election day, jobs and the economy as the number one issue and spending as the number two issue. and we have, you know, democrats in congress and the president to thank for that, but that was the same issue environment we face it in virginia lasyear in september and october. bumbling governor's race, but experience in virginia, with the most single ouon education and the entire election ccle, which if you had told me that in the governors race i would've said you're drinking too much that day. but you know, the issue was certainly in our favor and voters generically trust the republicans on the economy and on spending. if you look at those governors that have made hard decisions balance budgets by cutting spending, not raising taxes, even, you know, looking at education and health care in areas that traditionally, you know, voters don't like to see us cut, those governors have a lot of support. donald cut $4.2 billion in his first year. he is a $400 million surplus in virginia and he's got a 60% job approval rating. chris christie, same thing. and now, and even worse enviroent. so i hope and pray and encourage all of our candidates or governor select to really look at what some of these other governors have done and make those cuts, make them now and hopefully the economy will come around in the next couple of years and mobile to reinvest some key prioities. >> i want to get to audience questions and a little bit, but first i want to do a lightning round of questioning. what were the biggest surprise is? every election you've got some shockers. i was certainly surprised by some of the governors race outcomes. nathan, what was the biggest surprise for you on election night? >> biggest surprise for me probab was illinois. >> you told me he thought it wa almost over a few months before. >> yeah, that was between you and me. [laughter] he was ailing for most of the selection, you know. and you know several points behind grady. in fact, julius was out pulling him. and to close that cat back i was just amazing and a real testament to him. we d have one person on our staff who insisted for months that he was going to go this race. he told me were by and large democrats who had made up their minds yet and they would eventually come home for pat quinn and he was right. and as just enough margin. >> is very larger lesson that phil brady ran back very outspoken conservative candidate inillino in the key to winning a lot of elections is the suburbs. there are lots of the other states in the future and if their campaign strategy that quinn uses? >> well, yeah. i think with that ratio is that there still is when we have a greater tolerance for mainstream there still a breaking point, particularly in states that have been history of electing moderates. in illinois you have a history of electing moderates from the nortrn part of the state. phil brady is not one of those. i think it shows even though it are greater tolerance for kansas we still have a breaking point. >> do you think illinois was an unpleasant surprise. i think i would agree with nathan that we thought we had a really good shot coming down the stretch the last couple of weeks they are. that's a state where the partnership you see in a l of cases between the dga and the unions really pay off, whereas we literally had been some reports had 4000 paid workers on the ground in cook county leading up to election day. in cook county i think the turnout was higher in cook coun over the senat race. and really i think at the end of the day, that was he story but there is a better turnout observation based on union support. i think the other surprise that was a pleasant prize for me personally was one of the states that i was dealing with everyday was florida. we came through just a bruising nomination contest, where we had over $70 million spent, you know, 95% which is a negative advertisements. and you know, as our nominee, rick scott had a negative image going into the general election until late primary -- and you know, he was upside down. and you know, we sort of thought alex sink had the makings to be a good candidate. didn't turn out that way. i think the skype team ran one of the best campaigns i saw in the country and what is obviously a critically important state. the rga has spent over $98 billion in florida and i know dga was heavily involved. so 50,000 votes will take it. it was, you know, incredibly important to win florida. >> emerged in florida, rick scott tens of billions of dollars of his own frtune in california. make would've been spent 120, 130 -- the same amount of her own money and lost by eight, nine points. it wasn't even close. do you want self-funded candidates or could that deeply backfire? >> i think it doesn't easily backfire, but it can backfire. if i remake with men, men, this is on hindsight. there are smarter than people come by think in hindsight she should've taken a break. she should've let the election cool off of it. after she won the primary emotion eyebright backup on tv the next dy. and so, she had nominated the areas for six months and i think she became her own worst enemy because few of us are tired and they built in this narrative she was trying to buy the election rather than earn it. so i think in that case the smarter thing would be to have her beat the budget, take the summer off and let people pull down and started again on labor day with the new brown was going to win. >> brown was somewhat conventional in many ways. the book, i think california is an example. at the stay where we ran a number of these ces where we had income that democratic governors who were retiring. doyle is a good example, who a in the 30's were the 40's and job approval rating. you know, rendell in pennsylvania. in ts case, you know, we at schwarzenegger who i think his job approval rating was literally in the high teens, low twenties. canosa testing. i think the democrats in brown's campaign did a good job