Transcript: Republicans I actually think have really clear things they have to do.  They must put forward . . . They must not be seen to champion the war in Iraq, the failures of the war in Iraq.  They must show that they’re going, to borrow from Barack Obama, “turn the page on Iraq”.  So McCain . . . There is no way John McCain will pull troops out of Iraq next month.  Or excuse me, will say next month that he wants to pull troops out of Iraq.  But if it is John McCain, he certainly has to acknowledge . . . He certainly should continue to re-emphasize that he was against the way Bush administered this war; that he was one of the early oppositional voices to how Bush was administering this war under . . . with Donald Rumsfeld at his side.  While he also must not appear to want American troops to be there for 100 years, he had this one verbal gaff where he said, “It doesn’t matter if they’re here for 100 years,” because simply he’s saying that it’s not having . . . It’s correct.  He’s saying it’s not having troops in Iraq that’s the issue.  It’s troops dying.  Because we’ve had troops in Japan and Korea for a long time, and Bosnia.  So it’s not the troops being there that anger Americans.  It’s when troops are dying.  So his . . . John McCain’s point is that you simply must not have troops continue to die at the same levels.  But in doing that . . . In making that point he must also appear to wanna end the war.  And that doesn’t necessarily mean pulling troops at a rapid rate out of Iraq.  But it certainly must show that he wants to win but end.  And he wants to, you know, command Afghanistan and find bin Laden.  And he should tout his national security credentials.  But they have very real problems domestically.  They really lost the fiscal conservative moniker that really aided Republicans for a long time.  McCain will have to show that if he’s a nominee.  He’ll have to explain small cases where he veered from his straight talk mantra; where he changed stances slightly, such as his support of Bush’s tax cuts.  And he should probably run, if you’re John McCain, on character.  There’s no doubt.

Recorded on: 2/5/08

Transcript: It’s hard to answer that simply.  What must the Democrats do to win in 2008?  They can’t make the mistakes of the last few decades.  And they have made . . . They have learned their lesson to some extent.  They must talk about their values.  They must talk about . . . If they are religious they must talk about that.  They have understood that they have gotten their butts kicked on national security, and some of the mistakes in the war in Iraq allow for them to seize that issue.  They have understood that people sometimes don’t oppose illegal immigration . . . some of them.  And sometimes people don’t oppose affirmative action simply because they’re racist.  Sometimes it’s for very real reasons of economic instability.  And so I would . . . What the Democrats have to do without going into specific positions is they have to read the last chapter of my book.  And they should consider the various interests that at times annoy them on the left . . . annoy the leftist base and consider some of their points; while not being ashamed to be Democrats; and not being unabashed to put forward progressive slash liberal policies.  But they mustn’t run as the . . . against George W. Bush.  Again elections are prospective.  They mustn’t run to, you know, end the war in Iraq in the general election.  They should . . . They should talk about Iraq in the sense of dishonoring American . . . the soldiers who went there and dishonoring, like, American senses of duty and purpose in national security.  Because if you talk about the war in Iraq in terms of the mistakes made, that’s one thing.  But if you talk about the war in Iraq in terms of its failures and your capacity to offer clear solutions, you know I do think that it’s possible the Democratic candidate could at least neutralize the national security issue enough that they could make it a domestic appeal.  That said, they are sure making mistakes on illegal immigration that are not just important to men, but also many women in middle America.  And that mistake . . . Those mistakes on illegal immigration . . . I only bring up as an example of historic mistakes being made in the Democratic party on issues like crime.  Many Democrats in the late 1960s said that these white families in the suburbs and the cities were concerned about crime and the urban upheaval simple because they were racist and against the civil rights movement.  And the Democrats struggled to champion civil rights while not taking . . . by not talking about crime seriously.  And the murder rates dramatically rose, and the robbery rates dramatically rose.  And the Democrats mistakenly looked in the 1960s at those issues and so demeaned them as issues.  But people have a right to care about crime surging.  And they have a . . . You know what?  There are principle reasons that some people have concerns about illegal immigration.  And so Democrats should seriously consider the mistakes that they made while also remembering the Democrats and not putting forth an intolerant message.  But they won’t do that.  That’s not gonna happen either with Clinton or Obama.

