Is the moderator. Okay, well, i am quite honored and pleased to be moderating as session with two distinguished authors on american politics from different perspectives, there is Jonathan Darman was a journalist before, maybe he still, is before becoming an author. He was correspondent for news week and he covered among other Things National campaigns and in 2004 and in 2008. He most recently has turned his attention to another Political Campaign in the 1960s, his new book is landslide lbj and Ronald Reagan at the dawn of a new america. Jonathan will be talking about that and anything else we can get him to speak on. On my left is Chase Untermeyer who has been a practitioner of politics, he served in the president ial administrations Ronald Reagan, george bush and george w. Bush, his book when things went right the dawn of the reaganbush administration is drawn from his diary of the first years of the first Reagan Administration. Please give me a hand tour to authors. And we will get started. Jonathan, since your book comes chronologically before chases, im going to ask you, it is a twofold question, number one is, how did you find covering the campaign of 1964 in historical time after you had recovered in realtime the campaigns of 2004 in 2008. That is part one, part two is, how do you perceive the politics changed in that fouryear period . Jim thank you, i am very happy to be here in texas, most of the places that i have been talking about the book this fall, the weather is not this nice. I havent had need of the fan which i wish we had today under the table that is. That aside, i am very happy to be here. It is a great question, i would say that stepping back from present day political reporting to look at the 1964 campaign has, on the most basic level, made me feel a lot more charitable towards politicians, people who are willing to step forward and run for office. When you cover a a president ial campaign, we are very hard on them. We talk about all these forces that they should be paying attention to in the country and how hard it is for them and what they need to be doing to connect with the country, but stepping back and looking 50 years back in time, but you really see, in a lot of ways it is impossible to know what the country is dealing with at the moment for me that really gets illustrated when you think about the 1964 president ial campaign, if you go back 50 years ago, even this weekend you can see the next 50 years in politics being laid out before you. On october 27th, you have Lyndon Johnson, the sitting president of the u. S. , who had been president for less than a year looking forward to the next week, his landslide election to win the presidency in his own right. Hes traveling all over the cussed tree trying to get a big margin, and he gets really carried away in a lot of the rhetoric he uses. On that day of october 20, seventh he of pittsburgh and says, it is goodwill among. The time is here. Now, when we talk about managing expectations, it is pretty high bar to set for yourself. And meanwhile that same day that same night even, it is a national of the under a ploy it and appreciated former actor, vernal reagan, who is still at that point i working actor, making the case for Barry Goldwater in a speech that is sort of viewed universally as reagans launch as a politician and the beginning of his sort of storied political career. So its easy for us to look back at that lets screen and say that we have. It a choice thats gonna be between the two parties over the next 75 years. Johnson set of grand promises for all the government can do to deliver. Really solve all the problems of humankind and then the reagan alternative government isnt the solution to our problems. Government is the problem. This is a incredible Ronald Reagan, all the possible threats at their are going to be in many ways having the largest effect on his legacy. I would say that looking at history, i would hope in my current political reporting id be more charitable towards politicians in the expectation of what they should understand about the country, and remind, me about the second half of your country. Question. How has politics itself changed in the two years before the 64 election and the 2004 election . It has changed in a lot of ways. My book deals with the thousand days after the kennedy assassination, which, if you want to look at the moment in time where politicians actually got stuff done as opposed to what i think we all feel like today, where they cant get anything done, i think it is a fantastic moment because, with Lyndon Johnson in the leadership in the presidency you have the transformative legislation on civil rights, 1964, and the Voting Rights act of 1965. If the passage of medicare. You have important like just lay sure on poverty and education. Theres really a sense in both parties that you can work together, and pass programs that are really going to transform peoples lives we certainly dont have that at all today. Its also i, think and one of the sort of sub themes in the book is the passage from politics really being about that sort of john sony in specialty of managing the congress, and the country, and the congress being one and the seem to, the importance of president s going beyond thinking of the country as a whole, and beyond this sort of