that says, "dear peter, public records said you voted in 2008. thank you for being a voter. there's another election coming up. i hope dr. words we can thank you again for being a good citizen. people on the lapper try to mobilize this coalition using these behavioral tools to motivate people. there may have been a fear six months ago there romney could have been a cost cutting can the did to have some persuasive appeal to get soft democrats who are disappointed in obama to defect. you can look at his polling numbers across categories and, by all calculations, he has failed to be that candidate. for people on the left, super pac's, labor, it is not are they going to support us? but can we change their behavior and have them vote. >> before we move on from this topic. i want to give you guys a chance. this kind of dynamic that a lot people assume through tampa of was that the romney campaign is trying to run primarily on the kind of argument that you mentioned earlier. obama has not lived up to his promises. the economy is not good. gives someone else a chance. >> that would have solved the stimulus problem, by the way. >> ok. obama did not live up to that. the perception is that argument alone is not going to do anything. >> i agree. >> the republicans miss a big opportunity? >> they spent $100 million on negative ads in swing states this summer sort of refraining who romney is. they were enormously effective. they happen without any real organized response coming from the other side. one of the things i learned as a candid it is that races are partially about selling your story, making your case, framingham you are, but it's also about realizing the other side is going to do everything they can to frame u.s. something you do not think you are or you are not. my wife and i and my kids used to watch some of the stuff on tv during my race and they would just laugh. they would look at the tv and laugh. i would say to them, i know you think it's funny - [laughter] very lot of people who do not know me from adam and probably believe it. >> that does mean to get to spend more time with your kids. >> the most interesting thing to me about the issue that sasha raises -- i found this out a different way. one of the things i did after the election, a democrat who is a friend of mine sent me karl rove's book. it's actually pretty breezy read. if you want to learn a lot about an interesting guy, it's worth it. when he was a teenager, one of the things he figured out there really sort of frame his whole life thinking about politics for the rest of his life was that there are a lot of people who are registered to vote who do not show up. if you just get your team to show up, you can win a lot of elections. i think this whole notion of behavior modification, targeting and all that, it's a huge issue. as social media becomes more prevalent and as more and more people -- i watch my kids these days and the way they work with technology and relate to it, it's completely different than the way my wife and i do. i think that will have a huge impact on how people go about trying to get their teams to show up. i'm not sure in the aggregate we're ever going to get more than 70% of the registered voters to show up. that creates a big opportunity for someone who can get their team to the poll. >> for obama in particular, the subtitle of my book is, "the subtitle of change in the obama era." team obama. everyone wanted to go vote for the guy. he was about help, change, excitement. some people sure they like being part of a crowd, like feeling like this is the cool thing to do. they are a part of a cause. obama is really struggled in that this time around. some of his advisers feel strongly that he cannot run on change again even though it tells this hidden story of everything that has happened because it would sort of feel like they're dancing in the end zone when americans are not feeling very happy about where things are. they argue about this stuff all the time. i've been very surprised. i do not know what the behavioral signs show, the ec that he has embraced the phrase obamacare. after a while, it was totally toxic but now he is starting to embrace the auto bailout and embracing things in the stimulus like middle-class tax cuts, doubling renewable energy. even though he does not say "stimulus." he has not come out and said, "change happened." i'm wondering what you think the signs are. >> i read about a whole bunch of innovations taking place in the last decade in politics. some that started happening a decade ago was because the tools came available from social sciences, commercial marketing, migrating into politics. it's not a coincidence as to what happened after 2000. politics was entirely in the shadow of florida and the narrowness of that election. it demonstrated two things to people who work in campaigns. one is how absolutely polarized the modern left person is. matt dowd starts writing a memo even before the supreme court ruled in 2000 looking ahead to the bush reelection in 2004. he said we're in a newly polarized country. this election will not be decided, as we have often thought, by battling over swing voters, moderate independents in the center. think back to the clinton years. this was the paradigm we thought of. he cited a statistic in their that in 1984 according to exit polling, 26% of voters had cast a ballot that included both a democrat and republican at different levels. by 2000, it was down to 7%. that's the environment we are in. parties have realigned. the democrats intend to vote democrat. it is -- they have thousands of datapoint about you. the single one that is most productive is one party or registered. the bond that is most -- the one that is most predictive is how you are registered. the fact is that most people's both are highly predictable and campaign the know this. you cannot at the polls that any given day, but they average out at 48-46. you do the math. that is a% undecided and maybe there are a few points that are soft on obama who may be condensed to a defect to romney and soft romney supporter the other way. for the other side of the electorate, they change their behavior to motivate them to vote. >> there is a significant divide out there, but defining the divide is an interesting question. some people say it is social issues that divide people, lifestyles. the heartland have a different set of social values than people on the coast. others suggest that it something deeper at a moment's when there is global competition and there is so much economic insecurity because of the global competition that one answer