WEBVTT - George Will 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:04.680 I'm Alec Baldwin. And here's the thing. With political discourse 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:10.360 on television, dominated by bombast fact twisting and outrageous personal attacks, 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:13.160 it's easy to dismiss every bit of it as a 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.599 worthless side show. But one of the rare voices worth 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:20.079 listening to is George Will. He won a Pulitzer in 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.640 nineteen seventy seven for his political commentary, much of which 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.920 was critical of President Nixon. He has a column in 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:29.880 both The Washington Post and Newsweek, and he's been a 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.680 regular panelist on ABC's This Week on Sunday mornings since 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:38.800 ninety one. While politically conservative, he's not afraid to direct 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.600 his criticism to the right and extend dinner invitations to 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:47.880 the left. George Will's passion for all things political started early, well, 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.080 at the first election I remember was Dewey Truman and 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:54.720 forty eight. I was, I guess seven years old, and 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.040 I remembered how and why. Well, I just remember the 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:59.760 static on radio, the stuff about it going on, and 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.240 a chair you pull up with the adult exactly. In 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.679 nineteen fifty two, I remember Taft his running and for 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.720 the Republican nomination against Eisenhower, speaking in Champagne Illinois, and 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:12.280 I went to see that. I remember ST's Key Farber, 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:16.319 Tennessee senator who is running for first and fifty two 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.679 and again in fifty six. Uh in fifty six when 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:22.800 he became Stevenson's running made at the convention when Stevenson, 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:25.640 through the convention opened to pick the vice president. So 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.640 I saw a few of these national candidates and got interested. 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:33.280 His career in political journalism started forty years ago when 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:36.080 he was hired to be editor of the National Review. 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.959 Over the years, he's established himself as a consistent and 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:44.360 respected voice in American political life. George Wills also a 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:48.559 baseball writer and a passionate fan. I can't remember life 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.960 without it. And growing up in central Illinois on the 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:55.280 Illinois Central Railroad, the main line of Mid America as 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.120 it was called, taking trains to Chicago, sort of fixated 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:02.120 on Chicago. And this was pre television, so baseball was 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.840 literally in the air. There were two teams in Chicago 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.200 and two in St. Louis. The St. Louis Browns were there. St. 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:12.040 Louis was the westernmost outpost of baseball, and I just 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:14.880 got hooked on the radio, the voice of it all. 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:19.320 It was my connection to Metropolitan America if you will sports, 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.600 and particularly about baseball, then because it's a rich sediment 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.360 of numbers, it was one of the first things a 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.440 young person could peg up with adults on that you 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:31.560 could know as much about Jimmy Fox as your father did. 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:34.960 Will's book meant at work. The Craft of Baseball was 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.080 a New York Times best seller. But back to politics, 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:42.000 namely the presidential election, about which Will has no shortage 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.480 of opinions. He considers the number of debates during the 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:49.040 recent Republican primary season excessive. When I spoke with him 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.320 earlier this year, he told me the primaries were just 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.359 a mess, and he says the current race is far 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.160 from over. I certainly do not think this is a 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:00.440 slam dunk for either side. Give you a little background 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.079 into Republicans in the Senate or the White House of 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.160 White House, let's start with it. In two thousand and eight, 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.200 Barack Obama had all the wind at his back, everything 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.280 going from it was an African American at a time 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:16.600 when the country was eager to do that. The Republicans had, 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:18.799 in the view of many of us, pretty much disgraced 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.560 themselves at home and abroad. Free years they nominated in 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.720 the implausible seventy two year old Warrior and a really 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:29.240 implausible running mate. The country was in economic meltdown. Just 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.919 everything was going wrong. Obama had been two years out 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.680 of the Illinois State legislature. He was a raw shock 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:38.600 test for the nation. You could project whatever you wanted 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:40.760 on him as a fairly unknown candidate to get be 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.400 all things to all people. Still, he got fifty two 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:49.120 point eight percent