parochial political machines all over the country. And the person who really understands that best is Ronald Reagan. When Ronald Reagan starts talking about running for governor of california in 1966 it is seen as a joke, that this actor could be the best candidate the republicans can muster for the governorship that year. How bad the republican, state of the Republican Party is. But what people dont realize is that reagans gifts of being able to communicate and being able to sort of says the shift of mood in the country which is learned from his hollywood career are going to be the most important assets for any politician in the decades to come. Thank you. Chase, you observe politics more or less from the inside. Jonathan and i look at it from the outside. So, when did you first sense the shift that i guess gives rise to the title of your book . When things went right. When did, you and i assume that you mean this is the little double sense, things get more conservative and i gather you approve. How did you get drawn into politics, and when did you sense the shift occurring . As early as the sixties with emergence of, reagan or was it close to the time that you joined the Reagan Administration . My actual origins were not with reagan but with his Vice President , george h. W. Bush. I was always interested in politics going back to junior high school, but the opportunity to get involved required working in campaigns which in those days, the mid sixties in texas was a generally hopeless cause for republicans. Therefore it was a delight defined this young wheel man named george bush running for congress on the west side of houston, which threw my time as a campaign volunteer. So i did a dressing envelope and its a campaign research, and was a great thrill when he got elected to congress but he invited me to be intern on his staff. That began a relationship that 14 years leader led to going to washington with him. At the time, i was working at the head of the avenue here as a texas member of the house of representatives when the Vice President elect asked me to join his stuff on the west wing of the white house, i realized that was the end of my active career in texas politics. I tortured over the decision for about two tenths of a second before resigning, taking my seat in washington. When i arrived there, i had frankly the help of my boss and many people in america that the reagan program would actually work. It wasnt hocus potus of some sort. Dance your question voodoo economics. Yes, that phrase voodoo economics was used to give the candidate bush in that republican primary of 1980. It was something that was deadly in the mouths and fingertips of the opposition, and it got to be so sensitive for Vice President bush but at one point he actually told the National Audience that he never said it. He did say that as a conscious lie. I think at that point he himself had become a regulate and in effect was embarrassed by the recent memory of their very difficult, very long and bitter Hunger Campaign in 1979, 1980. This man was not only his boss, but his friend. So in the way that elder bush has a way of looking towards the future rather than the past, to him, voodoo economics was just some press phrase, it wasnt something he himself had said. Of course it was all on tape and he had to apologize. That was shown to a National Audience. I think that illustrated was that it was during the course of 1980, won the first term of the red worked its way through congress, and as the country began to have a greater sense of itself, a greater sense of confidence that it changed in the mind of the Vice President of the United States as much as the rest of us. Im going to ask a question of both of you because jonathan has positive the mid 1960s was a time where the political system worked. When a president with a legislative agenda could get stuff done. And chase after my has point to another period when the reagan revolution was taking hold, and things did happen. If i didnt ask you and you havent weighed in on how you assess the situation today, but jonathan has suggested that today it doesnt work very well, if at. All i suppose we could have a show of hands to see how many of you think that the political system is working very well today. But i wonder, i wonder how much of this, i will ask you both. How much of this is a matter of changing times and how much of it is either the existence then or the comparative lack now of a visionary president ial leader. Lyndon johnson had a vision of what america could be. Ronald reagan had a vision of what america could be and i think they were both very successful in communicating that vision. Is that what is lacking now, or have there been structural changes in the american political system to make that kind of leadership much more difficult . Them to, me i think a lot of it consider the question of emphasis. Im sure that chase gets asked a lot the question of could reagan get elected in todays Republican Party, which people talk about a lot of sort of this idea that there are so many people purists in todays Republican Party that even Ronald Reagan is eighth not ideologically pure enough for todays Republican Party. My own feeling on that and this is something i try to describe, reagan is incredibly good at figuring out exactly where