Transcripts For CSPAN 2014 Elections 20140106

Caused the water to back up and Cascade National rotunda. Series of en on a projects since that time to that the drainage system compromised again by debr debris. And it led to though the development of the master plan nd study of the iron work and to the project we are now going to get completed in the next two years. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] we will have prime ministers questions live wednesday 7 00 a. M. Watch next sunday at the usual time 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Moments ckup a few charlie cook talks about the upcoming 2014 Midterm Elections. At 11 00 p. M. Q a with economist marty sullivan. And later another chance to see u. S. Capitol dome tour highlighting what will be repaired in a twoyear restoration project. 435 house seats and 35 senate eats will be decided in the upcoming 2014 Midterm Election. Next political analyst charlie Cook Political Report talks about what he expects to see from both Political Parties leading up to election. This is an hour and 30 minutes. Good morning. Elcome to the Campaign Management institute at American University. Being a nelson the tkpl academic director of c. M. I. This is our 35th year. We started as a bipartisan have beennstitute and going strong ever since. Our first speaker today is charlie cook. Editor and he publisher of the Cook Political Report which he founded 30 years ago . 30 years ago in april. Political is also a analyst for National Journal and regular Election Night it cnn, cbs and nbc and always been generous with time with c. M. I. And will start us off by talking about the general political 2014. Nment going in thank you. Applause] thank you, candy. I pt want to compliment all of you for your decision to participate this c. M. I. Because hardly a month goes by that i dont run into somewhere that didnt say i met you or i first heard the American University Campaign Management institute. I have been doing this for a time and i remember my favorite story about the c. M. I. In the either very late 1980s or probably early 1990s. A friend bill sweeney was elping to run the program and this was march or april, may, a few months after the c. M. I. And he was walking through the Capitol Building and he ran into tom peaker of the house foley, who he knew. Pulled him aside and said bill a few months over very lidays my father was illino ill and i was spending time with and one night i couldnt sleep and turned on the elevision and started watching cspan and the campaign anagement institute was there and he critiqued each speaker so you never know who will be thing on his kind of cspan and what kind of terrific a. M. U. Puts together. What im going to do is talk of the lay of the land, the political environment. Thank you very much. Million years ago, back in the 1970s, when i first got out of college and was there was a litics terrific political newsletter called the american political guy Kevin Phillips did who was a political strategist nixon. Esident it was like eight or 10 pages, pages, every other week and the front part of it was sort of macro, big picture themes of american politics. The last couple of pages was the wyoming and what was going on in each state. To the back go pages, alabama, arkansas, going through all of the states to see what was going on. Then i would read the front part because i thought to the front part of it was sort of macro, big picture themes of american me that was like Cocktail Party conversation. It was sort of vaguely interesting but not that important. As i sort of had my career progressed i started realizing ait a minute, it is the stuff in the front that drives what is happening in the back. As sort of as i themes are the important. A lot of people particularly younger people tend to think we on some ofh emphasis the big expect stuff but over matter an ms to enormous amount. At the beginning of each i start off and ask myself two questions. Is, what kindstion of election is this going to be . What ither it is sort of micro or macro and what will it be about. It kind of election is going to be . The late democratic like Cocktail Party speaker of the house tip oneill coined most popular phrase in american politics. All politics is local. To me what speaker oneill meant was that whether you are looking representative or tate senate race, or a congressional race, senate race, governors race, whatever, every jurisdiction, every race, is largely independent. Is the population like in that area . What are the voting patterns and voting history . Who are the candidates . What kind of campaigns do they have . Kind of resources do they have . Are the local issues and circumstances that could influence that race . But the idea is that each one of contests are sort of stovepiped as the current phrase we would use. Pretty much Free Standing and independent of the others. A lot of elections are like that. But there are a lot that arent. Rom time to time we have these sort of a lot of people call all wave elections where politics isnt local and it is almost like s theres an invisible hand pushing up or forward the of one party and pulling down the candidates of the other. Through history, 1966, 1980, 1964, now to the point where it used to be a little over one a decade. Now there happening a little because our ly political process is not parliamentary but seems to be getting a little more than it used to be. And people are not splitting as they kets as much did back when i was in school. Fairly to be really routine for someone to vote lets say democratic for the the , republican for senate, democrat for president or mix any of those up any which but massive become and back ove become and forth. But now we dont have those any more. We had gone a long time without a big one and then in then 94 we we had the newt during led election president clintons first term of swept speaker foley out office. Then you had 1994 i said 1994. Im getting over a chest cold. 1986 was a big tk 2006, rather. 2010 was a big republican where elections from time to time. So, is it going to be a micro, is local kind of election, or macro, one of these elections that strongly advantages one side or the other. He other question is what is the theme of the election . Here is a famous saying of Winston Churchill where he sent ntly or reportedly back a dessert to the kitchen the aid, you know, to waitre waitress, madam, take this it has no theme. So the question is what is the theme of the election. Hat are the can he dynamics that are out key dynamics that are out there. Is the current term is what is the narrative of this election. So, at the beginning of this election cycle a year ago i ok, there is ng, narratives possible in this election. The first narrative this is order, but the first one is that republican problems and internal problems continue. Republicans that the party is currently facing with younger voters, with minority moderate shoerts voters persist from 2012 it 2014. The other theory is it is a term in which the party in the white house gets electionin the midterm halfway through a second term butit doesnt always happen happens. T always which will it be . Lets talk about each of them. Irst lets talk about the republican brand image problems. I dont know if i need to dwell kinduch on this because it of got talked about a lot coming out of of 2012. But the Republican Party has profound image issues. Blame mitt romney for his loss and to be honestening winnable race had it been run somewhat different differently, that the obama was a very Smart Campaign and made a very smart the romney d campaign not so much. Notwithstanding that, when you races and k at other look broader, you can see that there are some huge problems facing the Republican Party. First, minority voters. When africanamericans make up 13 of the electorate and your candidate loses by 87 points, 936 that is pretty bad. When hispanics make up 10 and 44 points, 7127. Point to is ike to sort of making the statement is the smaller group, asian voters make up 3 of the ele electora electorate. I wont say anything bad. Profiling here. Hat is the stereotypes of asians, Asian Americans . Hard working, entrepreneurial, capital capitalistic. A lower Unemployment Rate than household her economic then whit. Cu ltural culturally conservative. Wouldnt that describe epublics, attributes one would attribute to the Republican Party . Yet romney lost the