Can I put it right here? Absolutely. So without talking, we're unloaded today. Absolutely. Perfect. OK, brother. And everything else should be accepted. Thank you, sir. Hello, everybody, and welcome. I'm Susan Collins, the Joan and Sanford Wildean here at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. And it's such a great pleasure to have all of you here with us this afternoon. I'm welcoming you here on behalf of both the Ford School and our newly launched Center for Public Policy and Diverse Societies. And I'll say just a bit about that in a minute. I'd like to extend an especially warm welcome to our speaker today, Mr. Harold Ford, Jr. He's here in part thanks to our special guest, Mr. Sanford Wilde, who is also here. Sandy will introduce Harold more fully in a few moments. And in just a moment, I'll get things started by introducing Sandy. But I first wanted to share a few things with the group that's here with us this afternoon. Let me begin by welcoming a distinguished guest. We're very pleased that Debbie Dingle is able to join us here this afternoon. And as you know, Debbie is a very well-known figure in Michigan political and charitable circles. And we're very pleased to have her here with us. Today's panel is cosponsored, as I mentioned, by the Diversity Center, which is a brand new center here at the Ford School. And before I turn things over to Sandy to start the program, let me just tell you a little bit about our new enterprise. It is a first of its kind center, which is designed to shed light on how public policy can most effectively navigate opportunities as well as the challenges as our societies become increasingly diverse, both locally, nationally, and internationally. With the opening of our new Center for Public Policy in Diverse Societies, the Ford School has become a host to the first policy school-based center of its kind at a university. And we're very proud of that distinction. For the faculty, the postdocs, the students who are here in the room, I'd like to mention that we are currently hosting a call for proposals to support innovative ideas for research and events and initiatives that would enrich our broader community's engagement on issues of diversity and our understanding of the ways that they impact public policy. And I invite you to visit our web. There's the website on your programs for more information about both the center and that initiative. I'd also like to recognize the Jean Fairfax Fund, which is helping to support today's event. Jean is an alumni of the University of Michigan, who earned her degree back in 1941. She established a wonderful initiative here at the university to encourage African-American alumni and friends to give back in meaningful ways to the University of Michigan. Her gift was matched by the Ford Foundation's Fulfilling a Dream Fund, and we are extremely grateful for their support. Now it is my great pleasure to introduce Sanford Weill, the chairman emeritus of Citigroup Incorporated. In addition to an incredibly distinguished career in the financial sector, he has for decades demonstrated an unparalleled commitment to public service and to philanthropy. Among many other posts, he has served as director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. And he continues to serve on the boards of some of the world's top institutions in a wide range of sectors, including education, health care, and of course, the arts. He has been a good, good friend to the Ford School. And we are incredibly grateful for all of his generosity and for his time that he has spent with us on a number of visits, including here today. And so please help me in welcoming him back to the building that bears his name, Sandy Weill. Thank you, and Susan, I just thank you very much for that very kind introduction. And I just like to say that I love working for you. And you really make things interesting, and it's really fun to participate in what you all are building here. And I think it's very important to the future of our country and the world that people understand how to really make other people get along better and to create the kinds of legislation and outreaches to make our world a better place, because that's going to be good for everybody.  Neither has had the job anymore. And I think maybe we both feel a little bit lucky. But I've known Hal, I guess, for close to 15 years now. I think I first met you at Howard University in Washington. And then shortly after that, you were at the Kennedy Center when Alvin Ely performed down there, which is an institution that my wife is chairman of. And we've become really very good friends. And basically, the beginning of the friendship for me was the developing respect that I had for Harold in his 10 years in Congress. And watching him grow and watching him really be his own person and trying to lead our country to the middle of the road, which is where most Americans are and most Americans want to be governed rather than to one extreme or another, which will not end up making us a great country. And I think what Harold was able to accomplish in Congress was really fantastic in that period. I would then, and I would now. And you all have heard me say it now publicly, so you can hold me to it in some time in the future. But have you ever calls on me for my service to help him manage the affairs of this country in just about anything? I am at his service. And be proud to be at his service because we need people like Harold. He's now getting a little bit of the other side of the coin rather than doing things to make our country better. He's in the undistinguished profession now of being a banker. And he's trying to do things to make things better from that point of view. But I think most importantly for today, Harold is a graduate of the law school here at the University of Michigan. He loves this institution. When I talked to him about coming out here and doing this today, he jumped at the opportunity. And I think we all, I feel sorry that his wife wasn't able to make it because of an illness. But I think we've got to show her around what is really one of the great institutions of the United States. And Harold, it's my pleasure that they all came to hear you and not to hear me introduce you. And I think you'll all see after you hear him talk for a minute or an hour that this is somebody that really has the ingredients to do a heck of a lot to make our world better. I'm glad to be back. Go blue. And I hope we win more games, football games next year. But I'm delighted to be around. I'm delighted to be with, I call it Mr. Wilde, for a number of reasons. You normally, in any lifetime, have the chance to be around, learn from, and learn from, and call a friend someone who helped create, build a business, start a business, create an industry, create jobs, help grow the country, and strengthen the country. And then someone who, at the same time, wants to get back and continually gives back and sets examples for those who have achieved as much as he's achieved and those who have not achieved the kind of professional and material success that he has. He misspoke a little bit. I'm here today because I love his wife more than him. And she told me I had to be here today. And I am delighted always to say yes to the both of them. But for him to make, and he and his wife to commit themselves, Dean, to this campus and to this school in particular, and to give at the rate that they've given and to continue to give and want to be a part of the life of this university and this school in particular, is a huge statement about him, about his wife, and about his vision of giving and philanthropy. I can't thank you enough for someone that loves this school and feels a part of it. Although I didn't attend the Ford School, I'm happy that my law school has taken the parking lot from you that it wants to have to build its, to expand, and I remind many here, I used to park in that law school parking lot. My classmate, Noshima Khan, is here. And all of us didn't, we would drive to school. But I wanted to just take a moment just to thank Sandy Wall again, he and his wife for all they do for the Ford School and all that they've meant to the life of the University of Michigan. So I thank you again, sir, for your enormous commitment. Dean Collins is a new friend. Beth Johnson is a new friend. I thank the both of them for today. I mentioned my dear friend, John Matlock, who was also one of the reasons that I ended up at the University of Michigan. I haven't known him since I was probably 10 or 11. Years old, he was my father's chief of staff when he was in Congress and remained friends with him. He and his wife were my home away from home when I was here in law school. I thank you, Dean, for being here and for the unbelievable support you've shown me over the years. And I know you feel like I do about the football team as well. So thank you again for your friendship. Debbie Dingle, I love you. Love your husband. I thank you for the commitment you've made that you continue to make to, I should say the enormous commitment you've shown to this university continue to show. You and the chairman. And I thank you for your friendship over the years. She's known me about as long as anyone in the room has as well and I still call her Ms. Dingle. So Ms. Dingle, thank you again for coming. Whenever I speak before groups, I'm reminded, I ran for Congress when I was 25 years old. I ran out of law school. I was here in law school. I was going home every week to campaign to do the exploratory work. My friend Mo and others would help me with keeping notes in class because I'd leave on Wednesday and come back on Sunday night. I did it for about 25 weeks. And I got lucky.  