linking. there was one ad for they had the same thing. they did a good job sort of linking to schwarzenegger and that was the killer. i also think, you know, the housekeeper issue, kind of when it came up sort of park to celebrate the middle of the last 60 days of the election. certainly did not help. and we paid the price with the hispanics. i think the overall exit polling showed that we got i think it was 13, 14% hispanics. >> all right. well i wanted to open up the questioning to the audience as i know you all probably have a lot of questions that nathan and so would love to answer. so raise your hand or that they know who wants to ask a question. >> two questions. [inaudible] does having jerry brown and not having the problems or having the problems california is going to have to face, is that a good thing or a bad and for both of you? >> return of the disco era if you will. >> i'm originally from ohio. could you talk more about the downstate because there was a total flip up by think republicans on all of the state races except senator brown in both houses. thank you. >> i think california for all of us in this room, for everybody across the country is a little scy to think about the problems that state is facing fr a physical standpoint. i mean, at some point in the next couple years, they are going to be, you know, asking the feds for significant amount of money and questions whether or not we do it. and i think jerry brown's has got a huge, huge challenge on his hands. the people of california have sort of decided we're not going to win races in states where people want higher taxes and, you know, they sort of decided that's what they want. and so, i'm concerned, you know, as a citizen, you know, looking at the economy and the way things are going. look at all the unfunded liabilities in the state of california has. i'm just not sure, you know, how jerry brown's and that legislature is going to dig their way out of thehole. as far as ohio goes, i mean, that was obviously a huge success story for us. we invested heavily in that race, heavily and early. you know, one of the lessons from ohio inmate and i'd be interested to hear what you think about this, literally the last couple weeks, the lessons of that campaign. normally have to deliver 1000 gross rating points to deliver a single message. in a state like ohio it's literally probably 2500 or 3000 statewide because there was so much going on on tv. all the outside groups come in and so it's obviously a national election. we saw that any member states of states across the country. to the early money there mattered. we invested hevily at rga and early voting, and the infrastructure and state party and some of our key states and ohio. that definitely pay dividends down ticket and across the board. and i think that's obviously a kestate in 2012 and wee really excited to have john k. fick, you know, who is going to be a great overnor, but also somebody who is not going to shy away from building the party infrastructure. i think that's going to be really helpful to her nominee in 2012. >> can anyone hang on for more than one term? >> i think so. i think the story of california is also being told in most other states, probably to a greater deer in california. the fact is mo states have to drastically cut their budgets because 49 states have a balancedudget requirement. if you look at the spending fiscal year 2011, overall state spending is 7% less than two dozen eight, which is lester before the recession. all state governments are cutting spending. california has additional problems because there's so hamstrung hamstrung by the referendum requirement. but look, i will quote our chair, governor jack markel of delaware who left in 2008. in a time like this, why do you want to be governor? his response is that the timely is what you need, more than ever, good people to be governor. if you believe in your candidates, which i do, this is the time that you want them in office. it's a whole lot easier quite frankly eight years ago because you have to say yes to everybody. it was easy to bpopular but a political capital. times like this on the right deficits knife to cut budgets and go back in july caddick and, it's a lot harder to be popular. now is when you need real leaders. if you believe in your candidates, this is when you want them there. the final thing i would say phil is right. one of the things they learned is that relatively speaking you can make a bigger impact earlier out a new kid before because i don't understand, there's some there's some 520 specimens that spent their entire budget the last week of the elections commotions of waste of money. at that point in time, one can be a competing with airtime, everyone of the universe. and to come if voters elect me and all of you, you're not listening to political ads. you're turning them off. i think the smart thing to do, which i think both dj and rj did effectively with start earlier because you get an earlier when people are paying a little more attention. >> question. >> yeah. >> make sure you get some exercise this morning. >> question for both of you. politics in the united states, particularly looking at geography, the southern region, the south of the democrats. basically got wiped out on election night. democrat operative, republican operative, how do you see that? i' seen enough of this too now i remember when i talked about the republican a lot for president, but there's always resurgence. there's always a way to come back. the kind of looking down the road, you know, how do you deal with that in the coming years? >> well, let me say this. i n't think it's quite as bad as it might look. in the way of elections, you will think it's plus five around the country. so you're already down a couple points. you're not going to win that we fear. so it's very tough to win in the south to share. that doesn't mean in a different year we can win. we already for the country