of the vote. Question. Democratic Party is 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:53.120 the oldest political party in the world. How many Democratic 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.000 candidates in the history of that party have got more 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.520 than fifty three of the vote and is only three 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.720 Andrew Jackson for Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. The Republicans, a 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:07.160 younger party, have had ten candidates good over which means 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.960 that in two thousand and twelve Obama is probably going 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:12.960 to get less than fifty two point eight percent of 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:14.800 the vote. Why do you think the Democrats have a 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.440 harder time getting about I don't know. I have an opinion. Well, 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.719 because they're they're typically very often when they're at their best, 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.320 and both sides I want to focus on them at 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.440 their best. The Democrats are asking people to vote against 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.640 their own interests very often where the Republicans are asking 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:33.360 people to vote for their interests for it, which is 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.920 an easier row stone to push up there slightly tendentious presentation. 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.360 When was the last time the Democrats asked the United 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.080 Auto Workers to vote against their interest When the last 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.080 time they asked the teachers unions to vote against their interests? 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:50.279 I should think it's exactly the reverse. The Democratic problem 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.560 in addressing the country is that it is so much 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:57.839 a mosaic of vested interests that the Democratic Party has become, 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:03.479 in my judgment, a had done of reactionary liberalism. Whatever 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:07.080 is should always be only bigger. Well, when I look 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.719 at the you know what are considered liberal policies, democratic policies, 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.200 progressive policies, I think to myself, well, at least there 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.520 was an effort by them, albeit sometimes an ill conceived one, 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.080 to solve a real problem. Do you think that these 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:21.240 people are not really trying to solve a problem that 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:25.480 they try to the Democrats, Sometimes they're trying to solve problems. 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:29.080 Sometimes the problem they're trying to solve is the unsliked 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.200 appetite of an interest group. Right, you think Obama has 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:34.440 a chance to win, Sure, you do, Yeah, what do 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.920 you think Roby's biggest problem is people don't warm to him. 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.960 They don't dislike you, but they don't like him. That's 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.799 different and in some ways more deadly, because if people 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.960 don't like you, it's because you've said something or stand 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.520 for something, and you can always persuade them or change 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.680 into something else. Right, if they just don't cotton to you, 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.880 it's it's hard to think about you at all. Well, 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.760 it's hard to repeal chemistry. It And what do you 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.360 think is going to be Obama's biggest battle in the election. 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:10.679 I think the sense that he's Jimmy Carter, amiable, decent, 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:13.920 well meaning, and out of his depth. You know, there's 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.560 an old saying in Washington at least, that overnights a 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.080 long time, and a week is forever in American politics. 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.520 We haven't heard the last from Spain. We haven't heard 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:27.880 the last from various economic difficulties. If the economy stalls, 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:33.800 which it easily could do, who knows. You mentioned earlier 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:38.160 about the mess of the Republican primary season and what happened, 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.880 and I was joking with some friends how I thought that, 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.279 to some extent, the only thing Obama needs to do 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:47.760 when he runs against Romney, has show clips of all 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.039 the things that gang Ridge said about Romney during the 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.440 primary period, and he might be halfway there. Well, except 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:57.080 being criticized by new gang Ridge is not necessarily a problem. 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.839 But in my lifetime, this was really the realm of 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.599 the Democrats, the circular firing squad, and the Republicans in 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:06.760 my left and were never like that, I mean the 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.200 Republican they fell in line and supported the nominee. What 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:14.160 happened do you think this time around? Well, first of all, 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.960 the varsity didn't show up. The best players didn't the 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.560 Mitch Daniels and others, Jeb Bush, and so you had 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.360 people who are trying to establish a kind of status 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.200 and purchase on the electorate that that didn't bring to 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.040 the party to become stars. If you become stars, and 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:34.760 we had this lunatic proliferation of debates. When a baseball team, 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.120 thirty baseball teams go to spring training, they know everyone 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.320 I'm gonna win sixty games, everyone I'm gonna lose sixty games. 