[cheering] thank you for coming. Fortunes above 50 million. You make it that big, pitch in two cents so everyone else has a chance to make it. We are doing the policy release. People here want to know you. They want to know what you are about. As his Vice President , it is my great honor to add his name to the New Hampshire republican primary ballot today because we need New Hampshire and america to give us four more years. [cheers and applause] dr. Lara brown, that is a director of George WashingtonUniversity School of political management, that is a glimpse of the 2020 primary process. A process that attracted more than 20 democrats. Last time around, more than 17 gop candidates vying for the nomination. You have spent your academic career trying to understand and explain the american electoral process. When you try to explain where we are today to people and how this process works, how do you explain it . Dr. Brown the thing you have to start with first is that competitiveness drives a lot of candidates. So, one of the things that is so interesting, when we really understand why there are so many candidates in the democratic primary field, why there are so why there were so many republicans in the 2016 field, it was because the presidency was seen as being up for grabs in both instances. In 2016, it was an open seat. There was this belief that the republicans could win that seat from the democrats. And so, so many republicans jumped in. When we look at 2020, you see that President Trump is something of an embattled incumbent. And that usually also sparks candidates in the Opposition Party to jump in and try to vie for the presidency. When you look across those fields, what should we know about the kinds of people who threw their hats into the ring these days . Dr. Brown since about 1976, our candidates have had more and more individuals who have claimed they are outsiders. First, they began as these outside washington politicians. Governors like jimmy carter, ronald reagan, and bill clinton. Now what we have seen in the last few cycles are individuals like President Trump saying, im not even from the political system at all. In fact, if you look at candidate tom steyers ads, hes running precisely on the same line of donald trumps, that he is a washington outsider and a businessman who can save the system despite having no political experience before joining the system. We thought we would spend this hour with you learning how we got to where we are today by really going through history. The major points in the process where the electoral system has changed. So we have to go back to the beginning. You have written about, starting in the Continental Convention and the debate amongst our Founding Fathers, about the Selection Process for the president. I remember you phrasing it as they were in a circular debate. What is important to know about what they were trying to achieve and what came out of it . Dr. Brown when we look back, we have to realize our framers were trying to do something that was not done around the world. They were trying to figure out how to elect an executive for the country. That was not something that was done all around the world. There were hereditary monarchs in power. And so, as they looked out, they looked to governors of states and really tried to invent their own system. They said, should the congress elect the president . Then they said, no, if they do that, the president will be the creature of congress, meaning that congress will own the presidency. Then they said, should there be a direct popular election . They said, no, that would likely result in sort of any sort of consensus. And there was going to be too much chaos to go with it and in inpracticalities at that moment in time. So they came upon a notion of the Electoral College. What this basically was was a way to say, lets get leaders from each state to go to their state capitals, have a meeting, and for the specific purpose, put forward names, vote on, if you will, two different people who could potentially be president and send them up to congress to determine who was actually the winner. That is really how it started. It started with this idea of, lets get some local leaders to help create some nominees. So, of course, in the past couple decades, the debate has been raging about whether the Electoral College still works for a country of this size, complexity, can you give us the pros and the cons of the Electoral College today . Dr. Brown the biggest thing in its favor is that it does have a tendency to force president ial candidate to campaign broadly and to win different states narrowly. It is more important to win a lot of states by 51 than a couple of states by 60 . What that does is ensures the president , in fact, represents most of the states in addition to most of the people. In other words, the Electoral College really does do what the framers had hoped, which was that it would be an office, the presidency itself, that represented the people, but through their states. So the combination of the house and the senate. The biggest problem with it is actually a problem the parties created themselves, and in fact, is not related to the Electoral College. It is related to how each state allocates its electoral votes. Right now, all states but maine and nebraska allocate those electoral votes in a winner take all manner. Meaning that if you win by 51 , you when all of that states