asian vote 47 Percentage Points, three lost the e than he hispanic vote. That is really, really interesting to me. Congress was almost identify confidential identical. Nobody was talking about asian vote. And the thing about it is when at the polling and sift through focus groups with that , the message minority voters across the board the Republican Party doesnt seem to like anybody that doesnt look just themselves. Now, is that a fair characterization of all republicans . No, i dont think it is. But that is the message that so many minority voters are getting. And i think to me what is happening with the asian vote is particularly symptomic of it do with t has less to immigration, is that republicans have an enormous problem with voters and the country more and more and more diverse. Romney won the 59 of the white last election. Historically if you got 59 of you are vote republican and you got 59 of the white vote you have just won the election. Longer sufficient. What we are seeing is the share the white vote has been dr dropping basically 15 points over six elections so that winning the white, for a winning the white big is not enough to win. When republicans have to go back and look at their recipe a not working hat is so well. Then you look at young voters. Under 30. Oters romney lost the 18 to 9yearolds by 23 points, 6037. What you can do is look at each in the our age breaks exit polls. There is basically you draw a line at 45 years of age. Oters for the most part over 345 vote pretty strongly for republicans for congress and under 45 voted more for obama and democrats. Extremes of those age groups it is even higher. You he thing about it is can look at that and say well they balance each other off or something something. And maybe a little bit. But the thing is when you think the long haul and i just offensi60 so i can say this without getting in trouble but 45 i look at voters under and particularly under 30, i see the future. Where american politics is going to be down the road a little bit. 60, we are us over predeath. E and republicans are doing really predead and not so well with the future. Which if i were an old republican i wouldnt care. But if i were a young republican i would be really, really because something has to change or they are not going to state wide or national elections. Then you get to women voters. Though, you know, we started hearing about a gender gap in the reagan administration, the 1980s. And i remember initially i thought well, you know, this is of a glass half empty, half full thing. A problem ans have with women voters . Do democrats have a problem with male voters . Yes. Two problems. Unfortunately from my personal perspective women live longer men do. And as a result they are 53 of elect wreut kwraeuft and guys 47 performs. When you have such strong partisan voting patterns among that is a ders problem. But the other thing is that a lot better doing among women than republicans are among men. For congress and true for the president ial race obama won the womens vote by 11 Percentage Points and male vote byon the seven Percentage Points. So from a republican perspect e respect ve, republican winning a smaller slice of the smaller pie. The long haul that doesnt really work so well. Is selfdescribed moderate voters. To completely obsess over , dependent voters selfdescribed independents who didnt call themselves democrats or republicans. Reason that i used to obsess over that is that you look over basically 90 plus percent of all the people who call themselves democrats vote Democratic Candidates for congress and president and 90 sever described republicans vote for the described candidates. Republicans vote for the republican candidate described republicans vote for the republican candidate described republicans vote for the republican candidates. L describ republicans vote for the republican candidates. F describ republicans vote for the republican candidates. The problem with that is that not splitting e the independents are becoming role and so bigger if you or republicans, told me two years ago, three mitt romney was going to be the republican nominee and he would win the five ndent vote by Percentage Points, i would have election all the other things being equal. But what has happened is that makeup of independents has changed a little bit and another important. Ecome more when i say the makeup has changed ts somewhat, i think that within selfdescribed independents you have one group of people in there that used to republicans, they are very conservative, but they now call independents and are more sympathetic with the tea party movement. They no longer identify as republicans but in a twoway democraticrepublican race you can pretty much bet on them going republican. The second thing, i think there are some moderate republicans, eople that were moderate republicans who no longer call but elves republicanless call themselves republicans but call themselves independents. But romney won the independent votes five percentage and lost by 2. 8 Percentage Points. Is the key group . I would argue the key group im aying more attention to is selfdescribed moderates. Republicans or conservatives i have long taken olace that more americans consider themselves conserve temp than liberal. About 35 conservative. 40 independent. It was 41 the last election. For obama by oted 5641. Centage points, so, if that is a group, democrats are winning among and republicans among conservatives. Are winning electorate of the that makes a huge difference and which t used to be that had. So, we sort of look at these republicans y, can with14 repair their damage voters, voters, young women voters, moderate voters. That is to me a critical, question. Then we get to the second question. Is this going to be a traditional second term Midterm Election . One of the things we have seen and since the end of first of Midterm Elections in eneral tend to be much more often bad for the party in the white house. Any ople are unhappy for reason they tend it take it out on the president s party. If they happy they vote on some issue but if they are unhappy they tend it take it out party. President s that is just sort of it is what t is but it has been like that since the beginning of time pretty much. But in the postworld war ii era looking at second term Midterm Elections we have of six and in five out the party in the white house got in the ly hammer ed secondterm Midterm Election with enormous losses in either he house or senate or usually both. The one exception, the one out happen, was idnt in 1998 bill clinton action Midterm Election when there was a backlash gainst the republican impeachment of clinton in the house in trying him in the senate where the American People not really happy with president clinton but thought he country was doing ok and didnt want to though him out even though they didnt not ecessarily approve of his behavior. So there was a become lash back hrrb lash and the normal pattern was broken. Why does this tend to happen in second terms . Novel ity is that the think in when a brandnew elected and all of rememberoung enough to in 2009 when you were a democrat or republican liberal, moderate, maybe less conservative there was a curiosity. How was this new president going to do. An energy, riosity, excitement, passion, how is he do . Ng to people are hopeful whether they voted for him or not they generally speaking wanted to do well. So, hopefully this will be a turn for the better after rememr in 2009 when you were a democrat or republican going through some tough times. That is fairly typical when a is elected. T but over time the novelty wears off off. And over time decisions are decisions governing are made that tend to tick people off. The fresh new ideas tend to some. Pate the team that elected that president initially, you know, by the time after the they generally go off and make money so you have field. Or c team on the there are no new ideas. Thing is sort of chickens come home to roost. Said or did the first term come back and i will use a technical political term, bite you on the ass in the second term like if ou like your insurance you can keep it. They haunt you in the second term. Tendency forked about things to happen to president s in their second terms. Sometimes it is economic downturns. Or example, president eisenhower had it recessions in the last two years he was in office. Could have twoou recessions that close