and the way the election on top of th is very tough. consider however alex sink came in with 50,000 votes of winning the largest state in the south. another surprise we didn't ntion is jeanne shaheen came very close. roy barnes didn't come quite as close as i thought h would, but held his own and important state. so we did run three competitive races in the south, but in this way oflections where this is the hear from republicans not only have to log down, but they need to in the purple states, too. the purple states have a 50/50 state. this is when you're the party benefiting us to witness with elections. we feel alright we can hold onto some of those purple states and again as we talked before, all ofthem to some modest gains. i think it was probably too much to ask. i think were going to start making inroads and was traditionally diffilt territory. >> states like georgia and texas, you know, these are competitive states. i mean, we think about them now. they're southern state, republican states. texas is going to be a minority, maturity state within the next few yars. and no, i think that's probably one of the reasons why dga took a serious look in the battle of texas. georgia is a competitive state. and likely would be in good campaigns and have good candidates. but you can't take a think the same thing on both sides. we came within, heck, if you look at new england, you know, you are chewing connecticut and new hampshire and vermont with the three states who came within 20, 30,000 votes of winning all three of the states. so to me the storyis moreabout kindness, you know, what our suburban annex urban voters across the country? how they act in? what are they responding to? and how are you communicating their? i think that is really a critical, you know, swing area. when i woke up everyone in my usher in virginia thinkng about how do in prince william and loudoun county and fairfax county? had you in you win those areas? what issues do you communicate on quite exciting for both parties, you know, we have to caution against thinking yeah, we've got x, y or z in the bag because we have seen things change rapidly. >> any other questions from the audience? >> given the swing towards the republican side, not just in the gubernatorial races, can you speculate about what you think the implications migt be for health care, both national policy and actual execution on the ground in the states? >> and were very republican republican governor strike to put sand in the levers of the health care law. it's going to be good at what are theimplications? the >> yeah, i don't think so. i think would be more interesting to see what happens in congress now that they've taken over the house. i don't think there's going to be any germanic changes in large part because i think as time goes on, particularly to the benefits of health care become relays, people will come not more accustomed, but more appreciative of at it is the democrats passed. >> how long does it take for the benefits to become realized? >> you know, i think the jury is out on health care. i was a bit. i mean, we've got 29 republican governors that are going to be speaking with a veryloud, probably more unified voice that we've heard in a long time. you've got really strong policy leaders like governor barbour and jindall and donnell and others and perry who are taking the lead in trying to sort of unify that group and speak with one voice. and so, you've seen a lot of -- using the governors consulting with speaker boehner and others in congress. i do think they're going to play, you know, a more forceful role. it's interesting on health care as you've got governors that campaign certainly this year against, you know, against a health care plan, either repeal or reform. and so, they have to prepare to implement on one track while, ou know, also continuing to fight it on another track. and so, u know, that's a challenge that's going to be interesting to see how that plays out and i'm not sure how it will. >> phil, just to follow up, was health care come without law in any any of the races? >> absolutely. i think, you know, more importantly, you know, someone described the election t me as more of a restraining order on obama's policies. and, you know, ithink taken as a whole, you know, health care was an issue certainly in certain states. cap-and-trade was a big issue that maybe was somewhat underreported, especially in a lot of coal producing areas across the country. it was a big issue in our race flashier in southwest virginia in the rota valley and on down into the ninth district of virginia. but overall, you know, it was the economy and lack of the confidence of the economy. i think the wrong track numbr going on election day was 67%, which is the highestpercentage in the last five years of midterm elections. and then spending. you know, the president's overall approval rating was i think nationally around 43% going into the election were the democrats were able to hold onto governors races, was in those areas for the president's approval rating was five, seven, 10-point, you know, about sort of the national average. >> well, i think were just about out of time, but i wanted to really give a gracious thank you to nathan, phil, dutko, craig for putting the panel together. i think learned not just a lot about what happened on election night, but what results will mean. i think were in for a pretty entertaining but newsworthy couple of year. >> it's always entertaining. >> yeah, thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> gang, we've got about five minutes here is people need to check their crack very and then were going to start the ne half-hour. [inaudible conversations] [applause] >> thank you, folks. appreciate everybody sticking around here. we're going to shift the topic you're a little bit. obviously we were doing some analysis on the races but the rga and the dga and were not going to focus in on what