win all of that states electors. A much more fair way would be for there to be essentially proportional representation by the awarding of those electors. So, if one candidate won 51 , 55 , they get 55 of the electors. The other candidate who lost the state would still get 45 of the electors. That would do a better job of more approximating the Overall National popular vote. Is that debate going on in any state legislators today . Dr. Brown sort of. But we actually have is a lot of different Reform Efforts that are attempting to overturn how the Electoral College works. Mostly there is a National Popular vote reform that really argues what should happen is whoever wins the National Popular vote, that states electoral votes should go to that candidate. I cannot envision a scenario where a republican won the National Popular vote and everyone in california would say, yes, isnt it great . All of our electors should go to the republican candidate as well. That is not something i imagine californians would be pleased, to see all 55 electoral votes going to a republican candidate that they clearly did not vote for in the popular vote level. Going back to early history, George Washington by acclamation in two elections, but it became clear the system was not functioning. What happened . Dr. Brown what is so fascinating is that this system almost immediately fell apart. The framers had this solution that the Electoral College either would find a consensus candidate that everyone loved, like George Washington, or that there would essentially be a split decision. Every state would put forward a favorite son. No one would have enough electoral ballast to get a majority, and as a result, the decision stayed among the top five according to the original constitution would go to the house of representatives. Then the house would divide into state delegations and vote for president. What really happened was that parties formed before the 1796 running of the presidency. They formed for a couple reasons. Political science talks about the need for what we Call Coalition in the legislature. Basically government would not be able to operate without parties. What we mean by that is, imagine every piece of legislation. You had to form a brandnew coalition every single time. It just would not form or function. Parties operate is what political scientists call long coalitions. There are groups of people with interests that are generally aligned. They agree to support each other and band together. With that, you are able to address more issues more quickly and efficiently than you would otherwise. These parties really formed in early 1790s because during washingtons administration, there were issues that started to divide people very quickly. You saw the debt assumption bill, a bill where basically washington, d. C. And the federal government would foot all the debts from the revolutionary war. That created some angst among southerners who did not want to see a powerful federal government. Early on there started to be this division between a party that looks at a strong federal government with International Interests and essentially a plan to improve the nation versus a party that is more interested in state and local power, a federal government, and a more inward looking foreign policy. That separated pretty much right away around the 1794, 1793 timeframe. When did the first crisis occur . Dr. Brown the very first competitive election. In 1796 we have a situation where john adams is essentially the federalist nominee and Thomas Jefferson is the democratic nominee at the time, his party was called the democratic republicans. They basically were competing against each other. They each had different favored Vice President ial candidates, but when the balloting happened and every state voted for two people, it turned out john adams came in first and Thomas Jefferson came in second. All of a sudden, you have opposition partisan serving as president and Vice President in the same administration. That clued in everyone there was going to be some problems. The next election, 1800, was essentially a rematch, but now john adams is the incumbent president. Thomas jefferson is working with James Madison, speaker of the house, in the Opposition Party. In that running of the election, Thomas Jefferson is now more popular than the incumbent president , running as this outsider against those in washington, so to speak. You end up having Thomas Jefferson tying the Electoral College with his own Vice President ial pick, aaron burr. At the time, there was no official casting of ballots for president and Vice President as separate ballots by the electors. Aaron burr stayed silent and thought, maybe i can actually be made the president in the house of representatives if i just go along. Maybe i will be able to squeak out the presidency. That created, obviously, a Massive Division in washington over who should become president. On the 36 the ballot in the house of representatives, Thomas Jefferson was made the president of the United States. Clearly six was needed. Dr. Brown that was to amend the constitution, which what it did was force the electors to cast separate ballots. One for president , one for Vice President , and be clear in that. It reduced the overall number of individuals who basically if there were a tie or no one received a majority, would go to the house of representatives. It would do five to