The first africanamerican president to make campaign and at the end of it i think even people who had not voted for barack obama, lot of them felt good about breaking down racial barrier, where the country was. I think there was a sense that there was an opportunity at that point to kind of break through the politics that we have seen, the gridlock and polarization, that sort of thing. I knew that this charge each of campaign was not going to be in assets as riches story as the 08 book because of the absence of some of the personalities. The country was a different place. President obama was certainly in a different place. And as i went through the campaign while the concerns i had was is there going to be an interesting story to tell . As it turned out there was for some reason is that we did not expect. The republican race was at times more bizarre than anyone could have scripted. David maraniss, my friend to is a brilliant book writer and has written a great biography of obama said to me at one point during not late 2011, you know, with all due respect to use serious political reporters we really ms. Hunter thompson right now. [laughter] i agree with him. When i got done with this as i was finishing this book was struck me about the 2012 campaign and one of the reasons why i picked the subtitle is that i think that that 2012 campaign told us more about who we are as a country, where we are politically and where we may be heading. In other words, the 2008 campaign for all the drama and excitement was in many ways a kind of fall syndicator. 2012 in the gritty this, as you say, the kind of emptiness of the contents, the nastiness of that times and the deep polarization tells us more about where we are and bear were likely to head over the foreseeable future. I think you touched on something there that john nichols in your book you certainly right about it as well you have a liner lyonnais says that in 2012 money be money. That indictment of our current political system and the way that elections are run in our country really shines through in this book. Describe really what has changed and what we are seeing out there in elections . I hope my microphone is on. Can you hear me . You paid for this microphone. I pay for this microphone. [laughter] bill crain. We built it. Its actually very apropos. There are people paying for things in politics. This is nothing new. The 2012 campaign was the First Campaign to come after the Supreme Courts ruling in citizens united. And this is an interesting dynamic in american politics. Certainly i dont think the founders imagined that the Supreme Court of the United States would be the dominant player in our politics, but it is. There is simply no doubt about that. The Supreme Court of the United States is rewriting and restructuring our campaign law. The Supreme Court of the United States recently throughout substantial portions of our Voting Rights act. And i would remind you that the Supreme Court of the United States made george w. Bush president of the United States in 2000 after al gore won the election by 540,000 votes. A relatively decisive win in most democracies around the world. So we have an interesting dynamic in america in that we have lost control as people over our structures of democracy. They are being restructured by folks other than ourselves. That came into play incredibly in 2012. Because, you know, many of my friends, very honorable friends would say, you know, it did not work out that badly. I was there on the night before the election when barack obama was out with Bruce Springsteen simi we take care of our own. It looked like this very populous moment where, you know, for all of your talk about how great 2008 was, i saw some pretty cool things in 2012. Your thinking obama, man of the people, springsteen at his side, he beat romney. Well, he beat romney with 1 billion for himself and his supporters it came in on his side. Romney had about 1 billion. So it was in a race between grassroots, folksinger, populist moment and the big money. It was a race between big money and big money. Now, the people in this room may like the obama big money more than a romney big money. And i can accept that, but i want to emphasize, almost everything about the 2012 campaign was different because of the money factor. Barack obama mastered the use of the internet. They have no war room that was technologically so entranced that they had the head of global cannot have lost what they were doing. Im not kidding. And the people who did this get hired in the top jobs and technology. They figured out how to use an immense amounts of data to move our politics. And with all due respect to people are interested in what tsa does, i am far more interested in what politicians are doing with our data to influence us to vote one way or the other or to act in one way or another even then i am with some aspects of what the government does. Let me close on this important note, and this is a vital one. Barack obama and his team did not crunch all that data to figure out mostly how to move voters. Plumb the primary things that they were doing was to figure out how to raise money. And this is a deeply unsettling reality. The innovation of politics, in the interest of and the direction of reaching People Better ways, they innovated. This is all about us, about how to get somebody gave you 300 to give the 500. And when the Democratic Party becomes the party really kind of focusing so much on the raising of money and the Republican Party similarly as a party focus so much of raising of money you end up with politics that ultimately is not about democracy, not about whether the vote matters most. It is a dollar christie. Its about how you get the money and what you do with it. I can assure you, if you care about inequality, care on climate change, if you care what any of the fundamental issues