worked and didn't work. i was kind of fascinated that you could spend 200 million of your own money and not get a leg to it, proving that the candidates and the message really does count. it's not all money. so hopefully the senate got that message as well. i wanted to introduce o next speaker here, chris cillizza. houston is the number of times it does. i was very entertaining. if you want to be really entertaining you should go to youtube, enter chris cillizza base camp bp debate night on youtube and it's kind of disturbing. but very funny. he's appealing to the younger audience there. [inaudible] [laughter] >> seriously, it's very funny. chris runs a weblog called the fix for the "washington post." i'm sure many of you have seen it. if you haven't, you need to. and during the campaign season he runs a commentary called the friday light which is looking at the top 10 races at least according to hand and what's interesting about them and why. so you've been deeply involved with all of these races and paying very, very close attention to what worked and what didn't work. and so, in the past were the best thing to do here is to let chris grip on his observations and then use that to stipulate discussion. he's very good at the q&a and very engaging. so let's let them take it fro here. thanks, chris. >> thank you, sir. all right. so, i guess i won't talk for long because the president sitting here anything. does everybody say that? i won't talk for long. they probably do. bill clinton. and finally -- [laughter] anything until i'm sure covered a lot of it. but i would say is this is true at the gubernatorial level and the senate level, too. i think what we saw affirmed last tuesday, which i always think it literally feels like six months ago. i don't know why. it's like time stretches once the election is because it was not very long ago. i think what we saw is candidates in the campaign really do matter in statewide races. .. i would say that's not true problem of the house level by the way. i would say at the house level particularly in a we've election it in some ways if you are the are that's good enough i think you saw that happen a lot of places and in labrador we got elected in idaho should not have won the primary did nothing in the general election who did everything he was supposed to do. it matters less in-house candidates or less money is spent than people pay less attention. it's more of a charlie cook said in the house a parliamentary style collection. it has nothing to do with the two candidates. i would say the what the gubernatorial level the candidates do matter. i was thinking abo campaign and candidates i thought were good. there's always less i think that our good them are bad. that is a depressing thing about politics but i think sometimes you see a kind of race to the bottom. i don't know if you watch the nv samet debate. i have to. they pay me. the only reason i did watch it and it was really not good. you were kind of like i can't believe these people are going to serve. harry reid i think is an able politician i think even his biggest allies would say he's not super telegenic or charismatic so i think there were some bad campaigns. i do think there were good campaigns and i was writing them down and it's funny a lot of the good campaigns this may run counter to the point i made i thought one of the best campaigns in the country was ted strickland and ohio. i thought he did a lot of things right. he was in a very difficult situation, 400,000 jobs lost in the first four years as governor. the industrial co midwest, very difficult for democrats to win when as was proven here but i thought he did a lot of very good things i thought they prosecuted the case against john quite well in the long run came up short think he ran a pretty credible campaign himself. it wasn't a huge disparity like i would say with harry reid a great campaign. other people and trying to remind myself. i thought scott walker was good in wisconsin. he's the republican. he ran a smart outside campaign, good ads. this goes to show conventional wisdom isn't or smartness isn't all contained within the bounds of washington. he had a firm -- immediate firm didn't do political tv, something i don't forget the name of it but it's like red box or something it made me think of those places you get the disease, something like that. his ads were quite good. he ran a campaign the brown bag campaign. he brings his lunch to work every day, drives like a 19922 leota silica, this whole idea that government spends too much and we need to rein in, really good, smart message. i would say especially, who lost to him ran a pretty good campaign. look, it is an odd campaign, but jerry brown did a pretty good job. he kind of tit -- looker, when you're running as someone who married a multibillionaire in a state like california in which tv -- there's lots of states where there is diminishing returns. it's like how much money can you spend on television i know what? as hillary clinton and barack obama proved the answer to that is lots. but i do think -- look, i will use my home state of connecticut. there's only so much money you can spend. you can buy a lot of new york tv and reached the southern part of the stick and spend billions of dollars. linda mcmahon is going to have spent 50ish million dollars. but there is no amount you can spend to get diminishing returns in california. talk about $5 million a week, try more than that, to run any significant statewide television , for get and direct mail, a conservative, hispanic radio, which she did. she did everything literally you could possibly do. and i think jerry brown, it's hard to run against that because you are running against somebody you run 10,000 pints of tv, she can run 20,000 points of tv, you run 20,000, she can run 40,000. so i think that he's smart we tried to shrink the campaign and he took a lot of criticism for that. he's not doing anything, she's