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Washington This Week
San Francisco, CA, USA
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Channel 17
George Allen
Virginia Tech
Joe Walsh
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Karl Rove
Ronald Reagan
United States
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Washington This Week
July 7, 2013
1:00 - 6:01am EDT
is george papandreou. >> no man needs a strong partner, other than the american president, sheltered and cocooned in what harry truman called the great white prison. that is what i concluded after five years and hundreds of interviews, that those presidents with brave spouses willing to speak sometimes hard truths others are not willing to speak to the big guy, those presidents have a distinct advantage. we give an example. had pat nixon been able to cut through her husband's paranoia, watergate might have an avoided. but that had long since given up on her then by the time they reach the white house. a were leading virtually separate lives, as you will in my portrayal of this saddest of all presidential couples. i don't give my husband advice, pat was quoted as saying, because he does not need it. is there a man or woman alive
who does not need advice from the person who knows him or her best? >> as we continue our conversation on first ladies, they talk about presidential marriages and how the first ladies have helped shape american history, monday night at 9:00 eastern on c-span. >> next, a panel discussion from netroots convention, looking at candidate statements and blunders that became new stories in recent campaigns. this is one hour, 20 minutes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> good afternoon. we are going to get started here. the panel,oderator.
legitimate tape, using republicans words to shut the whole thing down. there you have it. i'm going to introduce our panelists here. to my right, the president of american bridge. the powerful, permanent research arm of the progressive movement of democratic politics. they brought you the greatest hits of the last election cycle. he worked for harry reid. jess macintosh, a director at emily's list. hopefully everyone knows emily's list. working with pro-choice
candidates all over the country to stop the republican assault on women's rights. she has a great twitter feed. @jess_mc, follow her, right away. to the right, james carter. you may know him as the researcher behind the 47% take. it was kind of a big deal in the 2012 election. he is the guy who helped make that whole thing happen. kind of a big deal. he is consulting for media matters for america, the media
watchdog thorn in fox news' side. all the way on the end, amanda terkel, who is a reporter and editor at "the huffington post." for all the seinfeld fans, we say "terkel," because she is oh is beating us on getting scoops. the first thing we want to do is run through the election cycle in research, in tracking. the greatest hits, if you will. i want to start off with james, to give us a little bit of background on the story of the
47% tape. >> ok. i had been doing this research, looking for videos about republicans saying stupid things, because it was fun at first. it went from being fun to being a much more time-consuming hobby, and now it is my job. this is a gradual process. during that, i was doing a lot of searching on youtube and other video sites. i came across a video of what it said was a video of a private romney fundraiser talking about chinese sweatshops.
i had helped on a story about chinese sweatshops. besides it being a clandestine taped video, the fact that it was something i had worked on before piqued my interest. i dug into it. i was trying to figure everything i could about the video, trying to track down the person. every time i would come down with a lead, i would tweet about it, and get feedback from people. during this, i was followed on twitter by a person whose handle was the same as one of the various youtube accounts that had posted pieces of the video. trying to figure out if this person was legitimate, i follow them back and started messaging with them.
they immediately didn't want to tell me anything about the video, which was a good sign. if it was someone who was faking it, they would've told me stuff that was wrong. eventually, after i discussed with him with a few days, i asked him to let me introduce them. the rest, they kept me in touch, but it was a long negotiation process. the whole video came out and it made a big impact. >> that is an understatement. a good rundown. you guys are at the forefront of research and tracking, talking about -- what comes to mind from from 2011 to 2012?
>> in a lot of what we do, i go back to the election cycle before that, 2010, with sharron angle. i bring her up for a specific reason. you are seeing so many people work with video. republicans continue to become more and more to the right. i read some of the focus groups when senator reid was running for reelection, and you would tell somebody sharron angle believes this. people wouldn't believe you. no one is that crazy. no one is that far to the right. it became one of those things
where it wasn't just someone -- it became an editorial tactic to show somebodies words. this is the footage. this is what they said. no commentary needed. do you really want this person in the senate? that takes us to 2012. mitt romney is a poster child for this stuff. i wouldn't have a job except for mitt romney. there is him. the second was todd akin. to give you background on todd akin, what most people do not realize about that clip, the legitimate rape, he actually said that on a thursday.
it was a pretaped interview. it is him and his press secretary, and the journalist he is giving interview to. no one in the room caught it. todd akin did not think yet said anything wrong. neither did the journalist. the journalist teases he has an interview with todd akin. a couple things come out. this is not one of them prayed one of them was something that he had said about voting rights. another one was getting rid of the school lunch program. we are already licking our chops. this is great. this thing is coming out on sunday. we have trackers across the country. we are sitting at home on sunday morning eating cereal, watching this.
todd akin says that. from there, the chain of events were he he sins that clip back to us in washington. no one is in the office. we are all online. we come up with a plan. we give it to a few different reporters. the first person -- probably an hour later, cnn picked it up. all the mainstream media piled on. by 6:00 that evening, the pundits were wondering if you would make it through this. by 7:00, romney was saying this was not my guy. by the next morning, john cordon said that todd akin should step down out of the race.
the only thing i see about that is you talk about how that caught on wildfire. another thing fair member, it is important to remember, most of the people writing about this, a lot of people were home and were not doing anything. this is a nice, beautiful day. people were out. >> you -- when you see the clip, or when you see richard murdoch make is stumble into the territory of horrible things about women and rape, what is going through your head? how are you dealing with this?
>> on that sunday, i was having a super lazy day. i got instant messaged from the reporters would been in touch with. he was like, i hope you do not have plans today. that was the end of my sunday. bringing in murdoch is interesting. you would think after eight again, the fierce and swift smack down that followed, everyone would have traded as lightly as possible. then you have richard murdoch a couple of months later, weeks later agreeing with him and saying if women get pregnant as a result of ray, it is a gift from god. that led to my favorite headline of 2012. that encapsulates the entirety of the 2012 election cycle.
it was "for some reason murdoch's comments not -- in missouri." there is so much you do not know what to do with each individual one. they have not actually learned their lesson. i thought the lesson was do not say rape. you can say rape, you can watch a lot of testimony happening on sex assault happening right now. it is informative. it is what our lawmakers ought to be doing. the word is not a problem. the problem is the belief behind it. which is why they cannot help themselves. two weeks ago, we saw eric erickson talking about how terrible it was the woman were breadwinners. everything from hormones to porn was cited as why we see the
sexual assault epidemic in the military. we know that is the easiest way to get that stuff out. you wanted to be in their own words. the holy grail. if you can put someone saying -- if you can see them say it, there is no way to deny that is what they think and what they feel. i'm not go through your head when you hear this kind of stuff. women turned out in historic numbers in 2012. if they are going to keep with the same playbook, so will we. we are looking forward to 2014. >> we have your video. ♪
>> how did america get so mediocre? >> i think parents became -- both parent started working. the mom is in the workplace. >> this is liberals who defend this. they are very anti-science. look at the natural world. the male and a female in society, the male typically is the dominant role. >> the air force base exchange, sexually explicit magazines are being sold. they are awash in sexual activity. >> the young folks coming into each of your services are anywhere from 17 years old to 22 years old. gee whiz.
the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur. >> you have got to laugh or you will just sob the whole time. we are trying to have some fun with it. we mock them. >> there are these -- whoops. increasingly, there are these moments of lawmakers saying things in their own words. how do you pick what to report on?
how do you present it. what is the process when you are becoming inundated with this kind of gaffes? >> if you are trying to pitch the media, if you go to your local members town hall and get a great clip, and think the huffington post will love that, if you send it to the media, one important thing is that you send as much of the clip as possible. i've had many people tried to pitch here are 10 seconds of a lawmaker saying something really crazy, put it up. i'm not go to put it up. i have no idea if you're taking them out of context. as reporter, i do not want to receive blowback and say you are taking out of context. in the wisconsin senate race in
the gop primary, one of the candidates was a venture capitalist. he was at a speech. there were reporters in the room. he said that he is so sick of hearing sob stories about poor people cannot get their food stamps. he wishes the media would stop covering this. and cover more stuff about the debt and the deficit. because that never gets covered. i was sent 10-15 seconds. i said i'm not going to run a break and won a big chunk of the speech. my source sent me the whole speech. if i was accused of taking it out of context, they could see that it was clearly in context. i think that is very important. giving the reporter as much as possible -- the campaign did a smart thing.
they had a tracker go out and record everything joe walsh said. it was public. anyone can go seit they didn't have time to go watch all of this. they did not necessarily find the nuttiest things he said. it was all out there for reporters who had the time to go through. that was great. i would love every lawmaker put up raw video so you could find it. that was very helpful. i cannot get out to illinois. there are a couple ways that, if you're an activist or if you are working on a campaign, you can have your favorite reporter that you send things to directly. do you trust the reporter to keep your identity secret, to
write it up in a way that you think is going to be fair? you can send to a group like emily's list, because they have contacts in the press. they can get it out there. you can write up your own post. go to the huffington post blog and put it up there. those are the ways to disseminate. sometimes reporters like the glory. we want to know that you send it to us first. if you put it up somewhere else first, some reporters will say it is on an activist website, do i want to take it? they all have their downsides. you to look at how you want to get it out there. the 47% video is a very interesting case. initially put out the videos, grainy and blurry. he put them up with weird names. we stumble upon them on youtube, and i didn't think they were
real. some disagreed and pursued it. he partially did that because he wanted to build up hype, build up mystery around it. it did work. it is tricky. you have run the risk of people not taking you seriously. you have to figure out, there are contacts who can get things to the media. if you and your community, if you're going to town halls, take along a flip cam. do video. the reporters love video. >> in the context part it is interesting.
the 47% video, -- what i want to get into, talking about opposition research, why do you think it is important? why is it, how do you sell it? why do you justify why we need this research? >> i have a few answers for that. on the tracking case, we see things like the 47% tape. we think of that is tracking. effect of the matter is, over the the last election cycle, we
had thousands and thousands of hours of video footage. they were not all are sexy as those three instances. if you're going to build your campaign strategy around it, have your whole campaign hoping someone says something so horrible the media will take it up, you're probably going to lose. the bigger part for me is the hypocrisy. as the tea party base takes over the republican party, we really care had primaries over the last couple of election cycles. those primaries, and the things they have said to get past the primaries has been their undoing. i'm sure there was a time where you could go to the rotary club
on one side of town and tell them one thing, and then go across the town and tell another group something else. that is something you cannot do anymore. if there is anyone going back to to romney, anyone who sold american bridge better than i could, it was eric fernstrom. your guy said a lot of extreme things to win the primary. he's like, well, the voters are stupid. we can etch-a-sketch it all away. no, you cannot start clean. that is what i think is the more important thing. finding these people who talk about cutting social security, and the day of the election,
talking at the old folks home. i think that is why it is important. i think the research and the tracking together are important. if you just have the video, there isn't that context. one story, our favorite george allen in his last election, he was at a town hall, and this is how research and tracking work together. someone stood up, a father of a son in afghanistan. he said he had to buy body armor for christmas. george allen said that is ridiculous.