facing this country you cannot what our country to be headed in the direction is set in because it said it away from a country where you folks make the choices for the country. A handful of very, very wealthy people like the choice that back thats a great segue to john schwarz his book common credo lays out ultimately a whole provision that says and does politics that is so riven by division and partisanship that we ultimately can be united around a common credo, around a set of ten ideals that he believes both liberals and conservatives left and right can share and unite in no way that actually does, as you say in the subtitle, after a offer path. You elaborate on what that common credo is . Hello says. First of all, i want to thank all of you for being here. What a wonderful crown. We do share a set of beliefs. Virtually everybody in this room, virtually every american believes what comes down to us from the founders and that represents the founders vision of freedom. Their idea of what freedom requires. And they give you three very quick examples, one of them the most basic principle of democracy is majority rule except in cases regarding fundamental rights. Another principle is that each person should have reasonably equal voice in the governing process. The third principle is the American Dream idea, there should be sufficient Economic Opportunity for every individual to be able to the provide a dignified living and get ahead to their efforts. As i say to all of these principles comedown from what the founders believed freedom required. And we can see how very far we have moved away from these principles. Just think about a majority rule for a minute. Majority rule does not operate or apply in either the senate or the house of representatives a more. In the Senate Everybody knows about the filibuster, so i dont have to say anything about that. In the house there is something called the has a role. And that basically says that a majority of the Majority Party can stop anything from coming to the floor of the house. Well, that means that less than onethird of the house of representatives can basically veto any legislation from coming to the floor. So neither house operates by majority rule. And if our houses of congress did operate by majority rule we would have today a comprehensive immigration reform, much bigger stimulus for the economy, higher minimum wage, a public auction and health care reform, would not have had a government shut down just to give you a few examples of a huge difference that eliminating the jury will is the dividend as regard, reasonably equal voice, describes very well how know every day americans can possibly believe that the explosion of money and elections can possibly believe that they have a reasonably equal voice or can believe anything other than the government has become essentially corrupted by money. And rising income inequality in the United States means that more than one third of all workers in the United States either are paid a living wage are unemployed and looking for work. A stunning threequarters of American Workers have experienced stunted pay raises that go far behind their productivity increases. What is more, the income going to the top remove some must assumption that the economy can no longer create plentiful opportunity for americans. This is the single greatest force suppressing the creation of new opportunity in america far greater than any other factor, including vocalization choice. So if we want to understand the main economic and political problems facing America Today we need to think about how very far we have moved away from basic principles that we all share, principles, moving away from them to the great disadvantage of the nation, principles that are explored in the coming greed no. Thank you. [applause] going back. Al is big audiences like this one, people watching, the nuts and bolts along with the subject matter. I think thats especially true for the kind of book like 2012. Theres a long history of the president ial campaign bucks. You mentioned hunter thompson. We just lost joe mcginnis 01968. That really turned the idea of the making of the president s office said. Talk about writing these kinds of books in this day and age, especially one where as opposed to 1968 and 1960 are past elections rarely even 2008 twitter and facebook can blocks are all providing information instantaneously. What does this kind of book provide . What are some of the stories that you would tell the allies would have never been able to tell . Its interesting because in some ways the new technology has made books like this more relevance. There was a time. Obviously there was one john row with the making of the president then there have been in some specific campaigns the Campaign Book that seems to capture the moment. Tim crosses book in 1972, the joe mcginnis book. There was time for probably a decade in which publishers were very reluctant to assign authors up to write a book like this. A feeling was with some legitimacy we know everything that happened. The press is covering this in such minute detail that we know the whole story and there is not enough left to tell. Therefore we will deal to sell these books and they are worth doing. That began to change. To some extent that began to change in 2008 because there was so much interest in barack obama and particularly the race between barack obama and hillary clinton. But in both the 2008 book, my late friend, one of the things that not only as things now cover in great detail but theyre covered in such minute detail that move so quickly that we dont know for a moment to moment. The press to my god bless us all, we seize on everything. You know, were like the little kids of the soccer match. We know stay in one place. We go wherever the ball is. And in two minutes later were doing something else. The value