Recorded on: 2/5/08

Transcript: Absolutely.  I think it’s always important to speak of generalizations in general instead of saying all generalizations are only true in general.  A third of white guys out there are voting Democratic and have for decades.  But when you understand that when one talks about demographic groups, and you’re talking in general, and you keep it only within that context, I don’t think it’s . . . It’s not only not wrong; it’s true often.  And it certainly grinds against our desire to not, if you will, predefine anybody and not, you know . . . basically not thrust a stereotype onto any one member of a group.  There are still one in 10 African-Americans who vote Republican.  There are still at least 30 to 35 percent of the Hispanics will vote Republican, I predict, in the 2008 presidential race despite the illegal immigration issue.  So yeah, it’s important not to thrust these generalizations onto these different demographic groups.  Not all white guys are, you know, Bubba Joe six-pack.  But I would emphasize that it’s the left that is actually among these White guys actually thrusts stereotypes onto them.  As I emphasize in my book, these men often felt like Archie Bunker.  They often felt like they were defined as Archie Bunker – sort of a bigoted, overweight guy who’s a little bit sexist and a little bit racist.  And the Democrats were like, you know, we’re losing these elections, but we’re doing it for the good fight, you know?  We’re doing it for good reasons.  We’re losing for altruistic reasons.  So it’s okay that we lost, but we did the right thing.  And the problem is that the Democrats looked at their loss of their majority in the last 40 years and they simplified it.  They said well we did the right thing on civil rights, on women’s rights, and later on gay rights.  And if we’re doing the right thing, if we lost the majority it’s okay.  That’s childish.  One, they lost their majority for reasons that pre-date Democrats taking up the Civil Rights Movement.  And there were indications of this as early as 1928.  When Republicans won in 1928, half the South . . . Republicans won half the South in 1928 on civil rights . . . I mean on cultural issues alone by painting the Democratic candidate out of New York as a big city politician against prohibition; a Catholic; against, you know, the values of a Protestant South.  And certainly some of that veered into xenophobia, but it was a great lesson that even the South as not as simple as just some racist block.  It never was, and it certainly isn’t today.  And so when you look back the last 30 or 40 years, the Democrats won . . . simplified how they lost the majority.  And basically it was like I compare it to a marriage.  And when you have marriages sometimes you hear someone describe the breakup.  What you’ll hear at a table when you’re around your friends and one person is describing their breakup, you know you’ll hear basically . . . I’ve heard some of my female friends literally at brunch in the city talk about a breakup, and it’s like, “This guy is a total jerk.”  And they’ll just rant, and men do this as well.  But the problem is the Democratic Party did the same thing.  They blamed the divorce of these men from the Democratic Party solely on these men.  You’re a bigot.  You’re a racist.  You’re sexist.  Some of the pushback of my book is essentially we don’t need these men.  They’re bigots.  They’re racist.  They’re sexist.  They represent an old America.  They’re a lessening number of Americans.  They’re still 36 percent of the voters in the coming general election.  And to many of these men, they were like you know what?  We’re not perfect.  To many of these men . . . But like it’s not all our fault.  In other words the divorce occurred for reasons . . . for mistakes on the left as well.  And it’s important when understanding how you ended one relationship to accept some fault and to look at those mistakes you made, because that’s gonna help you mend that relationship and certainly have your next relationship.  And that’s true for the Democratic Party as well at this critical moment when they can truly build a new majority.  And certainly the danger of a book focused on Hispanics, or men, or women is that you create these like . . . You help enhance these stereotypes.  But I only believe that’s a danger if someone reads a book at a very superficial level and actually doesn’t read the whole thing.  And I think a lot of these books clearly show that clearly while showing what appeals to these men shows the exceptions, and my book does that as well.  So at times clearly demographics matter, and there’s never been a better case of that than the 2008 Democratic primary race which is stunning for how much it breaks down purely on demographic lines.  I emphasize how Hillary Clinton would not have won in New Hampshire or Nevada for example if it was not for white women or the overwhelming support of White women – especially New Hampshire.  Barack Obama would not have won South Carolina if it was not for the overwhelming support of African-Americans.  So people vote in demographics in some sense sometimes.  These white guys have clearly shown that they won’t just vote for white guys.  They said the Democrats have been voting for white guys for a long time and they haven’t done too well.  But what was most stunning about white men and the demographic loss of these men in the last 40 years more than anything was that when I looked into the gender gap; when I took a deeper look and went deeper, I looked at every socio-economic group.  There isn’t anything I missed, whether it was education levels, high school, post college educated; whether it was income levels – those making less than $50,000 of income, more than $200,000, in between.  It didn’t really matter whether it was broke down to regions – South, North, East.  Even sometimes by state, what was clear to me and what was most stunning is that the white male gap transcended every demographic group.  There wasn’t a post college educated white male group that was leaning Democratic.  There wasn’t a family under $30,000 of white male . . . men who were majority leaning Democratic.  Whether it was a margin of 10 percent or a margin of 25 percent, the fact is that the margin transcended region, where you live, suburbs, exurbs, city; and it transcended what state you lived in; and it transcended how much money you made.  And so to see that fact, and to not say what is going on here, what is particular about these men’s outlook on the world that has estranged them from the Democratic Party in recent decades, and therefore undone the Democratic Party . . . to see those facts and not look deeper into them is I think a mistake of political journalism I think over the last 25 years.  It is ridiculous that it took a quarter century for my book to be written.  It should have been written by someone a generation older, and it should have been written, you know, at the end of the Reagan era.  But it wasn’t, and so all I say in my book above all is that the Democrats should take an objective look at how they lost the majority at the very moment when they’re trying to build a new one.