he said if i'm elected, i'll make sure they have the equipment. some people applauded. we got the clip. the person on our staff who put together a research document on george allen said, this does not sound right. sure enough, in 2005, during the senate debate on the budget, there are a slew of votes on body armor. george allen voted against funding for body armor. we sent it out to "the washington post." george allen had a couple of bad days. we would not have that if we did not have the research and the video at the same time. >> how do you keep track of vista. you do the research. is it in a vault somewhere? >> it is kind of like michael
jackson owns all the sony stuff. we put together -- we have our website. a lot of our stuff is kind of in a vault for lack of a better term. a lot of these people that we track are going to run again. something that michele bachmann said during her presidential we used during her congressional run. we will do that over and over again. research and tracking are kind of innocuous until they are not so we hold onto everything. when i get the budget, it is for more storage. did we just spend a bunch of money on storage? now there is more video. it is a good problem to have. >> we have the flagship group during researcher.
then on the other hand, we have james, you're a one-man research machine. why do you do it? what on earth would make anyone want to go through his history on your own all the time? >> i didn't have much else to do. i was unemployed. i was on a break from college because i had started doing, watching republicans talk full- time. i didn't have time for school anymore. [laughter] i started doing it just because i enjoyed it. it was always a challenge to
catch the perpetrator in the act basically. with mitt romney, it was fun. there was a lot of information already. the opposition research from the mccain campaign had been posted online. my challenge was the video was out of the way he was keeping of what was going on every day. my challenge was the video was out of the way he was keeping of what was going on every day. i pretty much seen everything he had done on video to that point. i started doing the nonvideo stuff, and digging into those backgrounds. my goal was to find things that the mccain team didn't have. then, once i did, i would send it out to people in the press that i knew were interested in different topics or whatever. it was really just a challenge to myself that kept me going. >> that is a good answer.
we all say thanks. [laughter] >> with this information coming in, how do you decide what to emphasize question mark what to tweet out to your many fans? you decide what to emphasize? what to tweet out to your many fans? the video is out there. the researchers out there. that is not the whole project. >> there is so much out there. they give you so much. now that we have the american bridge, we have people all over the country you understand the technology and are able to capture it, and know what to do with it. there is a lot to work with. i think windows you have to let stuff go. there is too much going on. we ought to teach gender roles traditionally to elementary school kids, and i'm probably going to do something with that because he gets in with the larger narrative on the war on women and when to roll back the clock.
if that larger narrative weren't happening, i might let that go in favor of something that fed into whatever the zeitgeist was. i think the stuff is the most effective when we can couch it in terms of the parties brand. it was one of the first caught on video moments. it did some work exposing george allen's racism. it didn't explode all over the republican party like todd akin did. the aiken stuff was so important because they were trying to legislate what he had said. he was in an outlier.
-- he wasn't an outlier. co-sponsored legislation to differentiate between types of rape when he said that, it was not a crackpot who should be allowed to talk anymore. it was the agenda of the party. that is why everyone got in trouble. 47% is what republicans think. that is what i go for. things are infuriating, and i can spend a whole day getting outraged, but i try to go for the stuff that is not just an outrageous comment. it is exposing an actual legislative agenda. that is the stuff that is really terrifying. it is fun to make fun of them for being out of touch, but it is more important to make sure
that voters know what they want to do in office to you and your worklife. >> is it a to make that connection? two connect actual legislation? >> sadly, no. it is really easy. there are a million pieces of legislation. anytime someone talks a woman working outside the home, or set it -- or how sad it is, these are spokes people full -- or making sure that women do not make as much as men do. that is the easy comparison to make. i cannot believe they have this many pieces of legislation to redefine break, but they do. it exposes something within the party. >> writing about politics as you do so well, do you decide what you want to write about? you talk about what you look for, but is there an overload on how many of these kinds of moments?
>> the "huffington post" can never have enough videos of politicians saying something crazy. there is an endless appetite. people love the videos. we love those. people love them. some are very disposable. there are many of these moments over the past campaign seasons we will never remember. they were popular for an hour. they didn't rise to the todd akin, 47%. talking, figuring out what to write about, if it is paired with good research, that is great. there are videos that cannot stand by themselves. you may think it is outrageous, i do not character.
if you sent a reporter and say this contradicts what george allen said last year, here is a link to it, that is great. i will increase the chance that i will write that. that becomes a story. it becomes something related to policy. it is better if it is something that is happening currently in the senate or in congress. body armor, that is not something i'm really covering right now. if it is having that the senate has been debating, that would be fantastic. it gives you the extra hook. sometimes you may want to hold until you think that the senate will be taking it up. lets hold and send it to whatever outlet and one we pray that could be smarter. getting the timing right can be very smart. save for a rainy day.
when it is used smartly, it can be effective. i do not like when a group will send me someone talking with immigration. immigration is big right now. here is what my opponent said about immigration tenures go. and you send me a file. i'm not going to write about it. it is not a story. you need to give the reporter an actual narrative, an actual story. use apple research smartly. that is all. >> this has to do with what we do for a living. i am always perplexed, and i'm sure others are, the videos that completely blow up and videos that fall flat or do not get the traction you think it would. do you have any sort of -- how
do you gauge reading something? do you have a sauce over the that helps you blow things up? what do you think make something pop? >> that is the great thing about a lot of these videos. for a while, the videos were someone follows a candidate, and you back to them with questions until he say something, those were popular for a while. that time is past. just getting candidates and using their own words has become a lot more effective. they cannot deny what they said. they have the whole speech there. if someone says and that is clearly false, that is different than what they are telling audiences, things that are offensive, those will always
do well. they're always going to be a market for them. it is those videos in between that can be tougher. i think this is bad, or talking about a local issue that you were worked up about we are not. that is where those videos that are on the line, where you needed research or some sort of narrative to pull the reporter in. >> a question for james, what advice or takeaways did the two of you have for folks who are running their own campaigns out there, or who want to incorporate research and tracking at a state level or local level? things people can do, tools they
can use. i have to imagine there are some pieces of wisdom from someone who knows this as well as anybody. >> i'm actually available for opposition research work for campaigns. [laughter] my twitter handle is a good way to get in touch with me. that is my advice. [laughter] >> i endorse james. [laughter] a lot of what we do is timing an opportunity.
at the same point, it is about preparation. if you're going to have a -- i have always thought that research is the building block of your campaign. i understand there are campaigns that are wealthier, and some struggling for money. everything from your earned media to your paid media, to the mail you're going to do, to your narrative, you want to go after your opponent on education issues, but yet there is no research that shows that he has done anything wrong. i think investing early in your research and your opposition research is extremely important. it is the building block for the campaign. the same thing about the tracking. if you're one to track, then it shouldn't just be -- i apologize it should just be the intern tracking when he is not doing whatever else that they are doing is an intern.
it should be a dedicated tracker. it should be a dedicated tracker who was there every single day following everything the candidate says, because you never know. it is all innocuous until it is not. until you actually need it. those would be my tips on getting started. >> and as far as i know, we do not do our own in-house tracking. but this plays an important part in the job you do. what do you say to folks that are maybe in a similar position, smaller organizations? >> that is an interesting question. what happens once it breaks? i think we need to be careful as part of an organization not to turn a legitimate, substance,
apolitical story into a political football. when the todd akin thing broke thomas something that outrageous, you will find valid haters to be outraged about it who are not party, who are not the candidate you are working for. so and so said x is a much better story than democrats pounce on so and so for saying x. you want to avoid that. there is a tendency in our world to get super excited when we find this stuff, and we go, yes, but do this now. i caution -- caution. watch, see where things go.
see what things ought to be nudged in. do not estimate -- do not underestimate the power of sitting back and letting things play out. we have seen a couple times when folks have jumped the gun on these moments. this was not a video, but i am thinking of out the romney conference where he so clearly thoughts he had the vital, deathknell, he was done. he was terrible. all disheveled, smirking the whole time. it was way too early. he turned a very substantive issue everyone was paying attention to into political theater, which turned off anybody who might have been predisposed to be on his side even. there was a rush in our world -- because we are political people in that is what we do. it makes sense to lean back and see where things go.
also, sometimes tapes are wrong. tapes are edited. tapes are doctored. tapes that are not coming from credible sources like my fellow panelists. then you end up with the shirley sherrod situation. so, caution. >> one more question. then i will go to you guys, so start thinking. the research -- and really the tracking world seems to be changing now that everyone can take video on the iphone. a bartender at a private fundraiser can capture the republican presidential nominee. how is this changing the approach to all of this, this whole world, when anybody can -- >> everything is on the record now. >> i'm going to start with amanda. as a reporter -- your thoughts? >> i think it is great.
there is so much out there that never gets covered just because there aren't enough reporters or there aren't enough trackers or whatever there is. but there are people at these events. local council meetings, a townhall for a congressman, a meet and greets. it is all on the record now. there is a lot that goes on at the local level. different messages than the national level. i think it is great. it is harder, i guess, for politicians. citizen journalism. you can send it directly. i get a lot of this sent to me by readers. maybe i was watching my local news and sought an interview with the candidate. they just send it to me. that is great. i cannot watch every news
station. i remember there was a gop primary debate and all the candidates were asked what the federal minimum wage was. one of them was a sitting congressman. none of them knew. which was ridiculous. someone flagged that for me. i would not have seen it otherwise. i think it is fantastic that there are more out there. also, yes, candidates are cracking down. they say, you cannot bring your phones in. you cannot bring your cameras in. that is bad and we should west whye shoudld question they are doing that, but it is fantastic that there is more access. i am watching the mitt romney- barack obama debate, but what i cannot see is what is going on at the ground level. and many times that is what we are most interested in. >> everything being on the record -- this also plays a really important role in grooming candidates, finding good candidates. is it a good thing? does it make your life more
miserable? >> it is a good thing. you have to have message discipline, but it has to come from a truthful place. you cannot come in and recites talking points you do not believe and leave the townhall and be the jerk you are in real life anymore to go someone will tweak that you were rude to a waiter and they saw it or they will tweet your testy exchange with a voter. it will improve candidate quality. you have to have people who live the stuff that they preach. which i think is good for democracy, good for america. yes, i do spend more times with candidates the king sure that they know there are no unguarded making sure that they know there are no unguarded moments anymore. there are some things you do not want tapes because they are yours, they are personal. that is bad because you lose those moments.
