisi what it takes to live a good life. he replied, preached the gospel every day, if necessary, use words. i have never known anybody who preached the gospel more affectively in so many ways than george. a peacemaker. a humanitarian. a teacher. the minister.
a congressman. a senator. a voice for the voiceless. and a champion for hungry children. in some ways, george's adult life began in war. when asked about his military service, he would always minimize his heroism. but the fact is, if he had done nothing after reaching the age of 25 years old, today, we would be celebrating the life of an american hero. 35 missions in a b-24. and as we said last night, it would have been more if the war had gone on. one more close call, shrapnel
penetrate the winter of that one. nearly killing him, a blown wheel, an emergency landing. and on his 35th and final mission, so much fire and flak. when they landed, they counted the holes in his fuselage and wings, and it numbered 110. george's life was not an easy one. he saw more than his fair share of our chips and loss. he fought many battles beyond the ones in the airplane. the hits he sustained in world war ii were easier to see, but in truth, he was riddled like that inside much of his life.
but it was through his incredible sense of humor, his determination to soldier on and set the example for others. has he shrugged over the tragic loss of terry, he observed, you just never get over it. i am sure of that. you get to where you can live with it. that is all. george outlive two children, taken too soon, terry and steve. and his beloved eleanor. in light of all that, there is a certain blessing in knowing that as he left us as he did, peacefully, with family and friends around, i do not know about you, but i love the thought that george and
eleanor, terry and steve, are all together now. throughout his life, as we all know, he had a love for mitchell. mitchell was his home. it is where he studied at dakota wesleyan. where he built his library when he returned home to continue his productive work in his last several years. and in many ways, it is all where it started. george and eleanor had four small children when he decided, in 1955, to resign as chairman of the history department at dakota wesleyan and build the democratic party. their friends agreed there could only be one explanation for this decision. he was out of his mind.
actually, and george insisted there was another explanation. he said he had a desire to work in public service and be part of the world of ideas and the field of action. the hallmark of his career was his drive to bridge the gap between those worlds, to turn ideas into action, and aspirations into reality. his early years are now the stuff of legend and lore. crisscrossing the state of south dakota, shaking hands, collecting names on 3 by 5 index cards. to this day, i think duty has them all. who could forget the classic
story in his autobiography "grass roots" -- and you know which one i am talking about. he was at the state fair. i stood on the wet, cold sought in front of the dismally small tent, he wrote there was no floor, i had no literature. i had no coffee, no elected officials. what is more, the gop had a live elephant. [laughter] when a democrat stop by and offered him the use of his donkey, george jumped at the chance, drove 14 miles in his chevy, a car, not a pickup, and there was the first multiple political disaster. the donkey had sent one of his
hooves through the window, blood all over the car, relieved himself on a nun, bit the little girl, and pulled the whole tent down. i have never trusted donkeys since, georgia wrote. -- george wrote. they deserve to be called asses. [laughter] [applause] and it was not until i was senate majority leader that i fully realized the value of that statement. [laughter] he soon created an organization that enabled him to be the
biggest vote-getter in the state, 1966, and won a seat in the conference, becoming the first democrat to be sent to washington from south dakota in 22 years. he immediately became a force to reckon with, introducing a farm bill the very first day. over the course of several months, passed more legislation than any one of the 44 new members who had come in with him at the same time. his constituents were the people for whom he fought. they were south dakota families barely holding on to their family farms. they were common working people in south dakota, and all over the country. they were native americans, they were poor people, hungry people, people others often
overlooked. and then it was just as remarkable, in 1962, south dakota sent him to washington as the first democrat elected to the senate in 26 years. if george mcgovern had never entered politics, he might still have impacted thousands of people like me. most likely as a distinguished history professor, but i doubt that i would ever been elected to congress. growing up in south dakota, the idea of getting elected as a democrat seemed as likely as martians landing in your yard. it just did not happen.
[laughter] but because of what george had done, that changed. the fact that he won both his house and senate seat expanded the hopes and aspirations of hundreds of would-be democratic candidates, just like me. but even more was what he did those seats that affected us the most deeply, what he did. in 1972, i was a intelligence officer in the air force in omaha. my day job was analyzing intelligence data on the soviet union, but i had another volunteer job in the evening. helping to run the mcgovern for president primary office in omaha. it was certainly an unusual combination, and i think i had the shortest hair cut of any
one of around. [laughter] but what attracted me was not all that this man was from my state. what attracted me was his intellect. his integrity. his passion for the things in which he believed. and his courage to speak out. and his enormous decency. i like what someone wrote about him in his mitchell high-school yearbook. for a debater, he is a nice kid. [laughter] but for a politician, he would be extraordinary. i will remember my first lesson in political leadership from george mcgovern. i have the opportunity to work in jim's campaign and then go to washington. then jim that we come back here
in 1976 to get around and get to know people. it was 1977. i had not yet announced. it was at the state fair. the country was consumed in a raging debate about the panama canal treaties. as we were walking down the fairway, a very angry crowd encircled george, demanding that he explain his position on those treaties, and change it, threatening that they would work hard to defeat him in the next election if he did not. george stood there and listened, quietly. when it was his time to talk, in the most reason, calm,
persuasive, particulate way, he shared with that group why those treaties were not only good for panama, but what they meant for us. the crowd dissipated. as we walked back to the democratic booth, i remarked that george, i said, george, i cannot but help, no the contrast between an angry crowd and what you just did. he said, i learned a long time ago, is a whole lot better to tell people what you believe from here, then to tell them what you think they want to hear. [applause]
george said the standard for candor, conviction, and for honesty. for two years, from 1978 to 1980, i had the honor to serve in the same delegation with george from south dakota. although he was the most senior and i, the most junior, he treated me as an equal. and i cannot begin to tell you the lessons i learned watching this man. mostly by his example. lessons that i only wish people in washington could better understand today. like the fact that you can express your convictions deeply without ranting. you can disagree without being disagreeable. he showed me the cynics were
wrong, that politics can be an honorable profession. but you make sacrifices in politics. sometimes, big sacrifices. but you do not sacrifice your idealism or your conscience. people sometimes talk about mcgovernism. some even use it as a pejorative. but mcgovernism means believing in basic american values. democracy, justice, the dignity of honest work, tolerance, and never hesitating to embrace those values, even when they are not popular.
it is courage combined with commonsense. it is recognizing our responsibility to face hard questions, like the shame of hunger in the world, for the reality of ill-advised wars in vietnam or iraq. mcgovernism means believing that government has certain, basic responsibilities, like guaranteeing civil rights and searching for ways to live peacefully in the world. it means choosing dialogue over blame. respect over division. hope over fear.
what made george a great public servant was not only his compassion and integrity, but it was his uncommon vision. he saw connections others did not see, like, the connection between political stability and hungry children. that vision became food for peace. and the mcgovern-adult education program. he also saw things sooner than others. in 1962, he said the most important issue of our time is the establishment of conditions for world peace. nine months into his first term, he gave his first speech on the non. -- vietname. -- vietnam.
1970, he warned about the dependence of the united states on fossil fuels. in 1984, he urged all of our american leadership to understand the complexity, challenges, and the volatility of circumstances in the middle east. i believe america would be a better place had george become president of the united states. [applause] that does not mean his campaign was a failure. far from it. the 1972 campaign opened up a political process. it confused a new generation the belief in what eleanor called the politics of the impossible.
it was that kind of politics at george earned the enormous respect, that crossed the aisle, and transcended party lines. and along with it, enormous achievement. there are children today -- and jim mcgovern mentioned it -- the children today in the world living and have better lives because of what george and bob dole did together. [applause] on the surface, george mcgovern and i should be poles apart, senator dole what said. after all, he is a liberal democrat and i am a republican of the conservative stripe. he ran for the senate as i was chairman of the party.
i believe our positions are diametrically opposed. yet in the most important ways, he said, i regard george as a close friend and kindred spirit. he is a decent man who puts principal above -- principle of expediency. another man that served in the 1960's said simply, george mcgovern is the most decent man in the united states senate. [applause] that was robert kennedy who spoke two months before he was killed. it is well known amongst his friends that george loved to drive. last night, mathieu spoke so powerfully and eloquently about his experiences with his
grandfather, including a drive to mitchell. jim tells me this great story of traveling from florida to south dakota through wisconsin last summer over nine days. i had my own experiences with george driving over the years in south dakota. i will never forget one night, it was a summer, story, a beautiful night. george and i were coming back from the chill, coming back from a program, driving through sioux falls. he was driving. we were going around 95 miles per hour and he was looking out the windshield saying, look at all the great stars, pointing them out one by one. [laughter] my eye were frozen on the road. i said, george, look at the darn road! [laughter] metaphorically, and actually, george plowed down the road.
his eyes focused on something beautiful and something distant. it in a speech at wheaton college in illinois a month before the 1972 election, he told his audience, i felt called into the work of serving others. at first i thought my vocation was in ministry, and i enrolled in the seminary. after a period of deep reflection, i thought i should become a teacher, yet, even at my teaching at dakota wesleyan, thought their cause something else for me to do, and that led me to politics. he went on in that speech to say that we know the kingdom of god will not come from a party platform.
we also know, he said, if someone is hungry, we give him food. if someone is thirsty, we give him drink. if someone is a stranger, we take him in. if he is naked, we clothe him. if he is sick, we take care of him. if he is in prison, we visit him. that encapsulates simply and powerful in the story of george mcgovern's years on this earth. he and i had many favorite poets and writers. one of our favorites was yeats.
we both loved one of yeats' lines. think of where my glory begins and ends. my glory is that i have such friends. our glory, our glory is that we had a friend named george mcgovern. [applause] >> i'm matt mcgovern and i will read from the gospel of matthew. when the son of man comes into with him, he will sit on his
throne of glory. another as the separates shepard separates the sheep from the goats. then the king will say to those at his right hand, come you that are blessed by my father. for you by the foundation of the world. i was hungry and you gave me food. i was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. welcome to me. i was naked and you gave me clothing. i was sick and you took care of me. i was in prison and you visited me. then the righteous will answer him, when was it when we saw hungry and gave you food at our thursday and gave you to drink? win was its that we saw you a stranger and welcome to you ordinate it and we gave you clothing? in prison and we visited you? truly i tell you, just as you
did it to one of the least of my family, you did it to me. left hand, you who are cursed, depart from me to the eternal fire. no food. nothing to drink. i was a stranger and you did not welcome me. naked and you did not give me clothing. sick and imprisoned and you did not visit me. they will answer, lord when was it that we saw you thirsty or a stranger or net -- a stranger or care of you. he will answer them, actually i tell you just as you did not do these, you did not do it to me.
eternal punishment, but the righteous shall have eternal life. [applause] ♪ ♪
singing]
♪ [applause]
>> i'm mary mcglaughlin. granddaughter. this is a reading from the gospel according to luke. report about him spread to all of the surrounding country. he began to teach in the synagogue and was praised by everyone. in nazareth, where he brought -- was brought up, he went into the synagogue every day, as was his custom. he stood up to read. the scroll of isaiah was given to them.
the spirit of the lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to be poor. he has sent me to proclaim release to be captives, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the lord's favor. he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. the eyes of all of the synagogue were fixed on him. he said to them, today the scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing. gracious words came from his mouth. they said, is not this joseph's sun? he said to them, you will quote to me this proverb. doctors, yourselves. he said, truly i tell you, no profit is accepted in its profits -- prophet is accepted in a prophet's hometown. there was a severe drought over
the land. elijah was sent to none of them. except to a widow. there were also many lepers. none of them were cleansed except for one. when they heard this, the synagogue was filled with rage. aydelotte -- they drove him out of the town and led him to the hill on which their town was built so that they may throw him off of a cliff. >> i greet you in the name and spirit of the risen christ, the same price to promise, i will you may be also. i am the bishop of the dakotas minnesota area of the methodist church.
it is my honor to participate in this service and to have been asked by the family to preach the gospel. i think george would have wanted celebration of his life to be the preaching of the gospel. beloved son of the prairie. its wavering clarion voice for peace, decency. a friend of the poor and hungry. the people of faith have lost a gospel of jesus christ and a follower of the methodist way life, to do no harm, to do know -- to do good and to stay in love with guy. -- with god. a father, grandfather beloved cousin and in law.
prayers as you move through this season of sorrow. and of grief. thank you for sharing george breathes with you. profoundly george stanley mcgovern as a son an example of our heritage, i each of you for coming celebrate and honor senator mcgovern's life and witness. to share the mcgovern family's brief. to
political colleague, a trusted mentor -- [no audio] and prairie form them to embrace common person and to tirelessly worked for the common good. george mcgovern was also a prairie prophet. he called and inspired an generation to do justice, to love mercy and to walk with our god. he focused the world's on the plight of the hungry.
fought for peace. he called on us to repent a misguided, wasteful, and selfish to seeking and speaking the truth. articulate it in his hometown to and not in nazareth to preach the good news to the poor, to be prisoners, to give sight to the blind and to proclaim the year of the lord's savior. we can learn much from jesus' experience in bringing good to the poor and liberating the oppressed. of teaching and preaching in galilee.
he got rave reviews. park. personal mission statement with his hometown allegation. the lord is upon me because he -- upon because he anointed me to bring good news to the poor. inaugural address. all spoke well of him. can they just here be delighted and proud expression? is and that joseph and mary's kid? it is good to have him back home. he has done all right by himself. he created quite a stir with his work over there. we know him.
he is ok. jesus was a smash, a hit, a rock star. then things went terribly what -- terribly wrong quickly. jesus told a couple of stories to illustrate what he had read from the profet isaiah. -- prophet isaiah and they ran him out of town. they tried to kill him. this was one of their own, one of their favorite sons. from to of minutes. outstanding in a couple of minutes. happened here? he picked a fight. fight. jesus took up the tradition, the word from the prophet isaiah, which they all knew, which they he reinterpreted the tradition in way that infuriated the time
patience. congregation. jesus picked a rich, righteous fight. i have a hunch that we have all had experience picking fights. anybody feel like confessing today? [laughter] we all know how to pick a fight. with the person seated next to you this afternoon, would you like to try that, by the way? to do. you would attack their sense of self-worth, the sense of security, their sense of being in control, their sense of identity. that is exactly what jesus did with his hometown crowd. the day of the lord is here. amen, shouted. waiting for deliverance is over. amen, shouted. at last the lord is coming to redeem his own.
then jesus attacked their sense of well-being, their sense of being in control of god's word. jesus reminds them of the story from there history which they had conveniently forgotten. during the time of drought in israel when there were lots of poor and hungry people, god since the prophet elijah not to the people of israel but to a widow woman, an immigrant. imagine that. jesus was saying, do you remember that story? the home time -- the hometown crowd grew silent. just to rub it in, jesus reminded them of the story when many in israel had leprosy and god said the profit elijah and an army officer rather than all of those poor deserving lepers in israel.
the silence of the hometown crowd thunders into rage. it is the rate of being judged -- rage of being judged by god's word. it is the rage when an exciting new sermon tells a story we already know and we wish we could forget. let's be honest this afternoon. we do not like to be reminded of what we know is the truth. that which we know is just, that which we know god requires of us. that is the role of the prophet, is an it? -- isn't it? that is what senator mcgovern did for our country. in his humble, plain talking but profoundly courageous way, he time and time again reminded us by word and deed what god requires of us.
the people in nazareth that first-degree to jesus and the man finally yelled kill him because he painfully reminded them of what they already knew, namely that god is free and alive and gracious beyond the bounds that we are willing to accept. god cures a syrian army officer through elijah. it was a lot more than they wanted to remember. they did not come to church to be reminded that god refused to pay -- played by their rules before and might well refuse to play by their rules again. don't you hate that? i hate it when the time -- when god does not play by my rules. this is the key to living the gospel with integrity.
god does not play by our rules. god in christ is always turning things upside down. god is always siding with the poor, blessing the peacemakers, giving birth to a future, always turning nobodies into somebodies. senator mcgovern played by god rules. he lived by the rules of justice, peace, compassion, and love. the problem the people in nazareth had was not a jesus pick a righteous fight. their problem was not between the old and the new, the conservatives and the progressives, between change and tradition. the problem was between the people of god and their own memory. prophets cut so deeply not because they predict the future or tell us what we do not know.
they remind us of what we already know too well and turn that on us. when they do, there is a moment of dead silence when the smug satisfaction of hearing their gracious words turns to the silent recognition of being confronted by god's truth and justice. the prophet has preached a sermon we know by heart, the sermon we know by heart and are afraid to live. often people will say to me after i have preached -- probably other preachers here today have heard the same thing -- you were preaching to me today. i have started to respond by saying, i must have priest for you today.