together. You can have unpopular wars like during the kennedy and johnson administration. Iraq for george w. Bush. Scandals like watergate during the nixon, ford and controversy over the pardon. Monica lewinsky for clinton. Or irancontra for president reagan. Things tend to happen and people get more receptive to change. We have done this, lets do something different. Ut it is a pattern that holds up pretty, pretty darn well. So, those are the two questions. To be . It going well, i when i look at what on and look at the i g data and one thing didnt get a chance to go by the you aren print this out on the right side and there about the political environment and click that and is it is a 10 page data nt with the polling we think is most relevant in terms of sort of acertaining environment tical is going to be like. We start with arithmetic wrong track numbers then president ial approval and galloplap numbers and anders and fox, cnn, gallop others and pugh. Then we go through Consumer Confidence. First of all, to the extend that e are taught that Midterm Elections are usually a referendum on the incumbent looking at his Approval Rating is very important. Americans said that tend to vote their pocketbooks and tend to vote if they are worried, scared, fearful about or nomy they tend to pessimistic that is generally not good for an incumbent party. If they. Good about things they typically vote on other things. Ut weve Consumer Confidence ratings. Then we have favorable and each rable ratings for party from various polls. Then we have after that or actually before that some the Kaiser Family foundation which is sort of the largest sort of objective body polling on the Affordable Care act sort of watching there in termsns of the popularity of the ffordable care act and the generic ballot test and another question or two. Hat is a good way to check in for free and see how things are going. So, when i look at what is the ning right now, Emocratic Party has lousy numbers. The Republican Party has even unfavorable le or numbers. The president s approval numbers 43 , which is exactly where president george was at this point in his iraqd term, which is after turning saw h sour and after ka. It is some dates it is digit for president ame where bush was at this point which is obviously not a good place and took some pretty significant losses in 2006. Republicans there is no reason to believe that their cans have improved standing one iota among minority women younger voters, voters, moderate voters, none whatsoever. At the same time you look over you look at the president s approval numbers and they are on toward where you haved about secondterm Midterm Elections. It is. Is what maybe things get better, maybe they to. Just take you dont a poll and skip the election. You carry it up through the election. Why you have campaigns. The thing is right now it looks like both of those things are it happen or both of those things look to be, if you were going to have the election operative which would tend to suggest stkaling each other canceling each other out. When i talk about what kind of at this there will be, point there is not any evidence that will will be a wave for people to e vote against somebody they dined vote for somebody. Side ont like either here. So, i dont see them handing out compliments or victories to either side because they are not really happy with either one. I guess a meteorologist would un it is kind of like an stable air mass. Situation y volatile but neither side looks to be sort of naturally advantaged by of the macro political environment. Then you say well, ok, that is the environment. Lets get down to cases and i speaker will get more in races but doyle it sort of i will do it from a larger sense. We have the house and senate. In the House Democrats with need 17seat net gain to get a majority in the house, 17 seats. Of things 73 eme is not a particularly big number. Theres a great mann and tom michael malbein and the fourth on Vital Statistics they have it up on the web. Like in they dont publish it in hard copy but it is on the web for free. Can go through brookings or a. E. I. Website. When you go back and look trying to im remember what what my point was. Cold. Etting over a chest 17 is not much. It really isnt. Is in thehing about it s new world order it kind of is a there are very few competitive districts out there. My newsletter in april of 1984. Those not uncommon in 125, 150 or 100, more competitive districts. It is sort of depending define it actually i was reading someplace somebody our numbers and said ok, defining it as where it voted for president for one the and congress for other, it went from 99 like 10 now. Ago to only 25 but the better statistic is that all the democrats in the house are sitting in districts 93 of ame carried and the republicans in the house are sitting in districts that mitt carried. So, there is just not a lot of anyticity in the house left more. Part of this is redistricting gerrymander iing as long as we have had congressional districts. Capitals are ate now getting so much more partisan lines and computer map making has otten so much more sophisticated than back in the old tas days when people were of cards and numbers awfully it has gotten good. So if you are the dominant party to state and you want absolutely minimize the representation of the other do an amazing job there now much better than you before. Uld but there are other things at play. Sorting. Ple, population there is a wonderful book that some of you might want to read bishop called the big sort. E basically talks about people n a sense vote with their feet in that people tend to move and concentrate with people like themselves. Comfortable when they are with likeminded people. And this is becoming more and so. When you look at, say, or look istricts at geographically across the districts t are the democrats tend to represent . They tend to be large urban and close in suburbs and college towns. Nd then you say ok where do republicans live . Small town, Rural America and in exurbs, more outer regions the fast er growing areas of the suburbs but that is pattern. So notwithstanding any political gerrymandering taking place you as well. Taking place then the final reason is think about the last, then the final reason is to get about the last four elections. In 2008, you remember the iraq war was getting really pretty ugly. President bushs numbers were down to 28 , Something Like that. The 2008 election, you had a really ugly election for republicans. Then 2010, it got even worse i am sorry, 2008, an ugly election for republicans, and so a lot of republicans that are sitting in competitive districts or districts that maybe a democrat ought to have, they got washed out back in 2008 just as they did in 2006. They had backtoback ugly elections for republicans, that wiped out a lot of republicans in competitive districts. In 2010, the way it went the other way, was a fabulous year for republicans, and it washed out to sea of a lot of democrats that were sitting in districts that should have been republican. Coming out of those in 2008 was a decent election for democrats, a decent year for democrats. You sorted it out so there are not many fish out of water that are out there. It has been minimized, the elasticity in the house. It has made it difficult for the press to make a 17seat gains as it would be difficult for republicans to make a 17seat gain in this environment. And you look at the individual races one by one and we have a fabulous house editor David Wasserman who does this, and all he does from one election date to the one two years later is right now more likely than not that republicans would actually pick up a handful of seats, 3, 4, 5, 6, a very small number, based on where there are open seats and where the competitive races are, and that is not based on any macro assumption whatsoever. Then you get over to the senate side, and i do not want to poach into that, but democrats have a lot of exposure. The thing to remember about the senate always is that just as the house has twoyear terms, the table is set in a house two years earlier. In the senate with sixyear terms, when one party has a fabulous year in the senate, six years later they are going to be playing defense, and a big risk of vulnerability. That is exactly where democrats are in the senate and where basically of the 8 seats that are most likely to make a difference, six of them are