he needs to be. As a conservative, to get elected. I think thats a difference. And this is partly wet meat reagan effect political leader, starting in the sixties, at the same time that hes focused on what he has to do to win the support of his fellow conservatives, hes always asking himself how do we sell this to a brighter and broader audience . He starts really early in his political career, reagan was involved in goldwaters 1964 campaign against johnson. And then he was a cochair in the california campaign, california was of course a very important state in 1964 president ial primer, it was where there is this final, definitive showdown between goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller to be the republican nominee that year. Its a very bloody fight. After they finish that campaign, there is a Victory Party for goldwater, that reagan even goes to, and reagan stands up and says, now lets go make love to democrats. We dont want to win a convention, we want to live an election. He gets booed in the room for saying that. But that was always sort of where his focus is. How do we sell this message to as broad a group as possible. I think to date are fractionalized universe, that set of question is one that politicians dont really want to ask themselves. Im really thinking that through, how do we bring as many people on board as possible that will force you to come to the more important questions of how do we create a broader governing coalition to make this happen. How are we going to make things happen today . One way to make them happen is for my fellow republicans to say that theyre admirers of Ronald Reagan and start acting like Ronald Reagan, but i mean by that is any number of practicing politicians will tell you with all sincerity, Ronald Reagan is their idol, their lone star, their absolute model in terms of politics, except in so far as what they do and say, it is not the least bit like Ronald Reagan. Let me identify some of those qualities im talking about. One is, Ronald Reagan did have a positive vision for the future, you may or may not have accepted that vision, but he did have one and it was positive. It was for creating prosperity through a reduced government footprint, in the lives and businesses of people. The idea was prosperity. It wasnt recrimination against the enemy, unfortunately far too many of todays politicians are highly negative, it is sufficient they think to just be against obama and his policies. I believe that might help republicans win the midterm elections, but the morning of wednesday, november 5th, the Republican Party better start having a positive agenda, like Ronald Reagan, where it will find itself with not much to say as people recognize that barack obama is going to be out the door and just being against him is insufficient. Another thing that reagan did so beautifully, he worked across the aisle, his famous whiskey drinks with tipper oneill in the after hours are the best example, but not the only example of his belief, that you had to work with the opposition. Like he did as the governor of california. Just being seen in the proximity of the opposition is thought to be a betrayal. And worse, it would be reagans belief, compromised. He had his firm set of principles, but principal is what you build upon, what you build up from there is a matter of give and take, working with the opposition which he did in those sessions with tipper oneill. Today the notion is if you deviate from what some people consider to be the principal, the bedrock, the governing idea, then you are a traitor to the cause. If people who believe that say that they are like Ronald Reagan, and they imagine a Ronald Reagan that never was. The final thing i might add is the difference between reagan and those who are today his heirs, Ronald Reagan had an immense and very effective sense of humor which he used as a very effective tool against the opposition. Todays issues are grim and serious and dreadful, they were not so cheery back in the 1970s either. But reagan was able to use humor that today is dismissed as trivializing serious things. If i could follow up on that last point. One of the striking things tinny about reagan is the fact that he gives conservatism a friendly and approachable face, if you read his message in the sixties, it deviates hardly from goldwaters, yet Barry Goldwater did not have an observable sense of humor, did not draw people in. It strikes me that, i dont know if it is a default setting for conservatives, and its maybe just in the they tend to do righteous indignation better than they do a lot of other emotions. With Barry Goldwater, there was a sense that you are sort of being lectured to, there was an undercurrent or maybe a explicit over current of anger, but reagan took that away, so is reagan simply the anomaly among conservatives . Is very cold water sort of more like the conservative minds and maybe we are returning to that, where as jonathan suggested, there was blood on the floor at the convention of 64 among the republicans and it was, are we gonna be conservative enough. Is it too much to ask the republicans to come up with another reagan . Is the reagan personality type just really rare, you could see hubert humphrey, he does fine among liberals but reagan is almost the humphrey of conservatives. What do you think . Very you know, i think the question is a really interesting one, it is in a lot of ways why have we not seen conservatives over the last 50 years, its spite of the fact that republicans have this long streak of winning the presidency. Why have republicans not been able to put forward whatever one thinks of as the positive governing agenda under conservative vision, republicans are really good at winning elections in a year when there is a strong antigovernment since in the country. That is 1980 in reagan, that is 1994, 2010, it might even be this year. It looks like it might. 