Recorded on: 2/5/08

Transcript: It’s clear in my book that I didn’t think the Democratic leaders were the best suited to reach out to the very voters the Democrats lost in the last four years.  I do believe there were stronger Democratic candidates out there, but that doesn’t really matter at this point.  It’s gonna be Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.  And I would emphasize again that even when John Edwards was in that race I felt the same way about the top three.  So it’s not simply because it’s . . . It’s not in fact at all because Hillary is a woman and Barack’s an African-American.  In fact, Hillary Clinton lacks what has been quite successful for female candidates in appealing to men as well as women, which is she wasn’t a former prosecutor.  That’s been a wonderful way for female governors, for example, to show their toughness, their grit to basically deal with the stereotypes that they have to deal with as women – which is that they’re not tough enough or willing to make the hard choices.  And as I like to remind people men also deal with their stereotypes – that they’re not sensitive; that they don’t care – look at Joe Biden.  What Joe Biden said – that Barack Obama was “articulate” . . . “clean and articulate” – certainly was like a bit strange.  But what people missed was Tiger Woods in describing Barack Obama in one sentence about two weeks ago used the word “articulate” right away.  What Biden did was stupid for a politician that came at an inopportune time.  But he was held to that standard because he’s a white guy.  And that’s fine because women have to disprove stereotypes, white guys have to disprove stereotypes, and certainly Barack Obama as an African-American has had to disprove stereotypes in this race.  So what matters now is if it’s Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton as a nominee, what can these candidates do to reach out to these men?  I talk about that in the last chapter of my book, and so the policies and stances and the way in which these candidates should try and define themselves to the public; and certainly the attributes about themselves they should emphasize.  But they should also consider their vice presidential selection very, very carefully.  Now Vice Presidents don’t make a huge difference, but they are important.  They’re important because one, you don’t wanna do any harm.  But two, you wanna pick a candidate that possibly compensates for your weaknesses.  And three, you wanna pick a candidate who would possibly help you in a state.  That whole idea about they can be president from day one is nice, but they’re not worried too much about that.  They don’t want someone who appears unpresidential.  So they should very seriously consider that both of them have weaknesses on national security.  And I emphasize even Hillary Rodham Clinton.  And both of them have weaknesses on in experience, and that they should possibly look for a candidate that maybe does fit the Republican archetype of candidate that they have put forward in the last 25 years.  Now that doesn’t mean Democrat . . . That doesn’t mean Republican lite.  That doesn’t mean moderation without principles.  That doesn’t mean really the middle road that so many on the left are infuriated about.  Not at all.  It just simply means a presidential a vice presidential candidate that to a significant extent comes from the America that is warming to the Democratic Party, but not ready to marry them.

There certainly are candidates out there that fit that bill.  I’ll just name some, and I really wanna emphasize I could miss several, and this is purely from the hip.  But of course candidates like Wesley Clark, you know the general . . . the former general from Arkansas, helps . . . would help a great deal.  I think he learned lessons in campaigning in 2004.  And he certainly would compensate for Hillary Clinton’s national security weaknesses and Barack’s.  Though that Hillary and him both come from the same state might pose a small dilemma, though he is Southern.  And Democrats should remember that they have not won a presidential race since 1960 without a Southerner at the top or the second slab of the ticket.  So that’s an important fact to consider.  Two, there are candidates like Brian Schweitzer, the governor of Montana.  I’m not sure if he’d want it.  There’s the governor of Ohio.  He says to me he doesn’t want it, Strickland . . . He says . . . He told me personally twice that he’s not interested; that he’s older, and that he’s happy in Ohio.  But he certainly compensates for moral values weaknesses that have haunted the Democratic Party for a long time.  And when I say “moral values”, I mean the inference that it has for conservatives and moderates out there.  And there is certainly Jim Webb out of Virginia that I think is a strong candidate for the vice presidential slot.  And there are many others that I could name.  Those are just three with no particular preference who certainly help compensate for Democratic historical weaknesses.  I would also add Mark Warner to that mix, also from Virginia; former governor who’s shown a consistent ability to really close gaps on such issues as guns that have haunted the Democratic party for some decades.

