Transcripts For CSPAN2 Today In Washington 20111129

miami herald" , and she has written extensively about guantanamo bay. good morning. you did a recent story looking at the cost of prisoners, how much it costs to detain people there. every monday, we have a segment called "your money," where we look at a program, how much it costs, and how public money is being spent. why did you start looking at the cost of keeping detainee's at guantanamo bay? guest: "the miami herald" has covered guantanamo bay coming up on 10 years. in july, the administration wrote congress in a letter signed by the dni, the attorney general, and the secretary of defense that this is costing america $800,000 per year per detainee. they compared this to about $25,000 in federal detention. they were doing this as part of a letter talking about the pros and cons of military versus a billion trials and military verses -- military verses civilian trials and military verses civilian detention. how could this possibly be? this makes it arguably the most expensive detention center on earth, $800,000. we set out to break that down. host: carol rosenberg, we're looking at a chart right now, the cost per prisoner at guantanamo bay compared to other prisons. miami dade county jail is $50,000 per prisoner compared to $800,000 at guantanamo. colorado supermax is $38,000. the state board system is $19,000. once again, guantanamo bay $80,000. where did these come from and how have you been able to parse out the numbers? guest: we added the supermax because there is a small group of people there that would be more like the supermax than it would the dad county prison. we tried to give comparisons for those in maximum security, not necessarily solitary confinement, but on their own, to mix it all up. what we knew all along was that the commanders down there had told us to think of the guantanamo as an aircraft carrier in the sea. it is totally dependent. they create their own water, their own electricity, they bring in all of their supplies by barge or aircraft. because they cannot live off the land and everything gets brought in, you have mark ups for contractors and transportation. there are rotational staff, people coming and going, and there have never been any fixed costs. you can think of it as the international space station, staff coming and going, supply missions all the time, no expense spared. that is more the way the detention center functions way out there with what they need brought in and the rotational staff is key. the guards come in go in six, nine, 12-month rotations. they get 24/7 mental, medical health care come amusement, entertainment, three square meals, entertainment, and housing. there is no detention center where a prison here in the states that functions that way. a guard gets up, packs their launch, drives to work. it is their car, their home, their lunch. at the end of their ship, they go home. guantanamo is a 24/7 operation. when they are inside the wire and working as guards as opposed to other stocks that may be outside what they call "the wire," but also get combat halite their brothers and sisters outside of guantanamo. is it like a gated community down there. host: a pie chart from "the miami herald." carol rosenberg, you have worked hard to try to get more specific numbers. why they are spending, and what they are spending. tell us about your search for information. guest: this is a very superficial snapshot, the best we could surface when we ask the detention center staff and their supervision at the southern command. they give us a very, very broad categories. when we asked them to drill down and asked what intelligence meant it, ask for things that seemed, perhaps, privileged but are actually quite meaningful at guantanamo, we could not get anywhere. basically, the people down there who handled the budgets, the people who handle public relations refused to drill down to any level. when we went to their supervisors at southern command here, the pentagon's office they say they are responsible for a portion of the budget but give us is superficial snapshot. it is hard to know exactly what they mean when they say something like "intelligence collection missions." we know from briefings that sometimes at the intelligence operations has been responsible for books in the library. we know that there are linguists down there and some of them are accompanied by their families living in the base in these apartments. we are trying to figure out what the true cost is if you were to separate this out and how you could consider this huge figure of $800,000 per detainee and we only got so far. we filed under the freedom of information act a couple of months ago. we asked for expedited consideration, because as everyone knows there is a debate in congress about pentagon expenditures at the moment. we were denied expedited consideration, so we are still waiting for the documentation that breaks this all down. we did get numbers, but they were the numbers that the detention center has been publishing through the years as a part of their transparency mission to show certain things that they want to show. i think you have a chart there for food costs. they are considerable when it comes to the detainee's. it is not quite $40 per day per prisoner to feed them. if you look at about, we have compared it to come for example, the average american living alone what they pay out of their pocket, what in midshipmen would pay out of their pocket. what we're trying to show is that they are not eating surf and turf, not all you can eat salad bar, but three meals in styrofoam containers, but there is a considerable markup. everything that comes down there starts out frozen solid in a barge in jacksonville and is shipped in. the exception is that the military has been very careful to observe hallal, the islam equivalent of kosher. they bring in special lamb. for holidays, they bring in treats, honeyed baklava. i think those are special order, but generally often out of detroit and brought in by aircraft. host: carol rosenberg wrote a recent story for "the miami ."rald," caller: anthony wayne meyer. guantanamo bay is a clear demonstration that we, the people, are under siege. a state of war exists between our federal government and our people. they are using our federal tax dollars to capri's -- to oppress everyone around the planet including our own citizens. it is an outrage. the 99% protests demonstrate that our money is being used to terrorize everyone on the planet and it has to stop. guest: what we have learned is that we just report the facts which is one reason that we try to drill down and figure out the meaning of the figure of $800,000 per detainee. people read the same story and a drop completely different conclusions about the wisdom of the detention center, whether we should keep it, whether we sneed it, whether it is a good or bad thing. our stories do not follow the politics of the guantanamo issue. we just cover it. host: georgia, chris on the independent line. you are on with carol rosenberg. caller: guantanamo is more of a wartime facility for prison detention. right now, we are not even in a legal war. only congress can declare war, and we have not been in one of those legally since world war ii. do you also do studies on the crime rates in the united states? we basically lost the war on drugs in america and how that is affecting the statistics that you're looking at. guest: we did a very basic straightforward comparison of the cost of detainees. we look at different types of prisoners and captives ranging from convicted terrorists at supermax to those in the county prison that cover the types of crimes you were speaking about. what is interesting about the war on terrorism is that this project at guantanamo opened on january 11th, 2002, so coming up on 10 years. one of the things we learned in preparing this story and doing reporting is that, in some ways, the pentagon was spending and preparing for the next 10 years. they would not grow down and explain their operating costs and how they could spend $138 million in the basic operating costs. we studied contracts and it took a look around the system, but they have been on a bit of a spending spree, resupplying for the next 10 years. they put out a bid for new equipment in the detainee hospital, which they are in process of moving to a different part of the base, and different prison operations. remember. guantanamo is a navy base which has a porch, an airport -- a port and airport. in the corner, there is a series of prison camps that have been built culminating in three fairly rigid structures that look more like prisons we would recognize in the states where most of the detainees are not kept. that is just a corner of the base. we only looked at the cost of that corner, which we describe as kind of like a gated community. they have their around jim, movie theater, health clinic -- they have their own gym. we are talking about the detainees. they have their own satellite television, three meals per day brought in. they have a section of the kitchen that feeds the guards and prepare and their meals, but they all eat out of the same kitchen in effect. barnes, interrogators, intelligence units, command staff, the people who control the budget, the public relations team, they all eat out of a special dining room set up separate and apart for this community within a community which, as i said, part of which are getting combat pay. host: carol rosenberg, off of twitter - presumably, for the pentagon. what do you have to say? guest: we found no evidence that is the case. but you can go down there and see buildings under way. one of the big questions i have asked since the start of the project is how much they are actually consuming in fuel at this detention center? there are building this all along a part that overlooks the water. everything is air-conditioned. a stadium-style lighting so that might look like they. they consume large amounts of fuel. -- they have stadium-style lighting so night looks like day. the detention center on the occupies a portion and they consume $100,000 worth of fuel each day supposedly. the money is being spent, but the question is how to drill down and see suspect that the clean -- and see specifically how much is going to feeding the guard versus the detainee's, the command staff, and a number of people that are on hunger strikes. they do not give those numbers come out exactly how many prisoners underwent that treatment. they are certainly consuming a lot of money. i guess that would be my answer. host: three meals per day, satellite tv, it sounds like club med. you can submit your tweets, @cspanwj. our guest is carol rosenberg with "the miami herald." the first dispatched her to cuba in january 2002 ahead of the arrival of the first of the captives. she has been there from the beginning. carol rosenberg, can you paint us more of a picture of what the detention center is like? he described the kitchen facilities and the way the people who work there live, but how much access do you have as a journalist to the prisoners? guest: we have never spoken to a prisoner. one of the conditions of access that you signed in the voluminous ground rules to get to the base is that you will not talk to the prisoners even on occasion when they shout at us. engaging with a prisoner would get you banned for life, as it happened with some of my colleagues. the live on a section of the base that was built since the start of this enterprise. it used to be a beautiful, beautiful piece of land overlooking the water and now it is surrounded by barbed wire, offenses, with guard towers -- fences, guard towers. there are about one dozen of prison camp-like structures. half of them are out of service at the moment. it started out as a temporary enterprise. it to the but the pictures you have seen it with 20 men on their knees in orange jumpsuits, that is not even the camp they are using now. you cannot use that facility anymore. it is dilapidated. then they built more prison camps at considerable expense that they are not using any more either. the weather