to that is the democratic idea of shoring up the safety net making sure your pensions and health care are really strong. the other response to that is why should our fortunes be tethered to iran and the strait of hormuz where the greek debt crisis or whatever. we need to double down on main street and promote individual values. whether that is possible or not, individual enterprise, small business, whatever. there's something comforting about the idea that forces are being turned off and we're going to be doubling down on free enterprise, a community enterprise. what do you think? where is the divide? what is the divide over? >> all the above. sasha knows that most of those people who are working the campaign are trying to figure out which one matters the most to you. toehow they're trying to get 51% based on how you cobble together the different groups. one thing i learned just talking in diners and people's backyards, all the rest, -- actually wrote about this after the election, but it is amazing. most voters care a lot about something, right? but the number of different some things that are out there is really big. [laughter] the economy is a really big deal, but i'm telling you. i was shocked at how many different things are fundamental the way people think about this. >> we have looked at the extent to which the values debate between the two parties came into really sharp relief. we sign no. republican speaker is quoted the "built it myself" who had -- where obama had talked about the importance of government investments in education and that no one is really out there alone. he said it in a way that suggested he was telling a entrepreneur is that they did not do it themselves and it was all society. the republicans really doubled down on that. i thought the most moving way was susanna martina's, the popular republican governor of new mexico. she was talking about a security business that her parents started. she said her parents grew back from 180 year-old guarding a. parlor to 125 employees in three states. there was helped along the way, but my parents took the rest. they stood up, and you bet they believe they build it themselves. that was really powerful, but the democrats seem to turn the tables on them very strongly. the more prosaic argument that bill clinton made was, frankly, we think we are all in this together as a better philosophy than your on your own. ashought obama's except speech was a little underrated, but he kind of addressed directly when you talk about the importance of free enterprise and his belief in it. he said we also believe in something called citizenship, a word of the very essence of our democracy, the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to each other and to future generations. seeing democrats stepped forward and start claiming the founding documents, this is what the country is about, it really sets of a very high level philosophical mano y mano. what was your impression? >> when romney picked paul ryan, we were under the impression they wanted a philosophical debate. after the first 48 hours of that, i did not get the sense that the romney campaign was particularly invested in having a big debate about how austerity, the size of government, are making sacrifices today for long-term fiscal health, all the things we thought we going to get. >> it is about romney is really that pure? >> they're flailing at the moment. the comments toward egypt and libya in the last few days and before that talking about the chicago school strike and trying to pin that on obama suggests that romney has given up on may be making this about job creation or the economy as they have said all year. it does not seem to sustain the ryan debate over the question of the size of government. i think we thought it was supposed to be a sort of aesthetic distinction between the parties. it does not seem like it was part of a broader argument that, either over the course of that week in tampa or since then, that the obama campaign -- >> do think they took it as the reason to have a broader argument on their own? >> i think they did. they have been getting ready to run against the ryan plan before we had any idea that he was near romney's short list. as charles was saying, the number of money spent trying to define romney was this very well planned, a deliberate effort during the summer to attack ronny's role at bain capital, his job creation record as governor of massachusetts and his personal finances and investments overseas. that's a gradual effort has built a story that in the heart of his strength which was stipulated. basically, the argument might be good -- he might be good at being a shareholder, but he was not good for america and the workers. his success either is irrelevant your well-being or was predatory. it doesn't matter. i, as long as it's ambiguous enough to not put your confidence in him, we're fine. >> in fairness to ronny, ted kennedy never showed anyone tax returns and no one seemed to care. there was a bit of a double standard. >> is there a double standard? most presidential candidates have released more than romney has. ofon't know how many years returns their release. show of hands, how many people ever remember caring one way or another if any of the presidential candidates released tax returns? [laughter] i do not think the romney administration was as prepared for that question as they probably should have been. one thing i learned as a candid it is because you think an issue is a good it does not mean it is. and is always interesting to me to find out what the other team will choose to focus on and when they will decide that the issue is over. that is an important distinction in races. everyone is human. the arbiters of what is news and what is not will give people the benefit of the doubt on something but will not give some of the same benefit. >> what romney did is allow the boy did to exist when talking about bain capital or the tax returns. they can allow media and the obama campaign people interested in feeding this on a daily basis. he would say, "i want to talk about the economy." it's based on the underlying assumption that everyone knows i have been successful in business, but there was very little about what the voters knew to explain what that meant. he did not tell his own story about the olympics. he did not tell its own story about the olympics. he did not say a lot of specific things about the economy. we were talking about mitt romney and economy. >> he had created a problem for himself. as sasha pointed out, romney had to get through a primary. it was a very big