Recorded on: 2/5/08 

Question: What issues appeal to the white male voting block?

Transcript: One thing you should keep in mind is, as I watch the television networks, I literally was watching MSNBC when I . . . And I saw them go from the Latino block, to African Americans, to women.  And there’s if like this 36 percent of the electorate in the general election just doesn’t exist – these just regular White guys; the guys talked about in Bruce Springsteen’s music.  As large as the Latino population is, there will be . . . the White men voting in the next election, if you will, will be five times larger; five times larger than Latino men and women combined.  So it’s not as if Hispanic voters don’t matter.  They matter very much, and they’re especially key in certain swing states with high growth rates, especially among Latinos.  It’s just that if you’re gonna talk about Hispanics as a swing block, and you’re gonna talk about African-Americans, and you’re gonna talk about women, you should probably also talk about the second largest voting block which is these white guys – and especially the working and the middle class white guys which are the . . . by far the voters that the Democrats lost in recent decades.  And not only in the North but also in the South.  And especially I would emphasize not only in the South, because it’s often conceived incorrectly when this misinterpretation of polling numbers that this was all a trend in the South.  It wasn’t.  And that’s pretty irrefutably clear when you look at the polls over the last 50 years.  And for that reason I think that these guys coming into the general election certainly have seen a Republican Party weaker on fiscal discipline, okay?  Absurd amounts of earmarks; absurdly large spending; increase in deficits.  They’ve been trailing a bit recently.  They’ve seen a Republican Party make massive mistakes on their strongest issue, which is war; national security; the war in Iraq, offering a huge opening for the Democratic Party.  So in other words they’re willing to reconsider.  The question is you don’t simply end one relationship and move on to your next relationship because your last relationship was awful.  You gotta be attracted to the other girl – or guy in this case; it doesn’t matter.  And so these men have to feel attracted to the Democratic Party for reasons of principle and policy.  And so they’re gonna be watching to see if, number one, the Democratic candidate equivocates; if the Democratic candidate appears not to have any principles.  Because it is clear from exit polling that these white guys more than any other voting block – women, minorities – vote on character issues, and we know this from the exit polls.

Question: What are those character issues?

Transcript: The character issues are sort of this belief that they believe in sort of classic principles; that they have maxims; that they’re willing to commit political suicide for a stance.  And then there are policies that matter to them.  They’re more likely to . . . They’re more supportive of the war in Iraq.  They’re not . . . They’re not happy with the war in Iraq.  They by majorities don’t believe that the war in Iraq is linked to the war on terror, actually.  But they’re still far less likely to wanna pull out troops.  They still shifted far slower than women in wanting to pull out.  In the beginning of this war, about 75 percent of men and women in this country favored the war.  Women dramatically turned much quicker than men against this war.  And there’s long historical reason, and gender outlook, and so forth, you know, that explains this.  But these men care about national security.  They do care about illegal immigration, especially working class.  These are the guys . . . Some of them work in construction jobs, and they’ve seen their jobs undercut by those who work for less wages.  And you know there . . . it’s . . . And as much as sometimes it veers into xenophobia, it more often does not.  They’re afraid of jobs being lost.  They’re afraid . . . You know they’re afraid of a competing market.  They’re economically unstable.  So the Democrats have to appear seriously to consider border enforcement on illegal immigration.  They have to appear to seriously want to win in Iraq and Afghanistan – use words like “win” – while accepting the reality of Iraq and possibly pulling for a pull out, if you will.  But in a respect it leaves Iraq, you know, as best as possible and certainly doesn’t dishonor the effort of those troops who went there.  And I remind you that 75 percent – three in four – of all losses in the war in Iraq are White guys; are White boys – 19, 20, 21 year olds – three in four.  So there, you know . . . That also explains in part why they have strong stances on national security overall.  And certainly they also have our . . . They also are less likely to live in cities and more likely to live in cities and are more likely to live in exurbs and suburbs and rural areas.  So they also have a different outlook in some regards.