is unforgiving. it is salty, hot, sunny, and the infrastructure to not hold up well which is why they are in their third or fourth iteration of these buildings. they went with steel and cement air-conditioned buildings that are all steel bulk -- sealed up with little access to the outdoors. people are in these lockers, pretty much, with access in the cooperative camp to an outdoor area that is surrounded by, again, fences, barbed wire, guard towers. i want to go back to the club med analogy. when you visit as a reporter, it is a surprising place. the detainees do get these good meals, the satellite tv, and they get 2,500 calories per day. the military, as they developed the detention center, realize that what they wanted to do was keep the detainee's busy and distracted because there was tension between capt. and guard. the guards are soldiers and sailors in their 20's and the captives have been there sometimes for 10 years. the objective is to keep the two sides from having this tension and having them occupied. they did introduce the satellite tv's and there are some that will not watch. remember. some of these are quite militant in their observation of islam and they will not watch television. there are some radio stations and audio teachings of islam. but back to club med, it is striking when you go to that base and you worked there as a part of this rotating staff that does six, nine, 12 of months, some of them volunteered for multiple-your duty and get to bring their family. -- volunteer for multi-year duty. when you leave the prison and go to the base, there is a scuba diving, an irish pub, beautiful beaches, fishing trips, constant visitors and entertainers coming, cheerleaders from professional teams, comedians. they have some of the best gyms that are available both to guards and anyone who lives on the base, aside from the detainees. they have a wonderful baseball field that looks like it came out of "the field of dreams." it is a beautiful, surprising place when you are posted their as part of the military. there is a tremendous transportation system in which buses run are around like a little community. they have a school for some of the military and contractor kids for attend. -- kids to all attend. scuba diving is very popular down there. they also have night school. the staff complains that the internet is so low. if you ask them what the biggest gripe is, they want faster internet to skype with their families. you can call home anytime, but you can use the internet and study to get a degree or higher education. once the government decided they were in the guantanamo business, they went down of their way to improve the quality of life of the military down there in such a way that it is really a fine duty. you talk to soldiers and they will tell you that they picked a guantanamo over afghanistan or iraq any day. in a way, it is a commuter job. the military has planes coming and going all the time. they have guessed housing, guest quarters, and you can bring your family down a. if you are not part of the long term staff that gets suburban- style housing with your kids in school, you can arrange to the military bureaucracy to bring your girlfriend or boyfriend down and put them up in guest quarters that are like hotels. i am not saying it is club of mad, but it is definitely a surprise when you go to that base. -- i am not saying it is club med. host: who is actually serving there? there is a total of 2046 on active duty. guard, 400, and 70 reserve. our guest, carol rosenberg, writes in "the miami herald." you go through some of the other benefits they get there. omaha, neb., on the republican line. caller: i would just like to make a comment that this is one of the most biased things i have ever heard c-span put on. we are talking about a detention system whose conditions are set by the geneva convention, the aclu come and the media for the most part. i do not suppose ms. rosenberg has ever been sent overseas without her family. she describes it as a space station, well of course it is. you cannot observe stars from a motel 6 on the corner in motel -- in omaha. there are security concerns. there are so many differences between the guantanamo base and any other prison that is not set by international tribunal. to make a dollar on dollar comparison just because the military treats their soldiers the way they need to is senseless. host: we are not making a judgment on that. the segment is about your money and letting you know about how it is spent. it is up to you to have an opinion on that. "the miami herald" is just trying to do the monetary brake down so you know what is being spent where. guest: it is a hardship to be away from home, and no one disputes that. being separated from your family is difficult. the have been engaging in this war for 10 years now. what is notable is the commanders have gone out of their way to ameliorate that isolation. to their credit, they can call home every night, and if there is an emergency, they can get out pretty quickly. that is to the credit of the pentagon. we are certain that when we drove down and study the cost of $800,000 per detainee per year, part of that cost will be taking care of the guards in such a way that they have the ability to, again, ameliorate their separation from home. we are interested in trying to figure out what the true meaning of $800,000 per detainee per year is. getting back to the figures, there are 171 detainee's at guantanamo. the last time they reported to 50s, they said there were 182 pentagon employees down there, the vast majority in uniform. also at the detention center are cooks, art teachers, part of the process of trying to keep them distracted. there are language teachers that decided -- initially, they decided they did not want to, but they decided to give english class as to those who wanted to study english. everyone is there for the long haul. it is clear that what the pentagon has done in this $800,000 per detainee expense is to make it easier on everyone including the soldiers and sailors, sir. host: democratic caller from virginia beach. welcome. caller: why can they not put these detainee's into a military prison like a brig? guest: why have they not been moved into the brig? first of all, the bush should ministration di -- administration did use brigs. the south caroline navy brig has experienced a holding these enemy combatants in their special housing units. they only had a few. today could they move them to a brig? congress has set now. they have legislated against transferred to u.s. soil. this current administration decided that initially they wanted to close guantanamo -- or rather close the prison at guantanamo. they are still committed, but there was never really a vision that was articulated that they would move the majority of them into military detention. they did look at a state prison in illinois as something they would purchase and perhaps move some of the guantanamo detainees to. that could be a brig-style detention come -- detention, but congress did not allow. there are 171 detainees. none of them are moving elsewhere anywhere in the near future. it is impossible legislatively. host: milwaukee, wisconsin. good morning. caller: i have one question. as halliburton involved in this in any way at all? guest: halliburton did some of the construction of the prisons, the steel and cement prisons that were done early on were the majority of the detainees are currently capped. they had a hand in construction and you can see it on the plaque on the building. we have had a very, very difficult time drilling down and servicing the meaning of this $800,000 per detainee cost. i am not aware of any current halliburton contract, but they have not given us the transparency we sought in order to answer that question with any more specificity. host: kevin in nashville, tenn., on the independent line. caller: i would just like to make one comment here. host: could you start over for us? caller: i have been listening to some of the other callers in the people that are pretty penstock about guantanamo bay -- pissed off about guantanamo bay even being on the planet. what we need to slow down and realize is fort irwin had nothing. it was like being a new york cie democrat line. caller: in the people that are pretty penstock about guantanamo bay -- pissed off about there are just as mane that work down there in guantanamo bay than are prisoners. without that prison, it will be a nightmare because no one up here at state side wants that in their backyard. if they would allow the prison to move up here with the new infrastructure is taking place, then they would it turn around and the city, state, county would be receiving benefits from that prison being there. they need to look at all the issues. these are family members and lives. other than the fact that you have to take care of the prisoners and anyone that has studied anything about taking care of prisoners knows that somewhere out of someone's pocket there is probably $48 per day to house each person. host: kevin brought up a couple of things ranging from his own experience in service and how one in -- how lonely that can be verses' the option of bringing the prisoners to the united states and how that could be effective. guest: it is true that the price we are paying is a considerable markup because of the need to contract out all the services. nothing that gets eaten down there does not come in by march. you cannot go to a local economy. -- nothing that gets eaten down there does not come in by barge. they are not plugged into the cuban water or electrical grid. they make their own water and electricity. everything is more expensive dam ever. if they went -- everything is more expensive down there. if it went to a local community, which is illegal, you would then be able to pay for the local internet, local electricity, and everything would be cheaper if it were on u.s. soil. again, i understand that soldiers and sailors have served in isolation, in a very solitary, lonely conditions, and that has been ameliorated in guantanamo. it was decisions made by successive commanders to attend to the quality of life of the current 850 pentagon employees who live and work down there at that detention center. it is hard work. no doubt about it. the guards do 12-hour shifts four days per week. when they are down, they can go to the beach, go to a ball game, go to the irish pub, and they can go eat in a series of galleys, get entertained. they have a church for every denomination and religious services for anybody. they have a mcdonald's and a talk about -- and a taco bell. there are lots of distractions and lots of ways to keep disease -- busy and not be lonely. you are separated from home. when people sign up for the military, you recognize you do not get to stay with your family and you go on deployment with the exception of the commanders and certain staff people who have been able to bring their family with them and get very nice house and. guantanamo bay is a 45-mile squared island. it is a little piece of americana with a lot of amenities, especially to those people who remember isolated and lonely service posts. it was a different military that he is describing than what you encounter when you go to guantanamo bay. host: new york city on the democrat line. caller: good morning. that last caller stole a little of my thunder. first of all, when president obama came in and said he wanted to close guantanamo bay everyone was with that until everyone was figuring out where to house these prisoners. no one wants them in their state, but they want guantanamo closed. i look at it like this. it is like alaska. they have a vast land. why do we not just build something in alaska and house them there? maybe that is the only solution. no one wants them. host: let's get a response. we only have about one minute left. carol rosenberg? guest: in the article we wrote about guantanamo, we pointed out there was a study done down there by a general on the expenses and how truly expensive it is to run the place because it is not on u.s. soil. he likened it