Okay. I think were going to go ahead and get started. Thank you everyone so much for coming. My name is cody and help with the events are at book culture and we are so pleased to be hosting meryl gordon tonight. This conversation on the life of an americanstyle legend, bunny mellon. Maybe a quick show of hands that this is your first time to book culture. Well, welcome. We are nestled here on the west side and we have been almost three years. Some of may remember this 20 years ago. So we are so happy to be here and to be as basis of a great and important work. Do take note of it cspan booktv recording the talk, so tonight discussion and q a can live on in perpetuity. During the q a session after meryl speaks, if youll give us a a couple seconds to run the microphone to you so that when we can record your end of the conversation so she is not talking to no one on the recording. And then after the talk either give us a couple of seconds to set up, we will have signing queue up at the fro
mardi gras debutante party, which three people i know did last year, have a $2 million party and put $3 million into the hopper. certainly, like i said, the civic activism we have a long way to go on that front. we need to get our hands dirty. one of the things we were talking about was the repopulation of the city. the city s neighborhoods have recovered 90% of their population. one of the hardest hit neighborhoods has only recovered 37% of its population, it raises the question as to whether or not the recovery has left behind those who needed it most at the time. that s right. when you think about this beautiful rugged city, you talk about neighborhoods like the lower 9th ward. you re talking about african-american artists and
get a bump in the polls in the next week as we ve seen happen with ted cruz after his announcement and with rand paul. and we re going to see happen with hillary clinton, i m sure. it s part of them being the bell of the ball this one day, the debutante party. we have a long way to go, there s debates, and i think the question you posed at the beginning is the key question. there are some comparisons to barack obama, they re both in their 40s, they were senators with really no accomplishments, but incredible political skills and ability. incredible or torae ora tore skills. can he answer the question throughout the primary process of is he ready to lead the free world? how does rubio push himself forward? separate himself from the rest of the pack? he can t out-establishment jeb bush. he can t out-conservative some of the other candidates. you just put the defining challenge for marco rubio on the table. he has tea party correct, but