Recorded on: 2/5/08 

Transcript: I think we’ve seen the end.  I’ve seen . . . More likely than not we’ve seen the end of purely 9/11 politics, and I mean . . . What I mean by that is the obvious effect of all those security alerts in 2004; George W. Bush, you know, really carefully, but truly re-emphasizing the attacks of September 11th and saying you don’t change courses in mid-stream, to quote Abraham Lincoln.  And so I do think that we have seen the end . . . John McCain, for example, will not constantly reference 9/11 in the way that George W. Bush is.  And that’s, I think, one reason is that September 11th was more present in the American mind in 2004 than it was in . . . will be in the 2008 general election race to come.  That doesn’t mean that national security doesn’t matter.  National security certainly matters far more than it did in the 1990s.  We are enmeshed in two wars.  Americans vote prospectively and not retrospectively.  And that’s why I think what you’ll see with John McCain, should he run, is you’ll see certainly an emphasis on national security.  And you’ll see the success of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s long efforts since 2000 to establish some national security credentials.

Recorded on: 2/5/08

Transcript: The most . . . The most significant strength, though, of Hillary Rodham Clinton, with all of her weaknesses, is a potential for the symbolism of her candidacy to appeal to women.  Clearly we’ve seen the Democratic primary race that she would not have been the frontrunner.  She would not have . . . If she wins, she would not have won without White women who overwhelmingly went to her favor; and certainly Black women and Latino women.  But women are a larger portion of the Democratic base in primaries – perhaps 57 percent.  They’re the low fifties in the general election.  There’s a very real, again, possibilities she could appeal to women.  And there’s also the real possibility that McCain is an unappealing candidate for women.  McCain’s biggest danger is that like Bob Dole in 1996, he might be seen as too old.  He might be seen as too traditional.  He might be seen as too removed from, you know, real changes in sort of women’s . . . in a woman’s world that occurred, especially in the 1970s.  But the one contrast with Bob Dole for John McCain that certainly is important to keep in mind is that Bob Dole ran at a time of prosperity and peace.  John McCain, the demonstratively clear war hero, is running in a post-September 11th race, and with America in two wars.

Recorded on: 2/5/08

Transcript: If it’s McCain and Clinton I definitely . . . I have a . . . I have a subchapter in my book where I talk about what I call “grit” – character . . . strength of character.  And I try to show that actually the value beneath all values politics . . . the most important issue in almost every race is grit; is the conception of strength of character; is the belief that this candidate has principles that supercede policy; that believes in maxims.  And Hillary Rodham Clinton has some problems facing John McCain, because for better or worse – sometimes unfairly, sometimes evidenced in certain mistakes by Hillary Clinton – she is perceived, as with her husband, of triangulating.  In other words taking the politically opportune position.  And Democrats on the left will certainly point out that McCain has at times taken, of late, politically opportune positions such as his now warming to Bush’s tax cuts.  But the problem that the Democrats will face, and that Hillary Rodham Clinton will face is that on so many other issues, McCain has created a firm archetype in the American mind that he really does stand by his principles.  And it’s hard to argue otherwise with what he did with the war in Iraq.  Because whether you are against him or for him; and whether you are against this war or for him, I spent a lot of time on his bus during this campaign talking to him, and the pressure was so strong on McCain that he all but insinuated to me that it was coming from his best friends and possibly his family – though he did not say that accurately – that he should be for pullout of troops; that he felt such pressure to save his campaign that he didn’t do it.  And it sounds very trite.  It sounds like something from a 1950s film when he’s saying I’m not gonna do . . . I’d rather lose the race than do the wrong thing on war and peace.  He says this all the time, and I do understand why a lot of Americans role their eyes; that we’re a jaded public.  But I’ll tell you a lot of people believe him, and a lot of people still believe in duty and honor.  So Hillary Clinton will face a big contrast, specifically on character. Number two, if the search continues to have . . . I emphasize military success and not political success – although it’s an extremely low bar far the Republicans – it would make it far more difficult for the Democrats to draw contrast on Iraq.  And clearly unlike Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton will have a far more difficult time drawing contrast on the war.  And for that reason there will be difficulty . . . There are difficulties facing Clinton despite a really opportune year for the Democratic Party.  No political party has had a presidential majority for more than 40 years.  It hasn’t happened in American history.  We’re at the 40-year mark for the Republican Party.  George W. Bush has historic lows as a president; really stunningly low marks – low thirties – on issue after issue, whether it’s the economy . . . and certainly the war is still unpopular.  The Republicans are on the losing end.  So this should be a time for the Democratic Party to make historic gains to build that new majority.  Yet Hillary Clinton will still face obstacles. Does she have strengths?  Absolutely, especially against McCain.  And one of them is that Hilary Clinton is publicly . . . can be a bit of a policy wonk; can lack . . . be a bit dry, those she’s showing clearly more emotion on the campaign trail in the last month.  That weakness of her candidacy is neutralized by a candidate who’s even weaker on television.  John McCain has far more verve in person than he does on television.  He has a lot . . . And that matters because that’s how Americans often come to know their presidential candidates.  So that . . . So Clinton has the strength in that contrast; and she also has all the strengths of the Democratic party at a time of real Republican weakness on the national stage.  She’s also a very disciplined candidate – I would point that out as well – in a respect that others aren’t.  And if John Kerry was more disciplined, he might not have made some critical mistakes in 2004.