2000 importing. But what they are not able to do, this is true in the last 20 years is continue on that path of starting and broadening the games. There is no pressure in the way they talk about politics. I really think a lot of the roots of that is in that period, the mid 1960s where you see politics starting to be about a contest between one side which is presenting government as the solution to all problems, and the other side which sees government as the problem. As opposed to what is come before where it is a sense that government can come out to solve the biggest problems, that pressure doesnt really exist for todays Republican Party in the same way. They found this very occasionally potent tool of just saying were going to run against government. Thats made it harder and harder for them to hold on to power once they have one. Are conservatives looking in vain for another Ronald Reagan . I dont have to tell a very distinguished historian that a consequential leader in history, those people come along rarely. This is a long each country, somewhere among 350 people they could be leading a corporation today. Maybe even being a University Professor rather than being a practicing politician, the sad thing is that the current atmosphere tends to diminish the interest in getting involved in government. Just because it is seen as so unpleasant, so unavailing in terms of being able to do something, we live in a time where people are voted towards public surface, private, nonprofit service. Or jobs like in health care or in teaching that have maybe less fame but more satisfaction. I am an optimist, i believe in this country there is somebody who is out there and ready to lead and who can maybe not copy Ronald Reagan, but have some those positive virtues that we have grown up with who can begin to capture the imagination of people, like theodore roosevelt, abraham lincoln, franklin roosevelt. One of the great thing about the texas book festival is audience participation, im going to guess that the lot of you were drawn here because youre interested in politics and the things that are others have been discussing. If any of you have any questions, here is your chance to come up to the microphone and give your best shot at our authors. Please speak into the microphone so that everyone can hear us. Can you hear me okay . Ive been sitting here listening about conservatives, can i talk about illiberal for a minute . Sure. When this is austin, after all. I just read a fantastic book by bill bradley, the three time all american footbridge. From princeton ten years in the nba, and also a three term senator from new jersey. I just read his book. Its awesome. Now my question is can we reach out with bill bradley and across the aisle . Get the republicans a democrats to work together. You get a little cynical on what it takes to put a big bill through congress today. Chelsea won washington when brother was. There jonathan, your turn. I think about how todays politics, particularly legislative politics in the First World War in which theres a great deal of artillery and death, but not much of forward movement. I think of that rather trite greeting card comment, let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me. And i think when somebody on one side of the trench or the other begins to out of some form of courage reach out and work across the aisle as we see from time to time, but not so emphatically, that might just catch on. It will particularly catch on when people realize that they could do that and survive a primary, be reelected in the fall, and perhaps get things done. Im confident enough that the majority of the american public, vast majority, want their elected officials to get the job done. Whatever the, job conservative or liberal they want them on the job doing business, rather than just making speeches. Jonathan. I think its impossible its possible, this may sound impossible but its possible to be too hard on our leaders. Spending time thinking about litigious and you find people talking about the current president. If only he could be more like Lyndon Johnson, somebody who was just relentless in his reaching up to legislators in both parties around the clock, and this overwhelming personality, we wouldnt have the problems that we have today in terms of getting something done. I dont think thats true. When you talk about the mid 1960s and the phenomenal legislative record that i was talking about before. Yes, Lyndon Johnsons formidable personality and legislative presence is a important piece. But the most important piece is the progressive majority that Lyndon Johnson had in congress. And when that progressive majority begins to crack in the aftermath of the