to alcatraz, the now-defunct prison in san fransisco. what the general in this secret study, which would also like to see, concluded that bobby kennedy shot down alcatraz in 1963 because it was too expensive. we have never had a discussion in america that suggests it's to keep or let go based on cost. we just saw a surprising figure this summer and drilled down as best we can. you can follow the coverage on miamiherald.com/guantanamo. recovery pretty much all time. host: carol rosenberg, [applause] >> the next part of our program is we recognize our special guests, and the way this is set up we are going to have a dialogue that will take place. it will be dan will moderated and he will be like the oprah winfrey of the presidential primary tonight. we are going to hear local the about some of those new hampshire moments and to senator mccain and senator kerry i will share with you what people consider new hampshire moments because there's 1i am aware of and it's bipartisan just like this event. it was 1996 when bob dole won the republican nomination, and that summer gephardt came to manchester and needed to pick up some items at a drugstore and in that stopping at the drugstore on daniel webster highway. he walked in and put his purchase down on the counter and the kid at the register looked up and said you or gephardt and he said yeah and the kid said to him i don't believe it. bob dole shops here, too. [laughter] this is a true story. a year later you may remember bob dole did the infamous commercial and i ran into gephardt and he said to me you know in 1996 we didn't know what bob dole was fighting in the drugstore but we sure know now. [laughter] that is a new hampshire moment. if you would direct your attention to the monitors around the room we get a special deal for the folks for review to see at the new hampshire primary. after he was elected i'm sorry, let me start that again. if you never had the chance to meet david broder, those who have will tell you is your loss. >> it just wasn't him. >> i've been covering politics for a very long time and as a journalist, not as a partisan i have a stake wanting to see this political system of hours worked deeded was without a question eight heightened political reporting much short of an introduction he would never realized they were standing next to a pulitzer prize winner. >> he wasn't the world's best dresser like a flannel shirt with a tiny camera cross in a very easy style and set a very powerful and out come when he wrote that column. >> a fixture on the national talk-show often the topics center on something that he had written earlier in the week. estimate the late peter jennings looked to see what he was doing he was doing a story on a voter. he really liked the stage. he really liked the stage and talking to the people on the street, at events he would pick out not to those individuals you think he would pick out >> david broder was drawn to the new hampshire politics and witnessed a lot of it from mccarthy in 68 and chastising the publisher of the union leader and 72. >> david broder was right there and wrote about that and he was here for a lot of the other significant moments. >> i remember him stressing to me kind of like a student even though he would always make you feel important that what is great about the primary here and when you are doing is you're seeing them become a duty to before they become presidential. you are seeing the real person here because they have to be the political leaders of the area and trying to understand what made us take. >> one exhibit came in 2008 when he approached the secretary of state and asked him for a list of the four small new hampshire towns as he wanted to get a feel for the voters were thinking. >> he kicked the town because he had never been there. he said i've never been out there. what's it like? he says it's pretty small. it has a general store late in the center of the village so he spent about three hours in the afternoon. >> that night he would write an article predicting that barack obama would easily carry new hampshire in the general election no holes, no tracking just the result of a few conversations. >> it was from his personal context hat the tow previous election and that it wouldn't be. >> david broder played ball the new hampshire would be his world series and the people he met along the way. he sat on it because he is my favorite. he is my favorite. that's what made him a national treasure. i really do. ♪ [applause] >> let me introduce to you a senior from college marisa. [applause] >> good evening. my name is marra and i senior international relations major and president of student government association at st. anselm college and an intern for senator shaheen. like all of you, i have a love for politics and the political process, and part of that is the appreciation of an influential journalist, david broder, who covered some of you come interviewed many of you and was friends with most of all of you. although david has passed, his work will continue to impact my generation and generations to come. david's exceptional character should be mirrored by all. although he acquired an impressive resume throughout his long career, he never lost sight of the people and the voters he worked to inform. this made him the perfect reporter to walk the streets of manchester, meeting people every day and providing a real view of what was happening in the primary. bye taking an objective approach, david was able to see individuals and candidates for their accomplishments and credibility. rotterdam the party affiliation. david also stayed true to what he loved, covering the elections, including every presidential race since 1956. numerous elections and even races. to david every race was an important and needed coverage. and as a result, he spent a lot of time in the granite state. david broder is across generational role model because america needs more journalists like him today. the best tribute to david is to follow his example. do what you love and dewitt with integrity. in commemoration, david broder is given the new hampshire primary award. i'm honored to present this award to his son, john schroeder, with remarks from his colleagues gambles of the washington post. [applause] >> young people like you inspire my father. we commemorated my father's birthday earlier this week and to mark the day of my brothers and i went out to city field to see them play my father's lifelong team the chicago cubs. 28 years ago my father and his sons went out to shea stadium to see the mets play the cubs, and then as now these were dog teams. that here fighting for last place on the national. by the end of the second inning all those years ago, they were down by eight. as the innings went past the showed no signs of life, but my father never gave up hope. each that came up my father would be cheering on in to that team. when the cubs scored eight marrec to this rally in the ninth in winning and went on to win the game my father was triumphant at this victory on the road to the last place in the national. [laughter] and i think that love of the cubs, the lifelong believe supported his lifelong believe in another underperforming and will use institution american electoral politics. and i think my father very much felt reassured that this institution he left was interested in such a significant way to the voters of new hampshire through their primary. and it's not too strong to say that my father loved the voters of new hampshire. not just for their kindness to a stranger appearing on a winter doorstep bringing them in sight for a warm cup of coffee and sharing their thoughts about the issue of the day, because also like my father the voters had never given up hoping the promise of american electoral politics. and for that reason on behalf of my mother, grandmother and my father's name i am honored to accept this award for him. thank you very much. [applause] >> josh, there was was terrifi. it is an honor for me to be asked to participate in this dinner and i want to thank the institute for honoring david and having joshua pure. there are so many distinguished members of the audience i don't know where to begin in acknowledging people i would say to paraphrase president kennedy this is probably the biggest assembly to the political talent and bring the power ever gathered in new hampshire exit when david broder dined alone at the way fare. there was a lovely memorial service they have for david at the national press club back in april. the most memorable parts were by jos and his brothers george and matt and mike they were given the attention today that he would have been immensely proud of the sons that they produced. as murderous the said and i think she captured david just right she knew everybody in this room in some way or another or at least everybody in this room knew him by watching he was the cal ripken of reporters on meet the press and was on "meet the press" 401 times over his career many of you know him because he covered personally in the state and talk to you because you're an adviser to a campaign. i know that many of you would call him a friend, and probably feel his loss as deeply as us for whom he was both a mentor and a colleague. dave loved new hampshire. he liked the place is that new hampshire was always his favorite whenever we were kind of dividing up assignments at the beginning of a campaign david would always say you go to iowa i will wait for you in new hampshire. [laughter] she enjoyed almost everything about his time here. he enjoyed the ritual of the primary, the pace of the primary, the people. one of his favorite things was the quadrennial lunch he did with the reporters of the monitor on the afternoon of the primary. i know that he will always look forward to that year after year. he was called the dean for a reason. he brought to his reporting a seriousness of purpose unmatched integrity and believably keen insight. he was as competitive as anybody i ever knew. he hated when we got beat and occasionally we did, and if i was the person who got beat it was very clear he was unhappy about it. but he was always -- he carried himself with incredible humility. he was a reporter's reporter. he was thought of as a convent by many people but he never fought himself that way. she never believed he had all the answers. he knew the answers and insight came from doggett reporting. in the era of bigfoot journalism he walked very lightly. he made space for other reporters on the "washington post" and he taught by a sample into the young reporters he was unfailingly generous and when he died the e-mails that many of us got from friends and colleagues and young people that we didn't know who were touched by david personally was a tribute to him. .. >> he loved these moments. he loved the night before the primary when the voters were about to speak, and as everybody knew, you couldn't predict what the voters here were going to do. one of the young reporters said to him, do you have any words of wisdom or observations? watch ron paul is what he said. [laughter] he was a reporter's reporter, but he was not flawless. i love to tell this story on dave, and i told it while he was still alive, and i'll tell it now since he's gone. i was the political editor at the post in 18980. i never had to worry except for the night of the first new hampshire debate, not the national debate, the famous -- i paid for this microphone debate, but the earlier one. i was in the newsroom, and david called just as the debate was starting and said, oh, dan, we have a problem. he and lou misread what was happening. they decided to watch the debate on tv. local tv was carrying on a delayed basis. radio was carrying it, but they didn't know what station carried it. david said to me, can someone in the newsroom cover us for a half hour while we get our bearings and figure this out. they joked about it afterwards, but we never trusted them on their own after that. [laughter] there's another funny memory of dave in new hampshire. the 1984 sickle, the first cycle we used laptops. if you knee him, he had a