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:43.640 You play the whole damn season to sort out forty 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.040 two games. It's a little bit that way in politics. 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.200 The Republicans are going to vote Republican, particularly in this 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:54.000 polarized climate. The Democrats are going to vote democratic. We're 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.480 really going to be fighting this fall, all this money 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.880 and time and energy over twelve percent of the electorate. 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.880 I think I watched you on Colbert and you said 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.320 that parties were you quoted whoever it was you quoted, 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:10.559 where parties were systems by which we organize our hates 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:15.240 and our Henry Adams and that. But do you think 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.560 most people that's that's true? Do you think, for example, 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:19.880 I vote the way I vote because I'm voting against 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:22.120 someone as opposed to force someone else. You're voting against 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:24.360 someone else, but not hatred. The American people are really 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.360 not haters. We're big boys and girls. We've been doing 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.280 this a long time. We're the most experienced democracy. We 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:35.360 understand that people have different political sensibilities. Those people cluster, 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:37.800 we call the clusters parties. We fight it out a 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.640 big deal. But when you say that people, it is 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.199 not a hatred involved. Would you agree that in your lifetime, 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:48.079 in your career, you've seen that it's reached a kind 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.559 of an ugly time now in terms of media, meaning, 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.760 especially in the conservative media, where it was liberal too 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.719 because I mean, obviously Olberman, and there's a whole MSNBC 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.600 crab which seems to have been wanting to mimic their 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.120 counter parts over at Fox. But do you see that 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.760 the rhetoric has changed over the last several years and 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.880 somewhat although I mean it used to be Republicans against Republicans. 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.520 My first vote for president was in the Goldwater election. 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.600 I was a cheerful Goldwater right. In fact, I will 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:20.520 it a visit a button. You're gonna give me no, no, 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.679 But our Kennedy listeners can't see this. But anyway, I've 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.559 got a Goldwater button is the wallpaper on my cell phone, 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.560 and some of us never forget. But again, a little perspective. 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:37.200 In the seventeen nineties, in the Great Election of eighteen hundred, 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:42.120 the Adams sites said if Jefferson's elected, they will confiscate 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.319 the Bibles and women will not be safe on the streets. 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:48.560 The Jeffersonian said, if Adams is elected, we will have 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:51.959 a monarchy installed in this country and will be subservient 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:56.839 to France. In the eighteen fifties, Preston Brooks of South 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:01.560 Carolina Congressman goes on the Senate floor accompanied by an 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.360 aide holding a gun to hold off the other senators 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.360 on the Senate floor, used his cane to beat Senator 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.440 Charles Sumner mass Usetts so severely he was out of 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.600 the Senate for three years. People of South Carolina were 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:17.280 so approving of this they inundated his office with new canes. 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.040 We've been through really violent times and we're in one 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.480 of those periods now and it will burn over. But 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:29.599 in your profession, in the political professional class, the punditocracy, 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:31.360 whatever you want to call it, now we have a 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.440 whole network which is very, very tilted in one direction. 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.840 Did you see them coming to have two whole networks? Well, look, 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.160 thirty years ago CNN was found in an eighty one, 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:44.400 I think thirty years ago at the dinner hour in 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:47.800 this country, of all television sets in used were turned 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:52.920 to Cronkite Chancellor and Peter Jennings. Today we have this 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.720 cornucopia of news sources. People to find journalism on their 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.680 own terms, get it on their own time. I was 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.080 told by an activist in South Carolina during the primary 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.600 this year that a survey showed that seventy two of 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.200 all Republican primary voters in South Carolina get all, not 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.160 most all of their news from Fox News. On a 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.800 Republican candidate buys an ad on Fox News, he's not broadcasting, 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:21.400 he's narrowcasting right into Republican voters now. In a way, 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:27.080 this too is a reversion when the party system developed 