but then you say what you believe and then you are going to be consistent. >> on the record, everyone is a tracker. the world we live in? >> that is what created my job for me basically. there is so much video out there that there is almost not enough people to watch at all. so, what was one of the most interesting things to me was i never considered before this process that me, not having an actual job with an organization that does this kind of thing, could be sitting at home and watching videos on youtube and catch something no one had seen before. i was able to do that several times. it became less surprising every time, i guess.
there is so much stuff out there. that is why amanda needs people to send your videos. she can't watch it all. neither can the rest of us. there is too much for almost any of us to watch. the more eyes we get on its -- it's not just the camera lens. the camera has to be on it first, but there has to be eyes to watch it later to find the things in it. i think the more people, the more cameras, the more eyes involved with the process, the better it is for everything. >> i think the idea, and not just the idea but what is happening with citizen trackers is extremely important. i look at it also from the sense of the media's role in this. what is the great thing about sufferance -- jess being on emily's list now or any of the
work that we do with american bridge. when i started work with american bridge, if you did not get someone at the times or the associated press to write your story -- it was very much a trickle-down sort of thing. if you did not get a major news organization to run your story, your story was never going to get heard. it is no longer here down. it is circular. it does not particularly matter where your story starts. if it is a good story, it is going to make its way around. i think that is great.
>> i want to jump on that really quickly. i know we are looking at local newspapers and blogs all day long for really good stories that have not gotten up to the national level, give the local outlets a lot of press. but local outlets are seeing things that we are not. if you get it in the local press or the local log, it will rise up. we may write that if it has not been picked up everywhere nationally yet. at the same time, you can get something in a national outlet maybe your state outlet has an interest in it. for us, if we are interested in it, we will publish. they will say, the huffington post or whichever outlet shows national interest in what our local congressman is saying and then the state and local press will cover it. so, yes, it is very, very circular now. >> great. we will open it up for questions. this gentleman here has had his hand up for a long time. we have a microphone -- please
wait to ask your question. >> is this being recorded? [laughter] >> you are live, saturday night. >> exactly. a lot of this is about tracking candidates. but what about taking the same techniques and using this to track other types of april? are -- other types of people? are there any efforts going on to do that so that when the candidates are expecting these things -- what about other types of people? maybe the corporation heads who are driving a lot of these things? i have trained a group of senior citizens in florida to ask the questions of the head of a restaurant chain about paid sick leave and using those kinds of
videos to illustrate an issue that is very importance. -- very important. i appreciate what amanda says, which is we did not start off waiting for something. i actually designed a narrative i wanted to get and i went out and sent the senior citizens out there to ask the kind of questions that would elicit a response. is there any of that kind of action about the tracking, recording, and pushing up the narrative that you know is going on in issues and/or focusing on corporate heads versus candidates? >> i will start off. on the issues peace, yes, but it is shrouded in politics. like the nra convention or a tea party convention where you have politicians but then you have people in the movement. we have tracked things like that. what we have found -- i am all
for it. the one thing we have found that has been kind of a pain is -- at least with politicians -- they have public schedules. so, we kind of have an idea where they're going to be and when they are owing to be. and it comes to corporation heads, they just don't have it unless you know that they are having a public event. and they do not have nearly as many. i have heard a story, it's not my story. i think it was -- they were doing something. they were doing this koch brothers documentary. and they went up to one of the koch brothers' many houses. they knocked on the door. i am not going to call them a butler. someone who worked at that house came up and they said, they were here to do this stuff and whatever. they close the door. then a couple seconds later someone much bigger came out and said "you have to leave now." within 20 minutes of that
happening, every single one of the koch brothers' houses had been alerted and were at defcon 5. it is harder with "private citizens." but they do have the kind of fame and no variety that, in my mind, would allow them to be tracked. but it is logistically problematic. >> i think where you have been seeing a lot on issues -- and this is still talking about politicians -- gun control. during recess, they had people go to these local town halls. senator kelly was probably the most publicized one.
families of gun violence victims confronted the senators about why they did not vote for background checks. they also had these families write letters to the senators and ask them, did they want to sit down and talk about background checks over dinner, come over to their house? none of the senators took them up on it. the kelly story got publicized widely nationally. they were also publicized in the state press. i think in many ways, they were most happy about getting that state press. they were on the front page of the arizona republic, having that town, and having people push back and the confronted. they have the national stories tying everything together. i think that is where you are seeing a lot of this sort of on issue-based advocacy. >> really quick, i wrote a story last fall.
romney ran some stories on welfare, that president obama was gutting the work to welfare requirements. and affiliates that does research -- an affiliate that does research not on candidates, but on think tank types, the quasi-academic source of this ad which was in the news and going all over the place, basically the biggest poverty denier conservative academic in america. which i thought it was a good story. it was useful because it was going at the source of the information. if you have a campaign and the other side is putting out some information, it is good to get some information on where it is coming from. i quoted people who said "we do not trust this guy's research
at all." maybe that is another side of it. next question? >> over the past 10 years or so, how has tracking and opposition research changed with regards to tracking and disseminating its? i mean, 10 years ago we did not have anything even approaching what we do now. there would be discussions from people on the ground. they would radio in. i remember people holding their cell phones up while we gathered around the landline to listen to what -- [laughter] was coming in through the cell phone and that was more or less tracking. cell phones up while we gathered around the landline to listen to what -- [laughter]
was coming in through the cell phone and that was more or less tracking. they were not accepted at all, so, you could not go in to a partisan rally. they would throw you out. today that would be a story. if we were not allowed to videotape a public event by republican congressman or candidate, that an -- that in and of itself would be a story. five or 10 years ago, there was this lock and tackle dance. your biggest staffer would stand in front the dude with the camera. it was silly. do not say anything that terrible or hypocritical and you will be just fine. it's a people a long time to figure out. they had people rough up trackers or be rude to them and then the media would jump on it and everybody would be wondering what are they hiding before this
became part of daily campaign life area the last cycle that i work for candidates and not an organization,, we became quite friendly with our tracker. he was a decent guy. he worked for the wrong team as far as i was concerned, but we him.ly like tim.-- liked you expected to see him there. he became part of the campaign team. that was all will because he trusted us, more or less, and if we told him we had no more events that day, he would go home. he was not very good. [laughter] but really, that has evolved a lot, is what i'm saying. that is something that we all understand is part of the it easier to makes get good things. >> on the tracking of course, i think it is definitely the technology. people remember 2006. even before that, there were a couple trackers in 2004.
now everyone has the technology to do it. everyone has the technology to receive it. on the research, and i am pretty sure one of the godfathers of opposition research, michael gurkey -- oh, he is there. he has been saying since 2004, research is not a static thing. someone would do a research book and it would sit on a shelf. i think at american bridge, we are forever updating these research books because there's always something new. i think that is one of the bigger innovations and research. it is a constant updating of the research. it is not a static, you know, book. i think that has been helpful.
>> more questions? gentleman in the front in the blue polo shirt. >> a couple years ago in alaska, the tea party senate candidate, joe miller, had just questioned whether the unemployment insurance was authorized by the founding fathers. the day after a reporter from the alaska dispatch, which had dispatched him with the story, shows up at a miller event and he is promptly detained by the miller securities service and had to be liberated by the anchorage police. in a way, i suppose progressive people get sensitive. they sometimes say things they should not and so on. i would be interested, based on what you have learned from the opposition, what advice you give
to candidates on the progressive side, particularly how to handle trackers, how to handle your words, and how to prevent this sort of outlook meltdown we have seen with miller, murdoch, and a kin? >> i do not think we have the same distrust of the press that they have on the republican side. that would never happen with the democratic -- it just wouldn't. i can't think of a time or a candidate who would detain or assault a reporter -- i mean, that's -- right? security is usually some scrawny 22-year-old who was also the driver. there is no idea that we need to keep everybody protected. i think our job is easier, i think, than theirs. we are the pro-information people. that means we are less scared of there being information.
>> the advice i would have is believe what you say and don't believe crazy things. [laughter] >> the red shirt right here, third row. >> you said the youtube and all of the various video allows people to the caught being rude to waiters. i happen to be from new jersey. and being rude to waiters would be posted by the government's own people. [laughter] i would just look to your comments as to how this can create a cult of personality as well? >> you have a special case. i do not know anyone who is as lauded for being a horrendous bully as your governor. it's like larry david
proportions of social issues. i cannot think of another politician who does what christie does in terms of the evening rude and obnoxious and generally taking on people in sexist ways -- >> i can think of two, but they are no longer congressman. joe walsh and allen west. >> why is christie better at it? >> because it is new jersey. i can say that. i'm from new jersey. there are certain places in the country, iowa being one of them, i think that that would become grating. i think people on the east coast
have a thicker skin about some of these sorts of things. this is just my personal opinion based on pending time in other parts of the country. there are places where that plays. if i -- i think if he were to do the iowa caucuses and call someone up on stage and degraded them the way he does in new jersey, i do not think he would go that far. >> there are instances with joe walsh and allen west -- if the media put up a clip of joe walsh or allen west saying something silly, their opponents would be really happy. but they would also be really happy because it allows them to say, look, the mainstream media is all against me. and it does sometimes get the base riled up. they can fund raise off of that. they are considered conservative heroes taking down the lame stream media. it could benefit your opponent as well. in the media, if people are sharing your story, it is fine and you do not care who is
sending it out as long as people are posting it. [laughter] >> over here. >> at the top. we need you on mic, sorry. >> i do research for credo. this is a process question. we have done all video all the time. i wonder if there is room anymore for the traditional, nuanced, process to actually get that said? as an example, it took quite a while, we had this piece around king where he was taking his family on junkets to europe, feeding his family for hundreds of thousands of dollars and it got no play. i am mystified about that. any comments?