And I had a dad who was my predecessor, had a tough race, faced a lot of local political currents and wins, but I never forget when I announced, shortly after I came back to school to take my exams and finish up, which was I announced a Saturday before Easter in 96, flew back to Memphis, I flew back here rather, spent a week or so getting ready for exams, took exams and finished about 10, 11 days before graduation, which I flew back home and kept doing exploratory work I was doing to get, kept doing the campaigning I was doing rather. Flew back, graduating on May 11th, flew back that night to Memphis and walked in my headquarters, my campaign staff had a nice little graduation party for me. And the next morning I was waiting for all of the invitations to come and speak before various groups. I was hoping to be invited to speak before business organizations, labor organizations, political organizations, neighborhood organizations, civil rights groups, women's groups, environmental groups, all the groups that make up the constellation of political constituencies within the district. And I'm running as a Democrat hoping that some of the Democratic clubs would invite me in the district to speak. I got not one invitation. I was able to generate excitement this while in the campaign largely by just showing up where groups of people were. So if I read that somebody was coming to speak at the Ford school and this was in the district, I'd be outside shaking hands as people walked in because I hadn't been invited, I might come in and sit but I'd leave or come back when the program was over and shake hands. I did that at grocery stores. I did at bowling alleys. I did at PTA meetings. I did at church. I did at church banquets. I did at Wednesday night Bible service. I did it anywhere I thought there would be crowds of people. But once I announced it, I assumed I would be invited to speak someplace that I would show some at a level of dignity to the campaign that had not existed prior. But no invitations came. It wasn't until about a week and a half in and we started going to breakfast spots and popular lunch spots and anywhere again there were big numbers of people. I was being criticized for thinking about running that I was too young, that my dad was giving me a graduation gift from law school that this was gonna be my first full-time job, which it would be and that I did not have the experience and the wherewithal and the capacity at 25 or 26 years old to be a U.S. Congressman. But I just kept plugging away and plugging away and plugging away. And finally my elementary school principal, Hattie Jackson, John Matlow, ran into my office one day. She was one of my campaign managers. The only lady that ever paddled me in school the one time I got paddled in second grade. She came running into the office. She said, baby, she called me. She said, baby, I've got you 35 graduation speeches. And I said, Miss Jackson, I love it. I couldn't have been more excited. It was my first set of invitations. I assumed, like anybody, that it would be smart to get prepared. Debbie Dingell, I decided to go out and collect every voter registration form in the district and I thought we'd be systematic about it. I didn't believe that we'd find them all in public libraries because we're talking about 35 graduations. I couldn't politic, but I could certainly encourage people to register to vote these graduating seniors and encourage them to participate in the election.  I looked like I was about 10 years old when I was running and I figured they might fill a link to me if I got up before them and talked a little bit about politics. I said, so let's run to the voter, go to the election commission. Somebody go to the libraries that's order these voter registration forms and be ready. We got a few days to prepare. She looked at me, she said, baby, these aren't high school graduation. So I looked at her and said, they must be middle school, still get the registration forms. They may have older siblings, they may have cousins, other family members, people may need change of address forms. I want to be armed and ready at these graduation speeches. She said, sweetheart, they're not middle school graduation. So I looked at her and said, Mr. Jackson, what have you done sweetheart? You've gotten me 35 graduation speeches. Can I ask what are they for? She said, baby, I got you every kindergarten, graduation speech in the city of Memphis. Now I wanted to be angry, but I had no other place to be. I had not been invited anywhere. So this was in fact an honor to be invited, let alone if they were five and six year olds that would comprise most of the audience. Disappointed I was, I quickly did the math and determined this while there were three others. So I said, Mr. Jackson, what are the remaining three graduation speeches? You said there were 35. She said, sweetheart, I got you three elementary school graduation speeches as well. Again, I couldn't be angry. I frustrated, I kind of abandoned the idea of collecting all of these voter registration forms. Initially a bit more. I thought about it, I said, they're gonna be young parents. So at least we might be able to register the parents. I start this track of doing the 35. My dad who was in Congress would come home and ride with me in the car to some of these events. We didn't have much money in the campaign earlier.  I don't know if anybody that runs with a planks and I'm against education, I'm against healthcare, I'm for nuclear wars.  I'm riding from my 16th to 17th graduation, Dean Collins. I never figured out I was going from a school called Rosel Accelerated, which is in Midtown Memphis, to Volentine Elementary, which is in North Memphis. And my dad is in the car and there was this local radio shown every day this political guy would just go on and on all these negative things about me. And he went on and on every day and I get so frustrated riding, listening to him, thinking to myself and saying to my dad, why don't we have someone call in and say something positive? Remind him that I'm not a criminal. Remind him that I can read. Remind him that I've gone to college. Just something positive because they've said all these negative things. He said, don't do that, don't do that. He's saying that in this ride. I'm saying it's easy for him to say because they're not saying negative things about him necessarily, on and on. Finally, as we're pulling into the driveway of Volentine, it's a big hill, you gotta go up. We'll pull in and all of a sudden this lady calls in and identifies herself as a grandmother and says that she listens to the show every day. She said favorable things about the announcers or the DJs on the show or the hosts of the show. And said, I want you to know, I've listened to y'all every day over the last several months. I've listened to you in particular over the last few weeks talk about that boy Harold Ford. And I gotta tell you, I believed you until yesterday. And they jumped in.  What would make you change your mind? She said, well, yesterday I went to my grandbaby's kindergarten graduation. He said, I walked in and there he was standing before these kids. And she goes, I was just amazed. And the man said, what do you mean you were amazed? And speaking to kindergartners, they can't vote. The newspapers and press that start calling me to kindergarten congressmen, saying that I was speaking to people that couldn't vote and so forth. She said, you know, I thought all of those things out of red, but she said, but I watched him. She said, he got up, he started speaking after he was introduced. And no sooner than he started speaking, every kid fell asleep. She said, but that didn't stop him. She said, he kept talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking. And when it was finished, he gave every one of the kids their kindergarten diploma, took pictures with the kids, took pictures with their parents and the teachers and everybody in the room and the auditorium and the fellows. So what would make you want to support somebody? So they took pictures. She said, I took, she said, I watched him take the pictures but it was what he did after he took the pictures. So they said, what did he do? He said, he went back in the back of the kitchen and in the school, shook everybody's hand, took pictures with the kitchen staff and all the janitorial staff. And she goes, I'll never forget that. And I'm gonna vote for him because of that.  I felt a little better about it. And before you know, we're getting out the car, another call comes in, the lady says, she's a grandmother and had the same experience at another school, one of the other 15 schools I'd spoken at. I tell the story because, and I'm reminded of the story because two things, one, opportunity will present itself in everybody has a story like this, regardless of what your business may be, your businesses is. Mr. Wallace has built them and put them together and grown them over the years. Everyone has a story. They can tell about a moment when the momentum shifted in their favor or when the least likely of circumstances presented itself in a way that looked grim or bleak but turned into something far more positive. We find ourselves in a lot of ways in unique situations and say the unique situation of confronting that as a nation in so many ways today. I was blessed about six years ago to have the opportunity to come and speak before graduation, graduation exercises here at the school. And I had a chance then I was, I don't write speeches but I remember what I talked about that day as Mr. Wilde told me I had to be here a few months ago. I remember saying that they're one of the challenges where this generation of public policy school graduates is to not be confined or not allow the current dogma and current conversation and current dialogue around public policy and the current alphabet soup of agencies and acronyms for various legislation to limit your thinking about answers to the big public policy problems confronting the nation. That in so many ways the deregulation, free trade, the fact that the growth and innovation and technology was changing the country and for that matter the world at such a rapid pace that it would take a different kind and new kind of thinking on a part of public policy makers if that matter every professional particularly public policy makers to adjust and address and anticipate challenges and opportunities that will present themselves going forward. So many ways nothing much has changed. We still confront that same kind of reality as a nation and for that matter be it financial regulatory reform, be it health reform, be it education reform, be it the president's most recent announcement about the nation's posture with regard to our nuclear weapons. The world has become, we should say we've become a more global community and a community that in large part depends more on technology today than we did before and will even more going forward. As I watch this president and watch my former colleagues and friends in Congress and have over the last several weeks, several months, it's fascinating how so many of my friends and for that matter so many in the country had never watched an inaugural address before or at least I was the sense I got as I watched some of the cable outlets and others when President Obama delivered his address over a year ago now.  