Recorded on: 2/5/08 

Question: What inspired you to write “The Neglected Voter”?

Transcript: I was inspired to write “The Neglected Voter: White Man and the Democratic Dilemma” because what I noticed in the 2004 race . . . presidential race was there was this glib mention of the NASCAR dad. So I actually took a look at the data, and what I was stunned to notice when you actually look at the exit polls and the polling going back to 1980 especially when the gender gap came onto the scene in 1980, the emphasis for almost a quarter century was on Democrats’ ability to win women and Republicans’ problems with women. But if you actually look at the polling – despite hundreds of stories, hundreds of political science papers, all the TV’s pieces on Democrats’ strengths with women – what actually occurred was that the Republican Party won men and the Democrats lost men. And that made the female quotient among the Democratic Party look stronger. So certainly the Democrats have remained strong with women, have gained strength with women, and particularly that Democrats are really in a great position today with women – regardless of whether Hillary Clinton wins a nomination or not. But what happened in 1980 as the crucial turning point with trends that began in ’68 and earlier is that absolutely clearly that the Democrats lost men. And the fact . . . The base fact behind the Republicans’ ability to win five of the last seven presidential elections it turned out, is that the Republicans won more men than they were losing women. So why? So that was the question. What was it the Republicans were doing to win men, yet not turn off women? What was this masculine appeal? And so I looked more at the data, and what I found going back to 1952 was that if you divide . . . 1948, excuse me . . . is that if you divide the income brackets between working class, middle class, and wealthy, the Democrats beginning in ’48 and most potently in ’68 and 1980 lost a quarter of working class white men. They lost a quarter of the Roosevelt Coalition while losing almost no women in the working class. In the middle class they lost about 19 percent of women, but they lost twice that amount of men. So the fact is the sundering of the Democratic majority was a story of men, and this was simply missed. It was simply told . . . gender gap was told only as if women were the only gender out there. And it’s not to say that the story of women in politics isn’t important. Of course it was. And of course as they suddenly became a majority of voters, their story became even more important. But that didn’t explain how the Republicans rose and came to dominate again five of the last seven elections. So with all that data in my head, I drove between the two presidential conventions. In 2004 I drove the whole country from coast to coast, stopping in all 19 swing states and just talking to hundreds if not thousands of voters one conversation after another. And it was in that journey that I noticed and encountered so many men who weren’t actually even in 2004 happy with Bush. They weren’t happy with the war in Iraq. They had misgivings, but they couldn’t even conceive of voting for a liberal. And all the . . . all the weight that would carry to them, and all that meant, and everything that John Kerry had come to symbolize to them. Because I remind you I was driving in August, and it was in that month that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads came out. So it was really a poignant moment really in American political history to drive the country and talk to people. And it was in that drive that I realized that it’s not just that the gender gap was misunderstood. It’s not just that the Republican majority came fundamentally from winning men from the Democratic Party. But it was also that there was something deeply American, and human, and sociological going on here with these men.

Question: Have the Democrats been emasculated? What defines masculinity?

