precisely because they are the backbone of the party we should never take them for granted. and in the past we have. >> shannon: fast forward several months. in july talk about this he says african-americans in particular, it generally are indeed the backbone of the party precisely because they are we should never take them for granted. in the past we have any set i want to apologize for this. is the party doing any better in engaging? >> i think they are doing better engaging the particular race were talking about, the claire mccaskill race. i spent two weeks in missouri in st. louis during the ferguson crisis and i think there was a lack of engagement because you have a municipal government there that is just failing because of a lot of reasons that we don't have enough time to get into but i think what you see as the party moves forward is to see the party really trying to engage african-american voters on a new level. one by running african-american candidates and investing in those candidates and to quote listening to african-american voters in a new transformative