winning, it's a disaster. he shrank the campaign because he figured i can't match her and money left but we need to have a short campaign so that i can match her as much as i can on television but some help for waiver of their which he needed and i think ultimately meg whitman didn't turn out to be as good candidate -- -- obviously i am by bias here -- we are not important, everyone ignores us. it is hostility at times toward the press, and there's a great youtube clich if you are at youtube looking at my idiocy you should also search meg whitman, there's a time she does a round table at e-business -- some kind of like green jobs please come and reporters clearly think that when this is over with reporters mostly go to events not because they care deeply about green energy jobs necessarily, but because they want to have a chance to address the candidates especially in california where you don't get as much access. and the meg whitman people didn't want her to ask questions so the shepherd and greet escort out of the room but then somebody, god bless the flipcam, they are like she has to go to another event. she's just like standing in the other room and then they put up a screen to block her so that they couldn't. so those kind of things i didn't wear well or they don't give her the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the media. you know, i think in california it may matter a little bit less because it is such a television state and you just spend money on tv and it didn't wind up being enough. i think california proved that even in a year like this which is a wonderful year for the republicans nationally and is still very, very hard to get elected as a republican. you know, i would point at arnold schwarzenegger but let's be honest he wasn't elected as a republican he was elected as a celebrity. elected kind of it would be cool to have that guy as governor, not because they believed in the principal he espoused. many republicans say he doesn't espoused republican principles. so i think it's difficult to get elected but i do think jerry brown does deserve to have credit for the campaign he ran. courts seals i have. i thought blonden was good and nevada. hispanic federal judge that harry reid gave to make sure he never ran for office. do you run for office? i mean i think he is a star and solve a lot of republicans elected. i don't know how much skill and meeting talked about this but the governors level he saw a lot of republicans elected to lie still and will play a prominent role in the national party. susan martinez, the first latino woman ever elected, very good campaign, very steady, very solid rga helped her in the primary, smartly to get to the primary financially, and i think she will be nicky hailey won by a smaller margin than i think a lot of people thought she would ultimately -- my wife is a field hockey coach and there are ultimately no moral victories. the end of the year it doesn't feel like 8-4 and three we should have won. laughter could either says 8-4 or 11-7. you can argue but i would put -- you have jindal has gotten into the but maligned after his response to the press in 2009 it wasn't particularly good but i would point back to lots of people that have given poo response is. the only people who watch that are people like us. regular people, myprents consider now, my parents barely watched the speed of the union. i don't think they watch the other party's response. we have a tendency to overlook those sorts of things like the think that there is a lot of interesting talent coming up particularly on the republican side and the governors and some very able people. sign going to stop because i would rather take your questions and continue to meander. but if you have questions on anything i will take them. >> i will ask the first one, chris. you are a very wide savvy guy and leveraging the aspects of the digital and social media. to talk about the web campaign and the youtube fata. which candidate do you think really leverage digital and social media well and to their advantage, the past go around, always going clever stuff? >> but question. i think some of it is difficult because everyone was trying to do -- i think the social media became the internet of the 2010 campaign. and 06 and 08 or in 04 we've got to get on the internet. we've got to do internet fund raising and so i think everybody was trying to do lots and lots of that. so no one frankly stood out. the one that stood out and i don't know if this for good or bad at the gubernatorial level, charlie did a lot of good things through davis with some viral with stuff and i don't know whether there was good, bad or indifferent. i mean, demon sheep -- if you ask random people who follow politics a little bit, that's probably the thing they remember most about the campaign. i mean, it was like a phenomenon again, i don't know for good or bad. i guess i would say rather than a specific thing the thing i learned as i used to be a recovery dismissive of wed videos, like, you know, it is a press release basically that they put in video and they would always say you know, people pitch me stuff to read about and say we've got this web video coming out and i like, they cost you like $100 to produce it and it's not the same thing. it's not the false equivalent to a tv ad in which you're putting thousands and thousands of dollars behind in focus group etc. i would say that clearly during this campaign, there is the possibility for those with the videos to have a genuine influence on the debate that the way in which information now moves through twitter and facebook and every other, you know, thing out there socially, they do have power. you can't ignore them in the way that i once did. so that's kind of a lesson i learned. i'm trying to think there's anybody -- look, whitman -- it wouldn't surprise you the people better self funded did the best/most on media, they did the best/most of the