No, get me wrong, this president inspired a feeling, he rose above in transcendent politics in so many ways in his campaign. I think it's hard to argue, credibly that anyone has run a better primary campaign than this president's run in the last 30 years. I put Jimmy Carter, some of us forget how where Jimmy Carter was in the kind of campaign he had to run and I would even put Reagan in some ways in a category but when you think about how Obama ran and it's talking about primary, not general but a primary campaign, Obama ran one heck of a campaign. You think about how he ran his general campaign and the emotions that he had vote and mainly how he was able to transcend politics and win on behalf of a Democrat taking independent and Republican votes in the fall. There's no doubt he was helped by his predecessor, the fact that George W. Bush, whether you like him or not, had created some questions and in large part had made America at best misunderstood around the world and at worst, disliked. So people wanted to change, they wanted something different. Obama got it before the country and declared that we were gonna bring people together, work together, he was gonna reach out with an open hand and those from the Muslim world that reached out with an open hand out of clenched fists would see an America that wanted to work with them, clearly a shot at an indictment of President Bush in the way he went about doing business. He talked about healthcare and education and finding sensible answers and being in the middle a year later or should say later that day, went to the White House and started the work. In America, by and large, people had never seen one of these things were amazed and I thought to myself, for those who've never seen it, they behave and act as if president stood before the country before and gave inaugural addresses something along the lines of, I can't wait. When I leave the steps of the Capitol, I'm gonna travel down Pennsylvania Avenue with my wife during this parade and when I arrive at the White House, I'm gonna send a draft piece of legislation to Congress that will divide, antagonize, and make every American angry with me and Democrats and Republicans dislike one of the, all presidents talk about bringing people together. All presidents who, when they're inaugurated, talk about enlightening and for that matter, bridging divides and transcending politics. The last year and three months we've seen, in large part, the country become as polarized, arguably more than it was when George Bush was president at its worst moment. It says a lot about us as the country, says probably a lot about some of the priorities and the choices that President Obama and his administration decisions they made about which policies to pursue and I would even argue the way they pursued it. Some have pointed, as we talk about healthcare, Mr. Wall, I had a chance, the chairman I had a chance to talk to, by the way, chairman's a better title in Congress but we had a chance to speak to a group of students here at the public policy school early in the day and so many people point to what happened in August with Democrats around healthcare and the way Republicans organize, they don't call themselves Republicans but the Tea Party ears of those who were opposed to healthcare, the way they organized in August last summer and appeared at town hall meetings held by Democrats protesting what they thought healthcare was gonna look like. I would argue that some of the bipartisanship broke down before the healthcare conversation started and there were some hints that there were strains around whether or not the president would be able to hold this broad coalition together. Some of you may recall during the confirmation process, the early stages of the confirmation process for then Judge Sotomayor now, Justice Sotomayor, there was a belief that she would garner some 80 votes for confirmation. It was why I believe she would score support from Southern Republicans, West Coast Republicans, North, well not many Northeast Republicans but Midwest Republicans and Northwest and Southwest Republicans and certainly those in the South and the Deep South. She ended up winning by a comfortable margin, no doubt about it but the margin was not what many people thought or should say we anticipated from the outset which in a lot of ways showed this resetting and this retreating in many ways of people back to their comfortable purchase of being a Democrat or Republican. Now as an aside, I don't think anything's wrong with people being Democrat or Republican. I think when we reach a point where people have definitive views and ideas and perspectives on policy or for that matter, policy proposals, there's nothing wrong with it as long as there's a willingness to at least listen to the other side. I think the great disintegration in politics has not been that they're more Republicans and they're more Democrats or Democrats and Republicans sometimes don't talk. The real challenge is people don't listen nearly as much as they have to. We've talked today a little bit about answers and how do you address and how do you ensure that big issues as a young man here who was a part of the group earlier who referenced President Johnson and his approach to passing civil rights legislation and those who have asked the question, will we be able to address big ticket items going forward and how do we move beyond the kind of paralysis that now seems to exist? Well, if we were able to come this far from a year and three months ago from this high point to where we are in terms of the tone and the substance of the tone and even the lack of dynamism in terms of addressing issues in Washington in this period of time, we can certainly find our way back I believe to a moment where big issues and for that matter, the president's real leadership and his stature will shine again and Democrats and Republicans can work together again. Again, my fear is not that people say I'm a Republican and they say I'm a Democrat, but it's just that people are unwilling to sit, talk and respect the other side, let alone listen to what the other side may be saying. I happen to think that one of the answers, and there are probably several, actually I know there are so, but one of the answers to what I think is an ever-growing problem and one that really threatens to undermine the Congress's ability, again, to tackle huge and pressing issues, be it entitlement reform or energy reform, immigration reform or other pressing issues facing and confronting the country is that we've got to look at how we elect people and not just from a campaign finance standpoint but the way our primary system is organized. I'm a huge believer that some have espoused around the country, including governors and mayors, the mayor of my home city now in New York, the governor of California, who's recommended that we perhaps take what some do in Louisiana and I'll learn earlier today what some do in the state of Washington in terms of an open primary system and allow candidates to just run for office and not declare Democrat or Republican. It's more likely, in primaries across the country, that those who are the most active, the most spirited and the loudest will determine whom the Democrat is and those who are certainly the loudest and sometimes the most obnoxious in the Republican party will determine whom the Republican nominee may be in congressional and Senate races and by the other important electoral contests across the country. There's no doubt those people deserve a voice but they shouldn't drown out the rest of the country which I believe are find themselves situated somewhere in the middle. The middle of sometimes takes a punch from bloggers and from those who again are the most spirited and animated and who seem to have the most time when they're having to express their opinions. People in the middle seem to be attacked because they are accused of not having a position. I liken it to, I'm a Michigan fan, football fan. I never went to a game and painted my face. I used to see guys and women at games who've painted upside down. Now, I wanted Michigan to win just as much as they did. I just didn't paint my face and paint my back and take my shirt off in 10 degree weather to show my enthusiasm for the team. I felt very comfortable in a parka expressing my support for Michigan's football team. The same is true with those in power just because you're loud and oftentimes uninformed doesn't make your position superior to someone who actually may, who may be as uninformed but not as passionate but sometimes may be more informed and who's less passionate. Much like someone who's very informed and very passionate shouldn't have any more say than someone who may be slightly less informed and slightly less passionate about issues. We've reached this point in so many ways because of the way information is transferred and disseminated in a way that political views are expressed on cable shows and people say all the time, I can't stand that liberal talk or that really conservative talk. I wish there was balance but the top rated shows are the nuts. The people who are most, let me take that back as I'm gonna take the most animated people on the conservative side have the best shows and the most animated people on the liberal side have the highest ratings at their networks. And I say it only, I mention them only because I think it makes it harder for a real conversation and an honest conversation and a reasonable dialogue to take place between adults. In short, there's a sort of a dearth of adult-like conversations that occur over and over again. Now, we get the policy and what I'd hope to do is to be able to open up here shortly, I know we've got a good deal of time on our hands, I'd rather be able to react and respond to some of the many questions or even comments or criticisms that some of the audience may have. But I think about where we are as a nation from a policy standpoint, the healthcare bill that passed without a doubt a monumental political achievement for the president to be able to pass. Anyone that believes this is not a huge feat when you consider the attempts over the years, put aside your politics, whether you like the bill or didn't, it was an enormous feat. It was enormous accomplishment, particularly when you consider what happened in January with the election of a Republican senator in Massachusetts, what happened at the end of last year with the election of governors, Republican governors in both New Jersey and Virginia and what that may have pertinent for the president's overall legislative agenda. For them to fight through and to be able to pass this was a remarkable thing. The flip side of the politics is that it certainly suggests that a different kind of tone will determine and influence how things are addressed in Washington and even the outcome. The way we went about doing this as Democrats was strictly a democratic approach. We probably could have done this a year ago today and had the same outcome with most Democrats supporting. And I'll somewhat argue that a year ago today, remember Al Franken was not in the Senate yet, they were still contesting that race. He and Norm Cohn were still going back and forth and it wasn't about the 4th of July of last year that Democrats would reach 60. So maybe after the 4th of July, we could have gotten this, or eight to nine months ago, we could have gotten where we are today when you consider just the numerical composition and makeup of the Senate. We passed the bill just on democratic support. Most people in Congress let me not indict them. Most Americans who are knowledgeable, who spend time at work, who read often, raise their families, couldn't tell you what's in the healthcare bill. They can tell you what they've hurt what's in the healthcare bill. When you think about how transformative this is, most Americans can only tell you what either they're, those who espouse their political perspective, if they like it or don't like it, what they're saying. And sometimes even what they're saying is simply just not true. Two, it is unclear to me when, if and to the extent taxes will go up for the majority of Americans who will be asked to pay taxes to cover the cost of this healthcare transformation that we've undergone. And three, it's unclear to me if it actually will curb costs. Recall from the outset of the healthcare debate, my president, our president stated he had three objectives with healthcare reform. One, to cover everybody. Probably give them a B plus on that, although 32 out of the 46 are without. It's in the math school, so we'll go up. Should be a C plus, but we'll go up to a B plus. This would be nice. They said they would pay for the entire bill. It's unclear if the bill is entirely paid for, but a good chunk of it is paid for with tax, new taxes on investment income and new taxes largely on the high-end healthcare plans. And finally, I said it will curb costs and lower costs over the long