complicated relationship with technology. [laughter] so he set off for new hampshire for the first time armed with his laptop proudly, but as insurance, he also carried along his battered old typewriter, and when he got up here, the political editor remembers watching david type his stories on the typewriter and take the copy and put it next to the computer and retype it into the computer. [laughter] those are some of the fond memories. there's serious moments as well. i remember the night before the new hampshire primary in 1984 #. we had done tracking with abc, the first time, and the tracking shows gary hart was in a tie as of that night. everybody expected that mondale would win the primary even though hart was making a move. there was confusion in the room, and somebody said what's it mean? dad said it means gary hart is probably going to win the pry marry, and -- primary, and walter will have a long ride to sale the nomination, if he can. he had those instincts always. he understood and could see around corners, and it was also obvious to him at other points in other races how things were moving. he was here for everything, to record jimmy carter's rise for reagan's win, for the george hw bush's victory here in 88, bill clinton as come back, pat buchanan, the straight talk express, senator kerry's bounce back, and finally the remarkable events of 2008, which was, of course, his last primary. i think his most famous story was probably the one eluded to in the video, which was the 1972 story about edmund musky, weepy and voice choked with emotion. that was a controversial story. if you never read david'sing's accounting of it that he did in his book behind the front page, i commend it to you. it's a pro's prose example of revisiting someone's own work in the light of new information. it's the kind of person that david was. he never believed he always had it right, and even when he was convinced he had it right, he was prepared to re-examine it. i want to close by talking about what david liked best about politics, which was talking and listening to voters as others have eluded to. david once said you can learn more about a campaign by talking to voters than you can ever learn by talking to a politician or political strategist. nobody in journalism paid more attention to the concerns of voters or cared more deeply about what they had to say, and i think that's why he liked this state in particular. he admired the independent spirit of voters here. he knew they would not be dictated to by conventional wisdom or herded into supporting this or that candidate because of happenings in states. he admired the responsibilities people here have about putting candidates through their paces. we'll hear about that a little later. he was grateful for their willingness to share their views with him. in honoring dave with the award, i think you honor yourselves and the rich tradition you have created. thank you very much for remembering our friend. he was very special. thank you. [applause] >> if you direct your attention to the videos, we have one more for you. >> join me in welcoming the man who is going to take back the white house from george bush -- [applause] john kerry! >> 2004, senator john kerry won the primary by a couple of touchdowns. >> i love new hampshire. [cheers and applause] >> then, again, that was how it was supposed to be, even from the early days of his campaign. >> your courage, your courage can make sure that we do what's right for our country. >> he started out in that campaign as the front runner. everybody thought he was the person to beat. >> he department give up. >> he really seemed like the dominant candidate and the front runner to a lot of people, and he came even out of new hampshire a lot, and campaigned all over the place. >> going and before and after things in the 24 hour fitness gym? >> the funny thing happened on the way to the win, a deep democratic field including the likes of weley clark, and others, and all valued his support, while folks were still not real sure about this senator from massachusetts. >> people always like this, you know, he's got money, he's kind of swift. >> i'm not sure how one's status is and how they believe they are, and i think it may have taken him awhile. >> i believe there's better ways to do business here in america. >> if kerry was adjusting to the learning curve, a governor from neighboring vermont, was finding his swing just fine. halloween of 2003, the race shifted. howard deen was the life of the democratic party it seemed, and with the primary months away, the kerry campaign threatened to become fractured. >> there was a real sense of division within the party and within neighborhoods and among friends. >> by this time, republican strategists were gearing up for a bush-deen show down in the general election. >> it would be natural us for look at what a deen-bush race would look like. >> this race would be interesting. >> it was, at that point, that people really began to see who john kerry was and the fact that he was not going to give out, that he was going to keep fighting and come back, and he made critical decisions. >> among those decisions, the firing of his campaign manager leading to the departure of two other top aids, but he refused to let his campaign or the media take their eyes off the ball. what the people want to know is what we're going to do to provide health care. this is all inside baseball. nobody's reading this other than you. >> maybe it's the fire in his belly giving the supporters the idea to put fire in other bellies as well. >> he said, john, listen, we want to bring you in the fire house, introduce you to the folks, and put on chili for you, and we had invitations saying come to the fire house with a candidate and chilly. he's still more chili than the ones he served. >> is it good? >> what's better than a chili fest than a bus tour, which also seemed to catch fire. >> we have to turn the country around, and these are not just words. >> the group on board, some supported each others, others didn't, but it felt like a new launch, and it began to connect with people. >> we don't need commercials, but we need leadership. >> interaction with real people that make a difference in the primary, and that was the perfect example. you know, all the pundits had written him off, everybody at the national level say, oh, he's gone, cant win it. he kept working here, and he came back and won this because he went out and made his case to the people of the state. >> his approach was paying off not only in new hampshire, but also in iowa. the wheels were turning in his campaign while falling off of others. >> then we're going to watch in dc to take back the white house. [cheers and applause] >> by primary night, he took the biggest step towards the nomination and a special thanks to those who took him there. >> unbelievably grateful to the people of the state who kept their hearts, minds open, they were willing to sort of take a look, begin, and i'll never forget that. it's the bond that will be with me for the rest of my life. [cheers and applause] >> he was a believer, and he believed that he made his case which has to happen in the primaries. [cheers and applause] [applause] >> to present the second award tonight, please welcome united states senator jean shaheen. [applause] >> hi, thank you very much, everybody. thank you. please be seated. thank you. please, sit down. [applause] i am truly honored to be here with all of you, so many distinguished new hampshire politicians and luminaries to celebrate the new hampshire presidential primary and three of my personal political heros. david broder a legend in american reporter, john mccain, whose service we all know so well, and, of course, i get to give the award to john kerry. you know, you may remember that in 2004, i chaired john kerry's national political campaign for president, and now my husband, billy, was his new hampshire campaign chair, so in our household, it was john kerry for president every day all the time 24/7. stephanie can tell you that's true. as you heard in that video, early when he got into the race, everybody thought john kerry was going to be the nominee of the democratic party, but then as the video showed, by this time in 2003 as the new hampshire primary was really heating up, the pundits and the pollsters had pretty much written off john kerry, his lead dropped in the polls, and people thought he didn't have a chance, but they didn't know john kerry. he hung tough, and he decided to take his message directly to the voters of new hampshire, and showed not only what he was made of, but what the voters of new hampshire are made of, and, of course, that's when the new hampshire firefighters came up with their idea of the khili suppers, and as dave lang says, they pointed out they had a candidate as hot as the chili they were serving, and i think john kerry ate 50 pounds of chili in that campaign, but they were a huge success, and they were a success because john kerry took his message and his candidacy directly to the voters. he didn't give up. he showed the courage, tenacity, the intellect, and the commitment that won him the democratic nomination, and i remember he fought for every vote. i can see him on granite street at 6 a.m. on election day shaking hands in the blistering cold, and he stayed up there right until the polls closed. he won the new hampshire primary that day, and it was a victory as much for john kerry as it was for the new hampshire voters, and, you know, i supported john kerry because i thought he had the leadership this country needed at a time we really needed it, and i never thought that i would get a chance to serve with him and with senator mccain in the united states senate and to see up close and personal the kind of leadership that he still provides to this country in the united states senate. i've had a chance to serve with him on the foreign relations committee and to see the commitment and the passion that he brings to everything he does, and when this administration needed a diplomat to go over to pakistan after the davis affair after osama bin laden was taken out, they called on john kerry. when we were trying to pass the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty, a significant piece of nuclear disarmerment, it was john kerry who led that fight and more than anybody else deserves credit for getting that done, and i think one of the things that i like to think about is that throughout his success, that he still remembers those chili feeds, the cold new hampshire days of retail politics, that john kerry brought out the best in the new hampshire primary, just as the new hampshire primary brought out the best in john kerry. please join me in awarding this new hampshire primary award to john kerry. [applause] >> that is so beautiful, that is really something. [applause] >> i am really -- thank you, thank you. [applause] thank you very much. [applause] thank you very much, folks. [applause] [applause] >> thank you very much. i think i can come back here and safely again say with equal passion, i love new hampshire. [applause] i really -- this is very, very special. i can't tell you, just being in the presence of so many good friends., people -- one of the things that comes out of that, and i think john feels the same way and tells you, you just do make lifelong friends, and you have a sense of the people and the state, the country comes out of it, that is simply unique. i'll never lose that, ever, no matter what i do in life, and i thank new hampshire for that. you made me a hell of a better candidate, forced me to look inside, dig down deep, get at it, and i was with rob portman of ohio the other day who serves on the super committee with me, and we were chatting about it, and he reminded me, you know, you only lost the presidency by half the people in the ohio state said yum on a saturday -- stadium on a saturday, and i said, thanks, rob, you better make it up for me. i'm counting on you to cut a deal here. we're going to get this done. [laughter] i can't tell you how special it is for me to be