singles. when you spent 200 million or -- the last time i checked she was at 142 million of her own. i assume it's going to go we more than that but it's all said and done. when you spend $140 million of your own money on a two year campaign, you do everything well. and from a kind of tactical perspective. linda mcmahon, same thing. use and $50 million on the senate race you're going to do it pretty well. i thought rick scott did a lot of good things, again, because he spent $60 million of his own money. so i'm not sure that any -- i'm not sure that tells us anything all that valuable other than if you have a lot of money you can do almost anything and hire smart pr. that doesn't tell about smart media. every candidate now has a twitter handle. every candidate has a facebook page. does that matter any meaningful way? i'm not there yet. i think it matters to a small number of people. it seems to me like everybody announces everything viet water now. nancy pelosi announced she was running for the minority leader over twittered. steny hoyer announced he was running for cover he's running for, minority whip, michele bachman dropped out of the conference chair grace via twitter. so i think it's something as a reporter you have to stay tuned in on but i'm not sure that it is a persuasion technique just yet. i know its name but i still think the best thing you can do for your candidate is -- is this on television? will this be broadcast, by the way? okay then i won't swear. so, you raise a lot of money and do everything they can to put it on television. i mean, i know that's still, leading ultimately -- why did rick scott in the florida governor's race? because he spent a lot of money on television. a lot of money, as did the rga, as did the vga and alex sink. that's why he won. he was able to find thousands and thousands of dollars in television ads in a state in which television ads are a massive persuasion tool. so in some ways i feel like it is a the more things change the more they stay the same kind of deal. it's cute and interesting and helpful at the margins to be a social media. i did you have to play in that the world, but it's just like i would say for my journalism, ultimately if what i did is right semi pithy things on it would hurt it might not mchugh a successful journalist, it might make you successful on a twitter person but there has to be something they're ultimately. >> a number of key senate and gubernatorial races this year became a three-way race is, colorado, florida -- do you think this is kind of a onetime phenomenon or is this a trend we are going to see going forward? >> yeah, it's a really good question. because if you look at -- you know, if you ask people which party do you identify with, the fastest growing by far is unaffiliated, which, i mean it's not a party, but you get my point. you know, only one independent, only one house, senate or governor's race and that's lincoln chaffee. i don't know he would have won rhode island had they not got in a huge fight with the current president of the united states a week before he election. it's never a good thing in this did the president won 62% of the votes to get in a fight when the swing vote in the state between you and your opponent is a book. so, only one. eliot in may and came close, finished second. he almost won. the hard thing for me is i think what -- you know, we've seen success in the past, angus king got elected as dependent and whatever party, u.s. reform party of lincoln minnesota. we've seen kind of this happen here and there. the thing for me i think is that it would have to happen at the presidential level think before we saw a real extended trickle-down. i think there are certain states, minnesota is one, mean is another where there's a history of kind of an independent candidate being taken seriously. but i think until you see the presidential level i don't know that it will be any more than kind of drops in -- you know, kind of random occurrences, as opposed to there's a real party. because i think people like the idea of a third party because they are sick of democrats and republicans, but of course if there was an actual third party that had a set of core beliefs and the platform they were running on other come to other parties that are bad, it would aim at the people called the conundrum, it's like you have this party but by having the parcel kirsanow there are some people who don't agree with that and they go somewhere else. so i think there is a desire for it. i think you need some of the presidential level to do it and form a party and i don't know who that would be. and obviously i think the most likely thing is for it to be an extremely wealthy person because that's the way that you run the fast advantages that the parties have in terms of organization and just like basis of getting your name on the ballot and all these things that matter and that take time and energy and money. so if you need a wealthy person to go out there and say i'm starting this party with iran when president or not i'm going to fund this for the extended future and no one really does that because it's usually a personality, the ross perot, and i think that's part of the problem. there are people who could do it financially. michael bloomberg. i don't know if running is the defender of the business community is a platform that works in an environment like this. but i would say to need someone who wants to invest not only in their own candidacy but if they come up short to invest in a broad attempt to build it. i've just seen lots and lots of these things kind of go by the wayside. i think we will continue to see -- it's most likely we will continue to see occasional appearances in which an independent candidate is able to break through a three-way race and win with 39% of the vote of the state, particularly states that are more open to that sort of thing where there is a history of it, you know, where the