term. Now the way that bill was presented to the office, known as the Congressional Budget Office, which is a favorite of my friend, Mr. Wiles, the Congressional Budget Office argues that it will lower costs. And they argue that largely because of the way the bill was presented to them, the bill said it would lower costs, so they accepted the fact that the bill indeed would lower costs over a period of time. Now it makes a very rosy assumption that fixes to paying doctors and hospitals and other providers will remain at a static level as opposed to being increased. I served in Congress 10 years and we pay doctors a lot of money and we pay providers a lot of money, rightly so, not to say they didn't deserve it, but to argue that you're gonna curb costs on that model raises some questions. My hope is that over the next few months that we view this moment as really just another starting point around healthcare, that the fixes that have to come, that some of the test runs in this healthcare bill would seek to determine if care in one part of the country for x element, why are they paying y and y is it y plus in another part of the country? If we can find ways to lower costs over a period of time, not only will I embrace that, I hope Congress will move very quickly to replicate that and amplify that and ensure that that becomes policy long-term. As it relates to the doctor's fixes and other increases that could come, I hope that my colleagues will stand firm with the promises that they made to the country and if they choose to raise spending on it, that they cut it elsewhere. When I was in Congress, I was a member of the Blue Dog Coalition. In fact, I was a co-chair of the Blue Dogs. We're a group of primarily Southern, Midwest, pro-balance budget, pro-trade and largely pro-business Democrats that believe in a very simple premise, something that Bill Clinton, I'll never forget, told me right after I got elected, I said, how'd you do it? We're sitting at the White House shortly after 97 and we were talking about, you've had a group of freshman Democrats over and it's Mr. President, how did you, he's a great friend of Mr. Wilds as well, so how did you do this? He says, Harold, we brought back one thing to Washington that had been missing, arithmetic. We just wanted to make sure everything added up at the end of the day and we thought that was an important way to govern. I governed like that when I was in Arkansas and I'm trying to govern like that is president. I give President Obama huge credit for actually trying to pay for this thing. We may not like the way and some of the numbers made it all add up but at least he understood that his predecessor, President Bush, made two huge errors as related to spending. One, we went to war and we didn't pay for it. In fact, we went to war twice than pay for it. And two, we passed an enormous entitlement program called a Medicare prescription drug plan which we didn't pay for. Now, you and I will be paying for that for a very, very long time, both of all three of those enterprises. We'll at least be able to come back on them. And we can argue the wisdom of it whether the investment was the right thing but at the end of the day, we didn't pay for it while doing it. Matter of fact, we decided to go to war and do something no generation of Americans have ever done. We decided to fight a war, pay for it as Americans and at the same time pay for the other guys to fight us as well by our enormous addiction to certain energy products. So we as a nation found ourselves working through this moment seven or eight years and this president gets in and decides that healthcare is the most important thing to do. Now, I differ with the president on that. I thought about running for the United States sent in New York about three months ago and decided a month ago not to run. There was a lot of thinking to it but part of the advice I gave tried to give my party shortly after Scott Brown lost his race was make healthcare second or third that you do. Things we should be focused on is how do we grow the economy and how do we create jobs? Because at the end of the day, if you subscribe to the model that government can pay its bills and lower the deficit by raising taxes and raising taxes only, we can't do it. The country is not organized in that kind of way where we finance all of our obligations by paying taxes, don't get me wrong. Taxes are critical but the country has to grow. I think the idea of pitting classes of people against one another is a bad thing. It's never served the country well. The great thing about America is you can come work hard and do well. Are there times when their excess is sure? Are there times when markets go off the rail? Sure, that's what government's job is to do to come in and try to curb this and ensure that people are playing within some boundaries but you shouldn't determine in a game if a guy scores or a woman scores 30 points you gotta stop them. If they score 50, let them score 50 as long as they play about a rule. The challenge we face as a nation is figuring out how we get back to a moment where government's not as involved in private matters where the economy can grow again and where government actually balances its books again. I'm not as concerned in a short term about the rise of deficits because I think we've gotta figure out how we get growing again, how we begin innovating again in a way in which we'll help everybody grow and for that matter, every part of the country grow. Long term, I think we have to be sensitive to it. And very sensitive to it. Matter of fact, my whole premise and mission in Congress is around voting for things that were balanced and ensuring that we didn't saddle generations to come with debt we could have avoided today. But we find ourselves in a unique position where I think we have to make a different count of choices or should say a different set of choices. And if those choices require some spending in a short term to get us going again, be it tax cuts or new spending, we should do it. This president faces a full plate of responsibilities of that matter, a full plate of political complexities over the next several weeks. It's obvious that the next big tackle for this president and for Democrats in the Congress is financial services reform. I hope they do it. I hope they understand that. Banks, regulators, rating agencies, as my friend has reminded me today, politicians and even consumers, the role that all of us played in it. And we understand that certain things have to be traded in the open. And we understand that banks probably gotta keep a little more capital that hopefully lowers some of these leverage rates. We understand that at the same time, we as consumers have to be more responsible in how we conduct our own personal and financial business. And even some of my great friends in Congress, Democrats who voted for some of the things that landed us in the mess that we are, but we all can approach this conversation, debate with some humility, some honesty, and understanding that we gotta look forward and solve these problems. It's a moment for President Obama and his style and his way and his substance of leadership to lead again. Because if we find answers to this and move on to helping and finding ways to create jobs and grow the country again, I think not only will Democrats be better served, but I think the country will be better served in huge ways as well. Will Republicans be on board and be a part of that? I hope so. I think one of the smart things politically and subsequently the President did in the last 10 days was to announce that he was willing to open certain parts of the country to certain drilling activities. I hope that that translates into some of my Republican friends who have said they're willing to support a broad energy bill or energy reform bill. I hope that shows a commitment on the part of this President to be a willingness to talk to Republicans, to reach out to those whom he may have disagreed with and recall in his campaign for President. He declared there's no way he would support drilling. Matter of fact, he took Hillary Clinton on for her call for drilling offshore. I think it shows maturity in politics when you can assess the situation one day and assess it another day and understand that things have changed and it requires a different set of answers. This notion that you ought to be attacked for changing your position, which I was, I was against gay marriage a few years ago, I'm for it today. The only way things change in this country, and that might only when we make progress, if everybody doesn't agree with you the majority of people don't agree with you today but they all agree with you six months from now. What do you do, attack the people for changing their opinion, for agreeing with you and giving you a majority? Of course not. You embrace and so let's move on and get better. And I applaud the President for recognizing that the moment today and the set of facts and circumstances today probably require a different mix and a different set of answers to a long-term problem. And I can only hope that my Republican friends who have vowed and made some awful, awful declarations and for that matter made some dangerous statements about this President, for that matter, dangerous statements about the direction of the country and their unwillingness to work with them, I can only hope that there's a willingness not that we move beyond this healthcare debate to have an open, serious and adult-like conversation about the real challenges confronting this country. And as my friend Sandy Weil reminded me on the plane, putting in place a set of policies that can help ensure America's global leadership the next 25 to 50 years. This great school is helping to educate and prepare in mold minds to do that, to get advice over and over again. I can only hope if I can leave you with one piece of advice before opening up for questions, I know you hear it over and over again and I said it from the outset, but it's just to listen. It never hurts, you'll be surprised. You may find that the guy who you were against, you really are against him or her or that maybe you had him wrong and there's something they're saying that's redeeming or something they're saying that you might be able to take from to grow your own position and to make your own idea that much better. At the end of the day, that's what makes politics work. At the end of the day, that's what makes this country so great. At the end of the day, that's what's gonna make the country great even going forward. So with that, I'd love to open up and maybe take some questions or take some time. Yes, sir. Tell me your name and your year where you're from if you don't mind, I like having that in there. Yes, sir. I see the beard. I can tell you've been here a little while. It's more actually a center-level nation. I think the difference is substantive enough, to matter for policy. But to you, I wanted to ask, first I wanna say, sorry, you lost the corker. I sent you my, yeah. Mr. Wall agrees with you on that one. Yeah, I think no doubt you have been a better center and I'm sorry it was a dirty campaign that you lost to. But I wanna ask what you thought about the direction that the new DNC chair, Tim Kane, has taken in moving away from Howard Dean's 50 state strategy, which on any