>> well -- >> i think that's, first of all, i'm a very big proponent of the long-term research stories. i think there are a couple things. one is reporters, as i mentioned before, there are not a lot of investigative reporters. that is first. reporters want small, bite sized content. and then from a tactical standpoint when i wake up in the morning, especially when you are in an election cycle, i just want to make sure the opponents, who ever it is, is having a bad day. if it is a small thing, it is a small day. and small things can become big things. we tried very hard to place larger stories, and i think we talked about this before.
i hope we never sent you all opposition book and said, here, publish this. if we did, i apologize. the idea is, we will send out a press release or bullets, and we will have the greatest quote, be witty, pithy, and the chance is it will not get as much pick up as if our extremely creative video team creates something. people like watching video. i am with you on that. there are great investigative stories that are written. i do not think you see as many, especially on the local level, because those teams are the first positions that are cut in newsrooms. >> there's definitely a place for those. that is one of the reasons that i like working at huffington post. we do those little bite pieces,
but there was a piece that we did that shockingly did really well and people were very interested in its. there are often times when stories like that are picked up. if you pitch that to me, as a reporter, i am going to look at that, is that a candidate or a lawmaker i'm interested in? is this an issue that i am following? if it is something about a candidate and there is a history of corruption or history of drunk driving charges, something like that, i tend not to be as interested in those. if it is something where he is, i don't know, railing against subsidizing food stamps but he is getting all of these government subsidies, a clear case of hypocrisy. it's very subjective. a lot of it is finding out who is the right reporter to pick it up.
it definitely is harder. you have to find that right reporter. i was very interested in covering wisconsin stuff. if you sent something to me, i probably would have written it, just because i was interested and covering wisconsin. these are very gratifying stories. dive deep. and you feel like you have gotten something when you read it. you feel like you are eating your vegetables rather than taking the candy. please keep pitching those sorts of things. those are great. reporter time is limited. you just have to find the right thing. >> one or two more? this lady right here. >> i think one of the things that does not get talked about a
lot on the 47% video is it broke on a liberal outlets. you go back and forth in politics. if you break it in an outlet, you get to talk the frame you want versus a more traditional outlet that may get more eyeballs. can you talk about that tension and advice for those who do this kind of work? >> in that specific instance, the reason why i gave it to david koran is because the part of the video i saw was about chinese sweatshops and i worked with him on that before. at the 47% part was a bonus. that was great. yes, but it wasn't -- i did not have the 47% tape and decide to break it on "mother jones." one more piece of advice i would have about something like that reporters have things they are interested in.
amanda was doing wisconsin for a while. i know that her blog is a great place to send things about lgbt things. every reporter has stories they like to do. so, having relationships with reporters like that is important and choosing the one that you think would be most likely to do it. also, he if you get a relationship like amanda at the huffington post and are not interested in it, but you know someone at the huffington post is, you can go through amanda, i assume. you have someone that covers whatever it is, will you send it to them? and i think getting it referred from another reporter gets you more a chance of it being taken seriously and looked at.
>> speaking to the breaking on progressive or left leaning media outlets versus a traditional media outlet, it is more about how the piece is written and getting the story right the first time rather than getting it under the new york times masthead. which is new. years ago, if it was not on the wall street journal or ap, it would not be considered legitimate. the stories were stories and they were great and they were really well written. and i think having that first piece be perfectly done means it's going to have a greater reach than having the masthead be the biggest and most, you know, very down the middle. but progressive -- progressive leaning -- i don't even know how to say this.
they are not partisan allies at all. there is no chance i could call up someone at mother jones or huffpo and get them to kill a story that would be bad for democrats. they would be mad at me. the journalism is absolutely solid and not slanted at all and i think that is understood and expect it by other journalists to work at outlets who do not have that reputation. so they are happy to read those stories and know they are well thought out and well done. i do not see that as being as much of an issue as it would have been a few years ago. >> if something is in your local or state blog and i see it, it does not mean i will not pick it up. if there is a full video, that helps, rather than a 15 second clip that looks to produce. what helps is if you send me a
link. what often happens is i will re- report it. it is fine getting things on the smaller outlets where it might be easier. just know that if you send it to a reporter, they may be a little more skeptical and take more time to check to see if it is accurate. >> one more probably. >> [indiscernible] >> this lady in the front in the purple. >> my question is about the next level down. i think it is clear that the things like 47% were legitimate rape have the power to affect votes. but things like etch-a-sketch, things that are not from some n
tern, but not from the candidates themselves. obviously we got a great kick of etch-a-sketch and things like that. but i wonder is that something that is great for those who like the inside baseball kind of stuff or do the kind of surrogate next level down from the candidate, to their comments actually have the ability to make much of a dent in things? >> i think it depends on who the surrogate is. foster freeze goes on television and says back in his day the idea of birth control is putting aspirin between a girl's needs. people are going to pick that up. also, with a lot of these things, it is death by a thousand cuts.
we were talking about this before. there are so many we have forgotten. we put together so many videos. the ones we're talking about our akin, the 47%, because those were the ones that resonated. but there are things that came before the 47% on mitt romney. everything from when he was asked about -- he said he made $370,000 in speaking fees and called that not a lot of money. "i like to fire people." "i'm unemployed right now" -- ha ha ha. it is like the death of 1000 cuts. there were a lot of people that were like, i bet mid romney would say something that. it was already in their minds. i think they are important. i do not think there is one killer ah-ha video. you have to keep going and going and going until you get to the
point where people will believe when something big comes on. >> this is a nod to the credo folks. joe walsh -- i wrote up some of these videos and the only one that really comes to mind was him questioning tammy duckworth, a double amputee war veteran, now right questioning her time in the military. it was pretty egregious. every time he went up, he was saying something. it was almost like he was doing it on purpose. like, look at me. i am going to one up myself or something. that just felt like an accumulation of things. it accumulated and snowball to the point where you got the sense -- you are heard from people like this guy. the whole thing was, what is going on?
what is wrong with this guy? there was not one big bang moment. >> if it is a staffer or surrogate, it has to be part of a larger narrative. i had never heard of foster fries when he said that, but it was so perfect and then it became a big thing. that ann romney had not worked a day in her life comment -- they tried so hard to turn that into a thing. there was no narrative about democrats belittling work at home. so it did not do anything except a dent-lette instead of a dense. if it is something like etch-a- sketch, if you are already thinking, dude likes to revise
his history, and it has to be the chief strategist. someone in the room. and that guy says that. and you know he has been in strategy sessions. it does matter. it still helps. >> ok, we will stop with that. thank you for the questions, everyone. we really appreciate it. [applause] have a good day. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> on sunday, a forum on online fundraising with a look at the obama and elizabeth warren campaigns and a discussion on
voting rights. roles reform and campaign finance. purchase it's in -- participants include greenpeace's executive director and and oregon senator. it begins on noon eastern on c- span. , a discussion about the future of the republican party. and then inform on the future of mental health treatment and then experts examine the relationship between gun violence and mental health. >> one of the points we make in this book, did it make any difference to have direct elections? we come down on the side, yes. senators began to act like house members. not something any senator wants to hear. it means they were scavenging for votes. they had to deal with the people as opposed to, if you have a legislature with 26 members, all you need is 14
votes. you can easily pay off, and they did, in some cases, pay off 14 senators, paying off their mortgages and couple of cases to buy their election. ,> more with richard baker sunday night on c-span's q&a. a state,n county were it would be in the top five oil producers in the nation. to put this in more context, 75% of all of oil production in california is done in kern county and 50% of the natural gas is produced right here in kern county. so we are really looking at, agriculture, the
largest industries we have ended to really turns the economy. >> explore the hitter he -- history this weekend on c-span 's book to be an american history tv on c-span3. >> now a discussion on the future of the republican party. speakers include karl rove, elain chow, and michael. this is about an hour. [applause] >> a trustee of the aspen institute. i think we are spending too much on these banners. other than that, everything is going well. anyway, it is a delight to be here. talking about the future of the republican party. a friend of mine said "well, that will be a short
discussion." [laughter] that is not our view. i could not be more delighted than to have three of my friends who represent some of the best inking and the republican party or the right of center movement and the country. i think you know all of them. elaine chao, the former secretary of labor and fellow at the heritage foundation, mike gresham was the speechwriter for former president bush and currently writes for it the washington post and appears on the lehrer news hour. and your name was? >> [indiscernible] >> to be introduced as a strategist for the republican party when karl rove is on the platform is a little daunting. i think we all know karl. he was just talking about the last election mainly. he clearly is the premier
republican strategist of my generation or our time. i do not want to talk about the last election particularly. that is obviously relevant. i do want to talk a little bit about the challenges our party faces going forward, mainly from a policy perspective. then you can go to the audience and you can ask anything you want. it seems to make, the question about technology, the question about demographics, all of that is very important. the question about whether candidate recruitment was right, whether mitt romney connected with voters was right. but the future of the republican party, it seems to me, depends on whether there is a policy rationale that is compelling for party.dy.-- i think there are serious challenges and i want to address different parts of that with each of you, if i can.
first of all, i would like to start with mike on something that i think is the most significant development for the party today. karl, you did not get to it and your panel. it has gotten overwhelms a lot of supreme court decisions in the last couple of days, that we will talk about later, i'm sure. one of the phenomena has been the emergence of rand paul is a serious national figure. i served with his father in congress. liked him. he alwayssmart guy. made an impact. i do not think he ever went into an election with anybody -- inking he could be the nominee, much less the president. he was proselytizing for an idea. by that standard, he made quite a bit of traction. his son seems to have a different ambition. the polling that i see shows it is being taken seriously and needs to be taken seriously. not just as a republican
nominee, but maybe even as a potential president of the united states. we will get into foreign-policy later. but my experience over the decades really -- you have been one of most articulateand thoughtful articulators of a communitarian vision of conservatism. you talked a lot about that over the years. is rand paul's libertarianism consistent or compatible with communitarian conservatism, even the kind that ronald reagan emphasized with family, work him a church. are these compatible in your >> yes. [laughter] >> all right. would you elaborate? >> i think it comes to fundamental matters of governing issues.