all i did was to call forth and remind you of what you already know. you already know you are to be peacemakers. you already know you are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, protect the children, eliminate hiv-aid, house the homeless, welcome the immigrants, do not kill that with god has created, do no harm, do all the good you can, love god and neighbor. you already know. senator mcgovern did not come preaching something new. he came proclaiming something we already know. something we already knew. the 1972 speech at the jefferson-jackson day dinner in detroit.
senator mcgovern echoed the theme of his presidential nomination speech and his entire presidential campaign. it challenged us to come home. to come home to the ideals that nourished us from the beginning. he challenged a divided and drifting nation to embrace the true we already knew. forty years later, his words seem as applicable as ever. i want to quote from that speech. what is needed is a revitalization of the american center based on the ideals of the republic. the center has shifted so far from our founding ideals that it bears little resemblance to the dependable values of the declaration of independence and the constitution.
i want america to come home from the alien world of power politics, militarism, deception, racism, special privilege to the blunt truth that all men are created equal, that they are in doubt by their creator with certain inalienable rights. among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. senator mcgovern continued, i want to this nation to turn away from cursing and hatred and war to the blessings of hope and brotherhood and love. let us choose life that we and our children may live and our children will love america not simply because it is theirs, but because of the great and good land all of us have made it.
one of the most courageous acts of speaking truth to power we will ever witnessed. senator mcgovern took to the senate floor in 1971 and declared to his colleagues and the nation, this chamber wreaks of blood, as he demanded once again and into the war in vietnam. the prophet was not accepted in his hometown. he told us what we already knew. others have preached to us. when senator mcgovern preached for us, for entire generations, it awakened a nation's hopes, but also its rage. friends, you may be surprised
to hear a bishop or any religious leaders say this. you already know all you need to know about religion. if you have been going to church or synagogue or a mosque for one year or 10 years or 25 years waiting to know enough about god so you can swing into action, i am telling you you already know enough. you know deep in your heart that you know enough. you know what to do. jesus reminds us with every story, every parable, every teaching, at the commandment, we are to bring good news to the poor. we are to let the oppressed go free and proclaim the lord's favor. i wonder how many people are drowning in loudly next, hertz, sand, doubt and despair. -- hurt, doubt, and despair.
how many do not have hurt, loneliness, doubt, and despair. how many know this and do not respond? [applause] just like jesus' hometown synagogue in nazareth, everyone of us of every faith tradition stands just by our own familiar stories of faith and transformation. what we already know of god's reconciling message. democrats, you already know what to do. republicans, you already know what to do. followers of christ, you already know what to do. each of us here this afternoon will be judged by what we already know god was us to do. do not take my word for it.
reread jesus' teachings about the judgment of the nation's in matthew 25. here is the good news. some of you wondered if i would ever get to be good news, didn't you? [laughter] here is the good news. we do know what to do, don't we? we know the story of god's grace. we know that forgiveness, healing, and joy are ours. notnow god's grace is reserved just for us sitting here this afternoon. let us not fall silent. let us not rush to kill or sideline our contemporary profits -- prophets. let us pick a righteous fight.
let us remind the people in this great country what they know deep down. let us remind the people of this country what is truth, what is right, what is peace-loving, what is just. dear friends, of senator george mcgovern, do you desire to honor his legacy? it is not a rhetorical question. do you desire to honor his legacy? go forth today and engaged the fight for justice and righteousness. keep picking the righteous fights. you know what to do. keep up the faithful witness,
the world needs your leadership in the name and spirit of jesus. go get 'em. [laughter] sign her up. [applause] >> in 1962, pope john the 23rd said to george mcgovern, you have seen this quote many times, when you meet your maker and he asks, have you fed the hungry, and given drink to the thirsty and cared for the lonely, you, george, can answer yes. today, we celebrate george stanley mcgovern is resurrected in christ.
he has met his maker. we celebrate that he knew what to do and he did it. with every fiber of his being, with every word he spoke. today we celebrate that george mcgovern said yes, yes, lord, i fed the hungry, i liberated the oppressed, i proclaimed the lord's blessing. we as a grateful nation join in saying, well done, george. well done, a good and faithful servant of the lord. he knew what to do and you did it. we release you now. we release you now to god's everlasting arms.
rest in peace, may it be so. amen. [applause] ♪ ♪ ["leaning on the everlasting arms"]
♪ ♪
>> let us pray. >> almighty god, into your hands we commend your son, george stanley mcgovern, through jesus christ our lord. eternal god, you have shared with us the life of george mcgovern. for all that george has given us to make us what we are, and for his life that in your love will never end, we give you thanks. we offer george back into your arms, comfort us in our loneliness, strengthen us in our weakness, and give us courage to face the future unafraid. to all those of us to remain in this life closer to one another, and give to us to know that peace and joy with his eternal life.
jesus christ our lord. when asked, how do we pray? pray like this -- our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, by kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. amen. >> may the god of peace, who brought from the dead our lord jesus and raised george mcgovern in to his eternal and everlasting arms making a complete and everything good
and just so that you may do his will, so that you may go forth and do what you already know to do, so that you may do what is pleasing in god's sight. through jesus christ, amen. >> and not the election day, and watch our coverage of the candidates -- from now through election day, watching our coverage of the candidates. next mitt romney campaigns in iowa. after that, firstly michelle obama campaigns in las vegas. then a look at the battleground state of wisconsin. >> this weekend, "book tv" in
austin, texas. saturday from 11 a.m.. if a trading mr. cote's drug cartel. the texas book festival, live this weekend on c-span 2. but people still talking about the presidential debate, c-span want students to send a message to the president and a short video. what is the most important issue the president should consider in 2013? for your chance to win the grand prize of $5,000, c-span student
cam is open to students. dentcam.org.e act stu >> the mitt romney in iowa and is closing arguments and his economic plan. president a bomb all the 2% lead in the state. -- obama holds a 2% lead in the state. ♪ >> hello, everybody. how are you doing? you live in iowa. you live in a battleground state. let me say that again. i do not think i have said that before. we are a battleground state this year. this makes it a very important.
i am glad to have an opportunity for you to welcome the next president of the united states. i know it is chilly. you will feel the momentum of romney being the next president of the united states. [cheers and applause] you folks know people who voted four years ago for president obama. you know that he promised bipartisanship and to reduce the deficit by half. you know that he was going to give us accountable government. he said he would reduce the health insurance by $2,500. today we have -- we had promises
of economic recovery. this president today has not delivered on his promises of 2008. that is reason enough to have him not be president of united states. he has not delivered. [applause] it is very clear that america cannot afford four more years obamanomics. and the abuse of power by pointing many of his own party and executive orders be on the constitution. -- beyond the constitution. we will have a new president
obama -- pardon me, i mean, president runomney. $814 steel is that did not work. -- stimulous that did not work. worst economic problems america has faced since world war ii. 23 million people looking for full-time jobs. under an employment a 40% of the economy. -- underemployment making up 40% of the economy. many people on food stamps. that is the failure, but
americans are not quitters. we can turn the ship around and we will turn this ship around. we will put america on a new path to a new day with the new .resident, mitt romney [cheers and applause] you know, you have had a new energy since the first debate. you know why? for the first time, the people of this country were able to see the real mitt romney instead of instead of what the chicago henchmen were portraying him in six months of advertising. you saw a person standing there with the president of the united states who is practical who is compassionate, who is humble, who is trustworthy and you saw a
president with all the air go out of him. he's not the obama that everybody thought he was. now, president obama once said in a previous campaign, and let me quote here exactly, if you don't have a record to run on, then you make big elections about small things. so is there any wonder why you're hearing from the other side about big bird, about bayonne ets, about binders -- about bayonetings, about binders? that's what we call running from your record. and we've had all these misleading attacks and what has our candidate's response to that been? exactly what it should be. attacking me is not an agenda. this president has no agenda.
so in short, we need to just simply thank president obama for his public service and let him go. [applause] we have made a conclusion that we're not going to surrender to mediocrity. the high unemployment cannot become a new norm. thirst for trickle down government is coming from a well that's running dry. and we can't allow the next generation to be worse off than our generation is. so this election is about making sure that for the new generation, we preserve the
american dream and mitt romney is going to do that. [applause] now. i'm going to tell you what you know already but i'm going to tell you anyway because i haven't told you. mitt romney could not be a better person qualified to be president of the united states. the right philosophy, the right principles, a business leader who knows markets and knows economics. a person who has created jobs, a -- as an pample of that principle, restoring the olympics and obviously as governor of massachusetts restoring fiscal integrity to that state like he will do to the united states as well. he will get congress working again. he will restore hope in our future with opportunity for our families and community. so in 11 more days, make sure
you do everything you can to get your family, friends, maybes -- neighbors, those who you know and those you done know, vote for mitt romney. now finally, before he comes, i said before and i don't claim to know everybody that's president of the united states well or their candidates but i think as much as i've read about ann and mitt romney, let me tell you, they're the sort of moral leaders that this country needs. and i want you to know that i believe in mitt romney. i believe this he can turn this country around. and that's what this country needs is moral leadership as much as economic leadership but it takes good moral leadership to do the other. so will you give mitt romney a warm iowa welcome on this cold day?
[applause] ♪ >> thank you. thank you. thank you. so many friends today. thank you for being here. little windy, little chilly, but we're just getting started, aren't we? it's going to be a great winter. we need some snow, don't we. senator grassley, thank you for that introduction. governor and lieutenant
governor, congressman king, appreciate you being here. the chairman of my campaign far long time, brian kennedy, thank you for being here and for all of you braving the -- well, it's a little cool, a little windy today, thank you for being here and bringing me such a warmth of spirit. it's good to be back in iowa. [applause] don't think this is the last you're going to see of me and paul ryan. this state may be the state that decides what kind of an america we're going to have and what kind of lives our families are going to have. we're counting on you. and the choice you make this november will shape great things. historic things. and those things will determine the most important and intimate things in our lives. in the lives of our homes, our families, our loved ones. this is an election about america. it's an election about the american family. now all leches matter, of
course. but this one matters a great deal. over the years of our nation's history, choices our fellow citizens have made have changed the country's course. they were turning points of defining consequence. we're today at a turning point. our national debt and liabilities threaten to crush our future. our economy struggles under the weight of government and fails to create the essential growth and employment we need. the same -- at the same time, emerging powers seek to shape the world in their image. china with its model of aauthoritarianism, and in a different way, jihaddists with sharia and repression and terror for the world. this is an election of consequence. our campaign is about big things. because we happen to believe that america faces big challenges. we recognize this is a year with a big choice and the american people want to see big changes.
and together we can bring that kind of change, real change, to our country. [applause] you know, four years ago, candidate obut ma spoke to the scale of the time. today he shrinks from it. trying to distract our attention from the biggest issues to the smallest, from characters on sesame street and silly word games to misdirected personal attack he is knows are false. the president's campaign falls far short of the magnitude of these times and the presidency of the last four years has fallen far short of the promises of his last campaign. four years ago, america voted for a post-partisan president. but they have seen the most -- but they have seen the most port partisan of political presidents and washington is in gridlock because of it. president obama promised to bring us together.
but at every turn he sought to divide and demonize he promised to cut the deficit in half. but he doubled it. how about his budget? it failed to win a single vote either republican or democrat in either house of the congress. he said he would reform medicare and social security and save them from pending insolvency. but he shrunk from opposing -- proposing any solution at all. then where are the jobs? the nine million more jobs president obut ma promised his stimulus would have created by now? they're in china, mexico, canada. in countries that have made themselves more attractive for entrepreneurs and business and investment. even as president obama's policies have made it less attractive for them here. so today his campaign tries to deflect and detract, to minimize the failures and make this election about small, shiny objects. but this election matters more than that. it matters to your family. it matters to the senior who
needs to get an appointment with a medical specialist but is owed by -- told by one reception after another that the doctor isn't taking new medicare patients because medicare has been/ed to pay for obamacare. it matters to the man from waukesha, wisconsin, i spoke with several days ago. in what were supposed to be his best work year he had a job at $25 an hour with benefit, now he has one at $8 an hour without benefits. it matters to the college students graduating in the spring with $10,000 to $20,000 in student debt who learns she'll also be paying for $50,000 in government debt. a burden that will put the american dream beyond the reach of so many. it matters for the child in a failing school. unable to go to the school of its parents children because the teachers' union that funds the president's campaigns opposes school choice. the president's campaign slogan is this -- forward.
but to 23 million americans struggling to find a good job, these last four years feel a lot more like backward. we can't afford four more years like the last four years. this election is about big things. like the education of our children. the value of our homes. the take-home pay from our jobs. the price of the gasoline we pay. we buy. and the choices we have in our health care. it's also about the big things that determine those things. like the growth of the economy. the strength of our military. our dependence on foreign oil. and america's leadership in the world. president obama frequently reminds us that he inherited a troubled economy. but a troubled economy is not all that he inherited. he also inherited the greatest nation in the history of the earth. [applause]
he inherited the most productive and in-- innovative nation in history. he inherited the largest economy in the world. and he inherited a people who have always risen to the occasion regardless of the challenges they faced. so long as they've been led by men and women who brought us together, called on our patriotism and guided a nation with vision and conviction. despite all that he inherited, president obama did not repair our economy. he did not save medicare and social security. he did not tame the spending and borrowing. he did not reach across the aisle to bring us together. nor did he stand up to china's trade practices or deliver on his promise to remake our relations with the muslim world where anti-american extremism is on the rise. what he inherited wasn't the only problem. with he did with what he inherited made the problem worse.
in just four short year he borrowed $6 trillion nearly, adding almost as much debt held by the public as all prior american presidents combined. he forced through obamacare, frightening small business from hiring new employees and adding thousands of dollars to every family's health care bill. he launched an onslaught of new regulations. often to the delight of the biggest banks and corporations. but to the detriment of the small, growing businesses that create 2/3's of our jobs. new business starts are at a 30-year low because entrepreneurs and investors are sitting on the sidelines. weary from the president's staggering new regulations and proposing massive tax encreases. many families can't get mortgages. many entrepreneurs can't get loans because of dodd-frank regulations that made it harder for banks to lend. the president invested taxpayer money, your money new york green
companies now failed that were sometimes owned by its largest campaign cricketors he spent billions of taxpayer dollars on investments like solyndra, tesla and others that add to our debt. energy production is up but energy production in public lands is down. he rejecked the keystone pipeline, he cut in half leases. the problem with the obama economy is not what he inherited. it's what the misguided policies that sled the recovery and caused millions of americans to endure lengthy unemployment and poverty. that's why 15 million more of our fellow citizens are on food stamps than when president obama took office. that's why three million more women are now living in poverty. that's why nearly one in six americans today is poor. that's why the economy is stagnant.