measure, important measure, I can think of was a big success, namely in getting more public interest, Democrats elected in more places and engaging more people in voting in the Pogo process. That's how I think the data back set up, but Kane seems to be moving away from that. And he seemed, as more DLC mold, I wonder if you agree with that and maybe see some virtue in that or some net game that I might not see or if you have any opinion on that or. Sure. But you said center before left. Sure. I will. I'm sorry, the question was the twofold one about Tim Kane and the direction that he is taking the party, contrasting with Howard Dean's approach, which was a 50 state strategy and the assumption, belief that that strategy resulted was a successful strategy. And whether or not the Kane strategy, which I think he said it may even have a little deal, I chaired a DLC too, but the DLC kind of toned to it if that's really the right approach. Was there a second question? That's it. And then he said that he didn't necessarily agree with Chairman Walsh's notion that the majority of the nations, and I happen to agree with that too. I think we're probably a little center right than we are center left, but that's for another conversation. But I think it leads to. I'll be right. In the, with regard to Tim Kane and Howard Dean, the 2006 and 2008 elections, let's put it in a little perspective. Remember, 06, when Democrats warned the majority, there were a number of things that happened. The biggest thing that happened was there was a Republican president who was below 50%. His approval and favorables were below 50%, and every state that we picked up seats. I lost in Tennessee. Mine was the only state where there was a competitive Senate race where Bush stayed above 50% throughout my race. He ranged from 51 and a half. 51 and a half, now I remember these numbers, 51 and a half to 54.2 throughout my race when it got joined in the last six months. At one point he was as high as a little over 55%, and at the end of it was about 52 where his favorable was. I think the most valuable player in Democrats wins in 2006 was undoubtedly George W. Bush. Whether people, whether you like them or not, whether you agree with them or not, there was certainly a perception about him that people wanted to balance and wanted to check too. We put together some pretty good candidates in 06. I'd argue that most of the candidates that ran Democrats in 06 would have been DLC members. Based on, if you just look at them, they might not have personally said it, but if you look at their profile, they probably fit more in the DLC model than the DNC, than if we can just play with the words here and play with some, roughly play with some models here, probably a little more moderate to conservative than they would be considerate moderate to liberal. Largely because we wanted some Southern states where a lot of these men and women ran, they were more conservative on social issues, and they ran on the notion on the fiscal issues that George Bush had spent too much and they were gonna curb spending and contain some of his spending. And it helped him win in a lot of Republican areas. 08, I don't think there's a doubt. It was a year that would advantage Democrats greatly. Again, I give Obama's campaign in the primary, I thought was just massive, it's like campaigning the fall was too, but he had a great head win. He had a candidate in John McCain who they successfully tied to the last eight years and people were ready for change. As an aside, as historic as President Obama's win was, it was really pedestrian in some ways in presidential politics. People vote for president as a reaction to the previous president in many ways. And there's no doubt the moment and the mood and dynamic in the country was we want change. And when you put John McCain next to Barack Obama and we consider some of the other factors, the selection of the vice presidential candidates, some of the statements made about the economy, certainly advantage Barack Obama. Now I give Dean credit from the standpoint that they went out and they organized in various states. And they put together operations and apparatus in various states. But I'm not convinced that, but for that happening, that we would not have won in North Carolina, in Florida, in Indiana, in Virginia without that strategy. So to ask me about Tim Kaine, I think the real challenge when your party is in the White House and your party chairman is not how you react. Remember, Howard Dean was acting outside of the president because we didn't have the presidency. So the chairman of the party has a different kind of perch. When you are the chairman, when your president controls the White House, you really are a political director for the White House. So you are reacting and responding in a lot of ways, caring near water and caring near message. So Tim Kaine in large part, if you look at his stance and posture, he's come from being somebody we're gonna reach out to, we're gonna go get Democrats. Because in a lot of ways he reflects and mirrors what the White House wants them to do because the president chose the party chairman as opposed to Howard Dean having to be elected because the party was not in office. I argue vehemently that I think, if you look at the history of the country, presidential politics, the most successful presidents, don't misunderstand me when I say the most successful presidents generally govern from the middle. That doesn't mean they don't do transformative things, but they're able to bring people together from both sides because they are viewed as someone that wants to listen, wants to work together, so forth and so on. Mr. Wallace said this several times today, remember when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, he signed it in the fellow named Edward Dirkson's office who happened to be the Republican leader of the Senate. Now I can't imagine my good buddy going over to Mitch McConnell's office to sign anything other than maybe a picture of himself to give him some constituent that McConnell may wanted to give one to. So the moment obviously was very, very different than this today. There are a number of factors that have contributed to that. But I think it's unfair to make that, that's not a fair comparison between Dean and between Kane. Kane's success will depend, I believe solely on Obama's success. Dean's success depended on how many seats Democrats picked up, and frankly, depended on individual candidates, depended on the Democrats' message into Congress. I give, I say grudgingly, because he's my buddy and I like giving me credit, but Rom deserves some credit for the Yo 6 wins because not because of how he ran a campaign, but because he convinced the leadership, he gotta let us recruit candidates who don't necessarily fit the liberal Democratic model in the Congress.  Because the most important voter Democrat cast when he or she gets there is for speaker. And that's the one we should be most concerned about. Now, we may have a philosophical argument about Democrats gotta stay there for this and they gotta stay there for that.  We criticize Republicans when I was there for always voting lockstep, whatever the Republican leaders told them to do. If Tom, Nehammer, Delay said vote one way, they voted one way. They leave votes open for hours including the Medicare prescription drug vote where they went around and they cut deals on the floor. The votes say they'll vote for three and a half hours while they cut deal or two and a half hours while they cut deals on the floor to try to win support for it. I didn't like that kind of leadership and frankly, I think it's hypocritical of me then to be critical to say that Democrats who have wide ranging views on issues ought to be whipped in the line also. Which leads me back to my first point about open primaries. I think the closer we get to having districts support those people that represent the entirety of a district the better it is because oftentimes we nominate people from either side of the party and the districts are drawn in a way where it's either a Democratic district or a Republican district. And if it's a Democratic district as much as Democrats may not like that Democrat they certainly don't like that Republican. And although it's a Republican district someone may be nominated they really don't like as much as they may have some differences with that Republican they certainly don't want that Democrat. So you end up electing people in large part who are able to appeal to the most animated, spirited, loudest, sometimes obnoxious members of their party. And I think that has to change. Yes, sir. I'll come in a minute. Yes, sir. Take care, Carl. I'll talk to you later. Yes, sir. I'm a senior here in Alice Bay and I'm from Michigan. I wanted to say you talked about a large, southeast Michigan 10th district. Good name for my brother. You mentioned that you wanted to have an honest conversation. I just wanted to say that on Morning Joe both when you're on and when you're not on I think that that's one of the closest things we get to an honest conversation about politics. And I hope next time you're on you tell me get Joe that because they really do a good job. I'll be able to press Sunday to watch this. All right, tell David that then. I'm sorry, Gregory. I think that one of the biggest challenges maybe not in terms of getting good innovation from our generation maybe the civil service part of our side. And I tell people that I want to run for Congress one day or I want to run for Senate and they look at me with sort of why would you do that kind of look? And I wanted to ask you in your years serving in Congress what is the greatest single message a piece of advice you could give me or give my generation at least those of us who would like to run for Congress one day. Run. You already know the district you've been running so you've got part of it figured out in 10 years. I think your attitude is the right one.  My mother-in-law who was very supportive of me thinking about making this run right before it all happened.  In a lot of ways that inspired me even more because it's tragic when you can't find people who want to not only serve but who want to work in and around. This group here is wonderful and hopefully a growing exception to this idea of working in public policy and trying to shape policy and change it for the better is a good thing. I asked you where you were from largely because my first day of law school here in Michigan we were sitting in a room and everybody was sitting around a desk with orientation. I was sitting about 10 of us around a table everybody would go around and say where they were from where they went to college and all. I went to Penn, I said I was from Memphis, this and that and this kid next to me said he had gone gone to UVA from Birmingham and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm thinking somebody else from the south in the room. So I lean over and I hit him. I said, hey man, you're from Alabama. I'm from Tennessee at Roll Tide, I don't like but you know, you're all right with me. He looked at me like I had three noses. He looked at me and said, what are you talking about? I said, you're from Birmingham. He said, I'm from Birmingham, Michigan. Not Birmingham, not Birmingham, Alabama.  