Transcript: Yes, to some extent. Now that brings up, that raises flags among, like, feminists for example. I’m not saying that a man has to be president. And I’m not even saying that that we want our president to be John Wayne. And clearly that type of . . . the American conception of masculinity shifts with each decade; with each sort of trend. You know the movies that John Wayne made in the ‘ 50s would be like appalled like me . . . and I write about like masculinity. I care a lot about . . . they’re just . . . they are just absurd. There is this one movie where he drags a woman by her hair. So no one is saying that, you know, American presidents should be John Wayne. But as I put out in the book, if you take . . . if you go back to the presidents since the Democrats . . . since the Republicans cemented their majority, and the . . . I remind, and of course I’m keenly aware that we could be at the dusk of the Republican majority. We very likely are. But as I like to remind Democrats, that’s because of mistakes by the Republican Party. And those mistakes are not the making of a new majority. You have to come up with your own message and reconnect with the very voters you left behind. But to veer back to your basic question, if you look at the Democratic candidates for president going back, let’s say, to 1976, and you mold . . . let’s run through ‘em. Jimmy Carter, okay? Let’s keep going. Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry. Now take those Democrats and mold them into one man, okay? This is a mental exercise. Now go back to 1976 and take all the Republicans. So we have Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush. We continue on to Bob Dole. We continue then to George W. Bush. Now take all those Republicans and mold them into one man. And take. . . and try to forget . . . When you do these types of men, now try to forget, if you’re a liberal, all those things about those men that really you despise. And if you’re conservative, try to forget all those things about the liberals you really despise. But you have two types of men. And what do you have? You have really the traditional archetype of manhood, and the new man on the Democratic side. Now that is simplistic, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not true. And so why did that Republican man win? And Democrats always . . . so many in the liberal base look back and say, “Oh, we really won in 2000.” I believe they really won in 2000. I believe the election was taken from them. Let’s . . . It should have never been that close. Al Gore . . . That race should never have been that close. It should never have been able to happen, so that’s a Democratic mistake. You’ll hear people point out, “Oh, if they had shifted 70,000 votes in Ohio, Kerry would be president,” that doesn’t matter. You don’t build a new majority by hoping to eke out a presidential election. So absolutely, I am saying that the Democrat . . . Whatever it is, it’s clear that the Democrats were portraying a different conception of manhood than the Republicans. And it’s clear the Republicans won. Now it was not only on imagery. They had a message, and that message was based on policy and content, and that matters just as much. And now we come into the present at the . . . what is very likely dusk of the Republican majority, at a time when the Republicans are extremely weak and will very likely have John McCain as their nominee; which really is serendipitous for that party, though he faces great push back on the base. And we also are under the very real possibility that Hillary Rodham Clinton could be the Democratic nominee. And we’re certainly on unknown territory with a female candidate, but there are two facts that I always point out with Hillary Clinton – two or three. One is that Democrats have not won a majority of white women since 1964. So the Democrats’ problems with men transcended to many of their . . . I mean passed on to many of their wives. And there’s a deep . . . there’s reasons why they’ve had problems with White women. They have had won more white women than the Republican party, but they haven’t won a clear majority. They only won more White women than the Republican Party in 1996. So they didn’t even in 2000 or 2004. So Democrats, the problem is that they win a majority of women because they do so strong with minorities. And they win a . . . likely the plurality of white women. But that’s nowhere near enough to compensate for their failings with men. Because if you go back to the 2000 race, which was a very important race. It was pre-September 11th . It was a seminal race in many respects. The Democrats won women by two, three percent depending on the exit poll; but they lost men by like 27 percent. So they have such a white male gap with men. And that’s a key term, “white male gap”. They have such a white male gap with men that they have to overcompensate with women. And even with Hillary Rodham Clinton’s very real potential to galvanize the base of women, and to reach over to some independent women, all the polling of late shows that she has a lot of problems with men, and she will likely offset many of the men . . . many of her gains of women with men. And you’re gonna hear people say that it’s because these men are sexist, but there’s just no evidence for that. Because these men have had problems with Democrats for a long time, and those Democrats were white guys. So whether it’s Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton, the problems that these men have with the Democratic Party are far deeper than color and gender. Yet at the same time the Democratic party could ask for better turf, for better terrain to make an appeal to Independents, which are predominantly men; more likely to be men than women.

Recorded on: 2/5/08

Question:  How does political writing affect voter perceptions?

Transcript: It’s interesting.  It affects voters . . . The writing affects voters on so many levels.  One, you can’t overemphasize that television essentially takes its daily content from newspaper writers and web sites like Politico.com, and I think a little Slate.com.  So it drives the TV coverage so much.  And Drudge Report – it’s amazing to see what goes up on Drudge, and then turn on the cable news networks – especially FOX – and you’re gonna see the same news judgment as Matt Drudge on these networks, which is at times disturbing.  That said, Drudge is extremely influential and he does have pretty good news judgment in a New York Post kind of way.  It’s hard to say.  Political writing clearly affects the conversation.  Clearly when you interview a semi-informed voter, you can see that they’ve been filtered through information through television.  You see the same talking points.  If I could tell you how many hundreds of voters use the words “change” and “experience” for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama from Iowa to South Carolina, it’s stunning.  So you do hear, like, the same talking points from voters.  But that’s not their fault.  They have jobs.  They have children to take to soccer and school.  And they simply can’t, you know, read like the wonks out there like the people who do this professionally or the political professionals.  But it definitely still has a power to influence politics.  It definitely still has the power to check government.  But that power is waning because simply there are less jobs for those reporters who are doing investigative work because there’s less money in news organizations.  I think there is also a huge dearth of news analysis out there.  In other words there’s not nearly enough perspective.  Because what happens is – and I say this often – I think today reporters are such slaves to the news cycle that it’s lateral.  So you’re forced every day to have such a lateral understanding of the news; to know what’s on the five papers.  It used to just be the five papers.  Now it’s like five papers, five web sites, key influential blogs, television.  It’s just . . . It’s become so much that journalists are . . . have to exhaust their minds simply to stay up to the minute on what’s relevant in the news.  And I think the effect is there is far less reading, I think, of books among reporters.  There’s far less depth in their reportage.  That’s not necessarily the reporter’s fault, but I do think if you take Time magazine today or in the last few years, and then you compare it to Time magazine in the 1950s or ‘60s, what you’ll see is an immense frame of reference gap. 