today we received, by the way, the late etc. round of discouraging economic news. last quarter, our economy grew at just 2%. after the stimulus was passed, the white house promised that the economy would be growing at 4.3%. over twice as fast. slow economic growth means slow job growth. and declining take home pay. that's what four years of president obut ma's policies have produced. americans are ready for change. for growth, for jobs, for take home pay. and we're going to bring it to them. now you know, we've had four presidential or vice-presidential debates and there's nothing in what the president proposed or defended that has any prospect of meeting the chams of the times. rising taxes will not grow jobs or ignite the economy. in fact, his tax plan has been calculated to destroy 700,000 jobs. a stu stimulus, three years
after the recession officially ended, that may spare government but it won't stimulate the private sector any better than did the stimulus of four years ago. and cutting $1 trillion from the military would kill jobs. and devastate our national defense. this is not the time to double down on trickle down government policies that have failed us. it's time for new bold changes that measure up to the moment and that can bring america's families the certainty that the future will be better than the past. [applause] if paul ryan and i are elected as your president and vice president, we will endeavor with all our hearts and energy to restore america. instead of more spening, more borrowing from china, higher taxes from washington, we'll renew our faith in the power of free people, pursuing their dreams. we'll start our plan for a stronger middle class that has five elements. you've heard me talk about them before. one, we're going to act to put
america on track to a balanced budget but eliminating unnecessary programs, by sending perhaps back to states so they can be managed with less abuse an less cost and by shrinking the bureaucracy in washington. [applause] number two, we'll produce more of the energy we need to heat our homes, fill our cars and make our economy grow, we will stop the obama war on coal, the disdain for oil and the effort to crib natural -- to rid natural gas of the technology that produces it. we'll support nuclear and renewables but we'll phase out subsidies once an industry is on its feet. and rather than investing in electric auto and solar company we'll invest in energy science and research. to make discoveries that can actually change our energy world. and by 2020 we will achieve north american energy independence. [applause]
we will make trade work for america. we'll open more markets for american agriculture and products and services and we'll findly -- finally hold accountable any nation that doesn't play by the rules. look, i'm going to stand up for the rights and interests of american workers and employers and we're going to grow jobs by making america the best place for job creatorsing for entrepreneurs, for small business. this will mean upkating and reshaping regulations to encourage growth by lowering tax rates while lowering deductions and bay making it clear from day one that unlike the current administration we like business. and the jobs that business creates. and timely, as we create more opportunity, we'll make sure that our citizens have the skills they need to succeed. training programs are going to be shaped by the states where people live and schools will put the interests of our kids and
their parents and teachers above the interests of the teachers' unions. look, when we do those five things, this economy is going to come roaring back. we're going to create 12 million new jobs in just four years. we'll see rising take home pay. and we'll get america's economy growing at 4% a year, more than double this year's rate, you know, after all the false promises of recovery and all the waiting, we're finally going to see help for america's middle class. it is about time. and paul and i aren't going to stop there. when we take office, we're going to take responsibility to solve the big problems that everyone agrees can't wait any longer. we'll save medicare and social security. both for current and near retirees and for the generation to come. we'll restore the $716 billion that president obama has taken from medicare to pay for his
vaunted obut macare. we'll reform health care. tame its growth. and the cost that's been skyrocketing to provide for those with pre-existing conditions as well and to assure that every american has access to health care. we're going to replace government choice in health care with consumer choice. bring the dynamics of the marketplace to a sector that's too long been dominated by government. now these things among others we can only do if we work tirelessly to bridge the divide between the political parties. we're going to meet with democrat and republican leaders in washington regularly. we're going to look for common ground and shared principles. we'll put the interests of the american people above the interests of the politicians. and i know something about leading. because i've led before. in business. in the olimp exs. in my state. i've brought people together to achieve real change. as you know, i was elected a
republican governor in a state that has a legislature that was 85% democrat. i came into office, we were looking at a multibillion dollar budget gap. but instead of fighting with each other, we came together to solve the problems. we actually cut government spending. we reduced it. we lowered taxes 19 times. we defended school choice. we worked to make our state business friendly. and our state moved up 20 places in job growth. our schools were ranked number one in the nation. we turned to -- we turned a $3 billion budget deficit into a $2 billion rainy day fund. i know it because i've seen it. good democrats can come together with good republicans and solve big problems. what we need is leadership to make that happen. [applause] america is ready for that kind of leadership.
paul ryan and i will provide it. our plan for a stronger middle class will create jobs, stop the decline in take home pay and put america back on the path of prosperity and opportunity. this will enable taos fulfill our responsibility as the lead ore they have free world to promote the principles of peace, we'll help the muslim worldcom bat the spread of extremism, dissuade iran from build agnew clear bomb, we'll build enduring relationships throughout latin america. we'll partner with china and other great neighs to build a more stable and peaceful world. look, we face big challenges. but we also have big opportunities. new doors have been open to us to sell our ideas and products around the world. new technologies offer the promise of unbounded information and inknow vague. new ideas are changing lives and hearts in diverse nations and among diverse peoples. if we seize the moment and rise to the occasion, the century
ahead will be an american century. our children will graduate into jobs that are waiting for them. our seniors will be confident that their retirement is secure. our men an women will have good jobs and good pay and good ben pits -- good benefits. and we'll have confidence that our lives are safe and our livelihoods are secure. what this requires is change. change in the course of the last four years. it rears we put aside the small and petty and demand the scale of change we deserve. we need real change. big change. that time has come. our campaign -- [applause] our campaign is about that kind of change. confronting the problems that politicians have avoided for over a decade. revitalizing our competitive economy. modernizing education. restoring our founding principles.
this is the kind of change that promises a better future. one shaped by men and women pursuing their dreams in their own unique ways. this election is a choice. a choice between the status quo, going forward with the same policies of the last four years, or instead choosing real change. change that offers promise, promise that the future will be better than the past. if you're ready for that kind of change, if you want this to be a turning point in america's course, join paul ryan and me. get your friends and family to do the same. and vote now for the kind of leadership that these times demand. i'm counting on iowa. iowa may be the place that decides who the next president is. it may decide whether or not we're going to have real change. so i'm counting on you to vote, to get your friends to vote, to work at the polls, to bring people out, we've got to take back america and make sure we have the kind of change that
gets america strong. not just for us but for coming generations. thank you, guys. god bless america. god bless you. thank you so much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]
>> michelle obama at a campaign rally for the president in las vegas. her remarks are about 35 minutes. ♪ >> yes! [applause] >> we are going to do this. thank you also much. i am so excited to be here.
the course i want to wish you all a happy about that day. -- nevada day! for who? no, it's not my birthday. elated? my part is in january. -- belated? my birthday is in january. you have not missed it. but thank you, though. i want to thank shelby for everything she is doing on behalf of our kids and the work she's doing on behalf of this campaign. let's give for a round of applause. [applause] i also want to thank landra reid. she as senator reid had been some -- tremendous friends and supporters. they are champions for the state and country. we are proud to have them on our
side. also stev3en horsford. all of whom will make wonderful representatives in congress. [applause] and of course i want to recognize congresswoman birtley -- berkley who will make a tremendous senator. most of all, we need her! but most of all, i want to thank all of you. thank you for being here today. thank you for working so hard. i am glad you guys are fired up and ready to go. i love it. [applause] because if you have not noticed, i am feeling pretty fired up and ready to go myself. so here is the secret. one of the reasons i really love
campaigning, and i do not share this with my husband often, but it is because i get to do one of my favorite things -- i get to talk about the man that i love and have an admired since the day i met him 23 years ago. this is a very good excuse. all the men out there, we know we wives do all this might talk behind your back. hopefully he is not listening. ishough my husband's handsome and charming and s notdibly smart, that i9 what i married him. no. listen up. out there fellas
if you're wondering, how do you get a good woman? i know we have a lot of them out here. listen up. but solely made me fall in love with barack obama -- what tr uly meet the fall in love with barack obama is his character. his decency, his honesty, his compassion and conviction. [applause] this is the man i have known my entire lif with him. i loved that he was so committed to serving others. he turned down high-paying jobs and instead started his career fighting to get people back to work in struggling communities. i love that about him. i loved that barack was so devoted to his family. especially the women in his life. i saw the respect he had for his
mother. how proud he was that she was able to put herself through school and still do everything it took to support he and his sister as a single mom. i saw the tenderness he felt for his grandmotherm how grateful he was that long after she should have retired, she was still waiting up every morning to catch the bus to murdoch at the community bank, doing everything -- catch that bus at the community bank, doing everything to help our family. he watched her get passed over again and again for promotion simply because she was a woman. but she kept getting up every day, year after year to that same job without complaint regret eurekawith barack -- complaint or regret. with barack in a historic, i saw so much of my own three growing up on the south side of chicago,
i watched my own father make that some uncomplaining journey to his job every day at the city water plant. i saw my father get up every day in kerry himself with that same dignity. -- and carry himself with that same dignity. that same hope that his kids would one day have opportunities he could never imagine for himself. this is the thing. like so many families in this country, our families just were not asking for much. they did not want much. they did not begrudge anyone else's success. they did not mind if others had more. in fact, they admired it. that is why they pushed us to be the very best we could be. but here is what they did believe -- they believe a the that fundamental american promise. that even if you do not start out with much, in america, if
you do what you were supposed to do, you work hard, then he should be able to build a decent life herself and an even better life for your kids and grandkids. [applause] and they also believed that when you work hard and you have done well and you finally walk through that doorway of opportunity, you did not slam it shut behind you. no, you reach back and you give other folks the same chance that help you succeed. [applause] that is how barack and i and i know so many of you were raised. those were the values we were taught. more than anything else, that is what this election is about. it is a choice about our hopes and values and aspirations. more importantly, it is a choice about the america we want to
leave for our kids and grandkids. you know? what does that america look like? let's talk about that. we believe in an america where every child, do you hear me, every child, no matter where they are born or how much money their parents make, every child in this country deserves good schools. [applause] and inspires them and prepare them for jobs and college. we believe in an america where no one goes broke because someone gets sick. where no one loses their home because someone loses a job. we believe in an america where we all understand that none of us gets where we are on our own. that there is always a community of people lifting us up. where we treat everyone with dignity and respect, from the
teachers to inspire us to the janitors to keep our schools clean. [applause] see, and in this america that we are trying to build, in that america when one of us stumbles, because we all have the potential to stumble, when one of us falls on hard times, we do not turn our backs and tell them tough luck, you are on your own. not in this america. we extend a helping hand while they get back on their feet again. [applause] we believe that the truth matters. that you do not take shortcuts. he denied play by year -- you do not play by your own set of rules. people eat and to keeping our priorities straight. we know good and well that cutting sesame street is no way to balance our budget. we know better than that. [applause]
we know that shortchanging our kids is not how we tackle this deficit. if we truly want to build opportunities for all americans, then we know we need to cut wasteful spending but we also have to make smart investments in things like education and infrastructure for an economy that is built to last. that is what my husband stands for. [applause] [cheers] that is the country he has been working to build. those are his values. of the past four years as first lady, i have seen up close and personal just how critical those values are for leading this country. let me share with you -- i have seen how the issue that come across the president's desk are always the hard ones. the decision that are not just about the bottom line. they are about laying a foundation for the next generation and i have seen how important it is to have a president who does not just tell
us what we want to hear. but who tells us of the two. even when it is hard -- tells us th truth, even when it is hard. when it comes time to make those tough calls, everyone around you is urging you to do what is easy. what polls best, what gives good headlines. as president, you have to be guided by the struggles, hopes, and dreams of all the people you serve. that is how you make the right decisions for this country. that is what it takes to be leader. let me tell you, since the day he took office, on issue after issue, crisis after crisis, i have been there, right by his side. that is what we have seen in my hat in. think back to barack first office. where was this country? we were on the brink of collapse as an economy. newspapers were using words
like "melt down, " "calamity." and how did we get there? for years, people were lured into buying homes they could not afford so their mortgages were underwater. if you recall the of the industry was in crisis. -- the auto industry was in crisis. the economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month and folks were wondering whether we were heading for another great depression. you hear me? that is what brought based on day one of the president -- as the president of united states -- that is what barack inher ited on day one as the president of the united states. your president got to work because he was thinking of but like my dad and his grandmother and that is why he cut taxes for small businesses and working families.
we have a president who understands that teachers and firefighters should not pay hire tax rates than millionaires and billionaires. not in america. [applause] that is why while some folks, if you recall, were willing to let the auto industry under. with more than 1 million jobs that would have been lost. barack had the back of the american workers. he fought hard to protect jobs for american and families. thankfully because of his hard work, today the auto industry is back on its feet again. [applause] while we still have more work to do to rebuild the economy, there are more and more signs every day that we're headed in the right direction. the stock market has doubled. exports have grown by 45%. manufacturers have added five
under thousand jobs to rid -- 45,000. we have had 31 straight months with private sector job growth, totaling 5.2 million new jobs under this president. [applause] in addition to the creation, as best as you have to be able to do more than one thing at a time. our present was also focused on improving access to health care for millions of americans fifth -- our president was also focused on improving access to health care for millions of americans. barack did not care whether health reform was the easy thing to do politically because that is not who he is. he cares that it was the right thing to do. he was thinking about all those folks he meets every day across the country. the woman diagnosed with cancer whose insurance company would not cover her care.
the seniors hinging pennies to save up for the medicine they need. the parents who could i get like savings -- lifesaving treatments for their children because one of them lost a job. those stories happen every day across this country for health care -- before health care. but today, we are paying hundreds less for prescription drugs. our children, our sons and daughters can stay on our insurance until they are 26 years old because of health reform. because of health reform, insurance companies now have to cover basic preventive care, no out-of-pocket costs. things like contracepting, breast cancer screenings. they will not be able to discriminate against you because you have a pre-existing condition. let's say diabetes are even at a
month. -- or even asthma. and it began a life-threatening illness in need real expensive treatment, no longer can it tell you, sorry, you have hit your lifetime limit. that is not illegal because of health care. -- that is now illegal because of health care reform carried when it comes to giving young people the education they deserve, let me just share something. your president knows that like me and so many of you, we never could have gone to college without financial aid. never. look at me. i would not be here if it were not for financial aid. in fact, when we were first married, our combined monthly student loan bills were higher than our mortgage trade and i know a lot of people can relate to that. so understand, when it comes to student debt, barack and i, we have been there.
this is not a hypothetical for us. that is why he got so hard to double funding for tall grass to keep interest rates low. we have a president who knows how important it is for all our young people to have a chance to go to college. finally, when it comes to understanding the lives of women, when it comes to standing up for our rights and our opportunities, we know that my husband will always have our back. [applause] because barack knows from personal experience what it means for a family when women are not treated fairly in the workplace. believe me, as the father of two beautiful daughters, he knows what it means to what your daughters to have the same opportunities as our sons. that is why the first bill he signed with the lid the better lily ledbetter.ain bett
people always try to ensure that we as women can make our own decisions about our bodies and health care. [applause] that is what my husband stands for. we got 11 days, right? i know you all are gonna be out there, right? what you are out there and you run into somebody asks what has president done for our country, when you run into those folks who are deciding which of these two candidates will keep this country moving forward -- [applause] [cheers] crowd: four more years! >> that's right.
crowd: four more years! >> here are a few things i wanted to tell them. love you, babe. we are gonna get this done. in addition to everything this president has done for our economy, health care, education, for women, i also wanted to remind them that your president ended the war in iraq. this is the president who took out osama bin laden. [applause] tell them how barack is fighting every day to make our -- make sure our veterans get the benefits they deserve. tell them about the young immigrant in this country who
will never again have to live in fear of being deported from the only country they have ever called home. tell them how our service members will never again have to lie about who they are to serve the country they love. i want you all to remind them of the concrete plazas cousin has laid out for the next four years. -- plans this president has laid out for the next four years. send them to the web site. learn about how the will create millions of new jobs come up with american made an edgy, reduce our deficit. and the war in afghanistan during it -- end the war in afghanistan. here is what i really wanted to tell them -- barack obama knows the american dream because he has lived it. he is fighting everyday so that
everyone of us in this country can have that same opportunity. no matter who we are or where we are from or what we look like or who we love. let's be clear. while he is very proud of what we have all the two together, because no president does anything alone, he has done this with you. my husband is nowhere near satisfied. barack of all people knows that too many people are still hurting. he knows that there are plenty -- there is plenty court left to be done. as president clinton said, it will take a lot longer than four years to finish rebuilding an economy that was on the brink of collapse. but here is the thing, what i can tell you for sure is that think fully in barack, we have a leader with a deep and unyielding faith in the american people a leader who understands that this country was built by
men and women who wake up every day at work hard for their families and do it without complaint and wiregret. that is what my husband has been fighting for. he is been fighting for us and that is why when the stakes are so high, you can always trust barack to have our back. [applause] that you can trust. yes we can. yes we will. [applause] what we have to understand is over these past four years, together, we have been pulling ourselves out of that hole we started in and we're moving this country forward and making real and meaningful change. here is what folks have to ask themselves. are we going to turn around and go back to the same policies
that god is in that hole in the first place? are we going to just-- that got us in that hole in the first place? are we going to keep moving this country forward? what are we going to do? keep moving forward. we gotta go forward. but here's the thing, the answers to these questions is on us now. those kansas are on us. we do understand now -- those answers are on us. we do understand now. all the hard work, all the progress we have made is all on the line. the choices are so clear. and it is all at stake this november. as my husband has said over and over again, this election will be even closer than the last one. it can all come down to what
happens in just a few key battleground states like right here in nevada. [applause] understand the work we can do. think back to what happened here in 2008. barack won the state by 121,000 votes. that might sound like a lot but if you take that number emigrated across all of the precincts, that is just 69 votes per precinct. that was the margin of difference margin2008. that could mean just one or two votes in your neighborhood. that is the difference of just a single vote at your apartment building or in a dorm room. is there -- if there is anyone here or anyone that you know who might be thinking their vote does not matter, that their involvement does not count, in this complex political process that ordinary folks cannot
possibly make a difference, i just want you to remind them of those 69 votes. that's real. right? realm of our the knowledge. we know enough people to take this over the top right here in this room. just think, with just a few more evenings on the phone bank, just a few more hours knocking on doors, we only have 11 days. the folks in this room alone can swing an entire precincts for barack obama. [applause] when we win in tht recent, we will when the state. when we win this state, the will be well on the way to bring barack obama back to the white house for four more years.