of the fun of doing a book like this is to go back and kind of fun pack a lot of offense, some of which we have forgotten about which more significant that when i thought, many of which we paid attention to a less significant. To retell the story and try to get people who were in the middle of it to be more candid about decisions that were making and the things that were happening. But also what i tried to do in this book, step back from the minutia. In a book like this now i try right from the inside out which is to try to tell people stories that didnt know. As a long interview i did with mitt romney after the campaign that was quite revealing of what he was thinking about during the campaign and afterwards. I wont go into detail off, but there was a lot of new information that came out about that. I was able to get information about what the Obama Campaign was doing with data and analytics. There are just fun things about Chris Christie and the courtship of rich people trying to convince Chris Christie the run. So thats part of what you do. Youre telling people things that even though they live the campaign in real time they didnt really know the time. But i also try ride from the outside and because not all wisdom resided in the headquarters in boston and chicago. A lot of the reason that the outcome ended up the way it did had to do with things that were out of the control of the candidates and the political strategists and not just the role of money. One is obviously the state of the economy. That is always a staple for president ial campaigns and certainly was. The economy turned out to be just enough, not very good but just enough that president obama could win reelection as opposed to just bad enough in which it probably would not have one. A second factor which a caller quite aware of an arizona but we seal of the country is the changing demographics of america and the growth of minorities and how that is changing politics, Political Attitudes and the shape of particular states as we think about how you telling antielectron college. Deeply imbedded Political Polarization that exist which is not simply of the Political Class. It goes much deeper than that. We talk about the role of money. I know that a vast majority of people feel that government and politics has been corrupted by money. Yet when people go out and vote they dont vote on that issue. They voted a sense very off to a tribal way. You can consider yourself a republican, 93 of 100 of youre going to vote for the republican nominee a matter what you think of us all these other issues. And so this polarization, inside out and outside in in a way to provide a perspective on the campaign that you could not do in real time. He spoke of a corrupting influence of money. You touched on that. Your book talks about a complex of issues and establishment, both money in the media. Talk a little bit about that second piece to the extent that you cant about the role that the media is playing in our elections and what we can do about that. We talk about media the biggest mistake we make, and everyone does it, to talk about media as a whole. And were usually talking about media as a teacher. I think this guy has a better job as a one of the racine covering politics in this country. I think that says he does something to he integrates polling data. Its actually really valuable and its often counter to trick conventional wisdom. He does this sprightly in them a huge fan. Unfortunately is part of a great big machine. No matter how hard this little rabbit on the wheel of the machine tries to run the right direction the machine is dysfunctional and it is an absolute crisis, whats going on in this country. Money in the election complex because its exactly right. Roughly 40, 45 percent of the people in this country, 40, 45 percent, you can get them. And then you do have a portion to often much smaller that might be swaying voters piggies of the folks who get around to thinking about the election the day before. A very interesting, but john not interested in the democrats cannot not interested in the republicans are the swing voters and interested in what the money in the election complex actually succeeds in doing this country. That is with the downgrading of journalism, the political journalism has been through absolute prices down grinning, Washington Bureau is closed, newspapers have laid out for the better part of 20,000 employees a loss five to six years. Radius stations have laid off thousands of onair personality. Tv stations shave minutes off the easy evening newscast in order to fit more ads around the newscasters. News adjacencies. The reason people want and have at is because theyre actually come to watch the news to find out about stuff and the people who run the news caught time off and so what do you end up with in a situation like this . In our book we studied how the money is spend. Most of the money is never spent. Many places socalled independent groups. As one of the great. Independent groups that come in and say to this. But this is and some senate races as much as 95 percent of the money was negative ads this candid it is an awful person. Do not vote for that candid at which point the canada was called off and it took all their resources. No, actually, just to clarify the other can it is awful. Did not vote for that person. What you have the situation. Imagine that this is happening where cocacola was coming on air every day and saying pepsi makes you fat. Pepsi makes the teeth rot. And then cocaine for pepsi comes back and says, well, yak, but, you know, really in reality coke roger stomach from the inside out and then you die. In about a week nobody would buy either product. Then they both turned on our; and it will be over. Carlo would be gone altogether. Thats what we do in politics. And the tragedy of the situation is that the 50 