Those who have issues about politicians, ask them why and you may be able to answer them at the moment. Just begin the process and then think about it. Get involved where you live and things that you care deeply about and don't be dissuaded or for that matter dispirited by those who may early on discount or dismiss your candidacy. The history of people in this country who run who have stories very similar in mind are far more prevalent than those who ran who were the front runners who were definitely supposed to win.  So I'd be happy to leave my card too and good luck to you. Yes, sir. It's a fan right here in the front. I'm Eric. I'm from Annara, Michigan, Southern District. What do you think the key distinctions were between President Clinton's healthcare reform attempt and President Obama's, do you think it was in terms of transparency or messaging or even just numbers in Congress? The question was what are the differences between Obama and Clinton's healthcare bills? There were more than a few. The press has highlighted how President Clinton kept the writing or drafting of the healthcare bill in the White House or kept it close to his vest and didn't involve Congress and that President Obama learned that lesson and that's why he outsourced most of the work to the House and the Senate. Probably would have, probably was a little better way to another couple lessons that could have been taken from the Clinton plan versus the Obama plan. One of the interesting things, talking about how presidents grew up from the rhetoric they ran, I remember President Obama was against an individual mandate, which is a part of his plan now, which as you know, people will be required to buy health insurance after a certain period of time and if they don't, they will face some penalties. During the campaign he was not for that, he was for a mandate for children. Hillary Clinton was for it and they had a back and forth about it at a critical point during the primary. Even the way you pay for the bill, during the general, President Obama, then Senator Obama criticized Senator McCain for suggesting that high-end healthcare plans or as they conveniently call now, Cadillac plans should be taxed to pay for the health plan. He said there was a wrong thing to do, he changed his mind when he became president. Can I not fault him for it? I think it shows a president's willing to listen and be nimble in mind and do things to help achieve his long-term policy, short-term and long-term policy goals. At the end of the day, we can go through line by line and look at some of the differences between the... The bill, necessarily, but the way they sold it, the way it got through. Well, I don't think there's any doubt. When you have 60 Democrats, it helps. When you have a speaker of the House, when you have a large majority in the House, it certainly helps. And when you ran on the notion of a broad healthcare reform, it helps. President Clinton didn't run on those things. Remember, he ran as this real centrist. I mean, he had disarmed a lot of Americans who felt that Democrats were taxed and spenders, but for the presence of Ross Perot in the race, it's likely he would have lost. So it was a different kind of thing.  And you look at Democrats prior to that, we hadn't had many Democrats scored that high of a number in a presidential. And that's what I base these numbers on being center right. I know Mr. Wallace is center, but whatever you want to call it. I mean, I think we're a little to the right of the center. If you just look at numbers as a nation and how. Now, Obama suggests your thing about center left is more accurate than center right because the numbers that he scored to 52 were right at 53% that he got in the national election. So all of this helped tremendously. And I give the president just his tenacity and his unwillingness, his lack of willingness to give up on this thing, because there were three bad political outcomes that he fought through. I again think that the one thing they compromised on early to public option was the one thing they should not have compromised on. Because I think that was our best chance of tempering and controlling costs long-term. It could have been structured the right way. But in the day, they just decided not to do that. And you have to ask the question, if they decided not to do that, then when Republican votes, did they really get what they wanted? Yes, sir, in the middle.  I think the most pressing problem for the country is to political reform. So our political system serves as a much better. My own personal belief is that the key to that is opening up our political process for parties, which I don't believe can be done without voting reform. I've been trying to work on this for a decade. You say voting reform, what do you mean? Instituting, I would like to institute the voting system my employer uses in federal elections. That's called approval voting. It would open up our political process for third parties. And if it were in Florida in 2000, those people that voted for Nader would also have the option of voting through either Bush or Gore. I would submit that if that type of system had been in place in 2000, or it would have won the presidency, and it would have better reflected what people wanted in that state in terms of the outcome, in terms of who the voters counted. We cannot get better governance in my judgment without opening up our political process for third parties, and that's not possible without voting reform. I don't know how to bring it about. I think it's very important to bring it about. I don't think that you'd find much disagreement from people who want more choices. I should say who are not satisfied with some of the outcomes and the choices they have. Matter of fact, some of the data shows that just about an even number of Americans, a few more Americans identify themselves with one of the political parties, the major parties, but a point or two or three points beneath them is people identifying themselves with the Tea Party Movement. The Tea Party Movement, which is a nice name for a phenomenon today that I think is a manifestation of what, when I say, I mean, the name has a lot of resonance and a lot of history, obviously, but the movement, and I promise you, most of the people who are part of the Tea Party Movement don't know the old Tea Party history, but I mean, it's a great moniker and they wrap themselves around, but my only point is those movements spring up in America. I think we're moving closer to realizing what you've articulated. I think a plurality of Americans take the Tea Party thing, and a plurality of Americans consider themselves, they don't identify what I did at the party, so they're more independent than there are Democrats or Republicans. I think those numbers will continue to grow, and I think we'll find ourselves, at some point, what is the voting system that mirrors yours at your workplace? I don't know if that will be the case, but it'll be something closer to that than what we have to date. Well, I think people do it. I mean, and I think people are making clear that they are not completely satisfied with choices and they're willing to upset and up in basic assumptions of that matter convention. Scott Brown, four months ago, was not supposed to be elected to the United States Senate in Massachusetts, but voters went out, a lot of Democrats had to go out and vote that way, and one of the misnomers about Massachusetts is that the majority of voters in Massachusetts actually are registered as independents. I think that with this perception nationally that Massachusetts is this liberal bastion, but the majority of voters actually identify as independents, and I think the realization of what you're saying, whether something happens in Washington or in state capitals to change the way if we get real voting reform the way you envision it, I'm not sure, but what I do know is voters are gonna go in those voting booths and they're gonna vote for the candidate they think best represents, and sometimes they may be a Republican, sometimes it may be a Democrat. Again, I think open primaries, I think dealing with the way districts are drawn, I don't even think dealing with some of the way these campaigns are financed will have a big impact. Now, third parties and states, you have to go state by state to do the kind of things you're talking about. Well, tell me how you think you do it then. What would that simple statutory act be? President's very, very clear. Richard Wiener is the one who basically pointed this out to scale the ballot access. A simple statutory act on Congress could mandate in federal elections, Congress, and for the presidency, a system like approved voting. I think it would make an immense improvement in this country. Maybe we get there. Maybe we get there. Yes, sir, in the back. My man. Where'd you go to high school? I went to Groves.  It's a very illustrious neighborhood, that's just a must. So as a fellow centuryist, I'm wondering like, was the tone in Washington as partisan as it is now when you were in Congress for 10 years, and what caused it to be so partisan like it is right now? Was the tone in Washington when I was there as partisan as it is now? Look, I don't mind partisanship, let me be clear. I don't think there's anything wrong with a good back and forth, a good spirited back and forth. As long as, again, people are willing to say, all right, now let's listen and try this. We have to be as committed to arguing as we are to resolving things. And I think the commitment to resolution or resolving things is just waned. People look to the next election cycle, we're gonna, I mean, this year it'll be hard for Obama to get a whole lot he wants through the Congress because a lot of Republicans will argue to Republicans don't vote for that because we're gonna pick up seats and we'll get a better, in their estimation, better policy outcome if we wait. So you're gonna, that reality is there. What is worse today than I think, or at least equally bad as anytime I've been there is that these guys aren't talking to one another. And men and women, by the way, I mean, the men and women, they're not talking to one another. There doesn't seem to be a willingness to admit wrong and to move beyond it on both sides.  