you all can do it. crowd: four more years! >> right here. so here's the plan -- we got a plan. it's a secret plan so come in close. here's what we need you to do for the next 11 days. we need you to work but yet never worked before. this is bogus stuff. -- this is focus stuff. sign up to be one of our volunteers. thein up to make a phone call to knock on doors -- sign up to make phone calls, to knock on doors. talk to everyone you know. your friends, if your neighbors, the cousin you have not seen in a long time, that class may. now is the time to pull them in and tell them what is at stake. especially for the young people
here. i do not want young people to ever underestimate the power of what they can do. i cannot tell you how many young people i have run into who told me that in 2008, they said my parents and grandparents were not going to vote for barack obama but when i talked to them about what this election meant for my future, i convinced them to vote for the president. so that as the power of what you can do. [applause] you often tell people that they do not have to wait until november 6 to cast their ballots. last week, i voted early by mail. and, yes, i voted for barack obama. [applause] want the record to show. i want to spend election day helping to get the vote out.
i hope that some many of you went to the same. here in nevada, boating has already begun. right after this event, we have a big group double walk over to to cast theirl vote. we want you gto go. after i'm done, do not leave yet. andnt to get active malia anbaa sasha tonight. so i'm not gonna go vote but i need you all to vote. meet at the flag pole and follow our school performers. they're ready. you're gonna have a little music. so follow theband -- the band
and make sure your voices are heard. from now until november 2, people in both early in person and write in their neighborhood. -- people can vote early in person and right and did there never heard. in their neighborhood. make sure you are responsible for finding 5, 6, 7, 10 people you will be responsible for getting to the polls. got it >? ? that's our plan. now it is out there for the world to see. so now we have to execute. i will be honest with you. understand this journey is going to be hard. there will be plenty of ups and downs over the next 11 days.
you have seen what does happen to read this thing goes like that. -- what does happen. this thing goes like that. when you get tired and start thinking about taking it off. november 7, that is the day. understand that what you do the next 11 days will absolutely make a difference between waking up the day after election day and asking ourselves could we have done more? or feeling the promise of four more yaers. so now until the sixth, we need to keep working because that is how change always happens in this country. [applause] that is how it always happens. i want young people to listen. because this is important for you all to know. we know from our history that change is hard. the spokesman been around,
change is hard. - tjhe -- the folks who have been around, change is hard. but he will hit those bumps in life. you will have people telling you what you cannot do. you cannot be. but if we keep showing up, if we keep fighting the good fight and doing in our hearts what we know is right, then eventually we get there. we always do. that is why i am standing here. so i did not want anyone to ever talk down your dream. and aspirations. do not let anyone talk down our country and our country's future. you have every reason in the world to be optimistic about what lies ahead. because here in america, we always move forward.
we always make progress. we never go back. in the end, that is what this is about. that is why we are here. that is what elections are always about. elections are always about hope. you know what kind of hope i am talking about. the kind of hope that i saw on my father's face as he watched me walk across the state to get my college diploma. the diploma he took out loans to help me get. the hope brought -- the hope barack's grandmother felt when she cast the ballot for the grants and she helped raise. the whole of the men and women in our lives to save and sacrifice and work to that extra shift for us. -- the hope of the men and women in our lives who saved and sacrificed and worked that extra
shift for us. that is why we are here today. we want to give all of our children that foundation for their dream. you know? we want to give all of our kids opportunities were the of their promise. because i do not care who you support, all of our children are worthy. they are all worthy. we want to give our kids that sense of limitless possibility. that belief that puritan to america, the greatest country on the planet, -- the belief that here in america, the greatest country on the planet, there is hoppossibility. we cannot turn back now. our children deserve better. we will not turn back now.
we have come so far. but we have some much more work to do. for these 11 days, my last question is, are we ready for this? are you ready to roll up your sleeves, make it happen? get out there. we are doing this for our kids. let's stay fired up and ready to go. we get this done. i love you all. god bless. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] ♪
>> harry reid suffered minor injuries in a traffic accident today in nevada. he reportedly had presented his ribs and hips. police said he was wearing his seat belt at the time. senator reid's wife was speaking at a rally featuring first lady michelle obama at about the time of the accident. now through election day, what our coverage of the presidential candidates. and debate from key house and senate governors' races from around the country. next, and look at the issues in the battleground state of wisconsin. then it will talk about the presidential campaign in that state with representatives from the wisconsin republican and democratic parties. >> our live road to the white house coverage continues tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. eastern.
a rally in haifa with paul ryan. live at for clock 30 -- live at 4:30, joe biden and his wife. >> they were not very proficient. during the very first days of the pacific war after december 7, the japanese the occupied they would occupy the dutch east indies. they needed that oil to continue the war. the the occupied these areas. by the same token, the americans in the philippines were not only defeated by the japanese but it did many ways humiliated by then. 76000 prisoners.
about 11,000 of them are american. 7000 of them would die in the 70 mile march to work first on. the way there were treated was nothing less than rule. this was the real thing. the japanese be headed many of them. toft many of them into the path of oncoming tanks. many of those american soldiers and of course the filipinos joining them died of starvation. this was war in is the worst form. the americans are not going to forget that. there are going to pick it japanese back. i would make the point right now that the war in the pacific was in many ways a racial war. the japanese mission to the americans and the americans in turn return the favor. >> this weekend on lectures and history, world war ii with a
professor at saturday night at 8:00 on american history tv. now several perspectives on the presidential campaign in the battleground state of wisconsin. from washington journal, this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> joining us today as we focus on the state of wisconsin and joining us also from milwaukee is craig gilbert,. t. thank you for joining us. >> to set up this conversation, a couple of facts. when it comes to wisconsin, we are looking at 10 electoral votes. currently be looking at an
unemployment rate of 7.3%. in 2008, the president won reelection. can restore the economics of wisconsin? -- can we start with the economics of wisconsin and the unemployment rate. and what it means for the state. >> the unemployment rate is below the national rate but if you look at the transfer job growth in wisconsin, our job growth has been slower than the national average. over the ohio -- slower than ohio. better than nevada. but in that gray area. also we had a huge debate over governor walker. the economy and jobs.
but some was sluggish job growth. some popular trend in manufacturing but nothing that would disqualify this president or insure his reelection. >> looking at individual people, how does the state breakdown when it comes to republicans, independents, democrats? >> we do not have registration by party. yet look at our political history. wisconsin is a swing state. it is voted democratic for president in every election since ronald reagan. a little misleading. it is often extremely close and often very close to where the country is as a whole. it was the closest state in 2004. even closer in 2000 and 2004. we had this big blowout victory for president barack obama.
the democrats tended to dominate the u.s. senate election. we had a big republican conaway in 2010. if they win the senate seat this november, it will be the first time since the 1950's. with two republican senators. it is a state that swings back and forth. >> as far as the map is concerned, if he were to put one up of wisconsin, what areas of the state trend republican. is there a place with a teammate -- where the two meet? >> the classic bass areas for the democrats are around milwaukee and must -- and madison. for republicans, the suburban counties amount in milwaukee county and heading up north along the eastern coast of wisconsin as well. a lot of wisconsin really does
swing. there are counties in northeastern wisconsin around green bay that swung huge for obama in 2008 then swung by the late back for the republicans in 2010 and the recall fight of 2012. it recounted that barack obama as a democrat won for president by 10 points and scott walker as governor in a june run by -- won by 20 or 30 points. very competitive, ticket splitters. those are the county's to what in northeastern wisconsin and central wisconsin and western wisconsin, election day. >> how does early voting factor into election day? >> we do not have the same
tradition. it is in growing but not the same level. technically known as in person absentee voting or mail absentee voting. the wendy a speedy the window -- the window it is a little more difficult. i cannot think we can say with confidence to us the advantage in the early voting in wisconsin. but the early vote will be significant but not at the label -- level of a state like colorado. >> are voters required to show i.d.? >> a law was passed under republicans after they took power in 2010 to do that but it has been held up in court. so they will not be required to show photo i.d. in this election. >> what are the systems in place within the state and what is
used at the state level to make sure the systems are pals? >> optical scanners are the prevailing system. it has been proven to be pretty reliableit has proven to be a reliable system. it has held up during three counts we have had. that is a virtue of being easy to administer and preserving a paper record. that is the system in wisconsin. we have had some close elections and we have had controversies and debates over the voting system and the intensity of the election. those will continue. if it is a close election in 2012, anything like it was in 2004 and 2000 when the margin for president was under half of a percentage point, i am sure those margins will continue. thou shalt vote in wisconsin. that is the history of the state. to give you an example, our turnout was higher in 2004 than it was in 2008, partly because
barack obama opened up a lead. it was still action in high. in 2004, we had almost three- quarters of voting age adults vote in the state. the numbers were higher if you were looking at those eligible to vote. in some parts of the state when turnout was higher, we are talking about 85% or 90% of registered voters to voted. that is part of the political culture of even in not a central races, we have seen extraordinary turnout. we have had remarkable turnout for governor in the recall fight. we had a state supreme court race this spring, a non-partisan race on a spring ballot in which the turnout was fired that in some states for governor in
2010. host: state of wisconsin, a battleground state and one of the focuses of us here on c- span. craig gilbert joins us as the national political reporter and washington bureau chief for the milwaukee journal sentinel. if you want to contribute to the conversation, 2025853880 for democrats. we have set aside a special line for those of you who live in the state of wisconsin. give us a call. 2025853883. craig gilbert, where do each of the candidates stand when it comes to the state? guest: it is a close race. not quite.
-- not quite 50/50. if you average of the polling, president obama has a two point or three point lead. we have not had new polling in the last week. the phrase in the public polling merrill's. it has -- the race in the public polling varies. the lead was of santo in the first part of the -- substantial in the first part of the year. it opened up after the convention when president obama thought this convention bounce. you saw a lot of narrowing here and in other states. in the context of the battle ground, we are one of the states for president obama among the 8
or 9 states being contested. there is a potential fire wall for president obama as you look at ohio, wisconsin, nevada, and iowa. half of the states are close. we are seeing the eighth years republican effort to lift wisconsin. -- we are seeing a fight on the republican side to lift wisconsin. mitt romney b.o.p. here monday. president obama will be here to stay and -- mitt romney will be here monday and president obama will be here tuesday. it is an interesting debate over what the recall told us about the presidential election. you can overstate the results. it was pretty clear in the recall fight that some voters work voted against the recall
process. they did not think it was appropriate. you had an exit poll from the recall in june and 15%-20% of the people voted for scott walker said they favored barack obama as president. it has been pretty consistent that 1/10 of the electorate, 9% or 10% say they approve of scott walker and barack obama. he becomes was the perfect barometer. republicans have had success winning elections in the last entry years in wisconsin. they have a motive database that will turn out. they also have paul ryan on the
ticket. both sides have reasons and positive indicators to look at going into this election. most recently, the obama victory in 2008 and the republican victories in 2010 and 2012. host: new berlin, wisconsin. you are on the line. go ahead. caller: can you explain? you would have to rotate for romney or otherwise you would be fired. guest: the message was not voted for round or you will lose your job.
he message was, re-elect president obama would -- reelecting president obama would hurt the company in a way that would impact employees. so it was taken by some employees, obviously, as that kind of -- as kind of an inappropriate at a minimum. and so we had some reaction to that, obviously. host: the president will draw the turnout, the public unions drew for the recall. guest: this is a presidential election and we know the history of presidential elections as the people turn out. the real question is i think i get that whether there will be some sort of enthusiasm gap between the two sides.
and i think we'll just have to wait and see. it's my feeling the turnout will be high on both sides. that's been the history. we saw that in 2004. we had a series of elections in wisconsin and nationally where one side has been more energized an another. in 2010 republicans were more energized. in 2008 democrats were more energized. it's not going to be as dramatic a disparity in the election. both sides will be motivated. in wisconsin in particular it's a date where both sides have proven their ability to turn out their vote. i don't doubt that turnout will be there on both sides, whether one side had a little bit of an advantage in that. we'll just have to wait and see. guest: here is josh from greenwood, maine, good morning. guest: how you doing? my question was, how does craig feel about the 14 members of the senate or house or whatever of represent --
representatives, of wisconsin, when they left the state on the vote there? how does he feel about that? and if you don't mind me, i wanted to try to get a hold of you for the first call, the gender issue. the 60-year-old lady who got pretty graphic there, that's fine. i had a son when i just turned 18. he was a month old when i graduated from high school. and he is 28 now. beautiful, beautiful son. i feel bad because there's definitely some issues with the lady. guest: josh, we'll leave it there. craig, go with the first part of the guest: he's referring this fight we had over the recall when governor walker produced a bunch of proposals and proposed, basically, rolling back collective bargaining for public employees, and the tactic the democrats used to try to stop that from happening was a bunch of legislators left the state to prevent the quorum and camped out in illinois.
and then you had the protest and controversy and that led to the recall. i don't have any personal feelings about that one way or the other. that was kind of part of the debate. republicans were outraged about it just as democrats were outraged about the proposal the governor made. that kind of really set on both sides the intensity of this fight. we are a very polarized state. certainly the public polling about governor walker, who has a positive approval rating and most of the polling now, not hugely positive, but positive since all this happened, but one of the features of his standing has been just fierce polarization. democrats almost universally disliking him. republicans almost universally approving of him.
so very divided state in a lot of ways. it's not a new thing. we had the same thing in 2004 in the bush-kerry election. it's new to have that level of polarization about a governor. so we are starting to see it filter down to state races where people just line up by party. those lines are very hard. we are seeing it in the senate race as well. host: what's the sentiment about paul ryan in wisconsin? guest: i think he's both -- i think both are some good will in the sense that he's a hometown guy. it's unclear how much of a boost that gives the republican ticket in wisconsin either in his district or statewide. clearly it's worth something, but the polling sort of suggests that it's kind of on the margins. as he's become better known, like anybody else, he also becomes more polarizing. so you've got that happening as well. i think it's one reason why republicans are -- feel like they have a shot in wisconsin it's because they've got a
wisconsinite on the ticket. you would think it can't hurt. he did give the ticket a bounce after he got selected, it's not clear right now from the surveys how much of a bonus that amounts to. host: greendale, wisconsin. democrats line, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm calling because a lady previously was talking about the news report about this company that was going to take away the people's benefits, etc. i, too, have heard of a company here in milwaukee that has come out and told its employees that if they do not vote for romney and obama gets in, that next year they will not be getting any raises. and i called the d.a. office here and he wants the name of the fellow that said this, and i will not give it out because i
don't want the young man to get fired. i wonder how many companies are doing this in this state? i know you are a republican, "the milwaukee journal" are they checking into any of this business? host: to the larger question, businesses in wisconsin and how they reacted to either leader as far as their proposals are concerned. guest: i guess it might be news to some republicans that a -- we are a republican paper. but as far as the question about what's going on in some of these companies, we have reported this one case that we talked about earlier, and we would report any other case that we become aware of.
as i understand it there is a state law that speaks to this. that prohibits companies from basically trying to tell their employees how to vote, as i understand it. i think i read recently about a similar case in michigan. the one in wisconsin we discussed is the only one i am aware of at this time. there may be others. i don't know. host: a tweet for you saying has the u.s. senate race in wisconsin helped or hurt either party at the presidential level or vice versa? for those who aren't following could you expand and talk about what this race is. guest: we have a senate race, it's an open seat. a democrat is retiring, he was in office -- first selected in 1988. the democratic candidate is the congresswoman from madison, tammy baldwin. the republican candidate is the former health secretary, tommy thompson. it's quite a race. it's really been a race in which it surprised a lot of people
because former governor thompson was seen as the favorite. he was seen as the candidate that had a history of attracting moderates and conservative democrats and independent voters and crossover voters. it was felt that he was somebody that could carry the state for republicans even if republicans lost at the top of the ticket. what's happened in the polling is interesting. the people that -- his crossover support has diminished. i alluded to this earlier as this race has hardened along party lines, he's kind of had tough republican primary he barely squeaked through. there was a period of time after the primary he was out of money and the democrats went up with a lot of advertising and drove up his negatives. and tammy baldwin emerged as the frontrunner in that race. sinceightened up again then. it's a close race. tammy baldwin has been ahead in more polls than behind but extremely competitive.
nobody knows what's going to happen. it's also gotten pretty negative virtually all the advertising you see in this race is negative. it's even in tone it's taken an edgier turn in the last week. they have been exchanging dueling ads over 9/11, believe it or not. the interesting thing in this race, i think, is what the impact of the presidential race will be on the senate race. it's obviously the better democrats do at the top of the ticket, the better it is for tammy baldwin, and the better republican, mitt romney does, the better it is for tommy thompson. whether tommy thompson can overcome a romney loss is an interesting question. most people think he'll get a better percentage of the vote than romney, but by how much we just don't know. it's an extremely competitive race. and obviously big national implications because the control of the senate is in the balance. host: rice lake, wisconsin, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning.
pedro, i think this is an important phone call. i want to alert the american people to an author, i watch "book tv" on c-span. i recommend everybody to be watching it on c-span on weekends and other times. and you can go on the internet and see it. there's an author, his name is mallory factor, he wrote the book "the shadow bosses" i challenge everybody to read the book to seat interview on book tv. it is so important to understand. also -- i'm from wisconsin. i don't care if obama is black, purple, pink, whatever. what i care about is what he's doing to our country.
he has taken the people who are in charge of the airports, he's taken -- all these people are unionized. host: democrats line, go ahead. good morning. i was calling in to say that mr. romney wants nothing -- he wants for nog and that he is just -- nothing and he is just running for president for power. if he is elected we will go back to being barefoot and pregnant and the states as they're going right now are going to start becoming small countries if power is given to them. and people in the south will see the civil war type situation.