percent, close to 50 percent of americans dont vote in president ial races, 50 percent of the available or electric, roughly 60 percent dont vote in offyear elections. Roughly 80 to 85 percent of votes. If they might tentatively step toward the political process and show the slightest bit of interest in it they are overwhelmed with the message that everyone in the process will make your teeth rot, will make your stomach rubbed, will make you die. And so people to retract from the process. We have a media system in this country it covers more often than not the conventional wisdom of our politics. Some people actually cover was call the money primary, more interested in whether youre raising the might of that yourself that they are and whether you have any good ideas. Think about that water down. And then we have a lousy job and not enough of it thats the medial. And then overwhelmed with these coming in, overwhelmingly negative. We have a situation in america where we lead the world and low turnout in elections. Our democracy is not functioning. When half the people did not vote no president ial election that his failure. Twothirds of the people dont love in offyear election, and it will define almost everything about our government. That is a failure. In a failed system will we do if were smart is step back and say how do we fix our media . What must we do . How do we learn from other countries that provide massive funding to public and independent and noncommercial media . At we fix our politics . Again, learned from other countries which in some cases ban tv commercials before an election because they dont want their voters to be propagandized but actually have used confirmation. In almost every case there are massive limits on spending in politics. One of the things we talk about and the but, when the countries around the world. In germany we had no action just last year. Percapita we spent 32 to every 1 is that. 321. Germany get a 72 percent turnout. We got about 52 what this tells me is we set up a political system that produces failure. Thats a lousy system. It ought to change. We ought to reform it. This is a great country. In a great country ought not to have a lousy political system. [applause] a question. Were about to get to the point were once open up to the audience. People do have questions for one or more of our panelists. Please make your way to the microphone. We will start turning to the audience questions. As people are coming up let me ask john schwarz, john nicols in the talking about the state of our democracy. One of the things you do your but so well is go back to those moments and take the idea of the founders which in recent years really has been very much appropriated by a lot of the people on the right and show their progressive, if you will state, show where some of these founders are coming from as they talk about america and our economy in the way our democracy should run. Tell us a little bit about that and how that applies to where we are 2014. Well. Its a pretty big question, pretty broad. I guess you mentioned the economy. I will confine their remarks to the economy which is the Biggest Issue in front of americans. If we could fix the economy it will make a lot of difference. So the founders looked at Economic Freedom not as voluntary exchange or a free market, although they were in favor of volunteer exchange and the freemarket. But Economic Freedom to them was conceived in terms of opportunity. The opportunity, hegemonic of rigidity to be able to provide a dignified living in get ahead through means under your own control. That is what freedom was, having that kind of opportunity. Today in the United States as a mentioned earlier that kind of opportunity is absent for probably 80 percent of americans for a third, as i mentioned, of workers because they are paid beneath a living wage war are jobless and a looking for work. But for the rest because they are a part of being free, getting to return from your work seventyfive to 80 percent of American Workers pay falls way behind their improvement in productivity. As i mentioned the results of this, it violates the founders principles about what kind of opportunity is necessary for freedom. We have gotten the right has gotten to a voluntary exchange in a free market. That is not what the founders believed. So if we had the kind of opportunity that the founders believed dead, just a quick tabulation, it would add more than a trillion dollars of consumption to the economy because theres such a huge difference between what households at the top of the income scale spend and what a Median Income american spends. Difference of 60 . So it takes so much consumption out of the economy, as i mentioned. He put all that consumption back in the economy you be talking about 15 million jobs. Thats how much a little more than a trillion dollars to support. Plus there would be much higher wages for 80 percent of American Workers. And i think we would be not asking the questions about the American Economy that were asking today about why the economy is so impotent. It would not look impotent to us all if we were following the principles of the founders regarding what Economic Freedom is. Can i jump in and just make two points to mac one related to what john said, theres a very interesting new book by political scientists call who votes now, an updated version of a classic work done in Political Science about who votes and why. And the authors of this book and looking at 40 years of data have concluded that there is difference in the use of nonvoters verses voters on issues of income inequality. Voters, whether liberal, moderate, conservative, those people who vote tend to be less in favor of redistributive politics and policies that are nonvoters. But one of the reasons that nonvoters to not feel the need to vote is because they see very little