they work themselves out in the primary process. this has been dubbed the libertarian moment and there's a lot of truth to that. rand paul is a very effective politician. very different from his father. rand paul really represents libertarianism without the edge of looniness. [laughter] he is very effective at speaking to a vent to support a very strong ideological perspective. there are a lot of events now that are conspiring in the libertarian direction. everything from exhaustion with global commitments, which i think are probably shared by most americans. --ving into the middle class fiscal easing, which i think has been a traditional libertarian pursuit with money. we have had recent events that
seem to be conspiring with conspiracy theories, whether it is the irs or the nsa or the fbi with domestic drones. other things. the reaction is widely overblown but it fits the libertarian narrative. the question is, the policy problem that the republican party needs to solve can develop more. but i think the republican party has a serious problem with working class voters in an economy that is continually stagnant for them, no matter what the situation is in the broader economy, and with new americans who are concerned about social mobility. one of the this extraordinary facts that came out of the great recession was in the worst stage of the great recession people with a four-year college degree had a 4.5% unemployment rate. people with just a high school
diploma had it 24% unemployment rate. we are a society increasingly segregated by class, skills, aducation, family structure. lot of things dealing with social capital. the question is, are republicans going to speak to the lived experience of the many americans they need to appeal to on the economy? i do not think libertarianism speaks to those concerns effectively if the republican party is going to expand and change its face. rand paul's approach not only also calls into question the obama agenda and obamacare, but the great society and the new deal and maybe the lincoln administration, quite frankly. [laughter] with the role of government. and republicans are going to have to find an active, but
limited and positive role of government in promoting social mobility in this country. the traditions that speak to that are the lincolnian and traditions of protecting entrepreneurship and economic social mobility. the catholic tradition which talks about mediating institutions and solidarity with the poor. the evangelical reform tradition, the wilberforce tradition.great moral causes. all of those are more promising when it comes to appealing to the actual groups that republicans need to appeal to then libertarian ideology. [applause] >> thank you. go ahead and applaud. elaine, that leads to a question again i want to focus on policy rationale for the republican party. if i were a democrat, i will listen to all that and i was a,
i would say, that's as good as far that goes. but we had a collapse of the economy under a republican administration in 2000 and-- 2008. we have recovered through the stimulus program under president obama, the fed quantitative easing. doesn't this all proved -- now the economy's growing again. we are adding jobs. the stock market is rising. doesn't this fundamentally his-- this credit the republican economic model? and if the answer is not a different republican model, it is go to the democrats. >> i don't think so it all. >> oh, good. >> i do not agree with your initial supposition. i do not think the republican model is discredited. it is being questioned, yes.
there is no dispute about that. i also dispute that the economy is coming back. the unemployment rate is 7.6%. the net jobs created in the last month are well below the jobs that need to be created every month just to keep even with population growth. the unemployment rate, at 7.6%, as high as it is, masks the fact that the labor participation rate is quite low. from the year 2001-2008, the labor participation rate was 68%. with a higher unemployment rate, it is actually about 63 point four percent. we have a lot of discourage
american workers was exited the workforce. who can not find jobs. the real question is, given the sharp decline in the economy in 2008, all of the fiscal stimulus, or why has economy not bounced back. more quickly? and all past recessions when there's been a deep drop in the has beenbounceback sharp and quick. we are not seeing that. gdp growth in the last quarter very poor. what is holding back full of this of the dynamism economy that should be recovering? you can have a lot of discussions. from my point of view it is a tremendous amount of taxation present and in the future which is casting a shadow over
employers that a word about affordable health care act and dodd frank and causing tremendous restrictions and freezing liquidity and also the every singlerom federal agency in this administration. too much taxation too much regulations. of an economy that is not bouncing back as quickly as it should. >> i want you to synthesize these last two arguments. [applause] we have mike saying the republican party needs to address stagnant economy and genuine problems and rand paul is not consistent. she set the problems of our economy is that we -- it is too much regulation and taxation and spending. address that.
>> first of all, i agree with both of them. mike is right. there is this tension between the libertarian we are seeing 8, nine the last 6, months. a healthy future for the party. the question will be if i welcome the libertarian influence. i grew up in the west. my mentor over here, i grew up in the west. every western republican has a healthy dose of libertarianism and him. whether is if it will be the provincial, a prudent leadership of the libertarian movement. school choice, something that , miltonuld acknowledge friedman is a good thing. a good part of the republican message. what do they have tended to do of this leave of along coalition
, some people want the government out of their lives. when it comes to healthcare, are we going to say no, would repeal the affordable health care at or are we going to replace it? savings accounts, a lot of people will buy health insurance across state lines. small business people will together to risk -- to pull of risks. these have a libertarian flavor to them. prudent leadership that says we want to find answers. what we have right now is most libertarians who sent him to have won two percent answered vote no. the national journal put out liberal republicans is justin mosher of michigan. far more liberal than any other republican. why? is a purist libertarian. he is not entirely perfect.
would vote with the nancy pelosi. that's how he end up with liberal ravings. unless my site has something that is completely perfect, i am voting with the bad guys. i agree with elaine. we do have a message that is fundamentally being questioned. fundamentally sound. well to recognize where we pay attention and look at the other guys and the problem is and the democrats problem is they have an economic program that is simply have not gained the support of the american people. 38%, 50% disapproval rating. the affordable health care act, you are taking care of, if you're a kid, you can stay on to your 26. it is not reached his lowest approval rating since it was passed.
this is not an economic program -- we are in the first recovery and was the median household income has declined. when he was anemic recovery in the reported history of the united states. when you look over the last 12 months, with craig 177,000 new jobs each month. have created 177,000 new jobs each month. we went is the recession in december of 2007 with greater just over 3000 manufacturing jobs over the last year. at the current rate, it will take us 41 years to get back to the number of people working in manufacturing that we had in december of 2007. it is not going to get better. it is going to get worse. back 2014, when we'll get to the same level, the workforce would've grown by 8-12 million
people. there is no jobs for them. if a kid gets out of school, they will fold lucky to get a job. someone who reenters the workforce, no job available. of theteran who gets military and control for opportunity, there is no job. both parties have economic challenges. a robust to have conversation internally. mike is absolutely right. this -- the idea this is the seventh by the last five years -- do not believe me. -- and say mr. president, we cannot win on the basis of what you have done. about economic recovery and people start saying, what recovery? we cannot win on the basis of your recovery.
we'll call it the grand bet, mr. president. if it does not work, we have neither money nor time. that is not the winning message, by god, we have done all the right things. it is very much up for grabs. it will determine the next three or four years. are karl rove and the next election, what does the platform you want your candidate to run? bullet points. two or three policy related things. which then there are negative tactics, every candidate wants to talk about something. they wanted to talk about what they want to do. what would you tell a candidate if you were the campaign manager ?s a basic platform >> republicans have a disadvantage. those in the audience have heard this.- and i come from kentucky.
i lived in new york and california. there are people believe it or not, a whole swatch of the company that does not agree with california or new york. they are actually quite vocal and increasingly so. it is interesting, we have to put in perspective. all of the parties, if you take the long-term point of view, there will be differences. there will be ups and downs. the republican party is looking at the self very seriously, very intently. republicans felt very intensely the loss of 2012. they know something needs to be done. as we'll just heard here, there's a lot of different opinions as to what is really going on. because i focus on jobs and employment, it is very relevant. all of the polls, that is the number one issue. it is an overwhelming issue. will addresses as well.
we need to speak about these issues with compassion. sometimes we do not speak with compassion. that needs to be improved. there needs to be more outreach to groups of color. we are not doing that. the economic message is still pretty set. that is also the advantage of the problem. how many times can you talk about tax cuts? i'm to about taxation. the message is simple. it is kind of boring after a while. even though it is totally true. i am in no position to offer advice. you have to much greater minds here. just the basics and you'll do say it in a way that is appealing. there's to be much more outreach to the people we are trying to
reach. >> same question, mike. eric cantor will be here. what would you say it that he should advise his caucus his candidate to talk about? fundamentala previous decision you have to make. doesuestion right now is the republican party need to motivate its coalition or modify it? you always have to motivate your coalition. that is necessary. you cannot start over. after modify any significant way. there are good reasons they need to. generational changes. problems with working class. that for me requires a government vision that includes everyone. it does outreach to people you are not going to vote for you you. it shows you care, you are not represent a faction.
the country.se and it is the reason we were involved in the campaign in 2007 11 the first he gave, he specifically criticized the idea that there is no greater goal than to leave us alone. that was a criticism that he made to prove his point. >> you snuck into the speech. little bitve been a more are full to make our point. governing vision matters. the republican party has to policies needlic to communicate, we get it. we know there's a problem here. the problem immigration to be blunt is not the republicans have not done enough outreach in the last couple of months or decades it is that an element of the party has set out to
alienate positively this been a community and proposition 187. arizona law, and the competence of immigration and talking about self deportation. the message here retires shock therapy. we understand this has been on the wrong track. that is the reason for immigration reform is an important symbol for the republican party. it is enough. you have to represent economic means. issues.different set of there are other issues where you can communicate, we are taking a different approach. , we said whatdid do you take on the concentration of big banks or welfare to symbolize you are not on the side of the corporate culture.
you are in the side of entrepreneurship and social mobility. i write to the like prison reform that is an interesting issue for libertarians are concerned about 2 million people as fast mass incarceration. evangelicals have a humanitarian concern with prisoners. liberals are concerned that the racial implications. what the republicans pick some issues like that within the bounds of our coalition and our ideology. bush of the creativity that we get it we are shifting and when when theys come to the point when i say we are tired of losing. that with bill
clinton when they gave their nominee the leeway to do out -- outreach on crime and other issues in order to reposition theirrty to shift coalition. republicans did that with george w. bush. they trusted him on the and then they gave him the leeway to talk about education, faith-based institutions the question is whether republicans right now are in that place whether they will have to take another loss in order to reach that place. >> i have a slightly different view than my 2000 colleague. i don't think they gave him leeway. i think they liked it. and i think that's the recognition. ordinary rack rib republican primary voters like -- rand paul is doing this. when he says we need to
campaign, we need people with tattoos it strikes a hopeful note among people who may not agree with his views on foreign policy for example. so i think one of the things is that in 2000 we constantly had this conversation, people said that's kind of risky by having bush emphasize compassionate conserve tism. people rallied to it. how is paul ryan, who represents a district that was carried twice by clinton, by al gore and twice by obama -- how does he get reelectd with 60% of the votes? because he had an optimistic pro growth message that is not the typical republican message and he talks about it endlessly in every community in his district. if you're an auto worker or a latino family, if you're an african american in milwaukee, he's making the pitch to you. now, he's got the message better developed than the party does at large. but i agree with a lot of what mike says.
my one difference would be is that if we had candidates with courage who stood up and said here's my message and it's an optimistic one and lit grow our party, i have yet to meet too many republicans whose attitude is i want fewer people in the republican party and fewer victories. you can't really trust a guy who thought that ronald reagan was too liberal in 1984 and supported somebody else for president. but most republicans like this and it's just finding -- it's like ben was his kind of republican. jack kemp. the kind of republicans who were broad in thinking about how do we broaden our base, how do we broaden our support. how do we get more people inside the tent and take our timeless principles and apply them to the new situations. >> i would only say though that moods and parties change. there are periods when parties are looking for converts and there are periods where people are looking for hert tax.