in states that mitt romney carried. Again, i do not want to poach on to the next speakers turf. That is how i view the political environment right now. On a micro level, democrats have a little bit more exposure in the house. In the senate they have a lot of exposure. In the senate, at the same time for republicans, to get a majority they need a sixseat gain. They have to not run the table, but pretty close to win the majority, which is why i would put the republican prospects considerably less than 5050, even though it is almost a 100 chance that republicans will pick up seats, but not the six seats that they need. And just sort of as an aside, it sure as heck looked like republicans were going to pick up a bunch of seats in 2012 and in the end they did not do that. Part of that was because of these brand problems we were talking about. The other problem will exist again, and that is that in this posttea party era, republican primaries have become pretty exotic places great there has been an increased tendency for republican primary voters to choose people who god did not necessarily intend for them to be members of the u. S. Senate. [laughter] it has cost them seats that they should have won. Whether you are looking at nevada, colorado, delaware in 2010, or at missouri or indiana in 2012, arguably, right now the senate is 5545, and republicans should have five more seats than they do right now, but they do not because they nominated terribly flawed candidates that were not able to win seats that appeared to be very winnable, if not [indiscernible] that is one more consideration out there. Lets open this up for questions, comments, accusations. You had your hand up a long time ago. Let me go with you first. I apologize for that, but my question is you talked about two scenarios, and i agree because you are the expert. It could be something else, but those would seem to be the two most possible. That seems to be exactly right. My question is, could you speak to the difference between the electorate who votes and the difference between midterms in president ial elections, because it seems to me that those are quite different and also determine which scenario is more dominant . President ial elections tend to draw obviously a much bigger turnout, broader turnout, and it is a turnout that more looks like the country. Midterm elections, you have got a lot of voters that are sort of casual voters. Sometimes they vote, sometimes they do not. They oftentimes vote president ial, but in any election other than that, they do not show up. The group that drops off the most is younger voters, downscale voters, but really younger voters, and one particular group that stan greenberg, the democrat pollster, who with James Carville had this polling think tank thing for the democratic side that they focused on the young single women voters, the women voters under 30, 35 who were single is one it is a group that when they vote they vote very heavily democratic, but is an opportune term because they do not turn up for Midterm Elections. It does not mean that republicans win all Midterm Elections because they lost control of congress in 2006, which was a Midterm Election. Generally speaking, the Midterm Election turnout dynamic is something that is more favorable, while a democratic while president ial is more favorable to democrats, that is true. It is not determinative, but it is an important factor. You were next. I guess you spent a lot of time studying elections. What has been the most surprising result in your time, or what results in the last election shock you the most that you did not expect . Well, that is an interesting one because there are a lot of surprises you are in this business long enough, you see stuff that i did not see that coming, and relatively recently, after barack obama won the iowa caucus and then lost the New Hampshire primary to hillary clinton, that was a shocker because somewhere in this big country there is somebody who predicted that hillary would win the New Hampshire primary after losing the iowa caucus, but i never met them. That was one. I would say professionally i would say it was at 1994, the gingrich Midterm Election. The reason is that we had not seen a wave election since in 14 years, since 1980. And i had vivid memories of the 1980 election. Long before i got in this business i am a moderate independent now, but i got my start, grew up as a democrat and had my first few political jobs on the democrat side. The election by 1980, i was at the headquarters of the democratic senatorial having committee. I was visiting some friends. Actually, lucy, who is now my wife, was working there at the time. 1980, indiana was the first state indiana and kentucky are the first states whose polls closed. Birch bayh lost at about 6 30 in the evening. The democrats kept losing until well after midnight. It was like boom, boom, boom. That was the first wave election since 1974, the watergate election, but i was in college in 1974 and was working on the hill, but not aware that much. 1980 was that was really something. We went 14 years before that was replicated. You had people Running Campaign committees on each side who had never personally experienced a wave election. There is a tendency to get a little too wrapped up in this all politics is local thing if you go a long time without a wave election. And so it is like hard to imagine it happening until you really see one up close and personal. So that 1994 one was probably you step back in awe. There can be some people that will be relied on to predict that their people will win every single election. You can figure out who they are and never listen to them. The first person that did not qualify in that category we were my house editor at the time was a young man who is now a lawyer and intellectual property expert at the Motion Picture association. He was our first house editor. We were over at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee we do this with each side on their staffs, run through the races, and on background, what are you seeing, trade notes back and forth, because we meet with a loud of candidates, and they meet with the candidates and trade notes. Anyway, we were over there, and had just done the alabamato wyoming rundown. The political director at the time, a Media Consultant now, said the meeting was over. Some of the people wandered off. It was just two of us standing in the conference room. He said, charlie, are you seeing anything odd out there . And i said, no, not really. He said, the last month or two we started seeing some now, this was april of 1994. He said, we started seeing some very odd numbers around the country in places where democratic incumbents are to be this is in a different era and numbers were inversely higher than but democratic incumbents that are in the mid 50s that should be in the mid50s are just over 50 . He described urban areas, rural areas, suburban areas, north, south, east, west, across the board, and i remember at the time thinking, i have not noticed that. Early on in a cycle you do not see a lot of polling data on the house level, individual house races. I remembered thinking, dave and vic fazio, the chairmen of the committee at that point, maybe they are trying to lower expectations so if they had a good election result, a big victory. Over the next may, june, as i see more data coming out, it started looking like, i think he is on to something. You can start seeing it built over the summer and build and build and build and build. At that election, republicans needed a 40seat net gain to get a majority in the house. If you gave republicans every conceivable seat that they could possibly win, they still could not get to 40. It was building and building you could see the direction of the arrow. You can tell the wind was blowing strong. At the end, i was saying maybe there is a one in three chance that republicans get a majority in the house, but that is like how many of you have gone bird hunting. If it is a shotgun, you lead the bird a little bit. If you aim at the bird, your shot will go behind the bird. You lead the bird. It was going this way, so i was saying one out of three. Not only did they get 40 seats, they got 52. You had republican candidates getting elected who did not get a dime from their own party, that their own party did not even think they were going to win. Conversely, democrats losing and their party did not think they