here with my pal, john mccain. a few days ago, john sent me a photo with the two of os sitting at the state of the union address, and on it he wrote, the two losers, together again. [laughter] it was really sweet. [laughter] so being here in new hampshire is very, very special because here in new hampshire, john mccain and john kerry are 3-and-0. [laughter] so tonight, we're here as winners, and -- [applause] that's very special. [applause] you know, john and i got here this evening, took one of the john huntsman flights -- [laughter] by pass iowa, straight to new hampshire -- [laughter] and i was listening to governor, congratulations to you on an extraordinary -- will be an extraordinary year as you're getting there, and i think everybody is appreciative of your public service -- [applause] but i -- [applause] john was talking about the new media and the social media and tweeting and facebook and so on and so forth. i don't tweet a whole lot because i think it's much more important for senators to make their mistakes and gaps in public in person, which i've been known to do occasionally. it's a pleasure to be here under the -- i was a fan, which means he never would have made it in washington today. [laughter] but this event brings us together to celebrate one of the most important journeys in america, how we choose our leaders. this is a room full of great memories and full of friendships i talked about a moment ago. there's one person not here who i want to thank and single out, and that is a great friend of ms. shaheens, judy who is battling a form of leukemia and will have another operation down in boston, but all of us who got to know her love her dearly and send her our passionate hopes and wishes and prayers for a complete cure, and we admire her enormously. [applause] john mccain and i have been through a lot of battles together, and some we were not together, but they were battles. [laughter] both come here with a special respect for david broder. he really was what dan called him, a reporter's reporter, and i think, you know, represented something that we'd lost in american politics, which is tragic, which is a guy who, you know, didn't get swayed by sponsors or interests or the inside game, but really always looked to the people. he was a people's reporter as well as a reporter's reporter, and he was a reporter who hung his hat on the truth for which we are all very, very grateful. i also thing i can say safely he'd be very, very proud i know of what josh said and his sons, but he'd also be very proud of dan balz, and how he carries on the tradition. dan, thank you for this evening with us and for doing what you do. [applause] let me -- [applause] let me just say a few words about new hampshire and where we are today, and then i want to sit down, and john will speak, and then we'll have a chance to talk a little, but, you know, i first heard or sort of sensed new hampshire as something special and different when i was a young naval officer in the gulf of tomkin in 1968, and, of course, 1968 was a hell of a year up here. i got all that news, you know, drifting in, and i'll never forget, i had an interest in public policy and life, and i remember listening to the vote counts and getting the sense of what gene mccarthy was doing, and the power of new hampshire when new hampshire told the united states of united states it's over, you can't run anymore. human impact on -- huge impact on our nation and the course of history, and later on in 1999, i was up here, campaigning with billy sheen for al gore, never in my maiming nation really did -- imagination really did i think that five years later i'd be up here with some of those same people on my own journey because i thought al gore would win, we'd have eight years, and that would be that, but we all know what happened remembering tim russert and florida, florida, florida changed the course for all 6 us and the course of the country, and i'll never forget all the personal parts of campaigning up here, traveling around in a too tight van with nick clemons and nick robinson, tooling around the city and listening to their bravado stories about their nights at the irish rover, a well-known bar here. [laughter] so that i was left in the morning, you know, driving around. i was struggling with the frost heaves, and they were struggling with the dry heaves -- [laughter] but that's another story, we won't do that one tonight -- [laughter] what stood out to me and still stands out to me as i come out here tonight is the sense of loyalty. the loyalty is amazing. when new hampshire makes up their mind, believe me, their your friend for life, and when they make up their mind, they go the distance, and they are tough in the making up of their minds, and that's the beauty of what happens up here in new hampshire. i'll never forget visiting with the fire house and dave came on board early, and ultimately the firefighters came on board, and we had the incredible chili feeds you heard about which confounds me still to this day, i think wikileaks as happen insight to everything in government, but they don't have dave's recipe to chili yet. i don't know what's going on, dave, but it's a well kept secret. i feel guilty about that now because michelle obama is trying to campaign on good nutrition, and there's kerry serving 25,000 pounds of chili, not a good standard, but it got me to where we needed to go. [laughter] the truth is that loyalty was carried on by a fellly by the name of bob banes who after his own campaign kept his promise to me made way back when i was front runner said i'll endorse you, but waiting until my campaign is over, begin every reason in the world, and bob could have taken the duck, but he didn't. he came out and stood up and endorsed me like he said, and he fought like hell to help us turn things around. similarly, right about the same time, the person who introduced me, your senator shaheen, came on board as the national chairwoman at a time it was tough, helped me make some tough decisions that began to turn things around, and i'll never forget going to the vfw hall in dover where bill clinton gave his last dog die speech, and it was said, you know, something about and talking about dead dogs, here's the harry campaign, and we have this to say. [laughter] it was about the same time, i remember a supporter said to me r you know, the reason i support you is because you look like the old man on the mountain. [laughter] a week later, the old man on the mountain fell. [laughter] i said this is not a good oh men. [laughter] a couple days later, a couple days later, my campaign pollsters said, you know, the only way to win new hampshire is to save a drowning baby in the river. i decided differently. i believed in what you believe in. i will never forget the images people sitting cross legged in houses taking notes, writing down what you said, comparing it to what you had said a month ago, asking the tough follow-up questions, coming after you, an extraordinary process, where people really looked inside your gut, your heart, your soul, and made a measurement about you, as individual as a human being and made a different kind of judgment from all the advertisements and prognosticators and the pundits. that's the value of new hampshire, and that's the value that i think is precious to the entire process of how we choose even a president of the united states in this country. i say that to you at a time when we are troubled. john mccain and i spent a lot of time together trying to get democracy in libya or in egypt or berma and other places, but he'd agree with me we have a challenge to improve our own democracy right here in the united states of america. we have to get rid of this shrill, almost desert of dialogue, if you want to call it that. it is shocking to me that the degree to which critical issues facing our time today are lost in a sort of parallel universe so little to do with people's lives and so little to do with the challenges we face as a country. i know we can get there. john mccain knows we can get there. they know we can get there. the question in the next days is whether or not we're going to be able to find the critical mass that puts country ahead of party, that gets rid of, you know, looking for the facts and makes common sense decisions. the reason i know we can do that is to end by telling a quick story. late 1980s, early 1990s, john mccain and i decided that we really thought it was time to make peace in vietnam. may sound strange to some of you, but it was a time the pow was criss crossing the country and had a sense people were left behind. it was a big question mark, and here was a place where there's many ways in the hearts and minds of people that we were still at war, and john and i understood that, and we thought that our interests, that our nation's interest, that our future lay in trying to get that behind us and in moving on, so john and i banded together, and improbable twosome who had differences over the war, but who found the common path to work for the interest of our country, and for ten years we slugged it out against some people who actually challenged john's senator, labeled him the candidate, challenged his patriotism, the man who spent six years in a prison, and that's what we faced. ultimately, john and i found our way back to vietnam together, and i will never forget standing in the prison where john was held for a period of time, standing in the very cell that he had been imprisoned in, alone, just the two of us, as he described to me some of what had happened, and at that moment, i said -- i sort of felt to myself, and i thought about it a lot afterwards. you know, if we two can get over our feelings about the war and get over the difference of an arizona republican and a massachusetts democrat, we can come together to try to do what we're doing here and find commonground, then all the rest of these things ought to be easy because they're in the greater interest of our country. when ben franklin walked down the steps of constitution hall, a woman walked up to him and said after they'd finish their work, designing our nation, she said, what do we have dr. franklin? a monarchy or a republic? he looked at her and said, a republic if you can keep it. that's the work that we face today, and i am very, very proud to be engaged in that work with john mccain, and with others in the senate, people who want to reach across and find not just the commonground, but find the higher ground. that's what builds our nation. the history of the senate is a place where people disagreed and great partisanship. people could have different ideologies and beliefs, but when the nation's interests were at stake, those people found a way to come together and put those interests ahead of all else. i think that new hampshire is going to contribute humanly to the effort to help us do that once again in this presidential race. i think david broder said perhaps in the bible there was a line that said and new hampshire shall lead. [laughter] amen. i believe it will. thank you for the pleasure of being here. [applause] [applause] [applause] >> okay. if you will direct your attention, again, to the video monitors. >> you can want -- cannot buy an election in the state of new hampshire, my friends. >> he invented the town hall style of campaigning. >> working hard for you. >> he just has a way about him. there's something beyond charisma. >> thank you very much. >> too many politicians are too scripted all of the time, and the sort of format of new hampshire, how you interact with voters was tailor made for a guy like mccain. >> but before he became new hampshire's mccain, he was gist a senator in arizona, and in the days of 1999, that didn't mean much to primary vote voters. >> a little difficulty getting them to come out. free ice cream, and we had 13 people. >> to jump start things, they turned to veteran, and students, and the latter providing a funny moment in a trip to king state. >> he's doing his five minute speech, topic of the day, opens it up to questions, the very first question from a college student was, will