difference in what is being offered. I dont have a solution for that although i dont think either party has had the courage to rethink what has been orthodox economic thinking that has existed for a couple decades. And i think that will be one of the challenges for whoever runs in 2016. The other thing i want to do is just skipping over what john said about the press, theres no question that we dont do as good job as we should, but i think that one of the interesting aspect is we are both seen as declining in influence and power and blamed because we have so much power were misusing it. We are in a very challenging environment, whether its the Washington Post of the New York Times or the Major Networks where the cable networks. Theres a fragmentation of the media which in many ways you could argue is quite good, theres a democratization. Theyre is a growth of parsenia. Some people think its good. Some people think its not. The media is one large entity and yet it is a totally different series of smaller entities and it was when i get into the business. The degree to which we should be blamed for some things i think is legitimate, but sometimes too much is expected of us given the limited choice resources, and floods, power. Were starting to get readers in a way that we were not 15 years ago. Were looking for people to pay more attention to what we agreed and maybe be influenced by that. Its a tough environment, not just to do political reporting but to do all kinds of journalism today. It and never somebody talks about the work that we do except its apropos. My friend in a previous book said that one of the things we do is make the case for journalism that journalists to not be did not seem to be willing to make for themselves. This is an important thing to understand. I know the people that to journalism. Im one of them. Its hard work. People a passionate, but the fact of the matter is we have cut down on the amount of people doing the journalism that actually costs money to do thats hard to do. Ill give you a good example. When i was a kid we would all i am actually catching up a few. But i got on that Campaign Plane with bill clinton in 1992. No, my gosh. When bill clinton was flying rat the end of that 92 race there were three planes. It was incredible. There were some many reporters. An incredible crowd of people. Maybe not a good way to do journalism. There were so many of us. And this is the interesting thing, i asked different questions. We had what you might refer to as a dial up to all these questions and challenges coming in rise to something that actually battered. Cut so much of that out. When the National Press corps the obama plan was so crowded. There were a lot less people out there. The fact is the role of the sparrows in washington, a lot less state health care rose. Insufficient journalism to democracy. We have been insufficient journalism to democracy. If we continue to accept it and if we continue to accept it we must accept the reality in which hundreds of millions of people will go to vote without adequate information on which to vote. The combine them and say it will be did spinto are strong yen and at or we can say theres something fundamentally wrong with the media system that leaves people under informed and that allows for advertising to be so powerful that it is excepted as the dominant force in our politics, tv ads often far more than one journalists sources believe. This does not work. We have to fix it. Weve got 20 minutes remaining. If you do have questions make your way to the microphone. Well ten mention that he did have a solution to the problems. I just want to know that i not only think about principles but also about solutions. You know vendor need to find solutions that conservatives and progressives can accept. So one thing that conservatives several things that conservatives want is first of all the one a better market for their goods. There would also like to be spending less on social programs progressives want full employment and higher wages. Believe it or not, conservatives are also interested and opportunity for people. So here is my proposal, we talked a lot about tax reform. That focuses to some degree on corporate taxes. Supposing we worked so have a very substantial reduction of corporate taxes, conditioned on companies following certain pay guidelines regarding pay at the pump versus pay at the bottom and that also took into account profits of a company verses the total compensation that they paid to their production and non supervisory workers. If we did Something Like that it would be a substantial tax reduction for businesses. They would get reduced taxes without actually having to spend any more money because theyre already spending the money on compensation that goes to the top. It would just be distributed differently in the future. Its not really a redistribution except talking about the earnings in the future. Is not the same kind of taking away money that has already been turned. In any case ive spoken with both republicans and democrats about an idea like this. At the very least i can say in a deal like this will bring both sides to the table. If we could accomplish Something Like this with a proposal it would go a long way as i mentioned earlier to fixing the key problem of our economy which is a lack of demand, domestic demand for products and businesses. They dont produce, hire, invest if there is not demand. [applause] we could win world war two. [applause] isnt that in reality . Well, there used to be. In our economy there used to be two things that kept this problem of middleclass wages healthy. One was, of course, the union movement. The second was a very high tax on top in comes. So with that very high tax, of course, people have less incentive to ask for raises. Also then it disappeared or much less prevalent. The proposal im suggesting