were of all vulnerable. That was the spooky, unnatural thing that happened in these wave elections. I would have to say that one in 1994 and i remember the next really big wave election, 2006, was a wave against republicans. Early on in that cycle i remember the two guys running for the House Republican committee, they started asking me early on if they felt pretty good about things. They raised more money than democrats. We got this and this and this. Back in 1994, what did you see and when did you see it, out of curiosity . Gradually, some of those things started happening, although its happened earlier. By 1994, it was the first time in your professional career or you really see a bigtime wave and you just go, wow, look at that. There were somebody else over here. Ok. Here and then we will go back. During your remarks you compared obamas favorability rating to bushs. What were the Party Favorability ratings at those times . That is an excellent question. I have not looked it up. And the answer is probably the other thing is in these Midterm Elections, some of it is certainly you are voting you are angry at a president , congress, something that is going on, and you can vote against them. The other part of it is lets say its 1994. No, lets use a more modern example. 2006. You are a republican, republicans have control of congress, deficits have gone up. Maybe you just do not vote, because that high variability in Midterm Elections where it is more socially acceptable not to vote in Midterm Elections than in a president ial election. A lot of times it is sort of disillusioned partisans staying home and independents who lean your way staying home. I have not looked at those numbers. That is a very good question. I think it is safe to say that the numbers were not that great. That is a good question. How about back in the row. Can you identify the two narratives, as being associated with a president with a lower approval or with a republican brand. Since there are two major fights in congress, do you feel the narratives that will happen at the individual campaigns will be candidates trying to separate themselves from their party as much the can or trying to anchor their opponent about their partys record . Another good question. When you are a member of one party, you are an incumbent, and maybe you are either in Enemy Territory or a district that is not friendly. And your president is not popular. There is a tendency, and some people get into this tendency, to trash your president and to run like hell away from them. As a general rule, that does not work real well. At the same time, do you want to embrace him and identify yourself more closely with him . Of course not. Theres something that is in between. I do not agree with the president i agree with him on some things, i do not agree with him on others, and i have got some real misgivings about x, y, and z. Sometimes that works, sometimes it does not, but the thing is one of the things is what happens if you just trash the president from your party, among the people that normally come hell or high water who will vote for you, you will turn some of them off by doing that. Those are some people that you can actually rely on. That generally does not work, but you could establish distance without trashing an incumbent for your side. And there was a famous election. It was bush 1990, george h. W. Bush, his Midterm Election, and ed rollins, who had managed president reagans campaigns, had a top job at the Republican National committee. He wrote a memo that went out to all the Republican House members saying effectively we all love president bush and he is a great guy and all that, but your most important job right now is to get reelected and do whatever you need to do to get reelected and feel free to put distance between yourself and the president. Not surprisingly, the white house went crazy. I am trying to remember whether ed had to resign or not. Do you remember if he did or not . They were calling for his for his resignation. [indiscernible] for some of the races such as the Vulnerable Democratic Senate seats where you have nonincumbent republican candidates for senate, do you expect them to distance themselves from the gop, or is that going to be an internal debate within the party, because there could be comments about republicans to make firm statements about other they would shut down the government or no they would never do that . One of the good things about this upcoming election for republicans is at least in the senate most of the prime races are in states that romney won and that where president obamas job Approval Ratings would be significantly below average. In other words, alaska, arkansas, louisiana, and to a lesser extent georgia, a lesser extent north carolina, and michigan you can tell i have been on vacation for three weeks. Michigan and iowa are the only two that are in states that obama carried. There are gradations in all of these. For example, obama lost georgia, but only by eight points. There were some states where he lost by 25 points. 8 is losing, but not getting destroyed. North carolina, obama lost but only two Percentage Points, and he had carried it four years earlier. At the same time, arkansas, louisiana, kentucky where Mitch Mcconnell is up, obama lost by disastrous amounts. Where republicans need to do well in the u. S. Senate they do not have to put as much, if any distance, between themselves and the national Republican Party. Certainly in alaska, arkansas, louisiana, kentucky, absolutely, for sure. It depends, and that is the answer to almost any question. It depends on the circumstances. In the senate there is a lot less of that that has to take place. Yeah. I guess you highlighted in 2006, 2010, the last couple midterms that happened, and one thing our distinguished presser has pointed out, there has been an increased polarization within the legislative branch. Does that translate to more of a wave effect given the increased polarization from these different midterms . It throws off a little differently than the president ial elections, but midterms, especially the last two, do you see that as being one of the catalysts . I think i follow what you are saying, and if i do understand it, i would say what has been going on the last 20, 30 years tends to amplify these kinds of wave elections and make them more likely. Back when i moved to washington, 1972, as a freshman in college, there were a ton of moderate democrats from the south and elsewhere. There were a ton of liberal moderate republicans from the north, northeast, the west. So the parties say this is the democrat party, the Republican Party, there was a substantial overlap between the parties. And so was the Republican Party a rightofcenter party . Yeah, but there were a lot of people on the right on the dEmocratic Party, too. They had some awfully conservative people who were a lot more conservative than some of the republicans. The conservative moderate democrats acted as a balance that kept the democrats from going off on the ditch on the left as liberal moderate democrats republicans were keeping the republicans from going on the ditch to the right. I think it does make there is a i think to the next that this is maybe it is a slight exaggeration, not too much, but instead of having a Leftof Center party and a rightof center party, we now have a fairly left party and a very right party. People are angry at some saying, it is a lot easier for them to pick out the red jerseys and the more ideological cohesion there, but also at the same time, the force in the opposite direction is that so few of them are in districts that are really Enemy Territory kind of districts that that tends to be an offsetting factor. Im not sure how to answer that. The thing is a lot of this stuff is a lot more complicated than it sounds on paper. Ok. The world is a lot simpler in the highdigit networks. Yeah. Speaking to that, my question and i hold an unpopular view that the democratization of primaries is a bad thing and has increased only polarization. Can you speak to that idea that the democratization of primaries has only led to more conservative and more liberal candidates . Let me address that differently. If i could wave a magic wand and do two Major Political reforms in this country, the first would be for redistricting reform, and the second would be for primary nomination reform. And on the former there are a lot of different