>> we were talking about gender issues. do gender issueses whatever factor into voting there in wisconsin? host: sure, like anywhere else they go into i think the way people line up in both parties and i don't know if that's more true or less true in wisconsin than any other state but they're part of the debate here, sure. host: our independent line. caller: is this for me now? host: yes, go ahead. caller: i wasn't sure because you didn't list it properly. this is ken. host: we're running out of time. go ahead. caller: i wanted to mention i think there is a problem with semantics in this cub country and what i mean is everybody looks at the romney as he's a
builder. he's not a builder he's a dismantler. it's very rare that you find somebody good at building that's excellent at dismantling and where that's a problem is he plans to dismantle social security, the healthcare plans, row versus wade and anything with pow tore any unions. and i would like anybody out in california to pay attention to proposition 32 because they're trying to take away the ability of unions to negotiate with the c.e.o.s and with big business. host: i asked you about the senate side. are there any interesting races of note to you on the house side? >> there are three races to look at. i think all involving republican income bents and all
in which the republicans are favered to win which one of them is paul ryan's own race. we have the situation where he is on the ballot for vopt and for congress. he's spending money about $2 million on his reelection campaign. his opponent has been able to raise some money because he's running against paul ryan. paul ryan is the favorite to get re-elected in that race so it's an interesting situation. we've got two republican freshman one in the green bay area and one up north. they both have contested races. they're both favored to win those races but they are contested races and they've been targeted by the parties at different times in this election. so that's also part of the picture. it hasn't gotten as much
attention as the presidential race and we also have a battle for the control of the state legislature as well. so we have a full ballot in wisconsin. if someone is to say what should we watch for out of wisconsin on election night, what would you say to them? guest: watch for the turnout. i'm going to be interested to see if they're cooky cutter images of each other because how poll lar rised these races have become and whether we get an election that is much more like 2004 at the top of the ticket which was decided by less than half a percentage point in both cases or whether wisconsin per forms better for democrats than national numbers which has also happened. so business wisconsin swings back and forth between those
two patterns and i'll be interested in watching those things on election night. host: not only does -- thank you for your time this morning. brian schimming joins us from milwaukee. he's the vice chairman of the republican party of wisconsin. there is a map and there's mr. schimming. our previous quest talked about in 2008 the president won by a significant lead. now a narrow lead. what do you think happened in that time frame? guest: we have had a very good couple years here in wisconsin. not unlike the rest of the country, 2006 and 2007, it was kind of a democrat sweep. here in wisconsin in 2010 we won the governorship away from the democrats, and of course elected a republican u.s. senator, ron johnson, and picked up two congressional seats, the eighth and third. swept control of the legislature. so we have had a very, very good year in 2010. frankly we have had kind of a
switch in this state. i think what the national economic situation as it is, it's hit wisconsin hard, and you saw that reflected in the polls. in the gubernatorial race, now you are seeing it here in the presidential race as well. host: as far as mitt romney is concerned, what does he have to do to secure the state? guest: really at this point, we have been through so much here in wisconsin, as you know, we had recall elections in the last two years, in the legislature. and with the governor's race. and the governor successfully fought off that recall. won by a bigger margin, governor walker did, than in his first race. so we have a lot of momentum here. a lot of it right now is making the final sale, but also turnout here in wisconsin. republicans said we have probably -- not probably, we do have the best ground game we have had in wisconsin in my 25 years of working politics here. we have 25 offices opened statewide.
we have hit 2.6, almost three million doors. almost three million calls. we have had hundreds of thousands of doors. we are organized here in wisconsin like we never have been, and we come in with momentum after governor walker's successful recall. so we are feeling pretty good. host: as far as the state itself is concerned, are there areas of the state where you are concentrating on over others? guest: here in wisconsin a good share of the vote is kind of between the green bay to milwaukee to madison triangle. that's about 70% of the state's vote. so oftentimes presidential candidates, on both sides, focus on that area, but we have active campaigns in all 72 counties. republicans generally do well statewide when we do well in the suburbs, kind of the collar around milwaukee and in the fox valley, and match the democrats person for person upstate.
one of the things that governor walker's successful election did, we had victories, republican victories, in counties where frankly we haven't won in a long time in this state. we saw numbers coming out of that recall we have never seen before. and following those numbers we have gotten organization and volunteers and all of that. even before paul ryan was on the ticket, frankly, it was a couple point race here in wisconsin. and with paul ryan's addition on to the ticket, we are as optimistic as we can be. host: chairman of the republican party of wisconsin joins us, brian schimming, for our discussion continuing look at the battleground state. our first call for him is milwaukee. on our democrats line, doris, good morning. caller: good morning. i'd like to just say milwaukee -- we have children that graduated from high school that does not have any medical care. they go to -- apply for the
medical care and they tell them these are two-year wait. guest: i think both sides could agree the politics haven't gotten any more beautiful, that's for sure. with respect to the romney campaign and the thompson for senate campaign here, this is a campaign about the country's
future. wisconsin we have lost just under 100,000 jobs under president obama. we talk about things that affect families, affect neighborhoods and health care and jobs, wisconsin really has suffered as much as almost any state with the loss of those jobs and the slowdown in economic activity. it's punishing the working people of this state. what i would say to you in general terms is that we need a better economy. we need to have more jobs. we need to have a better future. so everybody's future is going to get better when this economy gets back on its feet, and if not, 43 months of over 8% unemployment, that doesn't help working people, it doesn't help anybody. we have to turn that around. that's what governor romney is focused on. host: chris in alabama off twitter. he says, we have never had a less transparent presidential candidate.
if yet he is positioned to win. frightening. guest: having introduced romney a couple times, he's anything but that. will i tell you this, you talk about transparency, mitt romney's economic plan, his plan for the future, has been on his website for months. one of the comical things about the last debate is the president -- this is a sitting president who suffered 8.3% unemployment, millions of people out of jobs, home foreclosures at a record rate, the list goes on and on, he presented his plan for the future, not in the debate, but in a 20-page document that he released after the debate, essentially two weeks after the election. what kind of transparency is that? mitt romney and paul ryan have been out with plans for months, real, live workable plans for months. have been doing town halls talking about the details of those things. one thing we have learned in wisconsin when, scott walker inherited the governorship, he inherited a $3.6 billion budget deficit in this state. le it i have been working around state government for a while. it's the worst economic and
budget situation i have ever seen a governor have to inherit of either party. one of the things that he did, and that i appreciate about what mitt romney and paul ryan are doing, is talking straight to the people about what the issues are that are facing this country. you don't have to be republican or democrat to know, we have big problems. the question i think that folks have to face here in this election is who is providing that path into the future that's going to solve some of those problems? and mitt romney and paul ryan have been talking about them. host: from newport richie, florida. republican line. go ahead. caller: good morning, mr. schimming. hello, pedro. i haven't called in a while. i'm nervous. tomorrow morning at 7:00, early voting opens here in florida. i'm in the tampa bay area. and i would like to ask you a couple of things about mitt romney. i'm edging towards him. i have been -- i understand that gender was the question this morning, as i understand obama did sign into law, what
is it, the -- low pressure lily ledbetter act? caller: i like that. but he also signed the lesbian and gay transgender thing into the military. we have a very high rape incident in the military. and i'd like to know, because of gender issues, how mitt romney stands on that? my next question is -- host: we'll have to leave it at that. mr. schimming, if there is something you want to take from that. guest: that's kind of a multipronged question. i think what i would tell you with respect, what we have seen here in the polling, i think really after the first debate, certainly with the two debates, is that the women -- what we have seen with -- in just talking in focus groups and thousands of people on the street, the kinds of issues
that all people are worried about, but women are worried about, are economic ones. look, this economy has punished women worse than it has anyone, really. hundreds of thousands of people out of work. the punishment to women has been terrible in this economy as a way to help all voters, and women voters as well, and that is to get the economy back on its feet. that's what the election's about. we can get chased off on all sorts of side issues, but ultimately for everyone -- all these issues are important. obviously what she's saying. all these issues are important. but the -- one of the reasons we have seen the quote, gender gap narrow to nothing, if not mitt romney, is that the important issues facing women today are the ones the governor and congressman ryan are addressing. that's why the fabled 16 or 18-point gender gap is almost advantage romney. it's a problem for the
president. host: this is camden, new jersey. denise, good morning. democrats line, hello. camden, new jersey. hello. let's go to greg in richfield, wisconsin. hello. caller: hello. thank you for c-span. i would like to opponent out a couple things to my democratic friends about the republican party that are being used as scare tactics. republicans like clean water. we want no pollution. we want jobs. we want better education. i'd also like to point out that what has happened with fast and furious, the keystone pipeline these are gigantic issues that i feel the democrats are being very hypocritical about in the fact that they are letting president obama slide with them along with a lot of other issues.
i'm asking the democrats to open up your eyes and look at things objectively. host: the issues he listed, mr. schimming, what would you make of those? guest: i agree with him on all things. certainly with respect to the keystone pipeline. the president, listening to him debate, he made it sound like he's a supporter of the keystone pipeline, he's not the supporter of the keystone pipeline. that's tens of thousands of jobs for working people across several states. in middle america. that one i just don't understand from the president. particularly the case -- to listen to the president, you think he would a support -- was a supporter of energy exploration and development at home. he's been the most hostile to energy exploration of any president we have had of either party. he talks about increasing oil production in america. it's been done on private lands, not on federal lands. so this is probably --
interestingly, this is probably one of the biggest issues, i think, that the country faces. if we truly want to be independent of foreign sources of energy, we can do it. we have all the resources we need here in america. the question s. are we going to go ahead -- the question is, are we going to go ahead and do what we need to do to be independent? the president has not been doing it. mitt romney well. host: correct me film' wrong. were the republicans in the state that decided to confine early voting to a smaller period this year of two weeks or so? guest: early voting in wisconsin, at least in-person voting, will finish a week from today, actually. it will be a week from today. early voting started this past monday and will finish a week from today. but absentee ballots will be accepted up until after the election. we made some commonsense changes in the elections law here because wisconsin has a different state. we don't have a statewide voters list here in
wisconsin. you have to go out and get it in all the counties. and which is was also -- wisconsin also has a huge number of local government. wisconsin is about 5.35 million people. we have about 1,850 local units of government. so there's a lot of bureaucracy there. so we put some commonsense changes into place to try to bring order a little bit to. so elections. look, acorn and some of those groups don't like it, but the voters consistently, and also in the voter i.d. bill, 71% of the people in wisconsin want add voter i.d. bill. we gave it to them. and now it's caught up in the courts. host: patty from houston, texas, good morning. democrats line. caller: yes. how are you all doing this morning? host: fine, thank you. go right ahead. caller: i'm going to ask this gentleman here, i'm in houston and i'm going to ask him if
romney was so good with jobs, why don't he have plants and everything there, if he's so good with jobs and everything, he can count that. president obama has presented a lot of jobs. so many, so many months, and also with his republican house, he could have been -- instead of going -- talk more of the republican party stood up the whole country and the democrats all is because -- i'm a senior citizen here, and whoever would do the best for everybody, i would have voted for them. but you have to just think about romney. you said that romney had a plan with jobs. i have been listening to all of it coming up and he haven't had
anything. he haven't create no jobs. and president obama has. he has a layout for that. host: we'll let our guest -- guest: with all possible respect, the president had a much lower unemployment rate when he took over and it's gone to over 10% in his administration and it's kind of flattened out above 8%. the president is not doing very well with jobs with all due respect to you. the president had, the first two years of his term, with veto proof majorities in both the house and senate, and he wasted his time in the first two years of office. instead of focusing on the economy, he did a stimulus bill which has not helped the country, number one. but number two, he wasted his time putting obamacare into place. we need health care reform, but we don't need obamacare. all the polls told him that whole time, the whole two years, they still do, that the country didn't want obamacare and he and the democratic party
in the house and senate forced it down our throats. with respect to jobs, this president seven times, hattie, seven times has turned down the opportunity to make china a currency manipulator. china's stolen two million jobs out of america, along with intellectual property as well. we need a president who is going to stand up to china. frankly just chart a path beyond china, chart a path to go into the future. host: milwaukee, on our independent line for our guest, brian schimming, of the republican party of wisconsin. go ahead. caller: good morning. i'm in wisconsin and i'm only 21 years old so i'm a young voter and new to all of this. i listen to the question about that you were just saying about obama when the -- with the democracy and some of the --
i'm sorry. the caller about the -- host: caller, you're going to have to rephrase and expand on that. caller: with the insurance thing, we as young people we don't listen to every single thing that comes up, but i didn't have my tv for the last couple days, just trying to make a good decision and who do i want for president. host: as far as those issues, your decision making, how would you list them as far as one, two, three? what are your main issues? caller: well, my main issue is, the health care issue, because a lot of my people are older people. the second thing i'm listening is -- listing is i don't like the things that romney is going to do with the pbs kids, i'm a new dad so my kids are watching
pbs. he wants to cut a lot of funding, which is fine with me, but which funds really should be cut? host: mr. schimming, in light of his issues, specifically, what -- do you have a sense of voters in wisconsin that maybe be that first time voter or perhaps those would identify themselves as independent and still deciding who they are going to vote for? guest: they have been swinging mitt romney's way, especially since the first vote. there is a couple reasons for that. number one, if you're a young person, you go to college or tech school or you are looking for some kind of higher education outside of high school, particularly if you're coming out of kohl lemming right now, you have a one in two chance of being unemployed or underemployed when you come out of college because the opportunities are not out there for people like our caller, if they were to come out of college or school today, every extra point in unemployment means a couple thousand dollars -- several thousand dollars in
lost income over your career. so to have a high unemployment -- a place like milwaukee, the biggest urban area, milwaukee in wisconsin is about 600,000 people, especially in a city like milwaukee to take the punishment that they have taken from the obama economy and the economic policies in the last four years that punishes people like our caller which is the importance of changing course here. i believe -- believe me i hear what he's saying. i used to run a program in wisconsin also in milwaukee that used employment and training. i faced many of these issues in urban areas. it's a punishment. we have to turn the economy around. the president has failed. i think one of the things to come out of the debate since the last debate, the president has failed on every economic metric out there. it's just -- it's complete failure.
at some point you got to make a decision, a kitchen table decision, about what the future looks like. that goes for the last caller and any ones before. host: the previous caller also identified herself as a senior citizen. what's the state makeup of that group? and how does it factor especially in considerations like social security and anything of that eshoo? guest: the question will be, where are we going to go forward in the future? are we going to reform it to save it? or are we going to stay on the democrats' current path, which is bankrupting the system? i say folks, we always kind of kick the can down the road. the can's gotten too big anti-road too short. frankly we have to face some of these issues. that's why mitt romney and congressman ryan are not afraid to face them. the president's trying to get re-elected. look, he won wisconsin by 14 points four years ago. he's hanging on for dear life here now. it's not just wisconsin. it's across the country. you see that trend towards mitt
romney among -- particularly, actually, among seniors and under voter groups for that reefpblet host: here is hazelton, maryland. this is mike on our republican line. hazelton, maryland, are you there? hazelton, north dakota. go ahead. caller: there you go. my question is, i am 50 years old and worked 30 years in this environment and i never struggled for a job. we got thousands of people from wisconsin out here working. saving their livelihood, save their families. president obama wants to take away hydraulic fracturing after he's re-elected. and the coal industry. i'd like to hear your thoughts. guest: i think you have a good right to be nervous. the president obviously was a little deceptive during these
debates here. you think he was for tracking and the keystone pipeline. all these issues. but frankly you got to judge the president not by what he said in these debates. you got to judge him by his record. the president needs to -- it the president spent $400 million, kind of trashing mitt romney, before the first debate. and trying to build up people's negatives about mitt romney. that disappeared in about 10 minutes in the first debate. and we have seen that now all across the country. for folks like you in north dakota, but frankly in all the states, you got to look at these two candidates and say, who is really going to get us to energy independence? you look at the president's record. he clearly will not. host: green bay press gazette this morning reports that the president is slated to appear in wisconsin next tuesday, vice president biden appears today. has there been any stops by mitt romney or paul ryan this week? guest: just before i came on
air here it was announced that governor romney will be here in the milwaukee area on monday as well. paul ryan will be in midweek next week. the vice president is in a couple cities here in wisconsin today. i think wisconsin's reflecting, as we know, it's down to seven or eight states now, and wisconsin, the situation in wisconsin is reflecting what happens not only in the closing days of a campaign where the number of states shrinks, but the president's desperation in wisconsin. it's a state that freaningly he won by a landslide four years ago. host: what are you going to be watching for election night? guest: i think the usual turnout in different areas of the state. democrats and republicans are kind of watching the same areas around the state. as i say our ground game here in wisconsin has been phenomenal. lights out. we have been very, very
excited. it's great to have paul ryan on the ticket. we are excited about that. but our ground game here has been phenomenal. even better than we had in the recall. scott walker in that recall, if successful beating that recall back, carried areas of the state of republican has not carried in a long ty. we are looking to extend some of those victories. host: brian schimming serves as the vice chairman of the republican party of wisconsin joining us from milwaukee. thanks for your time this morning. guest: so good to be with you. host: we'll get another perspective. mike tate the chairman of the wisconsin democratic party will >> you know on the days leading up to election day we will be taking a look at battleground states. today we are focusing on wisconsin. yoining us is mike date. he serves us from milwaukee.