three. The next election everyone studied in high school was the 1824 election. Adams, clay, johnson. What is important to know about that . Dr. Brown theres a couple things that are really important to know. Not until James Monroes presidency, this idea of how does the nominee get decided . It really was not a controversy. Everyone understood john adams would be the successor to washington. Everyone understood James Madison would be the successor to Thomas Jefferson. The problem was now you had james monroe, who had been governor in virginia. He had been secretary of state under James Madison. He again becomes president. A lot of other people are starting to say, wait a minute. How come the virginians are consistently getting nominated for this office and winning . By the time munroes presidency is winding down, it is 1824 and competition has been brewing for years. People cannot wait to jump in. They have a lot of candidates and one of those was actually william crawford, who had been secretary of the treasury, if i recall, and crawford gets whats called the king caucus endorsement. The caucus was essentially a meeting of each partys congressional delegation to determine who should be the nominee. It is kind of derogatorily referred to that way because people from outside washington were saying, wait a minute. Congressional members get to elect the chief . We are in a democratic country. You have this sense that the fix is in. Crawford gets this nomination, which might not have been so bad but for the fact that he had a very debilitating stroke and he was partially blind and mostly paralyzed. Yet he still wins the caucus endorsement. The idea that all of a sudden, the presidency is going to somebody who was basically unable to fulfill the duties of the office raised the hackles of many other individuals, including Andrew Jackson, the war hero from the war of 1812 and his battle of new orleans fame, who basically is looking at this as, he is the outsider. He wants to run. Then there is john quincy adams, john son who was now the senator from massachusetts. He is interested. And henry clay, speaker of the house. All of them jump in. All of them start contesting the king caucus endorsement by trying to get basically resolutions from their states and their state legislatures, saying isnt this great . We love our person. This should be the president. The Electoral College again essentially runs into a problem because the ballots are split. What we have is a situation where no one earns a majority of the votes and because it is now the top three, that means it is between john quincy adams, Andrew Jackson, and william crawford. And henry clay, who is speaker of the house, gets to essentially decide. The former candidate who gets ousted, because of the 12 amendment, gets to help make the decision. He makes it in favor of john quincy adams. That becomes the basis of Andrew Jackson and his supporters cry of a corrupt bargain. The whole system again turns into controversy by 1828. Jackson is successful in 1828 and is the president that our current incumbent points to as his favorite in history. How did the election of Andrew Jackson change the system again . Dr. Brown it certainly changed in that Andrew Jackson was from tennessee, he was this war hero, he had a certain celebrity in the country. He also wanted to represent the common man. Interestingly enough, in 1828, he basically picked up William Crawfords campaign manager, who had been Martin Van Buren, who later becomes president. But Martin Van Buren helps Andrew Jackson to expand the basis of the parties. The parties become these mass organizations. By 1832, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren had decided to adopt an innovation called the national convention, which was a way to bring all the state Party Leaders to one convention to choose the nominees instead of using this either state legislative resolution or a congressional caucus or king caucus. What was happening in the electorate . Who could vote . Dr. Brown generally speaking, what was going on was that white males were now enfranchised. They reduce the property requirements that were in existence early in the republic. It was also true that the states had essentially moved to the system of winner take all in most of the electoral vote allocation. It was also true that states were no longer essentially choosing electors by the state legislature, determining who those were, relying on the votes of the people in their states. The National Conventions, which start in 1830, there were three distinct periods in history of National Conventions. The national Party Leadership, best example five by Abraham Lincolns election. What was the story . Dr. Brown it takes some time for state Party Leaders to actually build up enough credibility to become delegates at their convention. We look to james polks nomination, or Abraham Lincolns. A lot of people who are delegates, managing these candidacies, are the ones ensuring the vote for these individuals, they are in some ways more national Party Leaders than they are state Party Leaders. They are still senators, still representatives. They are sometimes governors, but more often than not, they are still people who had power in washington or had powerful networks nationally. James k. Polk would never have been the nominee had it not been for Andrew Johnsons mentorship and his maneuvering Martin Van Buren away from the