Politics, you really, you stymie the opportunity for real progress to be made. And it is unfortunate, it's unfortunate. Well, I think it can get better. I mean, I think it will take some leadership from the president because it's gotta be, in no matter who the president, he's gotta step up and hopefully one day we say she, he's gotta step up and say, here's what we do. And here's the way we're gonna do this. I wanna come and work with everybody to try to get this done. President Obama's probably gotta do it smaller steps now because I think it will be hard and Republicans will probably stay in lockstep unless he just promotes their own agenda on everything, which is unlikely. So he'll probably have to do it in smaller steps going forward. I mean, I think it'd be smart if our president, I looked at George Voinevich, you know how I looked at Kit Bond in Missouri, I looked at some of those members that are leaving and I look at a Scott Brown who's got a run again. And at the end of the day, Massachusetts still, center, way center left than it is center right. And voters, they are gonna want a sensible senator and someone willing to work with to stand up to Obama when he's wrong in a Democrats but to work with them when they're right. So I'd find, if I were them, I'd look for those instances where you can find three or four or five Republicans to be supportive of some of those ideas. They did it with the jobs bill, that small payroll tax thing that Hatch and Schumer support it that ended up getting five or six Republicans to support it. There was a hand in the back, yes sir, and I'll come around, yes sir. Yes sir. What do you see the main differences between the 1994 election and the two of us because the healthcare bill was failed in, there's still a major backlash from the... Coaches Youngfella, high school senior here in West Bloomfield Hills, well spoken too, what district you living in? I gotta watch out the way you're talking or a woman to watch out. He asked the question, the difference is between the 94 cycle and the 10 cycle. He highlighted healthcare and some of the other similarities. Is that a fair characterization of the questions? So 94, you had a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, a Democratic president who had grown unpopular by election time, so much so that most Democrats running for reelection did not invite him to their districts to campaign. You had a group of Republicans who in the last month of the campaign developed a national agenda, really the last few weeks, they called it the contract with America and they identified those seven, eight, nine, 10 things that they were gonna do and they were all able to choose, some of them are all of them to campaign on and they rose up in certain districts and surprised Democrats who a week out thought that they had a comfortable lead until the election nationally. 10 is different, first of all, it hadn't happened, but two, healthcare passed, it didn't pass in 94. So it's good and bad, argument could be that people feel like their taxes are gonna go up and that the bill won't work. Two, it could be that it passed and some of the things the president talked about, keeping kids on health insurance that are 26, not allowing health insurance companies to drop you if you face a health hardship. There's some immediate things that will happen that might be able to translate into, will help people see that this is a good thing and we ought to reelect them. Three, the president's still popular now, if he loses his popularity and drops, remember, Clinton's numbers are pretty low in the 94 election and whatever you wanna say, the president, if it's your party, is the face of that party. I would argue, which is why I argued to the first question my friend here from Massachusetts, is that in 06 and 08, people were going to the polls and voting against George Bush as a Republican as much as they were doing. If they liked George Bush, they voted with him, they didn't, they voted, they largely voted against him because of the policies. So we'll have to see over the next few months. I argue the biggest telltale will be jobs. If there's not a sense that we're creating jobs and that steps are being taken to create a climate for more jobs to be created, for innovation to flourish and for America to begin growing again, my party will face some real challenges heading into the fall elections. If people sense there's some turnaround with it, meaning healthcare hadn't hurt as much as some warned that we passed a jobs bill that's actually helping small business people, think about this one, the last three years, more than half the jobs created in this country have been created by businesses with 50 or fewer employees. And of that group, two thirds of those jobs have been created by companies that were born in the last three years. So we gotta figure out how we encourage that engine or rev that engine back up. The president is able to do that and Democrats are able to do that and get some credit, they'll be fine. If not, it's gonna be a tough year. And there was a woman in the back, I thought I saw a hand because I hadn't called on one woman yet, I wanna make sure. Yes, man, I'm sorry, I was looking in the far back. I know you are, thank you, I'm sorry. You're from Los Angeles? Yes. You're a student here? I'm a student. What year are you? First year. Very good. But I've actually spent quite a bit of time in Memphis over the last few years and doing political work. Doing political work. So I guess I feel like I have a little bit of a fairly good pulse. I'm wondering how you kind of conceive of the Democratic Party moving forward in the South and in the Deep South. Yeah, and if you would ever consider. So our question is, in the South, she spent time working on political matters in Tennessee, Memphis, Mississippi, Kentucky, and the future of Democratic politics there and whether or not I would go back. I'm a New Yorker and proud New Yorker and will live in New York and whatever future I have in politics will be in New York. Answer that now because we don't tape. I want to be clear because they've been criticized. So I think in the South, I love where I'm from and the people of Memphis in the 9th district in Tennessee gave this 10 year old looking pimple face guy just got his braces off a year before they elected him. The chance of a lifetime. I mean to live out the beginning of a dream. And but for that election, I wouldn't have the opportunities or chances to do. This school helped create it. My college at Penn and my parents and all that, but without being elected, without voters taking that risk, I wouldn't have had the opportunity. So I love and love my city, love my home and I'm grateful to my constituents. Having said that, I think the party has some challenges in the short term. It's important to remember that we go through these phases in the South. People write the South off of Democrats and you get Democratic governors elected and say, we're back. And then two years later, they lose. Some other group I'm losing. Two years later, someone said, we're back. I think congressionally, if I'm a Senate standpoint, I think it's gonna be tougher than we think. Because a lot of Democrats are running for election there now and I have some friends who are stepping down from Congress in Tennessee, a guy named John Tanner, a guy named Bart Gordon. And those races are very, very tough for the Democrats running in those seats to win. Matter of fact, Democrats have conceded one of the seats almost from what I hear at home. And the one held by Tanner, my friend Roy Herron is running, he's got a good shot. The challenge Democrats will have is they will likely have to run against Obama. Meaning run against some of his policies and argue, make the case they won't vote for further government expansions or encroachments on in the private sector or expansions of government that will run up the nation's debt. But people have unbelievably short memories in this business. It's hard to imagine that a year and a half ago how excited we were about change you can believe in. And we are the change we've been waiting for. Just a year and a half ago, we were all preaching it. A lot of people in the country were preaching that. And a lot of independents and even some Republicans were out preaching it as well. So these political cycles can change, but I do think that the notion of taking a chance and a risk on a Democrat to lead the country nationally with broad majorities in the House and the Senate and a chance of a lot of moderates or should say independents and Republicans took, I think they're gonna think much, much harder the next time if given that option. Because I think people are worried about giving too much power to one party. And it's gonna be interesting to see in that Kentucky race, the Senate race there, what happens. I got a friend running in it. Well, I like both of the Democrats that are running, but I got a friend that's running in that race on the Democratic side. It'd be interesting if Ron Paul's son who's running in that race on the Republican side, if he can mix it up a little bit and weaken the Republican. I'm not sure if that happens or not. And the Mississippi races, I don't follow it quite as closely, but Tennessee will have those two critical House races and naturally I'm concerned. Both of them, one of the guys running remains a good friend and the two guys that stepped down were great friends in Congress. Yes, sir, you put your hand up quick as you look ready. Tell me your name and where you're from. Sorry, I'm Alex Lane. I'm from Terror City of North Congressional. You mentioned open primaries and your support for reform there. I agree with you insofar as the lack of partisan identification on the ballot, I think would tone down a lot of the rhetoric and get some more interesting candidates in the field. But I'm also hesitant about the idea because it seems to me that a lot of the reason that the party infrastructure is in place is to ensure that there are good candidates running and sensible candidates running and not increasing that job, you know, on either side. And part of what concerns me about that is without that kind of infrastructure and with an open primary system, you could have so many candidates, either Democrats or Republicans that they're just kind of rooting each other out. And what you end up with is not the sensible candidates but as you also mentioned, the loudest and most animated characters who seem to get all the attention. And those could be your major nominees. I mean, you could have two Republicans running against each other or two Democrats running against each other. I think especially on the statewide level, wouldn't be very good choices for either one. I mean, as an example, I think in 91, David Duke claimed dangerously close to winning a US Senate race in Louisiana because of their jungle primary system. So what I'm wondering is, do the benefits, in your opinion, do the benefits away those kind of risks in opening up the election system? The question is about open primaries. Do they really work? Do they actually create the same set of open, invite the same set of questions you have in the traditional setting where you attract loud candidates, obnoxious candidates, racist candidates, bigoted candidates, whatever. Let's presume you're right about the Democratic Party and the Republican Party both providing this. You only mentioned a Democrat, but the Republicans like to think their party's giving people structures. Well, there's nothing that would prevent the Republican or Democratic parties from endorsing candidates in open primary races. The only thing that they could not do them would be in some states, Democrat and Republican organizations, and I live in a state now where they exert enormous influence about who can even get on the ballot. So you have some states where that zeal to ensure you have good candidates results in creating honorous obstacles or insurmountable obstacles or very difficult obstacles for people even to get on the ballot. So the open primary system would actually mitigate against that pretty heavily and it wouldn't stop either party from endorsing whom they want. I would also actually look at participation rates in a Democratic or Republican primary. How many people actually vote versus the jungle or open primary system you have in Louisiana, your language, Louisiana or Washington, wherever. How many people participate? There, I think the wider the participation, the broader participation, the more this gentleman's point can be addressed. It won't fulfill his vision, but it will certainly get closer. We'll be closer to him than where we are today. My only interest in this is ensuring that the best candidates have an opportunity at the end of the day to be heard and to have as many voters as possible take a look at them and have the chance to vote for them.   