>> what happened in that time wharks does it mean for him now? well, i think what understand 2008 rkt we saw a huge historic wave for democrats across the country. and in wisconsin which has been one of the moth competitive battleground states we saw a landslide for the president. i think this year wisconsin is more competitive but i think this is a state where the president is ahead hand where the president is going to win on election day and winning wisconsin is one of the reasons the president wins the white house again. host: why dow say the president has the edge? guest: i think because he's got many more paths to 270 electoral votes than mitt romney does. mitt romney is he's contesting wisconsin has barely decided to start showing up here.
he's got a lot of ground to make up here and he's trailing in ohio and he's goit to fight it out in states the president can afford to lose. i feel good about the infrastructure that's been built by the obama campaign here in wisconsin. we're talking about dozens of field offices hundreds of thousands of doors knocked on. i think on the ground what really mat sers the voter to voter contact. here in wisconsin the president has an edge that's why i think he's going to win and tammy baldwin will be our senator as well. host: what's your role leading up to the election day? guest: we're dwetting out the vote. our job is to make sure we have volunteers doing the things we know through study and history and experience drives utch our vote and so we're going to make sure that people are voting
early. you can vote up until the friday before the election. and we've got a strong focus on the early vote but we're going to make sure we're talking about the president's positive message to build this country and move it forward. and i think mitt romney would take this country in the wrong direction and that's why i think the spt going to win wisconsin. host: the president's lack of a plan for the next four years, the president put one out there whafment do you think of what he's proposed and sit enough? can i say that again? host: the president announced his plan for the next four years, what do you make of his proposals for the next four years and there's been republican criticism he didn't have a proposal up until now. guest: i think the president has been talking about his plans and agenda for this entire campaign. i think he packaged into a good
back that's going to be sent out around the country. it talks about investing in jobs education. the president inherlted a mess four years ago. by every met trick things are getting better. things are not where they need to be but this president has moved this country forward and will continue mr. it's reducing our independence on foreign oil and growing this country from the middle out. and i believe this country will be even stronger than it is today. host: on tweeter we have this comment -- guest: well, i think that not only are we going to win this state with paul ryan on the ticket, i think we're going to win paul ryan's congressional district. i think having him on the ticket may have energized some movement nationally but it
exposed paul ryan for what he truly is which is having some pretty radical paul ryan may be a nice guy and packers fan, but his ideas are anything but nice that should scare the living pants out of everybody in wisconsin. that's why i think -- frankly i think having -- it's going to help us win wisconsin because it's pulled the wool back on what paul ryan's ideas are. host: our guest is with us. talk about wisconsin, a battleground state. shannon is from gillette, wisconsin on the democrats line. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i just wanted to say something about what had been -- the previous gentlemen you were talking about. he was talking about oil tracking like it was a good thing. i'm a chemistry teacher both at the high school level and college level. some of the jobs that they are going to create are going to be environmental quality jobs because that gas tracking when
they use 250 chemicals in a proprietary blend we are not to know about, permanently disabled the aquifers underneath that they are tracking. i don't like the idea we have to choose gas or water. i need to choose water every time. what i really like this gentleman speak to me about, how obama got crippled because i don't know a lot of people in my area understand that. host: our guest is referring to the pledge that primarily republicans assigned from grove norquist. go ahead. guest: i think the norquist pledge mitt romney took. which is grover norquist, who heads an organization out of washington, d.c., forces every republican to sign a pledge saying they will never raise any new revenue of any kind while in office. which basically handcuffs the
republican party and its ability to prevent this country from moving forward. to think that this country's never going to need new revenue is absolutely absurd. frankly it's hypocritical. they don't have a problem proposing ideas that are going to raise taxes on middle class families by $46,000, but if you try to have the wealthy pay a little bit more of their fair share, then they say we signed this norquist pledge, we can't do that. it's not only hypocritical, it's something that hands cuffs the republicans from embracing a policy that would help grow this country, grow this economy, and continue to make this country a leading superpower. this is frank. caller: this is frank. i'm just sitting here and i'm very much an independent. i don't too much care for either party, but to me it's very, very funny that mr. ryan is running two offices in the state of wisconsin.
he talks about budgets and all that. we had a recall -- re-election when our republican congressman quit a few years, and it cost our county $2 million out of our budget. when people talk about budgets, but then they don't worry about how they affect it, i would like to know his answer to that? how can he run for two offices at the same time, and if he wins one of them, they'll have to have another election? guest: i think it is a really good point. our state constitution has a provision so that if you are selected you can still run a four the office at the same time. but the fact that he is trying to hold on as a safety vest for the likely proposition that he loses -- the guy running for congress come he is running a great campaign against paul ryan. he is on television right now. i think robb is one to give
paul ryan a run for his money. paul ryan has not come back to talk to the constituents, to talk to the people whose votes he is seeking for congress. host: this is our look at wisconsin, the battleground state. joining us is mike tate, wisconsin democratic party chairman. on our line for republicans, adele, wisconsin. go ahead. caller: we have it tammy baldwin running for the united states senate here and wisconsin. i believe she is also what we call the house of representatives, did she give up her thing and there as the house of representatives when she ran? i am not sure. but i want to say, i am really -- you talk about medicare. when they took away $716 billion of medicare, that scares
me. also, how can you vote or stand up for, i am sorry, but our president? and in benghazi, when the whole group lied for weeks on what happened. when the new two hours they know the truth. i am sorry for you, sir. and you talk about spending money, about a recall, $13 million for the recall. ridiculous. thank you. guest: there's a lot going on in that call. let us see what i can do to address it. tammy baldwin is representing the district since 1998. she did give up her seat to run for the united states senate. the democrat is one to the next member of congress. and reference to the $716 billion, that was money that was allocated to actually defray
costs and make medicare solvent for a little longer. it is the biggest lie that the republicans tell, that the president stroll $716 from medicare. he talked to a bunch of people and said, if we move these costs, we are going to make it solvent for a little longer. was such a good idea that paul ryan put it in its own budget. it is a line the keep selling because they do not have anything real to offer the people of wisconsin right now. and it is unfortunate that they keep repeating this fly over and over again. that the president stole 716 million. senior should be afraid -- people as young as myself should be afraid, the republican plan to turn medicare into a voucher-care. it is a benefit we have provided for so long, now we would have a voucher or there would go out, purchase health
care and likely have to make of the difference in costs. it could cost seniors up to $6,000 a year out of pocket. i do not think that is the right way to go. that is the way the republicans want to go, that is their idea. i think that is the wrong place to take our retirees, our seniors. it is why i think we are going to defeat mitt romney and paul ryan and reelect the president. and tammy baldwin will be a stalwart champion for social security. host: tommy thompson's campaign is about $1.30 billion in cash. is that a concern to you? as far as the numbers are concerned? guest: there's been a lot of spending in this campaign. i do not a scared or deterred by how much money the republicans have. tommy thompson, after he left wisconsin, went off to serve in the george w. bush's cabinet. but one of the reasons i think his campaign has so much money, and you see so much outside spending is that he cut this
deal on a medicare part d where he made it so that the government cannot negotiate with the prescription drug companies were lower drug prices. i think this is the ultimate payback for tommy, giving such a great giveaway to the prescription drug companies. tommy thompson is not the same guy that people remember from his heyday in 1980's. that may be what is special interest friends are spending money as a reward for tommy for making himself so much wealthier. host: nate, missouri, go ahead. caller: romney is a businessman. whenever he says, he is born to come to the president's way of thinking. you saw that in the last debate. we set up here and talk about, well, about the president and he doesn't have any idea. the president knows that
whatever he is going to do, romney is going to copy it. the first debate they said romney won that debate. the seventh or third debate, romney doesn't win the debate, they do not want to talk about the debate. and then you polls, ryan i have not seen one paul where he is leading. and his own home state, they do not even want to make that a point. he cannot even when his own state, and i watched the polls all year. and the only reason why the republicans do half as good as they do, especially in a lot for college, is because a lot of the states like michigan, pennsylvania, a lot of the state's up there, even wisconsin, is following for the president. and there will not move him over and keep him in a neutral,. host: can ask there's a usa today survey out talking about
what people perceive as the victory of all three debates. and they say mitt romney. guest: i think the debate turned opportunity for people to hear from their candidates. in the last debate -- mitt romney this is one thing when he is running in the primary. it is a completely different thing when he is behind in the polls. to moderate his extreme positions. it is hard to see where he stands on women's issues, taxes. he does not really tell the truth. and i think -- i do not know if we have ever had a presidential candidate in modern times a display such falsehoods in the debate as we have seen from mitt romney. host: on our line for republicans, jessie. you are on. go ahead. caller: good morning. i am calling to talk about jobs if you do not mind. i am a kind of a republican.
i am not really happy with my choice for presidential% this year. but i am not really happy with obama either. he keeps on talking about jobs and what he is doing for america. but the only thing i have seen him do is run some program that takes care of a select group of people in this country. they are overpriced. these guys are making a fortune. it doesn't cost $30 million to do two miles' worth of road. is a just not right. why is anyone -- why isn't anyone sitting down with the retail companies, and instead of farming money out to other countries, people that come in, and giving them money to develop holiday i cannns and convenience stores, basically for free -- guest: president inherited a terrible mess. this country was absolutely
hemorrhaging jobs. the unemployment rate is now down below 8%. it is headed in the right direction. we will keep going. the problem with the republican theory of government, you give of the money to the people at the top, and wealth will trickle down. it sounds good in theory, but it has never worked in the history of the country, i would argue the history of the world. it is an economic theory that makes the rich richer, while the people in the middle class are struggling to get into the middle class and get left behind by the side of the trail. the reason why the president is on the right track, the reason why we have had months of job growth is because we are investing in the middle class, we are investing into education, innovation and infrastructure. and making sure that we are going to lead a transition to clean energy and that will create thousands of new jobs. you really do see a clear difference between where the
president will take us and between mitt romney's ideas. host: jay on our line for independents. caller: hello. how're you doing? i want to ask a question. i am an independent. and i tend to look for some point of honesty in the campaigns. and i saw an interview during the democratic convention that was interviewing the massachusetts governor -- of the proceeding governor to mitt romney. and he was asked about his transition period into the administration. he said that was easy. they took all of the hard drives out of the massachusetts
government computers. and for the life of me i cannot think of what legitimate reason you would take all of the hard drives of all of the government computers. it is beyond my comprehension. host: on our line for independents, maryland. caller: i am independent, but a little bit more progressive than most democrats. i tend to vote on the democratic ticket. you have a candidate in mitt romney hill, his entire focal point is fiscal issues and creating jobs. but when you look at his plan, it does not make sense. i am curious as to how someone would consider supporting this
guy. his campaign oppose the plan is to increase the tax rate or lower the tax rate. and cut the debt. but it doesn't really add up when you think about it. we talked about the deductions. he refuses to tell us which deductions he would close. and even if you close all of the deductions that were there to close, it still would not make up for the lost in, that we would have with the tax rate lower. host: the question is -- caller: the question i have is, how someone would support a candidate whose plan doesn't make sense. guest: if i could add to that, i think the caller makes a really good point. which is, mitt romney's economic plan is -- give the people at the very top, the people have been doing very well, give them more money. and what you have got to do is replace that, you have to raise taxes in the middle class.
what you basically do is to lock up the government. and you have to start cutting things, whether it is families that rely on home mortgage interest reduction as a way to make it and be a homeowner, weather is pell grant for students to study hard but cannot afford college, his whole plan, obviously in my opinion, doesn't enable the country to grow. and is an example of an economic policy that hasn't worked in this country. it has been tried other times and it failed. i understand the appeal, i understand it, if you give more to the people at the top, they will do more and it will employ people down the line. has never worked. and i think that is the big problem that republicans face is -- the simple fact that their economic plans would not grow this country.
host: 7.3% unemployment in wisconsin, what does that do for voters? guest: it is been tough here. we lost the gm plant during the bush administration. we lost manufacturing jobs. we have had a governor who was had a regressive agenda that is not a lot of jobs to grow and flourish here. i do think that people in wisconsin know that things are getting better, we are turning the corner. our unemployment rate is a little lower than it is a nationally. and i think they understand that this country is headed in the
right direction. we are headed in the right track. we came from a big hole. the country has dug themselves of this whole. host: your job -- is it more difficult because of the recall election? guest: i do not think so. i do not know that it has an impact one way or the other. host: and so this is mike tate of the wisconsin democratic party. one more call, ohio, on our line for republicans, margarite. caller: there are so many people that are having to work part-time jobs. or are working two temporary jobs, trying to make ends meet because they are not hiring full-time. and they can't these as one full job. i do not get that. the pride that obama can have on that. i like you skipped over benghazi. people are ignoring this and finding out the truth about how obama has lied about benghazi. and it is born to hit him in the face whether or not he is president again or what. as you guys think that you can
hide everything from the united states people. host: go ahead. guest: i think the president has been very clear that we know that some people that have gotten back to work have not been able to find full-time work. unfortunately that is not helped by governors like you have an ohio and wisconsin who go out of their way to get organized labor and make it easier to provide health-care benefits. the president is doing a loss to help that. with respect to foreign policy, i think that the record has been clear. i think this is a desperate act in a desperate campaign in the closing days to try to say that the president lied to the american people. i think that is not true, it is offensive to the good men and women who are neither democrats or republicans but get up and work for the national security of this country. host: what are you going to be watching for in your state on election night?
guest: in wisconsin, is a unique blend. about to turn that your base democratic voters and make sure you are getting the votes from the swing voters, from the milwaukee suburbs or the green bay, across markets. we want to see big turnouts in the madison area. 20 to hold our own markets like green bay. is a swing market. i love wisconsin. is a fabulous state to watch politics and. to be a top state politically. but it is a great formula to put together a democratic victory. host: joining us from milwaukee, mike tate, wisconsin democratic party chairman. thank you for your time. >> tomorrow, molly ball explains
how contacts impact 2012. a look at the campaign and the issues in the battleground state of north carolina with rob christensen. aisha dew and gideon moore. washington journalists live at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> after election day, watch the coverage of the presidential candidates. next, the funeral for george mcgovern. then a discussion on the effectiveness on the dodd-frank financial regulatory law. after that, and mitt romney campaigns in iowa. >> you are watching live one of 10,000 homes there are trying to get done in the next four years.
these are houses that are never coming back. >> one-family every 20 minutes moving out. >> 90,000 right now ready to go. >> recently 164 firefighters were laid off as part of the downsizing, the effort for the mayor to get the finances under control. fire fighters, which detroit needs because it must have the highest case of arson in the country, these guys are laid off. two weeks later, 100 guys are rehired. when you look at where the money came from, it is actually the department of homeland's security has a fund for things like that.
that is something you want to think about. the department of homeland security needed to step in to keep the torrid as if as it can be for the moment. -- detroit as safe as it can be for the moment. we have seen the auto industry bailout and the bank bailouts, are we heading into an era of city bailouts? >> more with heidi ewing sunday at 8:00. >> now, the funeral service for george mcgovern. he served four years and enter the united states house and 18 years in the senate. former senator mcgovern died sunday at the age of 90. above the -- among those speaking, tom-0 also from south dakota.