ways to do it. Iowa walk has a terrific system where they have a room full of statisticians sitting in a basement that you get, and it is as close to an honest redistricting as humans can probably do. Again, it is not hard in iowa because you have a state that is very white and all the counties are square. It is not a heavy lift doing that when you do not have to worry about Voting Rights act considerations and things like that. California in 2012 went to a new system, and it is this very, very elaborate, complicated process of selecting these commissioners that in turn select the people that draw whatever and someone said if you diagrammed it out it would look like the old diagrams of the hillarycare, it would look like a pile of spaghetti in terms of branches of authority. But it works very well, and you saw as much competition in congressional races in california in 2012 than you had seen in the last years. The othe, each state decides its own election laws, and each side has, you know, no two states are identical. And some states have party registration, some dont. But, for example, in maryland my wife is a registered democrat, im a registered independent. So i cant vote this any primaries at all. She can only vote in democrat primaries. You know, if the next door neighbors republican, he or she can only vote in a republican primary. I think if you allowed independents to choose on election day either a democratic ballot or republican ballot on primary day and vote in each one, i think it would help sort of bring things back towards the center as would redistricting reform. I dont think either of these things are a silver bullet. I dont think either one will solve the problem, but could address things. I think some of the bad things that have happened, i think having nomination conventions for races below president , i think, is really, really bad. I mean, in utah, for example, you know, you remember senator Robert Bennett who was by any rational definition a very conservative incumbent senator and hard working and very highly regarded who couldnt even get on the primary ballot because of the rise of the tea party movement, and he had voted for t. A. R. P. , and that was back in 2008. And so he couldnt even get on the primary ballot this 2010. Polling i saw he would have won a primary if he could have gotten on the ballot. You know, virginia has these goofy conventions. You know, where they allow nominate some pretty exotic people [laughter] you know, particularly Lieutenant Governor and above, things like that so that even a pretty mainstream, relatively mainstream candidate for attorney general cant even win. You know, that kind of environment. So i would do that. You know, after that its a lot harder to do things. I mean, i think the increase ingly ideologicallypolarized nature of certain elements of the nudes media news media with sort of very clear left, very clear right, i think thats sort of poured gasoline on the fire as well, talk radio, certain blog sites, that sort of thing. I mean, there are a lot of moving parts here. Yeah. [inaudible] hang on one second. Another reform that i believes been done in california and louisiana is, i just wanted to ask for your view on it, is the idea that theres a primary with the top two candidates of either party makes it and those are the two candidates for the november election. I just wanted to ask you your view on whether you think that would help as well. I think it might. The louisiana and california systems are not identical, but theyre pretty close. It certainly hasnt done anything to moderate anything in louisiana, but in california i think its sort of contributes to that. And where you saw cases where, you know, two democratic incumbents thrown in together by redistricting and theyre competing but in a general election environment so that you had fairly liberal democratic members going out and trying to get republican votes. Moderate independent votes. I mean, a votes a vote, get it wherever you can. And i think that probably reduces some of the ideological, some of the rhetoric and breaks it back down. So i think thats something. You know, there are lots of different ways to fix things, and, you know, you never know which ones are going to work and which dont, and a lot of times you have a law of unintended consequences where, you know, you set out to do something that may be an admirable objective, and sometimes it just actually makes it worse. You know, for example, mccainfeingold Campaign Finance reform actually made things worse than it was before. So anyway, so you always have to be careful with that. Anybody that hasnt asked a question yet first, and then well double back. Yeah, pack there. Back there. Theres been a lot of discussion in recent years about the political opinions of young people. Have you actually seen an increase in turnout among young people, or is it just that a small amount of us are more vocal with social media . Its picked up some. Maybe not as much as a lot of the popular press would suggest, but 08 picked up some and the proportion picked up some. The thing that ive noticed, um, with millennial voters and the institute of politics at harvards done a lot of survey work in this area, but, um, ive spent a decent amount of time on campuses the last three or four years, and my impression looking at the data as well as anecdotal is that the millennial generations kind of an interesting group. That unlike conservatives, they dont hate government. But up like liberals unlike liberals, they dont love government. And that their experience with government has been it doesnt work very well. Its not very effective. And so this is a generation that at least on economic role of government in that narrow sense is more jump ball open to private sector solutions, alternative to traditional government solutions. However, they are also a very libertarian generation. And that libertarian aspect, including abortion, gay rights among other issues is cut absolutely against the grain of where the Republican Party has been and is one of the Major Barriers to the Republican Party doing better with younger voters. And that, you know, you just look at the data on samesex marriage. You know, its kind of a nobrainer. And i was talking to a conservative leader who has been visiting campuses in a Southern State meeting with people that are in the individual chapters of an extremely conservative organization. Okay . And she was, had just come back from a couple of campuses, and she asked these conservative student leaders what they thought about samesex marriage. And none of them had a problem with it. And these were kids that were, like, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really conservative. Laugh and its like, wow finish. [laughter] obviously, theres some people who dont hold that view. And im not suggesting the Republican Party changed their positions or anything, but i think they eight to look at sort of look at how they sort of weight the issues and turning the volume and frequency down on certain issues they could be more marketable to this newer generation of voters. Yep, harry. Hang on one second. Okay, youre live. So you mentioned a couple of times theres not a lot of flexibility, especially in the house. Do you see that as a more permanent thing or in 20 years time therell be much more flexibility and we could be ready for another wave election . Well, i dont often throw around terms like permanent and ever. Because they sort of thats a really long time. And, you know, stuff happens. And so, you know, thats sort of one of the advantages of doing this for a really long time is youve heard people make these grand statements of permanent this or that, and then its sort of not so much. And ive heard, you know, the demise of each of the parties predicted several times in my career. So im not going to say. I think this is, its a very real trend. Its showing some durability. But its not to say that you couldnt have events or circumstances that could reverse it. You know, in terms of the bitter nature of the partisanship of politics, i think that i have a theory. I mean, no way to quantify this or prove it or not, but to me 9 11 was an event that could have been a real game changer in terms of the political environment. And that the day after the 9 11 attacks members of congress, house members, senators, gathered on the steps of the Capitol Building, and they sang god bless america. And