which come straight from government might help to replace those things that we have lost from the world war ii. Luckily we dont have to worry about winning world war ii they cut countries in europe index in a neighbors. Those days dont happen anymore. Yes. And never referendums. Exactly. We have a bunch of questions. I ask the questioners to keep their questions short. I asked the authors to keep their answers short and mortar to as many as we can. I dont know if you heard the trees may be that in costa rica in order to get your cars license you have to vote and 84 percent turnout. To these dire conditions in our country offer any kind of resolution such as were seeing around the world . First off, many countries around a world incentivize voting in somewhere another. The try to get people to go vote. That was a big part of the research we did, this notion that theres a priority high turnout elections. They want that. The United States, i see very little of it in this country as a whole, formal priority high turnout election. That is a profound reality. We need to the alter our mentality. We have to say that a failure to do so to my failure to make democracy work as we have this incredible number of people who are disenfranchised does lend itself to a popular response. It is my hope the energy that we saw with the occupy movement, the energy that we saw in 2011 with mass rallies and mobilizations in places like madison, wisconsin and columbus, ohio and other parts of this country will continue because reform in this country has never come from the top. It is never been a bunch of wealthy elites sitting around saying we have a two good. It is always i mean thats actually what a lot of people waiting for. Trickledown reform. As always come from the base. But i would tell you is that its what we ask for the become so very important. If we do not ask for constitutional amendments that actually alter, structurally alter some of what we do including the money in politics, if thats not our elton all of the reforms we at one point will come back. Just to let the history of this great country to keep going back and forth. Its time for us to actually trying to afford. Idc a lot of potential for incredibly passionate of the mans. He had the demand for a constitutional amendment that addresses the crisis in this country just as we did we give women the vote, governor of the poll tax and gave 1821 year olds the vote. The reality is for so many people today politics has become a spectator sport rather than a participatory sport. A lot of what were all talking about today hinges on people deciding that theyre going to operate or act differently. Whenever their grievance, and there are obviously grievances left and right, but whenever the grievances their guard to get involved and try to do something about it. You know so much of what youre suggesting for what john is suggesting cant happen unless the electorate in some significant way says we really want to go in one direction with this correction and sends a signal as opposed to doing what we have seen of the last decade which is in a sense gridlock or income inequality or whether the problem is on the horizon. In fact not acting on those convictions and operating in different ways. One quick what if 16 states formally demanded that the United States amend the constitution to get the money out of politics connect up be pretty amazing. That has happened what im telling you is i think we have a massive Grassroots Movement right now making a huge demand to give money and politics. Unfortunately i think that a tremendous amount of are in the Political Class doesnt recognize that people are literally begging for the reform and formerly acting across this country. Good afternoon. On the students here. I have ambitions to be a political journalist. Im curious to know what advice you have for someone like me who wants to try and fix this media machine that we have . John nicols will answer the question. [laughter] when i was 11 years old arrow down the main street in wisconsin on my bike and went and said i read the constitution and bill of rights. And reporting for duty. Ive been at this thing for a very, very long time. I can tell you that its in some ways easier that has ever been and in other ways harder. When i have a school you could literally be looked at the back of editor and publisher in a raw these japs to be due to a small paper than medium paper. Today a lot of small papers arent there are not hiring. The reality is that we have entered into this age where individuals become experts and start a blogger do something on line. I dont think thats too final thing that in and of itself is sufficient. Did really get something. Dsk says dan is a readable. Im not kidding. They to tell you that thats a challenge, but thats what you have to do. You have to in your state replaced it so good that people is going to come and find what you do. Maybe then some wire you. Thats crazy. They silver get so good at reading, they are times higher than in any gun real work. The only other thing i would add which is very smart is try to find a place where you can learn from a good editor or from good colleagues. Thats the way. Of all is said to people find the best place you can work we can do real work and learn to do better work. By the time i go in to the elections of heard so much that i cant stand anybody. I dont really feel like voting. As a look at the candidates in that say im voting for the lesser of two evils. Then i star sang, oh, look at all these other names on the ballot. How come i have not heard about them. These people are important in my life because theyre running the smaller offices. That the newspapers told us about these people . No. We hear about them maybe will tell us whether theyre married, how many children they have, what school they went to and thats about