two-party structure is not as strong. i always thought it was funny that people thought dagget in new jersey could win last year. new jersey is the most, you know, the two parties in the party infrastructure is like they are very powerful, it's a very organization based state. the idea that someone could run that is hard to believe and in minnesota or mean or even rhode island for an example. so i guess i'm skeptical because i feel we've been down this road before if you look at the number of unaffiliated and think why don't we have a party? the affiliate's don't fit in one party. >> thank you for coming. i am an ohio constituent and i also work for the senator voinovich, and obama came to ohio 12 times this past election as well as clinton and joe biden. how do the work on their 2012 to improve that? >> i'm sure that nei thing and still debated who won on -- because they naturally both could make a little bit of a case. i think myself and many other people including many republicans expected them to be over 40. they are at 29 and probably stay at 29 in terms of seats they control. but on the other hand and this goes to the ohio question this isn't a majority thing. you know it's not like the house and the senate. it's not all governors races are created equal. some just a matter more. i'm from connecticut so i will put connecticut in there. connecticut doesn't matter as much as texas or pennsylvania or illinois or certainly a high your florida. it just doesn't. big states matter more, especially big swing states that is slated to either gain or lose seats in redistricting. ohio fits all of those things. it's clinton lose two seats probably in redistricting to the governor's office matters there. and it's a huge swing state at the presidential level. look, i always say this, the president doesn't randomly go places. people are like it's kind of quality went to go in for tom. he's going there because they think they can win. they went into all how you as much as they did because they understand how important it is. it was a state that went for him obviously in 2008 and bush in 2004 and remember we were fighting for them i still remember john kerry people we can still win and you're down by 100,000 votes. he's not going to just pop around. [laughter] that was my favorite thing. two times in the post election a bag of uncounted votes were on found. that is the word that was used, bag. how she is that? in connecticut in the governor's race that turned in a whole bag of votes they found a whole bag of votes. that's a total sidebar. i think that, you know, the problem for the president, and i don't think 2010 is necessarily -- in 2010i can't get reelected. to me, they are separate things. that doesn't mean there are not concentric circles and i would say the two biggest problems the president is themselves if i was the president's team, one is the struggle among independent of the party. use all democrats won independent by 18 points in 2006. president obama won them by eight and they lost by 18 nationwide. it was a vast loss, and there are places. portman running easily in the senate race he won independent by 49 points. that's stunning. lee fisher didn't from a good campaign. there's a lot of -- 39 points is a lot in a swing christianson that's one independent and the second i would say is the industrial midwest is a problem for them ohio, west virginia, pennsylvania, parts of new york, illinois, iowa isn't really the belt but it's not a great. pete did the kind of manufacturing belt is a big problem in a high of at the heart of it. i think they lost southern ohio badly. charlie wilson lost in southern ohio, who a month before it was a month ago i would be like you might want to keep an eye on charlie wilson but i don't think he lost 12 house seats to zero. they lost every competitive house seat with the exception of one and was a wealthy guy who had some kind of a republican running come out about a month before the campaign and he lost. but had that not happen i think he may have won about six seats. so, you know, if you're the white house and look what happened in ohio you have to be very concerned. it doesn't mean the president is not going to win ohio. we know what the presidential turnout means. african-american turnout will be much tighter than it was this time. that would obviously help but they can't lose independent in a kind of reagan democrats the way they lost them this time. i would say the same thing for florida it's a different constituency but they can't lose florida -- they can't lose the kind of voters they lost in florida this time again. remember the president got elected with three ander 65 electoral votes. this wasn't a 272 electoral vote victory we have seen a out of a lot. he got elected out of a vast margin. so he still has room to give away a few of the north carolina, virginia, indiana kind of states and still win, but when you start losing big constituencies in big states like ohio and florida i think you've got to worry about it. >> i would say by the way john d. serves a lot of credit. there was a really good race actually. i think that was -- you can debate whether ohio or flora was the most important governor's race. i think ohio was. either one of them was a sports. just because you wind up losing it doesn't mean necessarily did anything wrong, the other day i just did more good. >> were there any surprises in terms of turnout among the various groups of females, hispanics, and was the president's strategy to increase turnout in the end, was that successful? >> you could argue both ways. i would say the answer to that is probably no. youth vote turnout dropped drastically which again isn't terribly surprising. if you have kids, you know. somebody once compared this -- i thought this was a good way to think about it -- he said the presidential election is like the super bowl, right? people who -- you may not care about football, but you watch the