you please tell me your position on hemp? john mccain was truly flustered. he's looked around, and he says, you're going to have to be more specific. the only thing i know about hemp is that you make rope out of it, and that's what we usedded in the navy. [laughter] >> well, there's lots of stories. >> another student had the gal to ask him if he had the energy for a campaign. >> thanks for the question, you little jerk. [laughter] >> it was that kind of humor that was turning the tide in john mccain's favor. i'm not exaggerating when i tell you a man came and told me he had been to five of my town hall meetings, which i also alleged was a testimony to my inability to close the deal. [laughter] >> turns out he was closing more deals than he thought, and by late summer of 1999, the momentum was building. >> it was month by month rising of three to four points,. >> i had a small gathering at my house, promised to have at least 20 people, and low and behold, over 150 people came. i'm going, what kind of -- >> 400 people lined up for arizona senator john mccain's book signing. >> what's surprising and shocking about that is that we had a campaign plan, we followed it, and very little, if anything, took us off our game. [cheers and applause] >> come primary night, 2000, the evening was his. >> thank you very much. thank you and god bless, and welcome to our 115th town hall meeting here in new hampshire. [cheers and applause] >> i don't think too many of us were surprised the next day. we were surprised at the percentage of the votes, but we could feel -- >> it would go down as a textbook primary win, but then came 2007, and this time around, things were different. >> nice to see you, you haven't aged a bit since we did this in 2000. >> the first half of 2007 was a difficult time for everyone involved in the campaign, especially john. [inaudible conversations] >> we department have to introduce john now. everybody knew john, and he was probably more under the microscope. the questions were tougher, and the crowds were bigger. >> along with the crowds, the campaign staff grew as well. >> they set up the apparatus of 150-160 people that you needed in washington. we had the offices, geared up for it, and then quite frankly, the fundraising was not there. it became pretty clear that we were spending at one level and we were raising at a lower level. >> a lot of people, more people were hired than should have been hired. you know, had this for all intensive purpose, a big bureaucracy of a campaign. >> at one point, it seemed the mccain campaign would not survive, and the reporters smelled blood in the water. >> one asked under what circumstances would you drop out? john mccain uttered the line only if i succumb to a fatal disease before the primary. >> it was around that time the man known for straight talk wanted some of his own from his pomp advisers including walter peterson. it was a reckoning of sorts that didn't start well. >> everybody's going back and forth saying we should be doing this and that. >> that was a tough meeting because john was looking for very honest advice, although, he had his mind made up, i think, that he was going to stick it out because mccain is not a quitter, but hearing governor peterson and other folks reaffirm he couldn't win was really a very sort of poignant moment. >> he knew how to run in new hampshire, and he knew what he needed to do, and it was just the smartest thing he could have done, just going back to basics. [inaudible conversations] >> thanks very much. >> after focusing on new hampshire once again, things started to shift in the fall of 2007. >> people were starting to listen. they said, hey, he was not dropped out. >> i talk to the people of nemplegz. i reasoned with you. i listened to you. i answered you. sometimes i argued with you. [laughter] >> by primary night, 2008, john mccain would stand tall once again, and while the bid falls short of the white house, his new hampshire connection was set in granite. >> he's done as much for the primary out here in new hampshire, the first in the nation primary as ever has. >> he's a remarkable person. one of the great honor of my life. he's one of my friends. >> i don't know if this will make the cut or not, but, john, i love you, i hope you have another 75 years, keep smiling and keep shining. ♪ [applause] >> to present our third award tonight, please welcome united states senator kelly ayott. [applause] >> it is really an honor and it's overwhelming to be here with all of you tonight, and so many of you have worked so hard to preserve the first-in-the-nation primary, and truely an hop nor to give this -- honor, and my colleague, john kerry, very well deserved, and it's an honor to serve with you in the united states senate. it's very much -- it's surreal actually to be up here tonight to give this award to john mccain, someone who i have such great personal admiration for. john has an extraordinary record of service to the people of this country and a long history with the people of new hampshire, and i thought about it, and i don't think you can understand or appreciate that special relationship and why new hampshire took to john mccain so much without an understanding a little about john's background. he comes from an extraordinary family, a distinguishedded military family -- distinguished military family with four generations of naval academy graduates. his grandfather was an admiral serving commander of a carrier force in world war ii. his father was commander in chief of the pacific forces in the vietnam war. his son, jack, is a naval academy graduate who now flies helicopters in the navy, but breaking ranks is his son, jimmy, who enlisted in the marines and served in iraq. finally, someone in the mccain family made something of themselves. [laughter] john's own service as a pilot in the navy and his character is what drew so many in new hampshire to want to meet him. you will also find a veteran as a mccain town hall meeting. we all have come to admire mccain for his bravery, courage, and his integrity. he spent five and a half years imprisoned in vietnam, tortured by his captors, and when he was offered early release because of who his father was, he refused. john mccain puts principle first. just one example -- based on his own personal experience, john mccain bought members of his own party and spoke out against torture, leading to the effort to pass the detainee treatment act to ensure we live within our values. [applause] john mccain never hesitated to do what he thought was right rather than what is politically expedient. a rare individual in politics. new hampshire's the place where his commitment to truth and politics found a name, straight talk. it was traveling across the state on his straight talk express that senator mccain's unique brand of candor and politics caught fire with very discerning new hampshire primary voters, not once, but twice. senator mccain would become a primary legend, and in my view, new hampshire's de facto third senator, was far from certain when he started campaigning home in 1999. with texas governor, george bush, wrapping up endorsements, leading early in polls, the arizona senator faced an uphill climb, but true to his character, uphill climbs don't stop john mccain. moving from town hall to town hall, john mccain made the case for reform in washington to anyone who would listen and answered every last question to he was asked. although his early town hall attendees may have shown up just for the ice cream ring they left knowing they just witnessed something rare in politics, an honest, confident, leader with integrity, who republicked their view -- respected their views even if they differed from their own. they also saw someone who was firmly committed to changes business in washington and had a record to prove it. during his first new hampshire primary, john mccain disproved what the pundits had to say and the insiders thought about the race, and he won our primary by 19 points. while he may not have gone on to win the nomination that year, senator mccain left a lasting mark on new hampshire politics. since 2000, the free flowing meetings have been the hallmark of the new hampshire primary. to be taken seriously by voters here, you have to be completely accessible, can't get away with sound bites or poll driven answers. you have to go voter to voter, house party to house party, town hall to town hall, and meet the people of the state of new hampshire. agent years later the people of new hampshire and john mccain once again proved the pundits wrong when john made one of the greatest come backs in political history. they talk about bill clinton being the come back kid, john mccain is the come back kid in new hampshire. after being the early front runner in 2008, john literally fell to being fifth in a four-person race. he was out of money, carrying his own bags, he was hoping steve would pick him up at the airport so he'd have a ride, and the media declared his candidacy dead, but he came to new hampshire, and he went town to town, voter to voter, and the crowds at the town halls grew from a handful to dozens to hundreds, and the people of new hampshire listened once again to the man that everyone had written off. so many of us have personal memories of our time with john mccain. for me, it was during my own primary. i did my first town hall meeting with john mccain, and i went home that night and i said to my husband, i said, even if i lose that race, that was the experience of a lifetime, to stand on the stage with jun mccain. i would like to share with you an especially moving story from the campaign in 2008. after a town hall meeting, the mother of corporal matthew stanley who died serving in iraq asked senator mccain to wear a bracelet bearing her son's name. senator mccain promised to do everything in his pour to make sure that his death was not in vain, and true to his word, when so many others wanted to give up in iraq, john mccain stood up for the surge in iraq and said we can succeed even when it's not popular to do so, and i know senator mccain still wears corporal stanley's bracelet today. in 2008, the people of new hampshire again saw john mccain's character, his integrity, and when the results were in, senator mccain's powerful message of reform beat out money, defied washington's conventional wisdom, and, again, propelled john mccain to victory in our primary. eventually, of course, he became our republican nominee. we were proud to have that role here as the first in the nation primary to propel him to that victory. [applause] a new hampshire primary has no greater friend in the republican party than my colleague, john mccain. when our first in the nation status has been threatened by bigger states, john has shown in word and in deed why new hampshire must remain first. for that, and for his decades of distinguished service to our country, i am very honored to award him tonight with the first in the nation primary award, and i just want to say on a perm note, i consider john mckane a men -- john mccain, a mentor, someone today still working very hard to reform washington, and it is my privilege tonight to introduce john mccain. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> well, thank you very much, kelly, for those kind words and that wonderful introduction, and i'm very pleased and proud to tell you that you have kelly ayotte and jean shaheen both serving on the senate arms service committee fighting every day for the men and women serving in our mail tear. they -- military. they make a great team together, and i know new new hampshire can be very proud of them and their service to the country. i thank you, kelly, for your kind words, and thank you, jean, for your wonderful service to the state of new hampshire, thank you. [applause] so i have to begin by asking your sympathy for the families of the state of arizona because barry goldwater from arizona ran for president of the united states, and morris udall, and bruce babbit, and i ran for president all from arizona. this may be the only state that mothers don't tell their children that they can grow up and be president of the united states. [laughter] [applause] i'm very honored to be here with my friend, john kerry. i was thinking as he was talking, when he and i first came to the senate not too far apart, there was a number of senators who had served in the vietnam war, and i guess at the beginning of 2013, they'll just be two of us remaining. i would, again, point out that our effort on behalf of normalization of relations between the united states of america was driven by the fact that back in that time into the 80s, a war was over in 73, but into the 80s and even into the 1990s, the wounds of that war were still fresh and unfortunately still divided our country and in many respects, prevented a lot of our vietnam veterans from coming all the way home. i'm very proud of the work that john and i did, and to show you that if you live long enough, most anything can happen. there's a destroyer based in japan named after my father and my grandfather named john mccain, and last september, it paid a port visit to the port of denang that shows if you live long enough, anything can happen, especially if the chinese are behaving the way they are, but any way -- [laughter] barry goldwater said if i was elected and beaten his as, colorful language, you wouldn't have spent all those years in a prison camp. i said, you're right, barry, it would have been a chinese camp. [laughter] he was not amused. [laughter] josh, thank you for your moving words about your dad. i'll never forget it being a freshman member of congress one day, and your dad came to my office, and i was literally tongue tied. i was so honored to meet the great david broder, and i think one of the things that you could be very proud of in this day of polarized media of msnbc and fox and back and forth, i could not tell you to this day whether dad broedr was a democrat, republican, libertarian or vegetarian. [laughter] he judged and reported on american politics with total and complete objectivity, and i know that you're proud of him, and, dan, you are carrying on in that tradition. i suspect you are a vegetarian, but anyway -- [laughter] and charlie bass and frank, thank you for your continued service, and i cannot come here without mentioning thee lovable joe, and thank you for your continued direction, guidance, and insults -- lz as we try to -- [laughter] as we try to win the affection of the voters of new hampshire. thank you for your kind words, and thank you for your years of friendship. governor lynch, you know, he's unique fellow. i had a town haul meeting in hoppington, and he brought his daughter, and i was honored that he would be there. i think that he proved that you can govern with the approval of people of all parts of the ideological spectrum, and john, we appreciate your outstanding service as governor, which moves me then to tell the story of the two inmates in the state prison in the chow line, and one of them turned to the other and said the food was a lot better in here when you were governor. [laughter] and you can't tell that joke in illinois, i'll tell you that. [laughter] other several other states. [laughter] bill, thank you for your steadfast advocacy and support of the first-in-the-nation status. a lot of would be candidates for president visit me, and i say if you really want to understand a little bit about new hampshire, you should read that wonderful book that bill has written about first-in-the-nation, and it's said, if you're a united states senator, unless you are under indictment or detoxification, you automatically consider yourself for a candidate for president of the united states, and i can't conclude without mentioning that my beloved friend warren redman, we cherish his continued service and hope and pray for his good health as we know he's been having some of those problems lately. hugh greg, an institution here in new hampshire and a great guy. walter peterson, who continued to give me and all of us leadership and guidance throughout the years that we had the wonderful opportunity of being in his presence. i can only say to you from the bottom of my heart that i've been probably the luckiest person that you'll ever have the opportunity of knowing. i've had such great good forchip in my life to be able to be a part of this great nation and a part of the incredible experience of running for president of the united states, but my fondest memories frankly will be of the experiences i've had here in new hampshire because it's such a unique place and the people are so unique. they believe we live free or die. they believe that they should examine every candidates they not only take it as a privilege, but they take it as responsibility, and it's. my great honor to meet some of the most wonderful acquaint acquaintances in the campaigns with so many wonderful people, and what you have done has contributed enormously to the democracy that people all over the world today in this thing they call the arab spring are looking at and want to emulate and want to be like, and i guarantee you that in the next election, there will be people from libya and egypt and hopefully syria and other countries around the world who will be coming here because they were inspired by the example of the united states of america and what you do here in the great state of new hampshire. thank you and god bless. [applause] [applause] >> thank you, senator mccain and senator kerry. for the next 15 minutes, dan balz is going to facilitate a little discussion about those experiences during their presidential primary campaigns. .. why did you or did you have faith in new hampshire as a place that could sustain and bring you back as a candidate and when did you actually begin to cents-off the was going to happen or was possible? >> i thought it was possible because at least in new hampshire i had that relationship i had established with the people of new hampshire in 2000, but also the context i would like to mention our focus now is on jobs in the economy and by understand that and this campaign is going to be about jobs in the economy in the election was about jobs in the election. in 2008 there was a surge, and i believe that we had to support the research and we had to weigh in in iraq and i believe we could win an iraq with that strategy. and so i really did these a lot of my campaign not just here in new hampshire but in south carolina as well and florida on the issue of whether we should support the surge or leave and face the serious consequences of losing a conflict in that part of the world. so i think that matter, too. and i think it helped to galvanize some of the veterans vote which is very significant here in new hampshire as well. >> senator kerry, in your campaign as the video clearly showed the fall was very, very difficult for you. you made a strategic decision that was a little different than senator mccain, senator mccain hundred on the new hampshire you decide that iowa was also important in order to facilitate coming back in a hampshire. why was i was important to you and how did that contribute to how you are able to do here? >> it was important because it was an event that came before new hampshire, and i thought to get people to listen again it was important that i shake things up and change the dynamics. my problem, the problem that occurred for me was i think to fold. one most importantly on the iraq war in the united states senate i did what i believed was a presidential decision. if i had been president of the united states and we were trying to leverage saddam hussein in order to give inspectors in and do what they needed to do to protect the country i would have wanted the power that the president was asking for, and because of colin paul, brent scowcroft and a couple of other people who went very public about how the power could be used i thought we had elicited from the president of the united states guarantees specifically that we would only go to the war as a last resort, we will only go to the war if we built the legitimate coalition, and that we would only go to the war based on the other countries and the sort of an primm utter if you will of the country's, and i thought i was really important to us because john and i learned what happens if you go to war and you don't have the support of your country. i regret to say, and i don't want to interject the partisan here, but in my judgment everyone the promises made by the president is not kept. we didn't go to war as a last resort. we went in the collision complete and so on and so forth and as is now a record about of the weapons. so, i knew what was going to happen. i had some people on my team who advised me and said senator, if you vote for that you were going to have a hell of a hard time winning the nomination of the democratic party. well, i know that and that is probably true, but i am going to do what i think ought to be done as a matter of interest to the country, and you know, i -- howard dean, it's very easy. if you're outside the senate to say i would have voted against it and very easy if you are in the senate you have to vote, actually vote. so i lean toward that from the entire spring and fall and the money started going crazy, and i think frankly i was not as good a candidate. i was still talking senate ps. i hadn't broken out of that as a legislator and it took me awhile to do that. people like jean shaheen and other folks here tonight and others, space beans and others and they beat me up enough. it just changed. throughout the campaign i changed. i was a better candidate toward the end and i'm sure you felt the same way. you learn as you go through that and i think as i came into the debates with george bush and so on i felt like i was on top of the game. but my conviction was like could turn it around if i had a chance to meet people and explain my thinking and really talk about what my priorities were. in the and i think that is where i said the people of new hampshire listened. did you to the test. they didn't just buy into the story and that is the value of what happens here and it's interesting because john -- you know, it happens in this state in both sides of the nile. that's the interesting thing about new hampshire. it has a capacity to serve a separate and discern according to the space values, but it also does the same thing with respect to the republican party values and so forth and again and again new hampshire is able to choose a winner, not always, but again and again and it's an interesting process. >> what would you say is unique if there is something about campaigning in the state compared to other states? >> very sick simply as possible they expect to see. they expect to see you and the expect to be able to question you. they expect to examine. like the old joke the guy in manchester said to the other guy would you think about him for president? i only met him twice. [laughter] in other states do not expect that. in california and you think they are going to go to every town and village and city and it's something that people do reserve judgment but it's more important than that is that people in america believe they should vote. people in hampshire believe they have the responsibility to examine the candidates and to make a judgment. and i'm not saying that people in the rest of the country don't feel they have a responsibility to vote. if they don't have a unique responsibility that people when new hampshire have about how important and how what a determining factor what happens here in new hampshire is all about. that's why it is so key that this first in a nation status be preserved. [applause] >> and bob dole one night was at someone's home and after he finished an hour and a half or two hours he said that was great but people in my neighborhood are mad because you haven't been to my neighborhood and you better get to my neighbor defeating you were going to get their votes. give me your address from your name and address. she lived two blocks away. [laughter] what you think would happen to the process of nominating the presidents of there were a change in the calendar? i