Should the Democratic party be the party that determines whether or not the overall group, I can make the opposite of it. Should that party apparatus, what gives them the right to say that they're the only ones that can determine whether or not you can be viewed or for that matter, your issues and your positions and your perspective should be weighed fairly by the overall electorate. I'm argued either way. I just think the open primary system doesn't discriminate anymore if we use the Democrat and primary systems as examples. I think it is far less discriminatory than those two setups. And I think it guarantees that more voices are heard, which is what I'm most interested in in giving voters more choices. Let me take a basket of three and then I'll stop. Yes, sir. One of the questions I'd like to ask you. Under bipartisanship, two questions. First, do you think congressional term limits would help cause enough turnover to maybe possibly prevent some of these entrenched interests and powers of incumbency from keeping these people set in their ways for 10, 20, 30 years and always voting with the same groups consistently? Second part of the bipartisanship question was with some of the issues, the common sense issues that have come up recently, like Senator Greg's commission on trying to reform the budget, I believe with Senator Comrade as well, didn't get the votes in, needed to get it out of the United States Senate. We have Senator McCain's caught in the primary situation saying he'd also be in for the cooperation. And we also have some more contentious issues like energy and things like that that are coming down the pipe. Is there a point where we should just say, I don't really see our partisanship in the cards right now? That's two questions. They fell in the red back there, yes, you. You shouldn't wear red at Michigan, but go right ahead and ask your question, pick any. Given your interest in balancing projects, I was wondering what programs you think we, what specific programs you think we should cut for with that producing? Okay, and the last question in the back, the gentleman in the far back, you sir, with the Michigan law, I'm partial, a little Michigan law. It's the last seven year for Michigan law. State of Alabama, the state with the other, Birmingham. My man. You talked about financial program. As a conversation moves in that direction, I was wondering, what do you think, what do you think the conversation should start? It won't be the biggest points of our attention. First of all, let me thank everybody for having me, and I may run out right when I finish because I got a plane to catch, but let me try to answer it in the order that we went through in the backwards. One, I think transparency, a willingness to take on every aspect of the system from bankers to consumers and everybody in between including regulators and for that amount of the rating agencies and even members of Congress who voted a certain way, I have to be willing to measure, live up to responsibility that they helped create some of these challenges. I think we got a deal on bonuses and a consumer protection agency. All that is relevant, but at the end of the day, it's not gonna address, it's looking too far back. It doesn't address challenges going forward. Again, I'm a capitalist. I think people ought to be able to earn what they want. If they work hard in doing that or not, if things don't go well and we gotta help restore that system. This focus again on trying to dictate how banks ought to be shaped and whether they're too big or just remember, we live in a global economic community and we gotta ensure that we don't handicap competitors here and push opportunity and for that matter, job creation offshore. One of the two of the three greatest industries in this country that we export. Hollywood's one of them, financial service is another and we should try our hardest to hold on to two of the things that we do very, very, very well. As Sandy Wallace said many times today, if you look at nations around the globe that are growing or that have growth engines in place, they largely have much of the financial architecture, the financial services architecture that we help, that we export it. They're using in which to grow their countries. Their excesses, they need to be fixed and I can only hope that people don't go. They're looking backwards as opposed to looking forward. To my man there about the deficits and what would I do? First of all, answer your question sir. Although the Senate didn't vote for that, Obama created by executive orders something similar. It wasn't identical, but with something similar and it's gonna take, I'll come to you and once it takes a look at some of the entitlements is gonna look at how you reduce some of the, hopefully reduce some of the spending in the long term. At the end of the day, its entitlements are gonna have to be tamed if we're gonna figure out ways to slow some of this and we gotta figure out how we grow again. One of the things that Clinton did was that he raised taxes slightly on some of the wealthiest of Americans but the country grew. He put us on a more stable financial footing and a pretty good treasury secretary and economic team to help him do that. And whatever people wanna say about Bob Rubin and be critical of him, I think he did one heck of a job as treasury secretary. So I hope we can do that. One of my ideas is I don't know if I said here, I've said it three or four times a day so forgive me. But I think we gotta be willing to means test so security people under 45 out of not, out of be able to sign an America's first pledge saying we won't take it to 70 and if we won't become eligible till we're 70 if we reach a certain economic level, we won't take it at all. If we face economic hardship, we'll take it at 66. But we gotta begin to grow the country again because I do believe there's great truth and validity to this notion of us growing out of the challenges that we face. Your point about some of these entrenched members of Congress and other things. I ran to be leader of the Democrats in 02 against the now Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I'd been in Congress three terms. I was completely frustrated sitting as they called us back benchers. A young congressman, young and a minority was watching the leadership do things over and over again that obviously weren't working. They'd been in the real world, he'd have fired them if they worked for him after years. So I got this great idea, this great plan. He invested money and they came back with the same result.  You gotta find something else to do. And some of these guys were doing the same things over and over again. So I decided to run. The get part was a leader, he decided not to run. I had a feeling I may have a hard time winning because the campaign was such a long one before them. But I decided to take them on and tell them what I really thought about them and the institution and how we've allowed Republicans who were screwing up things to continue screwing up things and we had an obligation to do it differently. Ended up losing, losing the race for leader but at the same time help remind people in the Democratic caucus that you can't keep talking about winning back the majority because the majority of us never had it. I mean, by the time 2002, the majority of Democrats in the Congress were not there before 94. So we started talking about things a little differently.  I think the way you address the entrenched members locally, you got to have an open primary system. In large part people are, to your point, you're able to organize, the party's organized in such a way that you come into able to block other ideas and other people out. If you had an open system, it'd be easier for everybody to be heard. There's still campaign. Finance issues have to be addressed and so forth but that's why I'm a believer that it's not a perfect answer, open primary system but I certainly think it answers some of the questions. And I'm open to a different solution as long as it helps achieve the goals of allowing more voices and for that matter, rational voices to be heard and to be voted on. Go blue. I'll come back in the fall. Thank you again. Thank you again for having us. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have already thanked our speaker. He does have to run but there is a reception that is out in the Great Hall and I hope you'll stay and join us. And I'd also again like to thank Sandy Wilde for bringing him and for all he's done for our school. I know you're here, brother. How are you? I would have called you out, man. I didn't see you. You doing all right? I was out there in the middle. I didn't see you. I didn't call your name. I was going to ask you about it. You should. How you doing, sir? It's my friend, Corey, actually. Nice to see you, man. You were a good man here. I know. You were a good man. I was a bad man in New York. I wasn't set to hear about it anymore. I know when I was at the game but it'll come another time.  I think everybody came by. So he was very, this is Abe Schwartz, Mr. Sandy Wilde. So let's tell you, Perlman's partner, Barry Schwartz. That's his dad. Yeah, this is dad. Matter of fact, Perlman called Mr. Wilde a day while we were, since we've been here as a man. And we were talking about him on the plane here this morning. He's a senior here and ready to graduate in the other grad. You're going to Augustine? Yeah, I gotta run out for it. Enjoy. That's what I was, I didn't know about that. Tell your dad, I said, what's up? I will. All right. Nice meeting you. Absolutely. My family's from China, Tennessee. What's your family's name? My grandmother's name is Georgia Williams but she was friends with Roy Key. Absolutely. The great Roy Key. Absolutely. Tell him I said hello. They still live there? Yeah, no, my grandmother passed away. My great grandmother, I'm just still out there. I don't want to say any stuff. God bless, man. What year are you here? I'm a senior here. Good luck to you. Thank you, appreciate it. It's nice to meet you. I'm Andrew, I'm from New York. You're a good man. How are you, sir? Not too bad. I'm from New City, which is like an hour and a half. I know where it is. I know where it is. Senior, I'm a graduate. It's cool to come. Actually, a class for this is why I was late, but it's nice to actually see you speak. Thank you. I'm working on Senator Schumer's that next year on about a month. Congratulations. You're going to be in Washington? You're going to be in New York. My question is, what do you see happening in regards to the Senate in terms of do you think, and Harry reduces the seat, what's going to happen in terms of Schumer's seat? Schumer's in the running. Do you think Durbin would be? Durbin would be formidable. People like Durbin a lot. Chuck is proving himself as he's delivered for the Democrats. So it'd be an interesting race. I hope Harry doesn't lose, but I mean.