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:31.120 in the seventeen nineties and early eighteen hundreds, American newspapers 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.319 were largely factional papers. Some of them were paid by 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:38.920 the parties. So we may look back upon the Some 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:44.960 would say the pretense of objective journalism or nonpartisan journalism 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.600 as an episode of parenthesis in our nationals last incarnation 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.920 and something. Have you ever been approached by some of 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:54.480 those folks. I would imagine that they would have been 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.439 dying Fox and Ales for you to come work. Did 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.599 you know? I? I know and like your l's and 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:02.280 Brett Human and these people of friends of mine. No, 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.480 I've been with this one show on ABC for thirty 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:07.840 one years and there was never an attempt by anyone 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:12.480 to try to poach Shoot to enhance their credentials to 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:15.679 have a truly sober voice among that crowd. They've got 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:20.400 sober boys. Look Brett Bears six o'clock news program on 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.600 foxes as good as it gets. What do you think 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:26.560 about those labels? If you had to, how do you 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.560 prefer to be labeled on the conservative? Conservative? Sure? To 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:33.400 you that's defined by what today limited government government, the 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:38.239 Madisonian project that we shall have a government of dual sovereignty, 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:42.520 national and state, and that the national government shall be 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:46.960 as he said in Federalists forty five, the Proposed Constitution. 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:51.360 Because we're the Federalist papers were newspaper columns advocating ratification 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.400 of the constitution. The powers granted to the federal government 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.199 by the proposed Constitution are few and definite. This is 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.280 the argument in the sp in court over the healthcare plan. 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.640 That is, if the commerce clause is so elastic that 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:09.320 it can accommodate the action of mandating the purchase of healthcare, 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.600 then we really do not have any longer the Madisonian 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:17.120 vision of a government of limited, delegating and enumerated powers. 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:19.840 But do you think that the way that those powers 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:21.560 have shifted, and you do think that the way that 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:24.720 the government has in its role in our society has 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.480 evolved over the last two hundred something years, do you 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.040 think that some of that has to do with the 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:31.199 fact that it was in a grarian society that was 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:33.400 fueled to a large degree by slave labor over two 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.640 h years ago. Obviously a change in the role of 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.680 the central government was inevitable. But you can accommodate a 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.160 lot of changes in the central government without undoing the 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:47.280 principle of limited government and enumerated powers. If you could 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:49.800 pick three things that are policy issues right now that 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.440 you really think need to be changed, but that's what's 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:54.920 best for the country, what do you think that they 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:56.920 would be? What areas would they? First of all, I'd 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.400 strike down the mandate and with it the entire healthcare 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.000 plan is. I think it doubles down on all it's 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:05.520 wrong with the health care system. Second, I would deregulate 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:09.000 American politics. McCain find gold on all the rest have 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.240 made a perfect message. Why do you think they've set 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:17.320 out to do something flagrantly unconstitutional, which is ration the quantity, 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.720 limit the content, and dictate the quantity of timing of 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.680 political Citizens United. You approved of that, of course, Oh absolutely. 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.160 The funny thing about Citizens United is some of the 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:32.040 people who most spociferously dislike it are so enraged they 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:36.040 haven't had time to read it. New York Times editorially said. 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:41.320 What Sheldon Nadolson, the Las Vegas casino mogul, has been 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:45.840 doing and contributing money fifteen at least fifteen million dollars 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:49.360 to the superpack supporting New Gangbridge, is an example of 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.720 what Citizens United has done to our politics. What Sheldon 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.600 Nadolson is doing has nothing to do with Citizens United. 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.080 What he's been doing has been done in America since 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.720 George Washington to day and has been a constitutional right 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:05.040 since Buckley B. Vallet in n s. But what do 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.120 you think campaign finance reformed regulation was an attempt to 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:10.800 address Do you think that we just was just drawing 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:12.360 at a thin air? Do you think that there was 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.840 a real problem? To shock you by telling you where 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:19.520 I think it really began where it wasn't Watergate wasn't. 