know neither of you is going to come out in favor of moving the new hampshire primary, but what impact would it have if the hampshire and iowa were not front-end of the process. >> some state has to be first come and i think this proven process has served the country very effectively. i know john will agree with me. there is just way too much money in american politics. we have to get -- i mean this is a state that succeeds in getting the money out of the process. this is advertising and yes deer is still money spent but i don't think the hampshire is as enslaved by that as they are the personal inquiries about the process. bye getting to know people, and if you are going to make real decisions in the country you don't want to empower the money and some other place. what state are you going to choose to be first? california where it will be all mauney? new york, florida, some other place? this state has proven its ability to also have a spectacular diversity that i think is marked down in the country. high-tech, low-tech manufacturing, lightning factoring all of these different components, education, and i think it is a terrific balance it is obviously a strong, strong tax and tip of the which reflects an awful lot of the country and it is a good debate to have put new hampshire is historic we also found a way to do the things it thinks it needs to do for its citizens. so i think there are a lot of reasons that there is a virtue to the state and would be hard for somebody to convince me that an unknown state with an unknown sefton genex is somehow when to replace that more effectively. >> i just would comment, and i don't mean this as a criticism of iowa but i think history shows the winner of the new hampshire primary more than likely is going to be the nominee of the party or has more than likely it is not in the iowa caucus and don't get me wrong i enjoy the iowa state fair and having the pork chop on a stick. [laughter] and the deep-fried twinkie. don't get me wrong. [laughter] >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> anyway. but it does seem to me when you look at it results over the past modern times in the way the last 30 or 40 years the iowa caucuses are not the determinant and the greatest ripoff of all are the straw polls which are the worst thing since probably ethanol. [laughter] >> i remember being in iowa when you're telling people you felt a great because you had your glass of ethanol that morning. [laughter] >> and chuck grassley. >> senator mccain, you won here twice, both victories were instinctive. which one was more satisfying? >> i think each were satisfying in a different way. the one here in 2000 obviously was a huge upset. the one in 2008 was survival, and so they really are very different and each had their own. after winning here in 2000i knew we had a very tough road to get the nomination. after 2001 was reasonable confident it was pretty well in hand if we didn't screw up which i had never done. [laughter] >> in 1999i was up and they said how would you like to meet him? he was 101i believe that the time so i went inside his home as many of you know and i said what was your favorite candidate? evin all of these people. they will come up here and met with you. who is your favorite of all of them who impressed you the most? he said mr. roosevelt. really? fdr was quite impressive. no, it was teddy roosevelt. [laughter] >> not making that up. [laughter] >> is there a particular moment that you remember first from your time of here either in a moment of humor, a poignant moment, a moment you learned something you hadn't known or was driven home to you in a different way? >> i will never forget waking up on the 27th of january at the hotel and the water had frozen. we couldn't take a hot shower, couldn't shave. i had to keep my water in a microwave, and there was something i said just doesn't feel right this isn't good. but they came together. there were these great moments. remember visiting the house to get new support and there was a refrigerator covered with all these photographs of every democrat that has ever been there and i was looking for space. i said i'm not going to win this race. [laughter] but there are so many different things. so many different parties where something happens. people open their homes the kids are wonderful. there's just so many of them you can't pick between them. but it is a life changing experience. i can't help but sit here and listen to john all might talk about it twice and i only did it once. my juices are flowing. [laughter] >> so many wonderful and amusing and entertaining science. there was a convenience store there was a woman very important -- >> mary hill. >> they said you have to go see mary hill. she's very important. so i went down and she came walking out and she had a hillary clinton button on. [laughter] i said thanks for sending me over there. [laughter] spinnaker the author of course was the mother who, you know, asked me to wear this bracelet and i always have. [applause] >> we have a couple minutes left. i want to turn this around a minute and ask you to talk about my side of the business because we spend so much time appear as reporters were trying to get right and very often don't get it right but thanks to the independence of the voters to keep surprising as from time to time i want to direct this first senator mccain with a specific question but i want senator kerry to also talk about it. in 2000 or in the fall of 1999 you launched the street talk expressed and you got on the bus and invited all of us to the back of the bus and yousaf for hours answering questions on the record to the point the dalia occasionally had to get off the bus and get on the other bus to get some work done because you were your stamina was quite remarkable and you were willing to take questions about anything and it was always on the record. we are now in the age of twitter and blogging and i wonder could you do that again in a new hampshire primary environment? how different is it today in the media environment that we are in and how is it changing the presidential politics? >> i regret to say that it would be much more difficult today, and olive regret saying that. and i have to say that if you remember the people that were on that bus again with all due respect to today's media they were pretty seasoned, pretty experienced, pretty mature judgment members of the media. let's face it the top people are assigned to the presidential campaigns, the top individuals. i have to say i don't think that is the case today. but having said that, i do believe that as opposed to the 2000 campaign or even a 2004 campaign or even to some degree the 2008 campaign there is now access to information in a way that is like drinking from a fire hose. there is a myriad of opinions. there is a plethora of information. we have as you say twitter and facebook, we have all of these different ways of people getting information. in 2002 they got the information about what the reporters on the boss told them. now it's pretty obvious that they can get -- you can remember and i can remember when we all waited for the evening news. does anybody wait for the evening news any more? and could i just finally tell one brief story coming and that is that i tweet and a lot and i get in trouble every once in awhile, but the tweet of the year last year in 2010 was snookie that i'm so mad that president obama for raising taxes on tanning beds. she said senator mccain would never do that because he's so pale. [laughter] so why tweeted back your right, snookie i would never raise taxes on tanning beds. it's a situation. that was the tweet of the year. [laughter] but i just want to finally mentioned the air in the spring wouldn't have been possible without the social networking. and there's a tremendous downside to the social networking but there's a tremendous upside also to the flow of information which then gives knowledge and i think probably a better informed vote at the end of the day. >> senator kerry, what is your vote on that? >> i agree with john, but i also would say that there is no accountability to date. i say this with all due respect you are an exception. there are few reporters who, like david broder, were not impacted by all of this outside. but frankly, you know, you've got seven candidates or eight running for president of the united states to think that planet earth is only 5000-years-old and there is no sense of accountability here. you have a complete discounting of what is absolutely factual. john and i and others have been struggling with this for years. the changes in the climate. the 48 states in the united states are now currently dealing with disasters because the floods and fires and it's just enormous, but people can assert that the earth is flat and it's reported some and so say that it's flat it's got equal footing there is no accountability for the truth or for science or what has been established as a and accepted norm for years and we have a problem in this country as a result of that. you know, you read the paper yesterday and today and the peace corps is down and revenue is the challenge we have in the education system. you go to china and other countries that speak our language fluently as kids find out how many kids in america speak the second language. so i think that the lack of accountability in the system for some the six standard of truth allows this chaotic kind of confused non-dialogue to take place which is based on anything but their real needs and concerns of the country so where else are we going to find if we don't have the papers of record or the institutions of record with respect to the news getting actually help people discern or hold people accountable the things that are just absurd there isn't any accountability to things that are patently absurd and it's getting harder and harder and in the democracy if people don't get good information or there isn't accountability you can say anything big money has the ability to say what it wants to say. it can buy the message and that is what is happened under the citizens united decision where people can now secretly put unlimited sums into the effort to the condition of comes and as a result the average person's concerns are not as well represented as are those who have the ability to get out there and change it. that is what threatens our democracy in my judgment and you guys in the state or what stands between us and neither anarchy or ignorance or bad decisions were so forth and that's where we are today. [applause] seabeck the only caveat that i would get to that coming in by understand exactly what you're saying and there's a polarization and the likes of which we haven't seen before but there's access to information or you have to do is have a computer or a cellphone and i agree with you about the citizens united decision and the thing that scares me most about the decision is a lack of transparency. that is what is really dangerous about the citizens united. [applause] but i do think that information is available to people that in a way it was never available to people in times past. whether that information is distorted or not or whether -- it is out there. one glad to hear your response to that but i do agree with you about the lack of accountability spec senator mccain gets the last word. thank you both very much for all letting me be part of this this has been a really wonderful evening of the for a rarity here we wanted to very and for the senators three posthumously my great friend david and we think you. [applause] >> senator mccain, senator kerry, john jeff broker for all the people here and the people of new hampshire, thank you for being here tonight on the commitment to have made. we will once again in a few months prove to the rest of the country a serious hampshire voters are in taking this responsibility that we have and demonstrate here tonight by bringing democrats and republicans together that we really do cherished the primary and hope we have it forever. thank you. [applause]

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