>> i disagree. not parties. it's leaders in parties. there's sometimes when leaders in parties -- the mob goes this way and a leader can go that way. do you think it was easy in 2020 with some of the people -- we had to deal with? the people were sellouts but the base of the party was responding to it. i remember after the election we were -- clinton saw bush, george when you said that compassionate conservative thing i knew we were in deep trouble. he said that was just brilliant because i knew it would keep your people. that was just brillion ynt. just brilliant. and you know i love this thing about the base of the party. the because of the party is reflected through their choices and primaries but it's the leaders who dominate the public dialogue.
and we have too many public leaders in that dialogue who are not forward looking. >> i want to make sure we save some time for questions but i want to talk one more zone because i want to keep focused on policy. even though it doesn't dominate every election, a party without a foreign policy national security rationale is not a governing party in my view. i think that helped the republicans for most of my adult lifetime, hurt the democrats certainly since the mcgovern campaign. it seems to me we're opening up a debate in the republican party that has kind of been glossed over for the last few years. i thought about the reach of american policy and the role of americans in the world intervention. i thought we might have had that debate in the 2012 primaries had of all people hailey barbour run for president. all of our friend maybe the best chairman of the parties great governor of mississippi. but here we had a guy from the deep south, worked for ronald reagan and he was critical in his speeches before he decided not to run, the afghanistan,
the iraq involvement. i was listening to him. most people were focused is he going to run? he was saying something we have heard from the deep south establishment republican. i don't know if he would have won the nomination but that debate never took place in 2012. it looks to me it's going to take place now. our friend john bolton says he may run for president particularly to combat just that kind of thinking. do we have a split in the republican party on foreign policy? what's the foreign policy message for our party if it wants to be the governing party after the 2016 elections? >> i like the libertarian pulse on the domestic front. i don't like it on the international front. the republicans were isolationists, libertarians view before world war ii and it hurt the country and the party. we had a brief flirtation with
it with robert taft in the aftermath of world war ii but since then we've been an internationalist party that recognizes america has a great country with a role in the international stage. if we lead it is positive and if we don't lead it affects our shores particularly in the globally connected world we are. >> i'm not sure how much of a debate we're going to have on it on the surface. there may be some things but i thought it was interesting rand paul didn't do a full fronted attack on afghanistan or iraq with a war on terror, he took the image of a drone hanging over the starbucks at the corner of maine and third in aspen and getting ready to find an aspen-based terrorist and unleash a missile into the starbucks. that was as mike pointed out in his comments, that was a great sort of intuitive political sense of what the american
people would like or not like. but i didn't hear him say you know what? i'm against us taking that drone and unleashing a missile on alacki a u.s. born terrorist in yemen who is behind the fort hood massacre and encouraging violence on america. but we'll see if he does have a sort of a full-throated attack on sort of an internationalist foreign policy that believes that there is a war on terror and america has responsibilities on the international stage, then i think he is going to come up short but as yet he's not engaged in that way. >> let me ask mike and elaine to address this in a little different way and then we'll get to the questions. and i think we want people to line up behind mike to ask questions. it's not just rand paul. our friend has written a book in which he talks -- have you shown the audience? richard is right over there. >> i'm loyal.
>> he's going to be very hurt if you say anything bad about his book. and i am reading your book. richard called me. i tweeted a link to a column that he thought was critical of it so now i have to read the book and report back to him and the papeser due by the 15th jul. >> and reporters will comment and i'll get my grade about early august and i'm looking forward to the experience. >> i sent it to my daughter who interned at the council last summer and she is very pleased. anyway here's my point. richard's argument basically is that foreign policy -- we are in a period of time where america can focus more heavily on its domestic challenges because we have a little bit of a breather in our obligations of international leadership. doesn't that fit quite consistently with what you were just saying about what the republican party needs to do to appeal to voters in this very difficult time economically?
>> i do think that there has been a shift that's gone on. i think when i talk with members of the house and senate, republican members, they did not come out of the reagan cold war era many of the new members. they don't share many of the assumptions about america's moral role. they're much more skeptical of engagement in a variety of places. and i believe -- i want to disagree with karl on too many things, i get in trouble. but i think that rand paul is a conviction politician. i think that his conviction about the nature of what he views as the national security state is the central conviction of much of his views. he believes that is the source of overreaching government in our history since the cold war. and it's likely to be a real contrast between rubio who is by the way in a risky way adopt it had mantle of internationalism and engagement talking about foreign
assistance, talking about other things. there could be a real serious argument on this and i'm not sure how it would turn out. the only response that you can give is well substantively when you ignore the problems of the world they don't ignore you. you know, we have a situation where we think we can disengage from the middle east and then
>> i don't have data on that but i was just reading on the plane here this morning, a piece about over-diagnosis and kids. it spoke to the issue that people who have insurance coverage, there is a higher diagnosis of adhd in that population. i don't know if that is what you're getting at but there are statistics about that. i am not an expert. >> our data recovers people who get into the public system.
i can't answer that either. >> >> i'm with the national real health association and i about this status of dual eligibles and the efforts to integrate primary care and mental health services. >> we have an office that specifically focus is on medicare and medicaid coordination. we have gone through a series activities that have solicited states that are interested in moving forward with developing a dual program. it has been slow, at best, and some is really helping states think through the right model. around integration and some of it is around changes the states have to make in their policies in order to be able to implement the program.
but got a couple states now we have memorandums of understanding between us and the states. and medicare and they're just beginning to move forward with implementation. it is getting there. is probably not as fast as folks would like but it is getting there. >> thank you. we have time for only a few more questions. we will get to yours. we hope we take this opportunity to fill out the evaluation form that is in your packets. >> i am with the american society of consultant pharmacists. i know what you mentioned that we don't to a good juba of dealing with the mental health issues and the elderly population. i'm wondering if anybody could comment on your thoughts about that given the large proportion of baby boomers that will be age 20 in the next few years.
the utilization in the public mental health system drops off the older people get. within the national association of state mental health directors, there has been concerned for years about the lack of geriatrics psychiatrists and psychologists who have expertise in treating their needs as well as the capacity. discussionlot of about the coming beijing -- baby boom aging into that group and how will overwhelm the work force capacity that now exists. that is being talked about but i don't have a good solution. it is a group that is recognized as under-utilizing services. >> there is an iom paper that
deals with this issue. the place to start which is expensive as medicare which pays quite handsomely for psychiatric care for elderly people but as a very limited benefit, a very traditional, not evidence-based for elderly people. when paper are ready to take them on, we might see some more attention. i think that as a barrier right now. >> thank you. >> have a question for dr. wilson. organizatione your to become a federally qualified health center? was it difficult to do and did jury decisionmarked change in medicaid reimbursement when you became an fq8-c. >> yes, we did.
that was a wonderful incentive for us to take that step. the severity of the -- difficult step. causes or different and the fqh-c work very hard so had to work quickly. when we were looking around for models in the country, we found that there are many places that had spun off fqh as opposed to becoming one but a few like cherokee in tennessee had done a wonderful job in terms of making that transition. we wanted to retain a lot of the
community-based behavioral health care components and the recovery model. putting those all together was the major challenge. we found when we look at our board as being an organization that could help us politically and could help us in terms of our legitimacy a local basis and where it was to have bush of dollar rebounded we had to debate how to go about doing that. i think that struggle has paid off well. in terms of making that transition. we think it works well and we would recommend it where it is possible. i think it is only possible probably in areas that don't
already have an existing fq8-c and we have great models of partnerships in missouri between community health centers existing fq8-c's around the states of their many ways to make this all work. the organizational structure depends largely on what is already there and with the overall mission is. i would recommend other organizations will meet this one of our colleges already done this. an fq8-c has merged into its so we have that model in missouri and that is expanding. >> this will be the last question that we have time for.
it brings us back to what several of the speakers of reference. how will you create an environment, the questioner asks, where people from -- suffering from mental illnesses will look for coverage woman up there. i was officer of the others i have a point of view that not be popular. i think is happening. i think is about younger people who are blogging -- and talking and chat rooms and other social media. these are vehicles that i can of brunei's and deny use. i mention cantor and al is changing and i think in your packet is a piece for people
or have mental illness disservice is, they did not this as a barrier. it was much more money and confusion about where to go that was more an issue for them. i think what happens is, the general public, at this point who are older and have trouble interacting with people with serious mental illness is one of the reasons that we abraded metal -- mental health, to enable people to have those conversations. generational the, there's a difference. i think some of it is coming out of the shadows just as people like me die away. [laughter] i hope brought -- i hope not right now. >> we need your leadership. a few years back in the greater st. louis area, a number of us came together and with the help
of a wonderful health foundation, the was the missouri foundation for help. we started working and how we can better integrate our services. there were a number of forms that occur at that point. the responses of many people, many times they would say i love the services i am getting love my provider but it was hell getting here and we had to swim shark-filled moats for from one spot to another and we were given the runaround and sometimes it was like having to learn a secret mock and a door in order to get in. we need to greatly address that we can certainly do that through as the development of more integrated systems.