what we did as far as information about these people. Another thing that i if you can wrap it up. Your question. Okay. And let me just, this section of the book written about the elena to the governor race. If you know anything about amelya being the to a governor is a big deal because they put together is in jail lot. Being rich and a governor is very important question of malign my home state police. Not at all. Ive had that as a way of changing term limits. Its full employment. It is. Indeed. In 2010 they had an election for lee to a governor of illinois. A bunch of very qualified candidates to local officials, legislators. One guy came in and won the nomination. After the nomination it came out that in addition to some of the allegations of drug and personal problems of all sorts of issues that were incredible revelations about this guy who had essentially bought his way into the nomination, the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune columnist said maybe we should cover debt race. And i dont blame 81. This is the reality of America Today one of the most Dangerous Things in the world is an editor says people are interested in that. The fact of the matter is that as we have held up political journalism is not pare down. We cover washington pretty well. We cover our statewide toplevel race is pretty well, but we are hauling out the coverage of local races. This is producing a reality where money becomes absolutely definitional because if youre a wealthy person that wants to buy your way into lowerlevel position it becomes really doable. If you can start working your way up the ladder with money then suddenly youre a statewide elected official. It should be at one. The last question, the second most important person in the state is here. The former chair of the arizona Democratic Party. Second most important is the current share. Alternative over the bill for a last question. Thank you, former chair. You can inspire to add one day. And now. Already. This morning he brought up an idea that i really had not thought about talking about how their contribution not only went to canada is but one to hide the information. For instance, the making of talking about social security, abolishing medicare. Something i keep hearing. Could be because of my position. I have a bias. But i heard it again. I heard yesterday in a radio. There it is extremism on the right and equal extremas laughed i just simply dont hear that. Maybe its because of where i said. How do we come back that . In arizona politics the extremism that seems to me is a strictly on balanced. Great question. Let me take a quick hit. Look, what we know is this to my group of very, very wealthy people formed a thing called fix the dead and one out and said that as part of any solution to our debt problem we have to look at ways to cut social security, medicare and medicaid. We spent a lot of money and actually talked about that issue right up until the point when politicians went out and talk to the American People and found none nobody liked that idea. They actually spend money trying to a young people to throw their grandparents and of the bus and found the young people had a taste for. So the fact of the matter is we have a terrible problem in this country were very wealthy people are able to come and, spend an immense amount of money and plan an idea in our politics as somehow legitimate and much of our media then says, local we have to cover both sides. The end of the day we spend years debating doing something that is absurd and should not be done. [applause] again, when i was a hint person i thought this was funny in great. What the heck. As i crawled around feeling like i would actually like my country to be debating the kind of stuff that this guy is proposing. Real Solutions Rather than silly deviations that rich people pay to make a stock about. So i think thats the biggest problem of money in politics, not the candid its in the campaign but the dumb ideas that were forced to discuss again and again and again. When we beat them at the polls that come back. Zombie ideas walking a. And so on that offer over. I dont think that the extremism is the problem. At least it is at the surface deeper than that in my view. The real problem is a growing tendency of some groups and even leading politicians to be immune to facts cadaverous. And not give a pitch to john nichols. If you read john nichols but if find a solution to this which was journalism masson operated in the 60s and 70s that actually call people there would not let individuals get away with the kind of things that journalists seem to let people get away with now. You can find out if you read the New York Times and the Washington Post. There are ways in this country find out, but it is leaders completely ignoring facts. Aaron brown senator john kyl he talked about planned parenthood as 97 of the funds went to abortion when it was 3 percent for 10 percent of Something Like that. He said, well, he did not contend his statement to be factual. [laughter] and the leader not he was embarrassed. The preston follow upon a. It was just reporting as we said. I think the idea that what the press doesnt call up one side verses the other is exaggerated. A place like the post of the New York Times does operate under a different set of standards and values set ben does a more partisan media. Thats fine. Orbitz 34 years ago in which it talked about the decline and essentially the impartial arbiter or referee of democracy. Roldan as been played by, you know, a place like the Washington Post, the New York Times or a think tank. In other words an institution that isnt fully brought in to one side or the other. Those of us who were in those places are trying to do that. One of the challengers, and this is not so obvious to all people get the information they want as opposed to seeking the permission