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:24.520 It was nineteen sixty eight, Geene McCarthy set out to 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.000 challenge Lyndon Johnson. You know how I did it. He 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.040 couldn't do it today because it's illegal. He got about 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.080 eleven wealthy liberals to give him what in those days, 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.640 with serious money, hundred thousand dollars a piece or something, 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.600 And with this large liberal money, he mounted a campaign. 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:47.480 Democrats were so horrified by this disruption of their party's 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:52.240 presidential selection that they began because of Jeane McCarthy, an 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:56.280 attempt to make it more difficult for that to happen. Uh, 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:00.840 I think you can put the entire necessary and constitutional 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:06.640 regulation of campaign financing seven words, no cash, full disclosure, 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:09.240 no foreign So transparency is something that you're not opposed, 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:11.680 not opposed to. What do you think about do you 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:15.480 think about public financing? I can just gas, but go 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:17.960 ahead and let's I'm just teeing up the ball for 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:22.600 food stamps for politicians. I don't. It is the most 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:28.000 regularly and accurately polled issue in our country because every 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.960 April fifteenth, when people complete their tax returns, Americans vote 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.600 on this the little box they can shoot and they 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:37.600 can give three bucks. I think it now is to 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.920 fund politics. It doesn't increase their tax liability at all. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.920 And percentday American people refuse to do well. It's this 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:48.320 is the one act of tax defiance that they can exhibit. 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:50.080 It props when they're filling especially when they're filling out 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:51.880 that form at that time of year. Anyway, it's not 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.200 gonna happen. You know, this is an issue. I've spent 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:58.040 a lot of time working on and you know, to me, 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:03.200 the problem that exists that led to the recent culture 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:06.359 of campaign finances is we just have lousy people running 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:08.800 for office. A lot of people don't want to because 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.480 they don't want to raise money. It's gone from one 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.720 full day now. My friends told me that anance. It's 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:18.920 too they spend forty of the work week raising money. 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.680 I'll solve that problem in ten minutes. Repeal the limits 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.600 on giving. They're raising money and these little dribs and drabs, 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:28.600 and you don't think there's a quid pro quo attached 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:30.920 to that fundraising. I do not think that corruption, of 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.840 the appearance thereof it should be addressed that way. Let 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.360 them take a hundred thousand dollars from anyone. Let them 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.320 take a hundred thousand dollars from Philip Morris, put it 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:42.400 on the internet at the close of business every day. 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:44.760 Let the journalists wallow around and not let the country 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:48.040 make up its mind the problems you're seeing. The transparency 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:50.960 is more the issue that transparency is at most the issue. 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.639 What I'm saying is this, the lion's share of political 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:59.679 money goes to disseminate political speech. Therefore, as justice William 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.439 doug said, a liberal icon on the Supreme Court to 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:08.359 regulate political spending is to regulate the quantity of political speech. 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.440 We're constantly hearing from the political reformers there's too much 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.239 money in politics. There's no other way to translate that, 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.840 and saying there's too much political speech. I disagree. Money 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:23.120 is not all powerful. You know who the great money 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.840 raisers have been on politics in the last fifty years. 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:28.760 The really exciting one's George Wallace and Bury gold Water, 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:33.119 and they did it with small contributions. This country is 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.160 a washing money, they said earlier this year. It turns 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.159 out probably not true, but they said, you know, Barack 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:43.040 Obama and the Republicans might each raise a billion dollars 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:48.840 this year. Gosh, every year in March and April, the 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:53.200 American people spend two billion dollars on Easter candy. The 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.480 country's swimming in money. That's not a lot of money, 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:58.440 but at least with the money that's spent in easter candy, 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.680 they're getting their money's worth. In my judgment, the most 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.639 remarkable fact is how little money we spend on politics, 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:09.720 considering the stakes, the trillions of dollars influenced by political decisions. 