>> in the very least, expanding the mandate to cover anyone moral or religious objections to providing access to the services. we ask congress to prevent such abuses from happening in the future and we call on americans to rembert the great cost this country has endured in order to achieve religious liberty and freedom of conscience in order that we might continue these blood-bought rights for ourselves and our prosperity. -- austerity. the archbishop will forgive me if i quote martin luther. i think we can agree on his words as they apply to our government and on its audacity i hope when that is right that is a generational and number of
states have anti-statement campaigns. bringing it together and brings down some of the stigma of. the mental health means of returning veterans, from the conflicts is helping break down this as well. when states talk about programs to meet the needs of returning soldiers, people come out of the woodwork to be at those meetings and support them. it starts a dialogue about mental health and suicide and trauma. it can broaden to discussions about everybody in society threatened by suicide. it seems to be getting better but i think there's still some way to cut. this is a perfect question to and discussion on. it is where we started. grantedmost take it for
that we're making progress has linda described and we see it every day. the evidence of that progress. credo on cds discussions in the special chat rooms. we wanted in facebook. i am just getting used to it. it is probably over. i think one of the most compelling slice the police saw was george lied when we saw the the successful interventions for mental illnesses, compared to things like heart disease. ande understood that weembered that slide and were last offensive, we are almost apologetic about raising in issue of mental health broader conversations. we all see it.
that itself breaks embarrassment -- breaks down barriers. we also have to realize that there is statement that we all feel about this issue. when i see that slight and i see those numbers, i think there really does help move the conversation for. underscore what karl said. i think for a family that has an adult child that develops schizophrenia, worse than the navigating have have held. get help. sometimes the more services we have, the harder it gets. how do you help people? i hope that parity in the hca in
these new delivery systems will keep families involved during that very difficult journey at the beginning of illness. >> great. will come to the end of our allotted time. several banks are in order. i wanted to tell you. we've done a number of briefings on metal held substance use. we have never had a response like this. i want to thank you for signaling a new sensitivity and openness to try to deal with some of the gaps in the system that you heard so eloquently identified to date. look forward that are colleagues at the robert wood johnson foundation, for not only co- sponsor really but helping and a very direct way to shape this into the terrific conversation that i think it was. which brings me to the final item on this list. i would ask you to join me in
thanking the panel for that particularly good conversation. mickey [inaudible] fromdoes not absolve you filling out your evaluation form. thank you. caller >> next, the relationship between gun violence and mental health. levitt 7:00 a.m., your calls and comments on washington journal. in news makers. if this was a state, it be in the top five oil producers in the nation. context,is in more
75% of all oil production in california that is done here and only 50% of it of the national cash gas produced in california is right here. we are looking at in this withy, oil along agriculture, the two largest industries that we have, and it really turns the economy. >> explore the history of baker still, california this weekend on book tv and american history tv. >> next a discussion with leading experts on a gun violence and mental illness. they examine appropriate responses and reduce some gun laws in a packed around the country. this is an hour and 40 minutes.
>> good afternoon. i am a forensic psychiatrist. joe and i were trying to plan this year back in december. newtown had happened. we decided it was difficult to without including -- one of the deadliest campus shooting. tragice has been a shooting incident today at fort hood in texas. >> several people have been shot at a grocery store in tucson, arizona. >> at least 14 dead, 50 injured after a lone gunman opened fire
in a theater outside of denver, colorado. a back to our coverage of shooting in a temple early this morning. a frightening scene unfolding there. been least 27 people have killed at an elementary school shooting in connecticut. >> at least 27 people killed, most of them children. it was an elementary school at a small town in connecticut. theenseless slaughter, latest has opened the subject of gun control and the second amendment. debatee is no doubt the over gun control will heat up in the coming days and months. >> i believe that my role will be more to raise questions for
our speakers than to try to answer any of them. thinking about where gun related violence comes from, looking at the media, the issue illness. in america, we have about 3 million guns. 89 guns for every 100 people. these numbers are equal to about three deaths every hour. all taken together, taking into consideration the vietnam war, where 58,000 people.
children,hink about in 2010, about 16,000 children and teenagers were injured with firearms. when we think about violence and we think about how people die, it is clear to see handguns probably the leading cause of that. suggest some data to that the availability of guns go down, the incidence of homicide would go down with it. if we take another industrialized country like japan, where all guns are banned, compared to the united states, where we have a right
to bear arms, you can see there are dramatic differences in gun related homicides between the two countries. those are statistics that are difficult to argue with. homicide is not the only part of the equation. two thirds of those victims are going to die from homicides. on the average, there are 49 gun suicides every day. the majority of the children who are dying are dying from using guns they obtain from family or friends. there is a question about whether more restrictive laws could do something about this. i want to draw the attention that we have laws. the question is whether they can be enforced and whether they are enforced in a sustainable way.
it has been said that mental illness is probably one of the causes of the violence. there are many instances on tv where people have directly said that only crazy people kill. if you look at the actual numbers, rental illness only increases by a bare minimum. ofs than five percent american crimes involve people with mental illness. those numbers are difficult to sustain. i have questions for our speakers. i am sure they will address it at some point. the question is how we will define mental illness. there are questions of label anyone violence mentally ill. if we do that, it is easier to
say that only mentally ill people commit these crimes. we final question, how do differentiate pure malice from mental illness? those are the questions for our speakers. i would like to introduce our first speaker. a currently senior fellow at the center for the american and a former special advisor to mayor bloomberg and director of mayors against illegal guns. he received his bachelor degree from harvard college and a law degree from harvard law school. whos a native new yorker lives in washington, d.c., with his family and he tells a compelling story. you should be looking at last
week's new yorker. [applause] >> thank you. i will also start with some numbers. of-- that is the number people who were killed in the largest mass shooting in american history at virginia tech. the shooter in that case was someone who had been adjudicated mentally ill by a court, but the state of virginia provide that record into the background check system and that failure meant he into a gun store and buy the gun. 33 -- the average number of americans who are killed with guns every single day.
323 -- that is the number of people who have been killed in mass shootings over the last four years. 44,337 -- the amount of people who have been killed in all shootings. that number is the number of americans who died in gun suicides and gun accidents in that four-year period. the vast majority of those were suicides.
if we think about the aggregate toll over many years, if we take the year 1968, which was the year that bobby kennedy and martin luther king were assassinated, more americans have been murdered with guns or killed themselves with guns or died in accidents in that period than have died in all of the wars in our history since 1776. ith those numbers in mind, want to talk about for things today. what i would define as scoping challenges, how do we think about guns and mental illnesses? the first question is, should we think of people who are mentally ill as perpetrators of gun violence, as victims, or potentially a scape goat?
the next question i want to get people thinking about, what is the problem that we are trying to solve? mass shootings, everyday shootings, or suicides? or mental illness for that matter? talkhird thing i will about is background checks, that has been the focus of the debate in congress. what might some other solutions be to this intersection of mental illness and gun violence? the first question, are mentally ill people significant perpetrators of gun crime? this is one measure of it. this is a graphic that describes people who are rejected from purchasing guns when they go to gun stores and what portion of the people rejected are in the various categories of people who are prohibited?
the biggest category are people who have been convicted of felonies. those are most of the people rejected. a very small portion of the people who go into a gun store and are denied the ability to purchase a gun are in this category of people who are mentally ill. part of that relates to the fact that many mental illness records are missing from the background check database. your chance of being killed by a schizophrenic person is about one in 14 million. that is one type of serious mental illness. you are more likely to be struck at lightning than that. another way to think about mental illness and gun violence, this is a category of people who are victims of gun
crime rather than perpetrators. mental illness is very widespread and it is a problem that affects many americans. i would focus on the last number, which shows that people who are mentally ill are more likely to be the victims of crime than everybody else. i think there is a third way that mental illness has come into the gun debate, particularly in the period since newtown. this is a quote from the nra. on december 23 of last year, nine days after newtown, we have a completely cracked mentally ill system that has these monsters walking the streets. we have to deal with the
underlying causes. the question is, is this the problem that we need to solve? is mental illness the cause of gun violence? that brings us to the second scoping challenge. what is it we are looking at? mass shootings, everyday shootings, or suicides? when we think about mass shootings, there is probably a compelling compelling case you can make that mental illness is quite involved in mass shootings. a mother jones magazine analysis of 62 mass shootings looking at the record, some of the court documents, most mass shootings involve some degree of mental illness. if we think about some of the
most prominent recent mass shootings, there was a significant record of mental illness and a number of those shootings. when we think about everyday shootings, everyday gun crimes, we see that people who have serious mental illness tend to commit crimes at a lower rate than the overall population. they are responsible for a lower portion of crime. likewise, when you look at crimes with weapons, which most times will mean guns, again, crimes committed by people who are mentally ill is underrepresented. it is worth pausing for a moment to think about how does
fit into this picture of everyday shootings? we may not have a gun crime problem where the mental illness component is exceptional, but the gun crime problem is exceptional. we are not a uniquely criminal society. we are not a uniquely violent society. but we are a uniquely deadly society. the level of homicide in the u.s. is unusual when you compare it to similar countries. we have a level of homicide that is seven times higher than comparable countries. firearm homicide is way higher. we do have an exceptional gun crime problem. thesee think about
everyday shootings, until illness does not seem to be deeply involved in it. that leaves us with suicide, which is the majority of sudden deaths every year in the u.s. we know that suicide attempts that involve guns are far more likely to be successful. people who use guns to commit suicide are the people who are really seriously wanting to succeed. it also may be that impulse suicide, people who are in a particularly low moment, this is the mechanism that is much more effective and when people have this mechanism available, it is more likely to have a deadly result. there is this question that mental illness and suicide are related. before i talk about background
checks, the bottom line is that mass shootings, guns, and mental illness, there is a nexus. suicide, guns, and mental illness, there is a nexus. the gun crime and mental illness is, for the most part, not a nexus. when you think about some of mass shootings and background check systems, that has been the subject of the debate in congress, a number of some of the most prominent mass shootings have involved gaps in the background check system. in virginia tech, it was a
shooter who had been adjudicated, but the records had not been put in the system. columbine, it was going around the background check system by buying guns from a private seller at a gun show. that was also the case in the shooting in brookfield, wisconsin, in october, where the perpetrator got guns online from a private seller, no questions asked. tucson, he had a history of mental illness. abuse,a history of drug which had prevented him from entering the u.s. military. that record was not provided by the military to the background
check system. that could have been a disqualifier. why is fixing background checks important? it is probably especially important not in its nexus to mass shootings and mentally ill, but to its nexus to everyday gun crimes. there have been prisoner surveys that suggest that the vast majority of people who commit gun crimes get guns from transfers, purchases, or getting it from a friend that do not involve background checks. i put a question mark under it because it is just one data source. it is very hard to know much about this secondary market for guns. it is the guns sold after the
gun stores have sold them. sometimes from somebody who says they are just a collector, but might be selling 100 guns at a gun show. sometimes that of the garage, sometimes online. the best statistic we have, which is almost 20 years old, suggests that maybe it is around 40% of gun transfers every year. the solution is to require these private sellers who go to a gun store and do a background to provide a little context. 58,000country, we have gun dealers, almost as many gun dealers as we have post offices, mcdonald's, and starbucks combined. this is something that would not be a great inconvenience.