i remember thinking, well, you know, maybe possibly something good can come out of this horrific tragedy where people sort of learn to Work Together and stuff. And, but after that sort of brief kumbaya moment and i dont blame either side exclusively for this because i think pote sides were at fault but the controversy should we invade iraq, yes or no, broke out. And that fight over iraq not afghanistan, but iraq is what sort of tore the two sides back apart to the point where, you know, its worse than it was before. And so you just think, wow. If an event like 9 11 cant effectively change the dynamics, wow, what would it take, you know . Thats pretty scary. But, you know, a lot of, a lot of whats happened, its been coming a long way. And to quote tom mann and norm be ornstein another time, they have another book thats its as bad as you think, its worse i always butcher the title, but basically its worse than you think. Which i agree that things actually in washington are probably even worse than most people think. But tom and norm, who are good friends of mine and i respect e nor or mousily, but they put a disproportionate level of the blame on republicans. And while if you were just talking about the last year or two or three, you know, maybe. But when i step back and go back to the 80s and sort of look at how did we get to this poisonous environment, i think there is plenty of blame on both sides, a lot of blame on both sides. And i can actually point to just as many examples of democrats doing things that contributed to the environment getting to where it is as republicans. And just to throw two out, there was a house race in indiana back in 1984. It was first year i started my newsletter. Between eighth district between Frank Mccloskey and rick mcintyre, two people theres no need for you to remember who they were. But it was, the rex result was election result was sort of like florida 2000. It was basically a tie. God only knows who really won that race. And different counts had mccloskey ahead, mcintyre ahead, back and forth. And what they probably should have done is what New Hampshire had p done in a senate race in the previous decade and what louisiana did in a house race previous decade. Be basically, just say rerun the damn thing. We cant tell. There are too many screwedup ballots and things. We cant tell who won. But the democratic leadership and to kneel was the speaker, jim wright was the majority leader then, and by understanding is that jim wright urged and convinced oneill to basically gavel it through. Basically say, you know, the house constitutionally is the final judge of its members, were the majority, bang, were seating our guy. And the thing is up until that point the republican minority in the house had been, theyd been in the minority for 30 years, 15 consecutive elections at that point. They were a pretty docile group. I mean, they just basically lived off the crumbs that the majority threw them [laughter] and that with very but of them having any realistic hope of ever being in a majority unless they changed parties. This seating of mccloskey over mcintyre and sort of the brazen, arrogant approach to it, it so enraged republicans that some of the most moderate, mildmannered republicans in the house went crazy. Good example, nancy johnson, a moderateliberal republican from connecticut. And that led to the rise of newt gingrich, kind of pushing aside bob michael who was kind of the getalong, goalong Old School Republican leader. You know, newt gets in. By then jim wright becomes speaker. He goes after jim wright on some ethics stuff, pushes wright out. Democrats come back i mean, just sort of warfare develops. But i dont want the blame, put all the blame on democrats, but thats where, um, sooner or later maybe this would have happened, but i think that triggered it. And it was mostly in the house of representatives and where you had this bitter partisanship. And the senate really wasnt like that at all. But gradually, you started seeing house members, democrat and republican, coming over the senate. And, you know, in the house its majority rules, you know . Its and if the minority doesnt like the how things are going, well, thats tough. But in the senate, you know, with filibusters, unanimous concept, all a lot more the senate cant really deal with that kind of partisanship and still function appropriately. And so as you saw these, some of these house members moving over to the senate, it was like a contagion coming into a new body and contaminating it. And so oneover the first signs one of the first signs was the bork nomination for supreme court. Now, up until that point judicial nominations, if you were rejected, it was for one of two reasons. Either, a, ethical or, b, you werent qualified. But the idea of being rejected because people didnt agree with you, that had never happened before. And so when democrats basically rejected the bork nomination, forced it to be withdrawn, that sort of was the first sign that that contamination had started to enter into the senate. And now the senates just as, probably is even worse than the house because its rules, it cant move you know, it was a body designed by the founding father ors to not move easily, quickly, you know . It was supposed to be a very deliberate body by design and does that really, really well. But you inject that kind of bitter partisanship and hatred and then particularly now where you basically have leaders on each side, harry reid and Mitch Mcconnell, who despise each other and despise the other side on top of a very partisan body thats not designed to function like that, and wow, you have a pretty disfunctional situation. I dont remember your question. [laughter] who else . Jack, youve asked a question. Lets go to jeffrey first. You said how earlier most of these elections mid cycle, you know, usually they vote their pocketbooks. But we also talked about young people and their social view, do you see social views becoming more important this how people vote in some of these elections . Um, i think voters do not americans used to vote their economic selfinterest much more than they do today. Or to put it differently, they now vote on issues that are completely aside from their economic selfinterest. So thats why you see, um, a pretty large number of high, very high income people, highly educated people, people who this very high tax brackets who are voting democratic. Why are they voting democratic . Maybe theyre prochoice. Maybe theyre green on the environment. Maybe they support samesex marriage, i mean, you know, whatever reasons. And at the same time, you see a fairly large number of down scale whites who at least theoretically, historically you would have said would be better off with democrats who are voting more and more republican and are getting be more and more conservative. And again, they may or may not be voting against their selfinterests, but theyre voting on social issues, cultural issues than along sort of straight economic class lines. And so, yeah, i think we really have moved away from that to large extent. Not totally, but to a large extent, absolutely. And so its made, its made things, you know, very, very complicated so that, you know, a very poor state like West Virginia is becoming a very red republican state at least on federal issues despite the fact that its a state that used to be as democrat as any. Yeah, david. Hang on. Were going to give this guy a workout. So you mentioned ticket splitting in terms of house, senate and the presidency. Could you speak a little bit on how having an active and especially a competitive governors race could affect that . Specifically, we have competitive races in florida and georgia as well as a lot of house seats, so how does an active governors race affect its hard to quantify these things but, you know, i think active, high visibility races, races that really sort of engage people, um, they obviously draw a lot of attention and help increase turnout. How much . You know, one of my beefs with political scientists is sometimes they try to quantify the unquantifiable. But, sure, it happens. How much . Who the hell knows. But of course it happens. I mean, you know, theoretically if you had, you know, a knockdown, dragout fight, high visibility, a lot of engagement on a mayors race, it could drive up turnout in that city. But as opposed to, you know, really blah, you know, no real then why vote . I we hear