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.840 We spend remarkably including money that spent on lobby. Now 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:16.600 that's different. I'm talking about the political the electoral politics. No, 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:20.960 we spend much more money on lobby and sensibly so 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.880 why sensibly so? Well as you know it's a lobbying 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.680 as one of the few professions I'm on one journalism, Uh, 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:33.080 clergy is a second, and lobbying is the third profession 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:36.600 protected by the First Amendment. It's called petitioning for redress 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:41.960 of grievance. It's a pressuring the government. It's a good 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:47.080 thing to do. You said that earlier that the people 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.119 who showed up this year we're not the stars in 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:54.520 the Republican primary period. And you mentioned Mitch Daniels was 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:56.359 one who you were. Were you hopeful Daniels was going 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.840 to give an amazing just in terms of pure interest, 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.560 not in terms of your own favoring him as a candidate. 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:04.960 I was four him. It was your candidate at a 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:09.440 bottle eleven o'clock at night on Saturday May one, ste 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.960 a call. I got a call at home from him. 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:16.359 Both Mary and my wife and I are old friends 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:17.760 of his, and he says, I'm not going to go 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:20.960 at that point, I decided I didn't have a dog 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:26.080 in this fight. And what about Jeb Bush, Well, you know, 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:28.359 if his name were Jeb Smith would be a different matter. 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:32.159 And once you've had Bush Clinton, you believe in you, 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:36.919 you believe he'd be a worthy candidate. Why based on what, 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.159 first of all, his tremendous accomplishments was, particularly regard to 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.480 primary and secondary education in the state of Florida. Is 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:50.440 it just a grown up, sober, happy, cheerful politician. How 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:52.639 do you look back on his on his brother's presidency, 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:54.680 now the eight years he was in office, Well, I'm 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:59.040 not a compassionate conservative. Uh. Do you think he was 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.640 for limited government? No, certainly not. That's well he said 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:06.359 at one point, when somebody hurts, government has to act. No, 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:11.879 not really, certainly not the federal government. Uh. The grafting 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:16.160 on a new entitlement on the Medicare, the prescription drug entitlement, 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.840 the first entitlement we've ever had with no dedicated funding. 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:21.720 Just threw it out there as I will pay for 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:25.760 it somehow. He campaigned in two thousand promising a more 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.760 humble foreign policy that didn't work out so well. When 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:31.360 you say I mean I had a friend of mine 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:33.480 once explained to me in so many words, and this 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:35.280 is many years ago, so I might not get this 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:40.040 prepared him. But he articulated a kind of a libertarian 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:43.840 view which I think sounds similar to yours. And his 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:46.479 take was that the mantra of the Republican Party was 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:49.199 I'm a winner and I just don't want you to 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:50.680 ruin my party. You know what I mean. I want 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:51.800 to be able to put my feet up at the 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:53.560 end of the after eighteen holes at the clubhouse, and 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.639 I want to enjoy myself. Do you believe that in 0:21:56.680 --> 0:22:01.680 our society that people the federal government is an attempt 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.439 to address to give something to the losers, if you 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:08.800 will to placate then to the welfare state ALEC is 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:12.440 a huge regressive transfer of wealth from the working, young 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:14.760 and middle aged to the retired elderly in the form 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:18.399 of pensions and medical care. And because the elderly, after 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:22.040 a lifetime of accumulation, are the wealthiest cohort in the country, 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.760 the welfare state is a regressive transfer of wealthy idea 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:28.920 that the welfare state exists primarily to help the poor 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:32.600 is refuted by a cursory reading of the federal budget. 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:37.040 I believe the transfer goes to the elderly. Sure transfer 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:41.159 goes to the organized, most muscular interests. Big government is 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:45.639 big because it has big ambitions. It knows how wealth 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:49.200 an opportunity ought to be allocated. Big government is therefore 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:56.119 inevitably responsive to big, powerful interest groups. I subscribe to 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:58.240 what the poet Robert Frost said. He said, I do 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:01.000 not want to live in a homogenized society. I want 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:05.639