there is a good study mapping all of the gun stores. 10 of americans live within miles of the gun store. another issue was this issue of records not getting into the background check database. there have been a significant amount of improvements in virginia tech. it was just under 300,000 records before virginia tech. now there are over 2 million. 18 states, six years after virginia tech, have continued not to supply records into the system. one of the things the legislation in congress would have done had it passed was toughen the sticks.
do background checks matter? it is a hard question to answer. crime overall and gun crime has gone down a lot in the u.s. in the last 20 years. but it is very hard, people do not agree what causes the drop in crime. it is very hard to think about outcomes and what causes an outcome, but there is a fair amount of studies of particular laws and an enormous amount of circumstantial evidence to suggest that gun laws do have a substantial impact. different states have different laws. here in california, very tight gun laws. other states, very weak gun laws. if you look at states that have universal background checks,
you see the murders of women is basically very similar in non- firearm homicides. if you look at gun homicides, is lower. the portion of the legally trafficked guns in states that have universal background checks are much lower. in this study we did at the center for american progress, we looked at the 10 states in aggregate that have the strongest gun laws and the 10 states who have the weakest gun laws. we looked at 10 outcomes of gun violence, 10 measures of gun violence. you probably will not be able to read the text, but you can see the pattern. on each of these measures, the
states that have stronger gun laws have substantially lower rates of gun violence. in the aggregate, it is half the level of gun violence. this is the correlation, when you see correlation over and over again, it suggests pattern. my final thought is, as we think about gun violence, gun laws, mental illness, we should think about, what is the problem we are trying to solve? the options vary, but there are things we can do beyond background checks and things that could be quite effective. one thing, for example, what
happens when somebody fails a background check? they are rarely prosecuted for that. that has something that has been talked about quite a bit since newtown. the federal government does not have a process to tell state and local law enforcement when seriously mentally ill people are rejected from a background check. what would've happened at virginia tech had the shooter failed the background check? he might've gone to a gun show that weekend. were the campus police and virginia tech or the state mental health authorities been alerted that a seriously mentally ill person in virginia attempted to buy a gun. alerting law enforcement and
mental health authorities when people are rejected for background checks would be one good thing. another thing that would make a difference is effort to recover guns once people become prohibited persons. when you have been convicted of a felony or when you have been adjudicated mentally ill, you no longer have a right to buy a gun. what about the guns that you may already have? some states, some cities have undertaken efforts to make sure that when people become prohibited, law enforcement it's to those people and get back their guns. california just passed a law that will provide funding to do this for 30,000 people in the state of california who are
prohibited, but there have not been the resources to go to their homes. there are cities and counties in california who was had very effective programs in recovering those guns. even red states like indiana have laws in place to do temporary actions to recover guns from people who are mentally ill. there are a number of things we can do, but as we think about what to do, we should go back to the first set of questions. what are the problems we are trying to solve? are we trying to have a better system for taking care of people who are mentally ill? there's a lot we can do. are we trying to reduce gun crimes? there is an enormous amount we can do there. in the end, it might be somewhat of a less important solve. to
what happened in newtown was a terrible tragedy, but if you lose a six-year-old in a single victim shooting, if you are the parent, it is just as bad. nobody is going to pay any attention. maybe a short local news story, but it will disappear. when you take those single victim shootings in aggregate, you are talking about a newtown, virginia tech scaled massacre every single day in our country. thank you. [applause] >> we are going to leave all the questions to the end.
jeffuld like to introduce swanson. he is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at duke university. his expertise is mental health services effectiveness research. he has received numerous awards for his outstanding contributions to mental health research and has written numerous papers. 175 comes to mind. perhaps the country's leading authority on the link between violence and severe mental illness. [applause] >> thank you and good evening, everyone.
it's an honor and privilege to be part of this important conversation at stamford. i would like to thank you all for coming. youuld like to speak with for a few minutes tonight on the link between violence and severe mental illness, gun violence and mental illness. my slides are automatically advancing. sorry about that. in the context of the other causes of violence in our society, with such an understanding and what it might imply for it to be both more effect than fair in terms of reducing gun violence but also avoiding and reinforcing the
stigma that goes with the unfortunate understanding or belief in the public mind that all people with mental illness are dangerous. it is because of a great deal of stigma and social rejection. how do we think about balancing these important concerns, safety on the one hand they are the civil rights on the other? i would like to start by putting this in a big picture is. quickly all, let me acknowledge some of the sponsors of the research i will presenting to you this evening. the national institute of mental health, the national science foundation, the sociality program, the robert johnson foundation. i think it's very important for grantmakers to courageously
sponsor research in this area. all of you have been to the national mall and you have seen what a sobering sight it is to contemplate 58,000 names carved in a granite wall. that is the number of american military deaths in vietnam over approximately a 10-year period/ what if we were to build a memorial monument to commemorate all of the american to have died in the last 10 years as a result of a gunshot? a we were to build such memorial, it would have to be five times larger than the vietnam memorial. i present that to you not only to show you something about the magnitude of the problem, but also to take it apart a little bit. it turned out 39% of those
deaths are homicide that 57% are suicide and 4% are other situations, law enforcement action or accidents. i have done some calculations and made some assumptions about the prevalence of mental illness and the attributable risks of homicide and suicide that's associated with mental illness. i calculate that, roughly, if we were to reduce all of the risk of mental illness, we could reduce that number by about 100,000. we may be able to bring it down. 95% of that would be from reducing suicides. why is that? well, you know, if you think about the relationship as someone who studies the problem of violence in populations, not just individuals, there are
three ways of working at this. schizophrenia, bipolar disorder depression, those who engage in violent behavior, that is 7%. 93% of them would not. if you think about it from a comparative perspective of relative risk, people a serious mental illness are three times more likely to engage in violent behavior in the same year that people who do not have violent illness. this takes into account relative risk and people with the risk factor. if we were to lower the risk of violence in people with mental illness, not to zero, but to what it is with people without it, how much would it go down? the answer is about 4%. there is a link between mental
illness and a moderate risk but it's a pretty small contribution to the overall problem. it's not the place you would start if you wanted to address the problem. now, with respect to suicide, it's a different story, as you have just heard from a few previous speakers. this is a meta-analysis or a summary of 14 studies of the attributable risk of suicide associated with until illness. the proportional contribution of the disorder, mood disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, the evidence there is about 26% on average and in the female, as high as 67% attributable to a effective disorders. it is a much drunker vector and it is also a treatable illness
and, if treated, it could have overallpact on the suicide-related firearms problem. what about this link between violence and mental illness? are violence and mental illness related? it depends. it depends on what we mean by mental illness and what we mean by violence. this slide shows a bunch of average estimates of how many people with mental illness engage in violent behavior, the setting by which the studies were done. you can see on the left of the x-axis, outpatients and treatment, stable outpatients and treatment, about 8 or send would engage in minor or serious violence in one year. some of these are in treatment and some not. there, it's about 10%. if we look at discharged
inpatients, sometimes in the hospital because of issues of violence, 13%. emergency present departments with mental illness, involuntarily committed, the criteria for inpatient commitment is higher. look over on the right. first episode psychosis, patients who come in for the first time to a hospital or a treatment facility, 37% of those people have had some issues with the violence or were to harm others before they were seen. you have a strategy that is supposed to identify people at risk by searching for records of a gun-disqualifying mental condition but these are people who have not been touched by the system. these are not necessarily different populations. they could be the same people at different moments, different stages in their treatment.
there are those people who are prohibited from guys who maybe were at risk 20 years ago and there are those who are at risk but not captured by the policies. how do we reduce gun violence in people with mental illness? it would be nice to do what our peer countries do, broadly limit legal access to guns. some say having a gun for your own protection is just too dangerous. let's not let people have so many guns. we cannot really do that. we may have a gun violence program but we cannot change it just because of our second amendment to the constitution. as the supreme court struck down the handgun ban in washington, d.c., and chicago, says thelly
constitution confers the right. long-eft in place a standing prohibition of firearms for felons and people with mental illness. we need to think about how we keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. that's complicated to do. andle are complicated violence is complicated. there are two reproaches i would like to mention and they are not mutually exclusive. to assess risk, predict violence, prohibit persons at risk from accessing firearms. this involves the assumption that psychiatrists are able to predict who's going to be violence and who's not and using involuntary commitment to confine people and then categorically rid them from firearms and that is where the background checks come in. that is one approach.
another is what i call the social therapeutic approach. let's try to prevent the unpredictable. it turns out they are pretty lousy at predicting who's going to be violent. let's try to get upstream and address the factors that are associated with poor mental health outcomes and let's try to address the social and economic determinants of violence. doing something about reducing the risk of youth violence and fact is like a child exposure to trauma. then let's provide effect of treatment. we may not know we were preventing violence, but we would not care because we are preventing the unpredicted. two different approaches. one is a long-term project and the other is maybe more short term. with respect to the federal law, which is basically embedded in what states do and they are all over the place, the law
categorically exclude some people with mental illness from accessing firearms and we have this term, when people are committed the idea is if they are ill enough to require involuntary commitment that they should not have a firearm. they have been afforded the legal protections of a civil commitment. that is also part of it. adjudicated, legally it means that has been in authority who determined that someone, as a result of mental illness is incompetent to manage their own affairs. they have been acquitted by reason of insanity. can these laws keep guns out of the hands of people like this, jared bochner, and these other perpetrators of mass shootings?
this is why we're looking at this tonight, the terrible tragedies. can these laws keep guns out of the hands of people like this? people with mental illness actually looks like this. they look like everybody in this room. they have the whole range of risk and protective factors for violence, and they range from your harmless grandmother to your neighbor's not so harmless intoxicated boyfriend and everything in between. how do we think about that? well, you know, do background checks work? there are a lot of reasons why they might not work. one has to do with the fact that clinicians can't predict violence very well. another is that states may not commit people, and other states do. it could be that people don't have to subject themselves to a background check. lots of reasons why we think they might not work very well as implemented now, but there's very little research that's been donto