nomination that year. How did Abraham Lincoln with a brandnew party, the Republican Party was a few years old, how did he maneuver through that system . Dr. Brown this is the interesting part. In these early years, so much was about creating a deadlock. If you created a deadlock in these conventions, what you could create through kind of the stage managing of different delegates activities, putting the name into nomination or creating a general uproarious noise when that persons name was called, you could essentially stagemanaged this notion there was momentum behind an acceptable candidate. The individuals we think of as dark horses who came out of nowhere, they did not really come out of nowhere. They were people who were working within the convention to make sure that if deadlock happened, if more than one ballot occurred, they would enter their candidacy and work to essentially gin up a majority. It was the quintessential kind of back room of politics that we think about. When was the first time president ial candidates started going to their own conventions . Dr. Brown they dont start going until fdr. The big moment where he is there in 1932, he flies into the convention. It is a very big deal. There are earlier instances of individuals showing up at the conventions, but it was not normal, which is one of those amusing things. If you are going to be the candidate, you had to manage to become the nominee without being there. That is quite a trick, to have your supporters and friends put you up for nomination that whole process through. The party bosses became so important. We have this whole area where cities were growing, we were moving from an Agrarian Society to an industrial society. We had basically these party bosses who were running the political votes of their cities or their countries and the candidates were essentially going to them and eventually begging their support. If the candidates pass muster, the bosses would maneuver on their behalf at the convention. It is interesting because by the time of William Mckinley in 1896, the reformers had taken hold. They were disgusted by this corruption and dealing. They in fact turned around and mckinley tries to run a plan against the bosses. What he does is, as a republican, garners the vote from southern delegates who have not yet been important because during that period of time, the south was solidly democratic in the general election and nobody had thought to include those delegates in the nomination process. During that period of time, swing states became really important. People assume, new york and pennsylvania. The third was indiana. Why was indiana so powerful . Dr. Brown indiana was going back and forth. You had a very strong country party, meaning that everybody in rural areas were in support of the democratic candidates. Those who were in the towns were republicans because the parties had switched coalitions. What we usually think of now, the republicans in rural areas and democrats in urban, at that point it was a different mix. It was as competitive. This really just comes down to, there was a kind of divided population. An equally balanced population. When a state is that way, it becomes a battleground state in the general election. That matters at every level. During that time period, there were two of those contested elections. 1876 and 1888. Benjamin harrison lost the popular vote, but won the Electoral College. If the party bosses were in control, why do we end up with two elections so close . Dr. Brown the same reason we ended up with elections in 2016 that were close. Generally speaking, does very well when the country is split 5050. It is difficult to decide an election when the boat is split relatively equally. Between a percentage point. The Electoral College tends to magnify because of this winner take all allocation, the votes of those states that the winner wins. The Electoral College and that is one of the things in favor of it. 1992, bill clinton only won 43 of the popular vote. He won a much larger Electoral College vote, which allowed them to govern. It is interesting we have these inversions in the gilded age. We had 90 turnout regularly. We also had an equally divided country. It was literally a percentage point between the candidates that would determine the election. At that moment, the Electoral College does not work well. You have to have another decision. 1876, it did not even go to the house of representatives. It went to a specially designed commission where we had basically republicans and democrats review the different contested states electoral ballots. There was one more republican on it then democrat. On every single vote republican voted republican. As a result, Rutherford B Hayes won even though the popular vote suggests tilden may well have. A difficult time for hayes establishing his legitimacy. In history, president s who have not won the popular vote how difficult is it for president s to establish themselves in a contested environment . Dr. Brown very hard. There is a sense the system is not working. What is interesting about it is that we read into the popular vote something we probably shouldnt. That is that it is the true measure of the nations will. We forget that the aggregated popular vote is something of an accident. What i mean by that is that the candidates do not make their strategies around the popular vote. They build their strategies around Electoral