primary. [laughter] he did take some positions in the primary. when you look at the polling, sometimes the democrats are popular and sometimes they are not. lately, democrats do better on foreign policies. romney have really gotten himself out on some limbs that he's had problems getting back. he says he wants to talk about the economy. that means that the economy sucks and you want everyone to know about it. getting specific only cause him problems. >> here is another issue where you get into a little bit of a specific problem. this one is for charlie. in mitt romney's except and speech, he said that he will repeal obamacare. there are two issues embedded in there -- is obamacare really so bad that the republicans would take it on squarely when is it a democrat sneak in with the few more positive things about it? it's poll numbers are starting to go up a little bit. also there is idea that whatever our problems are, obamacare has not really kicked in. is that what is causing increasing health care costs? >> i used to write a blog at harvard pilgrim. >> it was great. >> i wrote that any reform plan would be better than the status quo. i think obamacare is worse than the status quo. it did not do anything about the fact we had a system where most folks have chronic illnesses and what they need is help with managing what i would describe as -- that is what health care services are supposed to be about. they got hit harder than anyone coming out of that legislation. it is going to increase the federal deficit. i do not come away with it think it is part of the answer. i used to write a lot of what i do instead. ok? this would be a good question to ask you, mike. i struggled with this issue a lot. so our reporters are wrote columns that my wife was pretty funny. how do you talk about policy matters in a serious way and at a level that is understandable and that the same time meaningful? what end up happening is that i would flop onto the ground and lose everyone. but if you talk about it up here, people criticize you for not being specific. >> i do not know. neither does barack obama. it is hard. i tell a lot of stories about what they're wrestling with in the white house. i am always talking about this stimulus. they thought they had a very simple message. we are doing tax cuts, but we are also doing spending. we are saving the economy in the short term, but transforming it in the long term with clean energy and lower health care costs and education reform and new economic order. we are doing stimulus now because we are in an economic emergency, but we will take it to fiscal responsibility later. we are cutting taxes for 95 percent of the population are raising effort to%. is a very simple -- raising taxes for the 2%. it is a very simple two-part message. many people say that bill clinton should be the secretary of explaining things. who says things. it does not seem to me like he is doing any kind of magic. he just has longer to talk and people were forced to listen. he has a longer talk and people do not want to listen. sasha and i are paid to watch this stuff. we know about some of these details and where people are fudging the truth. most people do not. the sound bites are incredibly powerful. >> charlie, can ask about health care? if you were a voter looking at these two candidate and you hear romney say, i will be repealing obamacare -- would people upset about health care blame obamacare? when people think about going into the voting booth, wouldn't they say, we're getting rid obamacare, but he has not said what would replace it. the default becomes the status quo. how will this all end up? >> the big question is -- how many people will vote on the side of the federal deficit? that for me is my number one issue. i have three kids. i feel like i'm dooming them. i was brought up very traditional. you try to make sure at the end of the day that all the bills are paid. i try to make sure that at the end of the day, the bill is paid. that is the defining issue more than anything else. it is a no-brainer from my point of view. i think that depends to some extent on whether -- there is like, millions of variations on this theme. when you ask me what i think about the electorate on health care, there are a whole bunch of people will have pretty good coverage and big words. that is a pretty big number. there is a bunch of people who are in medicare. they worry a lot about their health care and about medicare. they are at an age in their lives were it is more important than it was 10 or 15 years ago. as we get older, health care becomes a much higher priority issue. i do not know how the back-and- forth of medicare will play out. i think for a lot of folks for whom medicare really matters, that will have a lot to do with where they decide. >> " you mentioned that bill clinton speech and elizabeth warren speech. there is a provision in obamacare that says 80% of what you take in has to be on a patient over care and not on administrative overhead. is that a winner? people are perking up their ears when they hear about that. >> in the massachusetts i believe it is 90% on the health care forum that passed. the answer is -- and this falls into what people pay attention to -- take a $1 billion and spread across the population that is involved. i think a few bucks. the way you get it is by doing an adjustment in the premium the next month. if the premium is a high to begin with and you get a small adjustment, you might not notice. you may not notice that. i do not know if people will notice. someone would have to put it out to them. that is the short answer. >> there is cynicism in the ability of washington to do anything in people's lives. i wonder if it is the administration or congress or any piece of legislation that could be credited by a large portion of population for improving benefits of people's lives because there is such lying cynicism about the institution. this is one of the themes of michael's books. especially the tax cuts that no one ever knew happened. you have the example of a rebate. if congress is pulling a 12% approval rating, it will never occur that any improvement in people's lives is due to them. have the democrats created a successful theme in -- >> we are in a moment where they are philosophically opposed to government intervention in markets. that could include the government and big business. i do not think those are the assumptions. >> republicans accuse obama of representing the government. obama accuses romney of representing big business. >> that does not mean the voter has to choose one over the other. we shoul