of may challenge of. Its easy to have your views reinforced because you can ignore the places that might challenge of. Theres thats the age in which we live. The other is one of the things we have seen is that in the past 20 years if youre republican or democrat youre not any more or less enamored of your own party. You see your own party basically in the same way, generally positive. But if youre a republican and with the Democratic Party orchard a democrat elected the Republican Party you see that the other side and a much more negative way. Therefore as a result of that there is so little incentive to Pay Attention to the ideas of the other side you could try to bring left and right together. The system is resistant. The political system is resistant. Until we begin to crack through that a lot of what people in this audience would like to see is going to be difficult to bring about. You have to have that kind of change. Please thank all three of our authors for a very wise and insightful session. I hope all of you will go see them signing books. Books will be available for purchase at the you of a bookstore. If youre a fan of the tucson festival as i hope you are, i hope youll join this group come become a friend of the festival. If permission is available and outside as well as online. Everyone is moving. I encourage you to move out. Wed like to thank the city of tucson for sponsoring this venue and also the university of Arizona College of science for sponsoring this session. Presentation will last about an hour, including a little bit of time, definitely, for q a. So please hold your questions til the end, and at the conclusion of the session, lily will be at a signing area if youd like to meet her and have her autograph one of her books. Out of respect for the authors and everyone else here, please turn off your cell phones. And then well get started. So this is lily koppel. She actually joined me in escaping the polar vortex of new york city, so were both super excited to be in tucson this weekend. Shes the best selling author of the red letter diary which came out in 2008 as well as Astronaut Wives Club which were going to talk about today. She lives in new york city with her husband, although they spend a little bit of time every now and again in woodstock, even though she just assured me shes not that hippie. And their two rescue dogs, ozzy and lucky. So the Astronaut Wives Club is a great book, its about the emotional side of the space race, and it really explores a bun be with. Of strong women in the bunch of strong women in the background who actually made it all possible. Take it away. Hi. Welcome. Really wonderful to be here. [applause] pleasure. Its great to have you. Maybe you could give a little bit of background about how you calm up with this idea and why why came up with this idea and why you . Sure. Well, you know, moments of inspiration are always pretty interesting. My first book was called the red leather diary, and that was when i was a young staff member at the New York Times, and id come out of my building and seen this dumpster full of old steamer trunks, climbed in and found this young womans diary and eventually found her at 90. That was book number one with. So i had stumbled upon my first book in such a serendipitous way. When i was thinking about my topic for number two, it was like, yeah, when is lightning going to just strike me, basically. [laughter] but i was sitting at home one saturday and toying with working on a novel, and my husband and i had just bought this large Coffee Table Book just sort of for fun called a fire on the moon or moon fire. It was norman mailers opus about the apollo 11 landings, so i was just enjoying looking at pictures of Neil Armstrong planting the flag in on the lunr surface and buzz aldrin and this spacey, you know, white marshmallow suit from the 1960s. And i turned a page, and all of a sudden i saw women wearing dresses the color that im now wearing, you know, these sherbet covers mini dresses and these skyrocketing beehives, and they were clustered around in this model of the moon that was probably made out of plaster of paris. And i just turned to my husband, and we were in a huge mad men kick at the time. I said has anything ever been done about the astro wyomings as they were called in headlines, and it just took off from there. I just became absolutely obsessed with their story. The restaurants were engineers, and they were so tightlipped and unemotional, even back in the day journallests would always want to know from neil and buzz and all the guys who landed on the moon what did it feel like, what did you dream about when you were up there, and the guys would start spouting numbers and vectors, and the joke was like, oh, forget it, were going to talk to your wives. So i thought there has to be this whole emotional side of the story that you mentioned, and i was just lucky enough that the women were still there and that they were willing, after some convincing, to talk to me, and that was the launch of the book. That was actually my next question which was, i mean, the women in the book, theyre portrayed, by design it feels like theyve created a or very safe place for themselves given that the rest of their world was very, very public. So how did you kind of make your way into the group, and whod you find your way to first . Well, i found out that there was, that forming in the 60s the title of the book actually is the Astronaut Wives Club, that there was this almost sorority among the spacemens wives. They described themselves as Space Sisters that developed among them, because they were sort of thrown into this media circus with very little coaching from nasa, so they had to rely on each other. So they would get together for these monthly martini hours and coffees and just coach each other along in this brave new world ofng