College vote. That means campaigning only happens in certain states and not others. That means turnout varies wildly across the states. In a state where people feel as though there vote does not matter, that popular vote that comes out of the state may not have the same kind of in states that are vying for every ballot. We have to realize the aggregated popular vote just does not contain the kind of meaning i think we would like it to have. The best way i always say and i think most political Scientists Say to think about the Electoral College is it is more like the world series than the super bowl. It does not matter how many runs you have in each game. You have to win four games. We saw the Washington Nationals this last year. They had many runs down in houston. Then they came home to washington dc. It looked as though they might lose the series if they did not win another game. When you aggregate the runs across all seven games, does the winner the person who has the most runs, should they win . No. The Electoral College says essentially it is the most states. Thanks to the Washington Nationals. We are now in the age of moving images. We are going to show one from 1912. An important year because the incumbent president , taft, was challenged by Theodore Roosevelt. What happened to the process when Theodore Roosevelt ended up challenging his own president in that year . He ended up running as a thirdparty candidate. What happened to the process . Dr. Brown what was so fascinating about 1912 is you have a former president saying i want to run again and i think my party should let me run again, and the party says, no. We are going to go with the current president , taft. Roosevelt mounts this run really because he does not win his partys nomination. In doing so, he divides the party and as a result, Woodrow Wilson ends up winning the election. That party, the Republican Party, really does divide in such a way that it is not able to reform in any sort of dominant way for years. It is true that the republicans come back after Woodrow Wilsons presidency for that decade, but then what we see is that Franklin Roosevelt is able to pick up that coalition and run with it. The democrats are ensconced for many years. At the primary level, and what was important about that period, was that people were questioning party bosses. The progressives who really got going in the late 1890s and carried through all the way to Franklin Roosevelts presidency had really been about changing the nature of who were the delegates at these National Conventions . They said it is not fair that it is these party bosses or National Elites. People should decide. And the people need to have a way to decide. What we saw was that the primary election was created as a way to select delegates to the convention. What was the first state to hold a primary . Dr. Brown florida is the first to adopt a primary ballot. Wisconsin really takes it forward because the governor pushes forward on having primaries in 1905. What are the important periods for the evolution of the electoral process . Dr. Brown the most important thing to realize is these first primaries were what we generally call beauty contests. They were not necessarily aligned with the delegate in the vote. You would vote in your primary, but that did not necessarily bind anyone in your state to a certain delegate or a delegate to the convention. As a result, the primaries for most of the 1900s become just a way that a candidate can demonstrate their electability. This is why everyone points to a john f. Kennedy running in the West Virginia primary because what he was saying to his party is, look. I am catholic and i can still do well in a very protestant state. He runs, he does well. The Democratic Party says, yes, he is electable. In 1968, this system of beauty contests and National Elites managing the delegates reaches another crisis and comes to a head. We have a video of that convention, which anyone who was alive will remember. Just a quick question because we are going to see it on television. In the 1950s, television arrived. After that, madison avenue. How did those additions to our culture impact the president ial Selection Process . Dr. Brown it just starts to change the notion of who is an acceptable candidate. Who should people look to as somebody who can lead . This is where republicans selecting eisenhowers happening. This is a throwback all the way to Andrew Jackson or to any of the other generals, grant, who won in different points in our history. There was this sense that the only way the republicans could win against the Democratic Coalition was to bring a war hero onto the ticket and create a coalition behind him. The prior nominee had actually managed the kind of delegate vote getting for eisenhower, and it is really because of his efforts that in fact warren ended up on the Supreme Court. Warren was interested in the nomination. Dooley convinced him to get his votes to eisenhower. Eisenhower appoints warren. The warren court is history which would not have occurred if not for those political maneuvers. Her member, the nation is in the middle of the vietnam war. Lets look at what was happening at the podium at the democratic convention. I proudly accept the nomination of our party. [cheers and applause] we have heard hard and sometimes bitter debate, but i submit that this is the debate and this is the work of a free people. The