>> jesus said i am the resurrection and the life, those who believe in me even though they die shall live. i am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. i died and behold i am alive forever more and i hold the keys of life and death. because i have live, you shall live also. friends, we have gathered here to praise god and witness our faith as we celebrate the life of george mcgovern.
we come together in grief acknowledging our human loss and we ask that god would grant us grace that in pain we might find comfort, in sorrow, hope, and in death, resurrection. the pastor of the church is officiating with me today. let us pray. god, we praise you for the company of all those who finished their course and now rest from their labor. today we remember eleanor, terri and steve mcgovern. we praise you for those deer to
us who we've named in our hearts before you and especially we praise you for george mcgovern who you have graciously received into your presence. oh god, grant us your peace. let your light shine on all of us and help us so to believe where we have not seen that your presence may lead us through your years and bring us at last within in the joy of your home not made with hands but eternal in the heavens. through jesus christ our lord we pray, amen. [applause]
[applause]
brothers and sisters, family and friends, and senator mcgovern, the holley scripture tell us there is a season for everything, time to be born and a time to die, time to weep and a time to laugh, time to mourn and a time to dance. george stanley mcgovern was born over 90 years ago and now he has died. we weep over the loss of this wonderful man and yet we laugh because he is now finished his final stage in growth in dying. we mourn his departure and yet we dance as we remember the legacy he left behind our state, our country, our world is better because of the footprints that he has left behind. soon after his first election to congress, i was given my first assignment as a young priest
freshly mented from lengthy seminary training. we both started in mitchell. friendship has grown ever since. we wound up in the same neighborhood and shared time his residence in florida.
to live to be 100. he said jim, it's in my jeans. once when i did remind him when he said this. of aurora the god december of dawn who sought permission to mayor the son of the king of troy. permission n but might ask for as a wedding gift. she immediately responded, oh, would ask that he would never die.
he agreed. years together but while aurora as all the gods never aged he began and feeble. when aurora came back to do something to change him into an insect. sometime later but not too long and his memory becoming more porous t senator said to me one day, you know jim, i think greeks might have been on something.
20 days ago when he was the orchestra and they performance. he said i keep looking for old friend who have passed on to world beyond and i had no idea what's out there but feel it's going to be okay.
for everything there is a season under heaven. want to tell you that your presence is a treasured gift to all members of the mcgovern family. i want to say to you in the name of the family and closest friends, thank you, thank you for coming to this memorial service from near and from far. the city, state and national reaction to the senator's demise is simply stunned everyone. why is his death so highlighted
across the whole nation and indeed throughout the world in radio , television and newsprint journalism? for some, it has to be his leadership on feeding the hungry, the work of mercy of our one world family so that millions of children have not starved or died or become retarded because of proper nourishment and because of the efforts of this man. others love him for proving to america that you don't have to be a hawk in order to be a good
patriot of our beloved country. and still other may have been charmed by this man william f. buckley was as conservative as senator mcgovern was progressive and yet when his son asked him what he thought of george mcgovern, william buckley said he was the single nicest human being i have ever met. his son printed that answer in his book called "mom and pop" he wrote after both of them had died. and here in south dakota political historians from both
universities that i was affiliated with have claimed that george mcgovern almost singlehandedly brought his party of a long slumber and it became a state bipartisan again. so rest in peace dear friend t. passed our way and we're all worse without you. and because most of us believe that love is stronger than death. say goodbye george but not forever, again in a better world.
created you, god the son who redeemed you and god the holy spirit who sanctified be yours this day and you live in his company forever, amen.
so obviously resolution has to be coordinated internationally to reduce the risk of decruppings. -- of disrutpion. so there is no current international insol venssi framework to evolve a financial important institution. in coordination in a comprehensive manner. and so we really need to do advance planning and coor coordination between our count parts in other countries and ourselves to determine how they operate to determine the risks to the global market shoud that firm's failure occur. so we've made significant efforts to identify and overcome these cross borter impediments to resolve these.
under the single point of entry approach, that might mitigate the number of cross border obsta cals that would complicate resolution because the subs would remain open and ormente. -- and operate. but the f.d.i.c. and federal reserve has formed crisis management groups. and under the us pisses for each of the us based companies. and we are the crisis management groups are intended to enhance institution specific planning for possible future resolution and we're engaged in on john meetings and dialogues with those entities. so we're working on a buy lateral basis with foreign supervisors as well and over foreign operations of key u.s. firms. it's interesting because the u.s. companies tend to be very highly concentrated in a relatively small number of key foreign jurisdictions, particularly the united kingdom.
in our initial work with the foreign authorities has been encouraging. we've made progress with your u.k. count parts in understanding how resolution would work and how it would be treated under existing u.k. law. and we're examining impedimentes to effect resolutions and we're working on a cooperative basis to overcome those. so in conclusion, dodd-frank has certainly given the f.d.i.c. new responsibilities to address these risks associated with the recent financial crisis. we take these responsibilities seriously and we are ready to use these new authorities when they are need dsed, hopefully not. but the key provisions are now in place. we are continuing to implement remaining provisions through rule making and we continue to refine our thinking on the process and we certainly preesht
the opportunity to engage in dialogue and to increase transparency and awareness on the market on these powerful new tools and how they can best be used to maintain financial stability and end too big to fail. i look forward to participating in the questions and answers and hearing from the others. thank you very much. [applause] >> now for the down side. first of all, i want to thank the professors for organizing this. it is an excellent panel, i must say. and i always enjoy being on a panel with scott and rick. havethink we're going to an interesting discussion.
i want to take on just about everything that was said so let me get started. i have ten minutes to do this. title 1, title 1 of dodd-frank. right now, as you heard, it december ignates 36 bank holding companies as liable to create instability in the u.s. economy if they fail. in addition, it goes on to permit the financial stability oversight council to designate an unknown number of additional non-bank institutions that could create instability in the u.s. economy if they fail. now what does it mean when congress gives this authority to the f.s.o.c. or december ignates this notion in the statute? what it says is these
institutions are too big to fail. so not only are we worried about the problem of too big to fail but we've made the problem worse by embedding it in the statute for these banking ins institutions and perpting them to designate certain institutions and we understand from them reading the newspapers they have four institutions in mind that are large insurance companies and in one case a finances company to be designated as too big to fail. what does it mean, what effect does it have? it means credtors will look at these institutions as much safer investments than others. once they areless ig nated they are supposed to be regulated by the fed. we don't know what stringently means by the regulation.
they put out a number of things that would be the constituents of stringent si. in any event credtors would be delighted by this because of course, whatever it means it means they would be taking less risk than others that are not regulated stringently. and credtors get no value from risk taking. shareholders like risk taking, credtors don't like risk taking and don't benefit from it. so they will be happy to provide funds to these institutions at lower rates than they provide to their competitors. there is a real danger that these additional advantages, these funding advantages will make these institutions support competitors to the others. now from time to time, we hear people say well, everyone is objecting to the idea that they might be designated and treated
that way so that must mean it's not going to provide a benefit. but in fact, it does provide a benefit. the fact that they are objecting comes from the fact that they will then be under the control of the federal reserve. and almost every business does not want to be under control of any other organization. the fed has an opportunity to control their leverage, their liquidity, their capital, their activities, all of these things in the interest of proventing them from taking risks. so when your company is turned over to the fed, the answer is that you have stopped running your organization. and so, of course, they all want to avoid that possibility. the danger that i see is that this creates too big to fail in a way that was ambiguous at one
time in the past but is now embedded in the statute. okay, title 2. another similar problem as rick outlined, the secretary of the treasury can seize any company. these are not necessarily s.i.p.i. the secretary of the treasury can seize any company that is a financial company and following the process one day for the court to review. the likelihood the court will turn down the secretary of the treasury after consulting the president and so forth is highly unlikely. so these companies will be turned over immediately to the
f.d.i.c. what happens then? the f.d.i.c. has all kinds of authority to bail out the credtors of these institutions. there is a lot of language that suggest they might not do it but when you create a bridge bank and can borrow a substantial amount from the treasury, actually up to 100% of the value of the assets that you transfer to that bridge bank, you can then use those funds immediately to bail out the short term yesterday tors. and the reason you would want to do that is to keep them from running. the way you present the kind of event that occurred after lehman brothers is make sure the short- term creditors are not afraid that their institution might also be seized by the secretary of the pressurery. -- of the treasury.
so what you want to show immediately is that you will be taken care of, you don't have to run. and that would reduce the panic in the market. that is something the f.d.i.c. is empowered to do. and i suspect if we ever have another financial crisis like we had, which i think is very unlikely, but assuming we did have such a financial crisis, that is the way we would make it less likely to affect the entire structure panic that affect it is entire structure of the financial market that we had before. now looking at the way the act has developed so far, i'd have to say that it is wildly off the tracks and on its way to becoming a train wreck. before -- let's look at it this way, davis pope has counted up all of the regulations that have to be made by the virse agencies under the act.
and what they found was there are about 240, 250 of these regulations. 1/3 of them have been finalized in the over two years since the act was passed, 1/3. 1/3 have been proposed but not finalized and 1/3 haven't even been proposed. the vockle rule is a great example of this. it doesn't seem very hard to understand. it says simply that banks cannot engage in propriority tear trading. now we understand what that s. it means that a bank cannot use it's th its own assets to trade. that was thought to be risky all though no one has suggesteded the anything to do with the financial crisis. but they can engage in market making and in hedging.
well, how do you define the difference between market making and hedging. between market making and hedging on one side and appropriate tear trading on the other? i suggest it's very difficult to do that unless you're inside the head of the trader and understand what the rationale for the trade was. it makes it extremely difficult to draft the regulations. that is one of the reasons why we have no final regulation yet on the vocal. similar --will rule. similar things have happened in the housing field. they're trying to adjust and control the securitization process secreted it called a fight with a in mortgage and a qualified mortgage. then told the regulatory agencies to tell everyone else in what those terms mean.
the regulatory agencies have not yet been able to do that. there was a regulation put out by the regulators about the qualified residential mortgage. huge outcry, not only in congress but the industry. the regulators withdrew and we have not heard another word since then about when the next regulation will come out. qm is very important because it turns around the question of who was responsible for a loan. the quality of the loan. it says if a loan is made to someone who cannot afford it, it is a lender -- the lender who was responsible, not the borrower. so it becomes very difficult for lenders to understand what their
rights are in dealing with a borrower. in the most severe problem there is that the borrower under the circumstances, if he or she has borrowed funds, that it turns of the borrower cannot afford, then the borrower has the right to defend against foreclosure. that not only affects the immediate lender but all of the buyers up the transaction and makes it very difficult for any of these loans to be sold unless you're absolutely sure that many of these buyers actually could afford the loan they receive. this will impose tremendous caution on regulators and lenders. throughout the process and that would slow down the growth of our mortgage market. another very important element.
in the derivatives field, a lot of regulations have already been put out by the cftc. they are had the most of the other agencies but the regulations are now so costly and troubling to the industry that they are turning around the whole market. instead of functioning under the swap rules that the agency has created, they are turning to the futures market and try to turn swaps into futures so they do not have to apply. that says a lot about the kinds of regulations that the dodd frank act has demanded of the regulatory agency and shows that this is going to be an un workable statute. what does it mean in the end? we're going to have a lot of uncertainty and doubt our financial system for a long time. i believe that the dodd frank
act is substantially responsible for the very slow recovery have had from the financial crisis since 2010. in the nine are 10 months between the end of the recession in june of 20 -- 2009 and the final dates on the dodd frank act, the average growth of the economy was about 2.5% in the gdp. since dodd frank was passed, the average growth is about to% until all the months since with each year being slower than the year before. i think the reason for that is the uncertainties created by the dodd frank act. in my view,we have already stymied the growth of our economy. sees regulation start coming out in greater detail, there will be lawsuits about them by just about every industry and
company. those lawsuits will go on for years. but questions about the validity of the regulations and even whether the congress have the authority to grant those powers to a rick al-otari agency. all of that location -- all that litigation will take many more years and will continue to slow down the growth of the economy. my view, if i had anything to say about it, would be that we ought to repeal dodd frank as governor romney has suggested and replace it with those things that are necessary. i am afraid there is very little in this act that is necessary because the financial crisis also was not caused by a lack of regulation. in was plenty of power until the bank regulators -- there was plenty of power in the bank
regulators to regulate the economy in the way the banks acted. from my perspective, we ought to repeal the act, replace it with those things that seem sensible. tissue probably be a commission of some kind -- there should probably be a commission of some kind that takes over the actions of the consumer financial protection bureau but not a single administrator idea. all those things could go back into a statute but at this point, it is probably better for our economy and the growth of the economy to repeal the act. thank you. [applause] >> good morning. i too am happy to be here with
scott and rick and jerry. no one else. i too want to thank george washington law. it is such a terrific program. thank them for inviting me and i hope after my remarks, i can get invited again. i am in charge in a better market, and nonprofit organization that promotes the public interest ahead of the financial markets. you want to talk about a lonely job customer and join us. as the man lost love to hate, thought and make some comments on overarching issues that are often unspoken. i talk fast. if you were thinking of sleeping at this time, you want to leave now. two quick things of what peter had to say. to say it is agreed down the line would be an understatement.
first, it ignores the entire fact that there was an implicit guarantee prior to the crisis that all the too big to fail banks would be backed up by your wallet. the implicit guarantee became explicit during the crisis. when somebody says repeal dodd frank replace it, they will replace it again with your wallets. so think about that. the dodd frank act is most often discussed without context. that is like talking about the levees in new orleans today without ever mentioning hurricane katrina. no one would do it. it is nonsensical. there is usually so little context provided about dodd frank did you would think it was the product of immaculate conception. there was no and to set -- antecedent of that. what was the date he started with? 2010. nothing happened before that.
inexplicable. of course the dodd frank act was passed because of the two dozen 8-2009 financial crisis which was the worst financial crisis since 1929 and delivered the worst economy since the great depression. how come it is so rarely mentioned? because the financial industry, its lobbyists, allies, has been wildly successful in changing the subject and the debate from the financial crisis, wall street's role in in the cost to the country to the financial reform law regulations implementing it in the cost to them. the industry. it is truly remarkable how much time is spent talking about the self-serving claims of cost to the industry to put financial reform in place. to prevent that industry from
crashing the financial system again. almost never mentioned are a the things afoot on the american people and the economy. those costs are no less than $12.80 trillion. given the economic record cost from one quarter of this country to the other, no one should be surprised by that number or that it is large or that it will almost certainly be larger when history looks back. there are a few copies of this report in the back. it is also available on our website. some objected living wall street for the financial crisis. but it cannot be fairly are you that while many may have contributed to the french a crisis, not all contributed equally. in any fair minded hierarchy of guilt, wall street blondes of the top. let us be clear about what is going on here. the richest industry in the history of the world is using its economic power to bipartisan
-- by partisan political power and is using the mechanisms of the bipartisan industry to ban public policy and law to its benefit, regardless of consequences to others. fighting to defeat the legislation and failing that, felt the full of loopholes and complexity. lacy to the regulatory agencies, overwhelming them with an army of lawyers. you wonder why the one-third applies and half focused marketing documents -- that is why. if you want to know what they are really doing, read the bloomberg article "big lobby widens volcker rule." their political allies attack and harassed regulatory agencies with demands and hearings while trying to defund them. chairman shapiro has testified 50 times a last -- in less than four times. how did she run an agency when she is being dragged up to the
hill to the berated by the industry's allies? repeatedly threatened to sue to win in the course of the could not otherwise get. the legal onslaught has already started. delay. hoping that massive campaign contributions can purchase a few more political allies and will back the reform law. but the mention just one of the most lethal weapons the industry is using to kill financial reform. it is cost-benefit analysis. they want to apply to every agency regardless of legal requirements. what is not that is about the seductively sounding concept is the are pushing an industry cost only analysis. where the cost to the industry of every will have to be rigorously calculated and waited and then they cry about it. peter just talked about the cost of regulation. think about the cost of the financial crisis on the country. but it is not the industry you should be worrying about. it is a rational.