super bowl right? a midterm election is like a midseason game between the lions and the packers. it's like if you like the alliance for the packers to probably watch it, right? if you really like football, you watch it, but if you are a casual fan there's no chance that you watch it. that's kind of a midterm election. just turnout drops. it just does. it dropped in pleases the were very difficult for democrats to win. use all older voters make up the larger percentage. those are people who are most skeptical about the health care bill. those are people who -- white older voters have always been barack obama's most difficult constituency, particularly in places like ohio, indiana, illinois, west virginia, pennsylvania, southern illinois. that's where he struggled the most. so those numbers went through the roof, the younger voters dropped. so as a result -- then you had the independent going domestically for the republican. so you combine those three things. i think republicans are going to wind up winning the overall votes cast for the house, by 546 points total. that's a significant victory. it's about the democrats one bogden 06. as a composition in the electorate clearly favored the republican party and favored the republican party and those people who were republicans who wanted to go out and vote it was a hell or high water kind of thing. they were going to vote no matter what. there was interesting things here and there. black turnout in carolina was very high. you saw joe wilson being a somewhat serious race in a district that's quite good. again, you saw nicky hailey when by not nearly the margin people fought and a lot of the was turnout. i don't know why to be totally frank i'm not sure why it was high. it is pretty standard across the board otherwise but i would say the attempt to recreate the baala coalition i think the white house and the dnc that they were never going to get all the way there because it's the super bowl versus the winans versus the packers. they didn't get close enough to mitigate some of their losses. >> we have time for another question. last question. >> i will ask it. so along that same line, chris. was there in the states of the gubernatorial level that you saw where the tea party really made a difference in the general election? obviously we know it made a difference a number of primaries, and that affected the general and maybe maine, but for their states besides maine where the tea party vote really helped drive the election one way or another? >> i think it helped drive and a couple of places based on the primary. colorado, you know, i'm not convinced that scott was going to win that race anyway. but when he was in e nominee, dan maes was, then you have tom tancredo who is a tea party-like candidate running as the american constitution party. i think he took some of the vote. i would say it seems to me less obvious in the governors' races than it does in the senate races. i think part of that is just because what 80 doherty is based on is reduce federal spending, shrink the size of the federal government. it is less relevant in the governor's race than when you're in electing someone for the senate or the house. i think that said, republican candidates benefited broadly from the energy and enthusiasm in the tea party movement on election day than the most important thing this is so clich i remember watching tv the last week before the election and they say it's going to come down to the turnout. of course it is. laughter could that is the most obvious thing in the world. so, the person who gets the more votes is going to be theperson who wins. okay, deep analysis. but, you know, i think it has to do with how the composition of the electorate and basically you had republican candidates benefiting from the fact that the tea party was very energized and willing to come out and vote for whatever candidate -- or voting against and a lot of ways, the democratic candidate. i'm not sure they were voting for the republicans, but republicans benefited in the fact it is a by a very -- by mary choice. if you don't like a contador voting for b. you may not like b and the polling would suggest people didn't like b or at times they are historically low levels but when the choice you decide you're not voting for when you're voting for the other by nature so i think the tea party helped to but i don't think they cost the republican party seats in a way that on the gubernatorial level i think you can point to certainly in delaware. you can see everywhere else whether, like sharron angle wasn't a particularly good candidate so i'm not sure they had agreed option. i'm not sure if chey norton, lisa murkowski is going to win in alaska even though joe miller be heard in delaware clearly it cost them a seat. mike castleas going to win, christine o'donnell was not going to win. there's nothing at the gubernatorial level i look at that says that cost them a race. colorado is the closest thing but scott wasn't to a candidate. on the level more on the candidate picking a level of the gubernatorial side. >> thanks chris. >> thanks, guys. [applause] spec all right, gang. it said. hopefully you find this helpful and interesting. don't forget to check out his blog. i making the plug as hard as i khanna. gough to youtube. we will see next week on the rga in san diego and of course the dga at christmas, which is the key d.c. event that is what, december 1st? yes, december 1st. thank you very much for coming and see you all soon. [inaudible conversations] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> the republican governors' conference holds their convention in san diego next week. we will bring it to you on cspan networks and c-spaorg." on cspan today, "washington journal"is the next live with your phone calls and later, a look at the future of health care from the alliance for health reform. and then about 45 minutes, ap economics writer takes a look at the