work of an open convention and a Political Party responsive to the needs of this nation. Why was 1968 a crisis . Dr. Brown because it was not really an open convention. President Lyndon Johnson had worked very hard in the background after he had stepped down from running to manage those delegates and ensure his Vice President , hubert humphrey, would garner the nomination. Those individuals running in the primaries and those antiwar candidates in particular, mccarthy and mcgovern, their supporters were enraged that they did not have a way to be important on the floor, to have any votes. They could not believe humphreys was going to secure the democratic nomination. With that, there were protests and riots in chicago that became very violent. The democrats basically said, ok. The only way to get out of this is to reform the process. They established what became the Mcgovern Frazier reform. The most important part of the reforms was that the delegates had to be named and selected prior to the primary in those states. What we saw was that the primaries were being bound and linked to the delegate Selection Process. If you win as a delegate, you are bound to vote for the candidate you are elected for. Dr. Brown yes. It is still an interesting thing in that the parties tinker with delegate Selection Processes. Different states are awarded different numbers of delegates. The democrats also insured in their reforms that there was a broader diversity of delegates. They did put affirmative action, put quotas. The Democratic Party, the delegates have to be divided evenly in terms of women and men. It has to have a representative sample essentially of minorities. If theres 40 of the population in the state are minorities, that delegation better have something close to 40 of its delegates going to the convention be minorities. Political junkies and reporters would love the idea of a brokered convention. This was the deathknell of a brokered convention. Dr. Brown what it meant was what you accrued, you knew you would get a vote on the first ballot. That shifts the process to the primaries. Dr. Brown it does. Wended iowa and New Hampshire become so important . Dr. Brown iowa really makes its mark with jimmy carter in 1976. You look to the process in 1976. There was a large number of democrats who were running. Richard nixon had stepped down after watergate. Gerald ford had taken over. He was not a popular president. There was a lot of competition. The people running were washington senators who were saying, look, we are here, we are going to clean out the corruption. We were part of essentially overthrowing the republicans who were engaged in not so great things for the country. Jimmy carter comes in from iowa i mean, from georgia, and he comes in after iowa, he places second. Like clintons second place in 92, it rocketed his momentum upward and he careened right through the primaries and won the nomination, which surprised a lot of delegates. The democrats on the heels of that decided they needed to tinker with their process. That was when the added superdelegates. The other thing that happened in 1976 was the resurgence of nationally televised debates. Everyone learned about the 1960 jfknixon debates. But they went on hiatus. What impact did they have on the electoral process . Dr. Brown debates are interesting because theres a lot of studies that show the debates are not in fact what decides the election. It is in fact the discussion about who won the debate that becomes more important. One of the things that is true is that the debates did create more of a sense that having a television present, being able to connect with voters through the Television Camera was going to be more important than the out theyocess of going have had mixed effects and they do have this situation where our primariesking and our processes so much more, something that approximates a reality show then it is necessarily the candidates getting to know the voters. You have been an academic all your life. What are you interested in . I have had a lot of different iterations in my life. College in off in the late 80s and early 90s. Watching the fall of the wall, the berlin wall, the end of the cold war and the beginning of bill clintons presidency. I was in california during the rights that. I have spent much of my time in the 1990s actually and engagedc politics. I worked as a corporate liaison and i worked in and returned to academia. I have seen it at every angle. I have seen it as a government appointee. It as an academic. I have even seen it from the position of the business community. Whatwikipedia page are dinnertable conversations like at home . What is so interesting is the major is a phenomenal journalist. He and i have this tension in our conversation. Im always theorizing where are things going, what hypothesis can i test . Always when i ask the major, where do you see this going . He would respond by saying this is what we know now. Journalists report what is happening and arent interested or focused on the longterm consequences. They are in the middle of the first draft of history. I am always trying to understand history. Turns out a lot of people who become political operative and campaign managers, when did they become an important part of the process . Essentially the reforms come 1970s as television is taking off as managed campaign becomes important. We have to understand consultants became a