this prioritizes the cost of regulating the industry over the benefits of protecting the public from the industry. the legal challenges are nothing less than an attack -- an attempt to attain the judicial knowledge of the dodd frank law. government came together to respond to the biggest financial and economic crisis since the great depression. the third branch of government, the courts, are in some cases nullifying that law based on cost-benefit analysis. it is a complex subject and we did a report on that. it is a long, extensive report. it is incredibly important. we have copies here and it is available on our web site at bettermarkets.com. with that as context, let us talk about the dodd frank law. did it go too far or not far enough? as jerry alluded to, it is impossible to about a week at this point the law because it is
premature. it is not implemented yet. calling to revisit a lot that as i get implemented is nonsensical -- a law that is not yet implemented is nonsensical. their goal has been to change the focus from the collapse, their role, the cost to everyone else, to the law and the regulations they have succeeded amazingly. the question that should be asked is why haven't the american people than protected yet? more than four years after the financial industry almost cost -- caused a second great depression? it is not a perfect law. democracies do not produce perfect laws. this was the best law our democracy could produce at that point it in time. in the face of overwhelming
industry resistance. one study at the time showed there were 2500 registered lobbyists lobbying during the dodd frank act. almost 500 of whom were former office holders or staff from the hill. it is one of the most formidable armies ever assembled to battle our government. those lobbyists are just the tip of the iceberg of the influence industry the wall street has hired to better financial reform. it is remarkable that there is any law at all. it is hard to see how anyone can make the case that this law went too far. most importantly, it did not break up the firms that are too big to fail that were at the center of causing a crisis in the required trillions of dollars to bail out. which this country will be paying for for decades. that's only one industry threatens our financial system, economy, and treasury. it is the only industry that can destroy lives and livelihood of
a massive scale from coast to coast. yet no fundamental restructuring was required to remove that threat. as a result, the law has locke the provisions try to cabin in the too big to fail firms, all of which were necessitated by not picking them up. you want some cassidy, complexity, clarity? i have it for you. we cannot do it. so what did we do? we have this other things making up on second and third best choices. the volcker rule is only ness -- is unnecessary because of that. all these are second best regulatory approaches to the cleanest and easiest way to deal with the too big to fail firms which did not happen. too far? i cannot think so. did not go far the moving compensation incentives that reward our reach as risk-taking. from 2007-2010, the year but to
start worrying about growth, wall street paid itself bonuses of $93 billion hard to see how that gets describe as going too far. too far in the bonuses, not very fatah -- far in the law. it did not do much to the key organization that enable the -- to sell a stake into the financial system toxic securities. that is a euphemism. they are worthless securities. that is why they're toxic. how did the and that with so many hundreds of billions of dollars of worthless securities and what are we here today without a single criminal conviction? that is a different story. but what they do about those key organizations? think of the rating agencies. chairman shapiro spelled out their egregious conduct and a few other things in the law but
they were barely touched. too far? not far enough. i could go on but i will not. the me just one of the key arguments of the law. the regulation of main street -- regulation of wall street will kill main street, stifling growth and unemployment. not our profits, revenue bonuses. we do not talk about that. if you do that to us, it will hurt yourself, your growth, your employment. the first response to that is that there is nothing in dodd frank that could do as much damage to this country as a last-minute crisis did or importantly, what the next arquette -- what the next financial crisis will do. there's no comparison. let's look at history for a moment. the financial industry have the heaviest regulation and a history for about 70 years after the great depression yet our country prospered. we built the biggest, well this
middle class in the history of the world. american businesses across the board private. wall street profitably will world. think about it. during the heaviest regulation ever, what happened? deregulation and on regulation brought to the brink of the second great depression. in just seven years are so accurate that is what history shows. 70 years of prosperity with heavy regulation and the store collapse after a seven or so years of virtually no regulation. one more thing. when you hear the industry wining about the cost to them a financial reform, first remember the cost of the crisis to the american people which is virtually never mentioned. there are really virtually no
new cost put on by financial reform. the real issue is who pays those costs and when? the industry -- this is the choice. the industry pays them due to regulations designed to prevent crisis, failure, and bailouts. for society and tax payers pay them, cleaning up the mess the industry creates after massive failures and bailouts. those of the real choices to. this industry is being read regulated -- re regulation and the cost of the regulation being shifted back to them from society. i will close with a slight plug. as amended, better markets and nonprofit organization. -- as i mentioned, better markets and nonprofit organization. i do not want to exclude this is
not being swanky. you also deny get rich. but you do get to work on interesting, consequential, and historic events. we're looking for people with a lot of experience. we did not do on the job training and better markets. but if you have a lot of experience and a passion for public service, send me a resonate. we need the help. thank you very much. -- send me your resume. we need the help. thank you very much. [applause] >> i would just move over here so i can see the audience better. thank you so much for those fantastic presentation. with our few minutes remaining, we might take some questions. maybe i will start off with a question for all the panelists and we can take audience questions. i would like to close with some predictions.
a lot of different and interesting views but there is one common theme, maybe. maybe. [laughter] there was a recent article quoting a well-known banking analyst who had done an assessment of the regulatory landscape and to set something like the end result of numerous agencies pumping out mass of rules to meet statutory deadlines will be tabled contradictory mandate, tough to enforce an impossible to comply with. regulators need to go back to congress and say we want to do everything use it all at once but we cannot heal all of our priorities. along those lines, something dodd frank is too far, some think it is not enough. i am not sure anybody said it was just right. what should be the priorities? under the dodd frank act? it is a 2000 page missive that
is still so hard of a law to implement, it is taking years for regulators to do that. if i could maybe start with scott. what should be the priorities under your view? >> the way we approach the priority is to refocus our supervision beyond just safety and soundness to include financial stability as something we look out -- look at and think about in our daily supervision. we have begun to focus on the key parts of regulation we think most important -- capitals very important. risk-management. then we have done the best to fill it in the agenda beyond that that congress has set for us. but the priority has been improvements in supervision and
capital. >> i would agree with his point but i think for us, the interplay between title one and title to an ending too big to fail to the heightened supervision to address the issues on the front end as well as the ability through title to to make sure we do not have a situation in the future where we have to bail out this large institutions in a philip the have government subsidies. >> my view has always been the financial crisis was caused by the government housing policies. which was not really addressed at all in dodd frank. obviously, as he heard, i am for repealing dodd frank because in my view is illegitimate. it did not address the causes of the financial crisis. it was a washington acadia, toich was to give -- idea, give more power.
my suggestion would be that we eliminate dodd frank and go back to look at government housing policy and what we got into a situation where we had so many weak and some prime mortgages in our financial system in 2008. >> dennis, maybe i will give you the option of responding to my question or peter's enters. i will do both. one of the things we learned of the great depression is there's no single bullet to protect the american people from an industry that tends to recklessness on investment and trading when not being watched. do not put a five year old in a candy store to pick one candy and come back out. it won't happen. in the layers of protection.
yes, there will be some redundancies. this building has sprinklers, fire extinguishers, multiple layers of protection. that is what you need it into the financial system. that is what dodd frank tried to do. so what we need is a cylinder, say for financial system. less prone to crisis and failure. -- a sounder, safer financial system. less prone to crisis and failure. anybody else fails. that should be eliminated. dodd frank does that although way. from the fed on the front end and resolution plant all the way to f.d.i.c. at the other and to bringing life to the otc market. there is a variety of things that need to be done and there are multiple things that need to be done.
it is only that way that the american people will be protected. importantly on the study quoted, they were hired by sifma. one of the top five industry trade groups and one of the most powerful. one of the one that is the plaintiffs suing the fdc as we speak. when you hear about a study are somebody same you should go back to congress and what you want us to do? i was a congress give you a rough hand of what they want you to do. you better look at who is saying he should do something. most of them are either directly or indirectly on the table of wall street. of walle payrooll street terry do we have in the audience questions? maybe we can start to left.
>> thank you for the debate. very interesting. peter echoed a lot of that, governor romney made in the first debate about dodd frank, not and too big to fail. when asked about what he would do at the nave conference last week, he said ternate to bankruptcy procedures. peter, would you agree those are possible alternatives to help and too big to fail? do you think there are other more stringent criteria that would improve upon title to? >> i did not see that the current structure title two and the essential problem, when all of the financial institutions are part to be unstable or possibly insolvent. the failure of one institution
causes a panic. we have had panics seldom in this country. one at 80 years since the panic of 1907. these are rare advance but they occur because of what housing policies have done. so does not matter whether we have a title two or whether we use the bankruptcy system. the advantage of the bankruptcy system is it does not create a moral hazard. it does not give creditors the notion that they are going to be better treated with the failure of a large institution rather than a small one. i think we can do things in our bankruptcy system that cure some of the problems that are endemic in financial institutions, but we do not need a title two to address those issues. >> peter accidentally just agreed with me on something. he said panics are seldom in this country.
financial panics in this country were quite common in this his -- this country. happen every tenor 15 years ago until one of them became known as the great depression. after that, we put in place mass of regulation -- massive. regulation. since then, we have not have those panic. we have had 70 years or so a relatively stable -- nothing compared to the great depression and the routine regular panic that happen before them in history. he is right, they are rare. you want them back every 10 or 15 years? get rid of dodd frank, on east wall street again and let's pretend it will solve regulate. we have criticized both candid its on financial reform but bankruptcy alone we know will not work. lehman brothers is the poster child. we're not taking the position
that nobody should, that dodd frank is perfect. dodd frank is imperfect. but no matter what you get, it will be imperfect. the question is, do you get a law that is comprehensive enough was sufficient tools across the reyes of issues and sectors in markets -- the array of issues and sectors in markets to reduce or eliminate crisis, the lawyers, and bailouts? the fattah thing given those tools, the f.d.i.c.. let the agencies get the tools of the place. are from them, work from them and then let's fix things that can be fixed when people come together at the program point in time. -- at the appropriate point in time to request this idea of deregulation is different.
i remember after the collapse of the industry. when it was passed, congress and others said now we have a law that is so tough it will prevent any of these huge banking failures we've had in the past. such as the snl crisis. i do not remember anything that is the regulatory. i am sure if we had more time to debate it, dennis would say the glass the collapse. but when you think of that -- when you think of the glass steagall act, you would realize it is relevant -- irrelevant to this crisis. >> predictions? a famous philosopher once said it is difficult to make predictions because the teacher had not happened yet. do you think congress will undertake substantive changes to the dodd frank act?
>> it depends in part on the outcomes of the elections. it if the president is elected and the senate stays roughly the way it is and the house this republican, i think substantive changes are not likely. i think there will be repeated daily attempts at technical amendments and fixes which is going to be the trojan horse through which the industry will try to roll back most of the spirit which is what they have been doing for tw the doingo years. -- what they have been doing for the last two yaers. >> i agree with that. we will have much slower growth in the future as a result of it. that is what i am afraid we have to look forward to if we have
the so-called status quo election. >> i do not think it will be major substantive changes. and the bankruptcy option, that is an option to the earlier question but we tried that with the lehman situation. we saw what can happen there. it causes a systemic risk. dodd frank allows us to try to address this in a much more thoughtful and hopefully at the way that has a good result for the financial system. >> i agree with that assessment of what will happen next year. i think that will mean the regulatory agencies will continue to work to try to make this law workable. try to balance out the cost and benefits. i do think that over time, maybe to were three years from now, we will look at it and there will
be some changes to fix either the things the agencies do wrong or gaps that emerge as we start putting this all together. >> thank you so much to gw law school and to the professors. it did brown of applause for a fantastic panel. -- a big round of applause for a fantastic panel. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> watch our coverage of the presidential candidates and debates from key house, senate, and governor's races from around the country. next, mitt romney campaigned in iowa. then first lady michelle obama at a campaign rally in nevada. live at 7:00 a.m., your calls and comments on "washington journal."
stocks began, c-span2's in austin, texas. from former abc news had david westin, that was printed on the late walter cronkite, and texas cronkitelbj and ladybird johnson -- and texas native lbj and lady bird johnson. the texas book festival, like this again on "book tv" on cspan2. >> i like the coverage because it is well diversified. it covers all sides. independent, democratic and republican. c-span is not boring because it is so topical. there are current events which
is very interesting to me. i love what is going on right now, talking about issues that matter to americans right now. >> michael watches c-span. c-span, created by america's cable company in 1979. brought to you as a public service by your television provider. now republican presidential candidate mitt romney in iowa for a speech of the economy that his campaign called a closing argument on this economic plan. according to the latest polling average, president obama holds a 2% leavitt in the state. this is about 35 minutes. -- 2% lead in the state. this is about 35 minutes. >> hello everybody, how are you doing? you live in iowa and you live in a battleground state.
let me say that again because i don't think i've said that in all the years i've been in politics. we're a battleground state this year and that makes it very important. and i'm glad i have the opportunity to welcome the next president of the united states. and i know it's cool and you feel the chill but also you feel the momentum of romney being the next president of the united states. \[applause] now you folks all know people who voted four years ago for president obama. you know that he promised partisanship and to reduce the deficit by half, that he was going to give us accountable government, that he was going to reduce your health insurance by $2500. today we have would have 5 and 6% unemployment instead of 8 and 9%.
that was all part of economic recovery, wasn't it? this president has not delivered on his promised of 2008 and that's reason for him to not be president of the united states. he has not delivered. americavery clear, can't afford four more years of obama no, ma'am i cans and partisanship and the unconstitutional abuse of power by appointing so many decars and making so many expective orders beyond the constitution.
and we will put america on a new path to a new day with a new president obama, a new president romney, pardon me. you know, i want to forget that word. healthcare and gas prices are high. small businesses burdened with all the government regulation we have. an $814 stimulus that didn't work. high taxes and deficit spending hurting and killing small business, worse economic problems that america has faced since world war ii, 23 million people looking for full-time jobs, unemployment of 14% of the economy. household economy down 8.2%. 47 million people on food stamps, but that's a failure.
but we americans are not quitters, we can turn this ship around and we will turn this ship around. we will put america on a new path to a new day with a new president, mitt romney \[applause] you've heard a whole new energy since that first debate, haven't you 1234 you know why? because the people of this country for the first time were able to see the real mitt romney instead of what the chicago henchman were portraying him in six months of negative advertisement.
you saw a person standing there with the president of the united states who is practical, who is compassionate, who is humble and who is trustworthy and you saw a president with all the air go out of him. he's not the obama that everybody thought he was. now president obama once said in a previous campaign and let me quote here exactly, if you don't have a record to run on, then you make big elections about small things. so is there any wonder why you're hearing from the other side about big bird and binders? that's what we call in america running from your record. and we've had all these misleading attacks and what has our candidate's response to that been?
exactly what it should be. attacking me is not agenda. this president has no agenda. so in short, we need to just simply thank president obama for his public service and let him go. we have made a conclusion that we're not going to surrender to mediocracy. the high unemployment cannot become a new norm. thirst for trickle down government is coming from a well that's running dry. and we can't allow the next generation to be worse off than our generation is so this
election is about making sure that for the new generation we preserve the american dream and mitt romney is going to do that. \[applause] i'm going to tell you what you know because i haven't told you. mitt romney could not be a better person qualified for the president of the united states t right philosophy, the right principles, a business leader who knows economics, a person who has created jobs, a person who has restored the olympics and as governor of massachusetts restored fiscal integrity to that state as he will do to the united states as well.
he will get congress working again, he will restore hope in our future with opportunity for families and community. so in eleven more days, make sure you do everything you can to get your family, friends, neighbors, those who you know and those you don't know to vote for mitt romney. now finally, before he comes, i said before and i don't claim to know everybody that's president of the united states well or their candidates. but i think as much as i've read about an and mitt romney, let me tell you, they're the sort of moral leaders that this country needs. and i want you to know that i believe in mitt romney. i believe that he can turn this country around and that's what this country needs is more leadership as much as economic leadership.
but it takes good moral leadership to do the other. so will you give mitt romney a warm iowa welcome on this cold day? \[applause] >> thank you for being here.
a little windy, it's going to be a great winter. we need some snow, don't we? thank you for that introduction. congressman king i appreciate you being here and the chairman of my campaign brian kennedy thank you for being here. and for all of you braving the little cool and windy today, thank you for being here and bringing me warmth of shir pit. -- of spirit. it's good to be back in iowa. don't think this is the last you're going to see of me and paul ryan because this state may be the state that decides what kind of america we're going to have and what kind of lives our families are going to have. so we're counting on you. and the choice you make this november will shape great things, historic things and those things will determine the most important things and intimate things in your lives,