civil rights, Lyndon Johnson loses a lot of the rights that he had. If you look at the comparable moment of the lydon presidency which in a lot of ways is 1966, people were talking about Lyndon Johnson as this guy who was detached, and all of the energy he drain out of his presidency and you know was concentrating on a foreign conflict that he wasnt giving adequate resources to in vietnam. All of these things that people actually say about president obama today. So its really as much about the political moment and understanding where the country is as it is about the actual active inter personal relationships and reaching across the aisle. Next question. [inaudible] simply delay the reagan revolution or permanently derail it and entirely reshape the way that the Republican Party moved forward through the eighties. To want to give that want to try . My sense is that it would have delayed it, if you recall Ronald Reagan opposed gerald ford in the primary convention of 1976 came very very close. And it was clear that the functional majority of that convention wanted Ronald Reagan, and would have him, as indeed they did. I tend to think it wouldnt have been a delay given the cycle of american politics if gerald ford had been elected in his own right, he would have come up against all of the economic and Foreign Policy problems that hit jimmy carter during the late seventies, and perhaps that would have helped power a Democratic Victory in 1980. Its a game anybody can play but i can see that happening as much as the eventual election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. I will mention something that may set a little bit of light. James baker who worked for george bush and then Ronald Reagan, then george bush again, said that it was his thought, and he said this to rig and when reagan was in the white house. He said if reagan had not challenged 14 76, then fort might well have won 76 election. And if he had, then reagan would never have become president because of a republican had won in 76, lets say its ford, the incumbent would not have been touched by another republican so regan would have had to wait until night 84, by which time he would have clearly been tool to run for president. So thats jean bakers take on that subject. Next question. My question is this. You havent addressed the media yet. Changes in the media over the years. The next question as you know the bushes. Is jeb bush going to run . Ill tell you, but i will split that question into two parts. I will let Jonathan Deal with a media question because hes medium. I will let chase weigh in on whether jeb bush is going to run. We talk a lot about how the media is so much tougher on president s today than the media was back in the day. This is often cited in terms of the private lives, six scandals, and that sort of stuff. I think thats true. But if you actually spend a lot of time looking at the way that the press wrote about Lyndon Johnson, in the 1960s, they werent exactly easy on him. Johnson felt and had a lot of good reason why the sort of eastern, ivy league influenced press corps looked down on him as a crass, you know, in their eyes, texan. No offense to any of the winds here they were quite unfair to him. They would constantly bring in these completely saccharine and overused cliches to describe him as this sort of larger than life figure in his ten gallon hat. Is in johnson was a texan but he was a creature of washington first and foremost. You think about, that we just this week have been mourning the passing of ben bradley, who of course was the legendary editor of the Washington Post and wrote papers in the watergate area who died at the age of 93. The famous story that bradley and johnson comes when bradley got a tip that Lyndon Johnson was going to replace hoover as the director of the fbi, which was a amazing story if true because of course no president had dared to go up against hoover in over 30 years. Bradley reported it and found out that it was the case that johnson wants to do it. He published it johnson found out and disliked ben bradley and sort of the idea that his administration was linking to this east and as he is stepping down, the famous, telling tell bradley i say forget you. Except he didnt use the word forget. So its always been a little tough with the press. What is the future of republican politics . The fact that before spending my life in politics i was a practicing journalist working for the houston chronicle, so im going to jump in to the answer to say that of course the socalled 24 hour news cycle, instantaneous Communications Effect is so much that the infect our politics unknown in past times, if only because expectation of that new cycle is that Public Officials are immediately, the instantaneousness fired, and be with to do about it. No human being is able to do that and in past times when communications were must slower Public Officials did have the luxury of thinking or discussing the matters before this book or acted. Thats a luxury today, and its an egg that just cant be and scrambled. The thats life forever. The and that i can say with some certainty. I cant speak with certainty about whats ambitious going to do. The this is certainly his last, and best opportunity to run. I hope he does. It went to present a body to know that. A man of