way for continuation of political knowledge and experience used within the party. When the parties lost their powers the consultants took over. When its truly look at someone like David Axelrod or carl rose, they had an extraordinary political history. The problem is a lot of candidates that they are matching and putting forward has little knowledge of politics and how governance actually works. Have this problem where the candidates say they are going to outsource politics. They get mad and are running against all the people. Ofthe process costs millions dollars. When did money become a major factor in politics . Rise together largely because the parties lose their force we have a colleague of partiesking about weak and a Strong Partnership and manage the era we are in. The candidates do have more control so long as they can raise the money. The candidates dont have the political knowledge to advance their position. There is a big debate that continues about iowa and New Hampshire and the representation of the electorate overall. The discussion about national or compressed regional primaries, we talk about the Electoral College changing it. Were any of these fixes ones that had a substantive and positive impact . Makes itl primary worse. The cost of the election would skyrocket, only people with or a name recognition celebrity would win. I would if we were doing it in a rational way. Electionsin different , different groups of states. The situation i have now in iowa and New Hampshire. South carolina has been added into the mix of the early stage. You can see they are not as decisive as you might think. Youre talking about a tradeoff between the money and the voters. If you really want the voters to get the candidates you need to have fewer states. To have at everyone fair shot, you need to have those candidates have a lot of money. Neither of them is fair. Have the last 15 years we had contestant elections, and the last one was in the Electoral College. The last piece of video is from. He house of representatives al gore and george w. Bush. Lets watch. The state of the vote for president of the United States is delivered as follows. Of the whole number of the electors appointed to vote for president of the United States of which the majority is 270. Al gore from the state of tennessee has received 266 votes. This announcement shall be deemed a sufficient declaration elected president and Vice President of the United States. And shall be entered together with a list of votes on the journal of the senate and the house of representatives. President ess our new and Vice President , and may god bless the United States of america. We have a minute left. What is that moment say about the american system . What you have is an act of statesmanship. An individual who was running for election who decided not to create a constitutional crisis by essentially ignoring the Supreme Court decision. He could have recognized the in thatrepresentatives chamber to be heard, and had he done it. A really critical juncture in our countrys history. Precisely that failure of the Founding Fathers around making the Vice President the president of the senate, who would announce that. Interesting trip through American History and how we elect a president read think you for your time. All q a programs are available on our website or as a podcast on cspan. Org. During this thanks giving week we are featuring book tv book tvr during programs featured over the weekend. Store Dicks Sporting Goods talks about the decision to stop selling guns. Then Charles Schwab talks about his life and career. Whetherrofessor on programs are working. All tonight on cspan two. Cspans student can 2020 competition is in full swing. Middleton High School Students are hard at work, creating short documentaries on the issues they would most like the 2020 president ial candidates to address in their campaign. Take us behind the scenes and share your photos. For chance to win additional cash prizes. Have resources to help out. Guide youormation to through the process. All entries must be uploaded and received by midnight on january 20. You are never too young to have an opinion. For more information go to our website. Student cam. Org. The team is traveling across the country, visiting key battleground states in the 2020 president ial race. One of the most fascinating issues as poverty and income and inequality, the richest of the country getting richer. Toething has to be done equalize things, not necessarily , those in theway economic spectrum have more opportunity to get better that theyto people so can get out of poverty and continue to build the middle class. How would you tackle the Climate Crisis without coming off as part of it . It proves there is something wrong that not enough is being done. Oure is only one part of preparations i need to be taken seriously. Also during the forest fires and drastic changes, what is being done as we speak . Voices from the campaign trail, part of cspans battleground states tour. Former new york city mayor Michael Bloomberg traveled to Norfolk Virginia for his first cans pain stop First Campaign stop. Mr. Bloomberg spoke about his decision to enter the race and took a few questions from reporters. Thank you and good afternoon, it is great to be here. Im happy to say i supported 14 other virginia democrats who won election, next to the good work of so many volunteers and supporters who