a little bit less about it now than we used to, but a lot about why americans dont vote much compared to other countries. And ive always thought that, you know, if you talk to a european, for example be, and you ask them how many opportunities do you have to vote over four years, and generally theyll come up with like two. Three. You know, there might be a state election, a federal election and maybe one for e. U. But thats basically it. And only generally like one thing on the ballot for each one. Think of that here. Think of federal elections, sometimes state elections, sometimes municipal elections, bond issues, special elections. All these things so that over a fouryear period of time im guessing if a lot of states in a lot of states you could vote 10, 12 times, be asked to vote 10 to, 12 times over four years. Now, does that devalue the importance of voting some . Yeah, i think so. Particularly in states like virginia, kentucky, louisiana, new jersey, mississippi that have oddyear state elections plus a lot of municipalities have oddyear state elections, it devalues it. But the second thing is we elect jobs in this country that for the life of me i do not know why we vote on em. [laughter] and, i mean, i consider myself a relatively politicallysophisticated person. The Maryland Special Court of appeals, who are they . [laughter] what do they do . Why are they special . [laughter] youre looking at a bunch of names where it could say elmer f be udd. Nobody knows who these people are. Or, you know, in my home state, louisiana. You know, we elect parish coroners. Who the hell here is of qualified to judge who would be a good coroner . [laughter] or sheriff . Or one of my favorite is the in south carolina. I think they still do this. They elect the agitant general, the head of the state national guard. Really . And so to me, if we just sort of consolidated elections and pruned ballots and, you know, why are secretaries of state for any state, why are those elected . Theres no or state treasurer or, you know, commissioner of agriculture. You know . Whos from texas . Respect there, what, 11 i think theres Something Like 11 statewide Office Holders in texas. What . And so i think that, you know, i think americans probably vote more than anybody else in the world, but its just sort of spread out over a lot of things. But i think if we consolidated it, you know, it would raise the value of voting, and our turnout levels would go back up. Okay, who else . Who has not asked a question . You . You have not. My question is youre opposing narratives in both parties, do you think theres a possibility of more Third Party Candidates entering the field, and if they do enter the field, more likelihood that they would be elected . Okay. Do you have, like, a grandfather that was a big lobbyist here in washington . Anyway or there was a big ag lobbyist years ago, bill taggert. First of all, i think its important to make a distinct between third party and independents. Because a lot of time we sort of use it as a generic term. And third party, you know, libertarian natural law, green party, whatever versus just pure independents. Yeah, i think were probably going to have more independent candidates running for various things. And to be honest, actually, let me approach this a different way. One time trying to figure out how to say this. One time there was, um, the mayor of an extremely large city who was very wealthy who thought about running as an independent for president. [laughter] and he sat down with lots of people to just sort of talk about can an independent win, you know, that sort of thing. And i my view was at the time was that an independent, you know, had a i mean, people were really sick and tire of both parties. They were quick to say they were sick and tired of both parties. But there was a real openness to this. This would have been in about 2006 or 7. And this mayor proceeded to in the course of the conversation basically convince me that there was no way in hell an independent candidate could win a competitive threeway race for the presidency where theres a democratic nominee and the republican nominee. And the argument want like this. Lets say you were the richest perp in the world, you were the smartest person in the world, you were a fab house candidate with a great story to tell, and you never made mistakes. Assume that. And lets say you run as an independent for president. Theres a democrat over here, a republican over here. What would happen . Presumably, you would win a plurality of popular vote which would usually bring give you a plurality of the Electoral College vote. But nobody got a majority. So the election gets thrown into house of representatives where each state has one vote, california one vote, wyoming one vote, and at that time i think republicans had, like, 29 dell gairgses delegations, Something Like that. There was no way the independent could win. I mean, just couldnt. And, but at the same time there was this group or a couple years later americans elect that was out trying to get ballot positions in all 50 states for an independent candidate to get on the ballot. And i remember meeting the guy that was the executive director. I sat next to him at a lunch, at a conference in arkansas. And i kind of laid this out and said tell explain to me why its not impossible, effectively, for an independent to win a threeway race. And, clearly, this had never occurred to him. [laughter] which, you know, prior to this other conversation never occurred to me, so i cant knock him. But it seemed to me if you had a group like that that wanted to do something good, what they would do is try to find really substantial, accomplished people to run as independents for the u. S. Senate and the u. S. House because if you had, like, serious, serious people who were accomplished and done things in life and worthy of respect and clearly competent to do these you put three or four of them that are legitimately independent, not these faux independents like Bernie Sanders or angus king, but im talking about the real deal. You put three or four of those in the senate, you put 10, 15 in the house, now, sure, theres some things, how are they going to get committee ape assignments . Well, if you want my sport on anything support on anything, i would like to have one sort of political assignments for each committee. I think Something Like that would do a world of good. Now, is it ever going to happen . No. No, no. [laughter] you know, for president i just sort of dont see the point. And while with ross perot in 1992 the exit polls showed that half finish first of all, the conventional wisdom is that perot cost george h. W. Bush. Now, the exit polls actually show that of the people that did vote for ross perot in 1992, half of them if you asked them their second choice or who would they have voted for if perot were not running, half of them said chipton and half said bush. Clinton and half said bush. So that would theoretically suggest that perot actually made no difference. Now, as the reality i bet if they had asked a year or two earlier who were you supporting, i bet the vast majority of them had supported president bush and that perot had been so critical so early on of president bush that i think his candidacy acted as a chisel that effect be fly effectively chipped a lot of people off supporting president bush, and then had perot dropped out, half of them would have gone back, but half of them wouldnt. So i think, you know, deep down i think he probably did cost bush the election but not necessarily as clear cut as it seems. Theres no question in my mind that nader cost gore florida and the election. And i think thats why weve seen Third Party Candidates get less support sort of since 2000. The idea that not only that youre throwing your vote away, but youre potentially tipping an election towards your least favorite candidate, you know, if you were a relin in 92 republican in 92, if youre a democrat in 2000, i think thats sort of settled in. So i would love to see more running for other offices. [inaudible] all right. Thank you all very, very, very much. [applause]. This week on q a marty sullivan, the chief economist for tax analysts a Nonprofit Organization that provides news and analysis on state, federal and International Tax related issues. Host marty sullivan, i want to introduce you to our audience the same way we were introduced to you in the washington post