Question: How should citizens consume political reporting?

Transcript: That’s very difficult.  If you’re talking about national political journalism and how they consume it, I think there are several wonderful news link web sites.  I think RealClearPolitics.com does an excellent job in winnowing out every day about 10 to 25 stories that are really . . . give you quite a good look at the day’s content.  And they do put an emphasis on perspective, so they’re not really throwing down breaking news.  I do think MSNBC, to be frank, does the best job covering politics – national politics.  And I know that there’s a lot of MSNBC for veering left in response to FOX being veering right.  And I really do think that that is a separate issue.  I do think that they have the best and most wide . . . wide ranging sort of political coverage.  And it’s more consistently on their monitor, on the screen than it is on FOX and CNN, because FOX and CNN have to decide to cover many other things as well.  And fair enough.  CNN has the best international reporting.  So I would say, you know, as far as reading, there’s so much out there.  I would . . . If they could, you know you would like to read like the Atlantic Monthly.  It’s the best magazine with perspective on sort of American politics by far.  And I would also say the Economist does an excellent job covering the United States, especially politics, in a very clear, concise, laconic way.  Outside of that of course the New York Times, the Washington Post, and certainly Politico.com are the three . . . For the wonks out there; for people who really wanna keep up with the day’s news, really Politico.com, the Washington Post, the New York Times do the best job in covering daily, national politics.  And there really isn’t a clear second tier up to those three.  I do believe that.

Question: What issues are missing from the dialogue?

Transcript: There is a lack of investigative journalism.  Again I think it’s the budget and losing profits in the print media especially.  There certainly is a lack of perspective, as I said, by reporters.  And so there’s a gap between sort of the daily punditry, which is one thing, and you know insight.  And so I would say I wish there was a lot more insight in the news.  But the truth is that we’re a free market, and I’m not sure that there is such demand for that.  And I don’t know if . . . And sometimes demand is based on what people viscerally want and what they also need in their . . . sort of in the moment.  And then there’s the things they might want if they were offered it.  And so possibly if they were offered more, they would want it more.

Recorded on: 2/5/08

Transcript: I don’t know.  Do I think that there will be newspaper men and women?  Yes.  Do I think that the New York Times will survive the Internet?  Absolutely.  Their traffic is unbelievable, striking.  Do I think most city newspapers will?  I’m just not sure.  Their only hope and their aim, so says the big man at the top of the boards, is to go local.  So even the Los Angeles Times is being pressured to become a local newspaper in a larger sense of what local news is in L.A.  So there are few truly national papers left.  And foreign bureaus are by the year are being cut down.  The biggest problem as I understand . . . as I see it that newspapers face is that web sites like Google glean off the content from a newspaper without the revenue from that content going to the newspaper.  In other words, Google makes revenue from these ads, but they get the content for  . . . virtually for free.  You have a whole generation – my generation and younger – who is trying to expect print news for free.  They’re open and honest because they’re being asked to pay $50 a year for the NewYorkTimes.com, which I again find absurd that they would be so aghast over that.  You know I think newspapers are in trouble.  It’s a terrible time to be a reporter.  There’s no doubt about that.  There’s less jobs.  There’s less demand in the American public for international news.  And there’s less demand clearly to . . . and less desire among people to pay for their news.  So no, I don’t think it’s a good time.

Transcript: You know I often think that people make mistakes in just touting the media as liberal.  Because demographics . . . Demographics explain a lot of the bias in coverage.  And I don’t mean bias in the sense of preset theses.  In other words, most reporters . . . The vast majority of reporters never go into a story with an idea of how the story must come out.  They really do go into a story with the hope and ambition – however flawed it sometimes can be – to let the facts steer the story – the interviews, the quotes, the data, whatever.  But I do think because so many . . . so much of the national media is based here in New York City, and Washington, D.C. and a little in L.A., that there is an urban bias, definitely.  And it’s not as if they’re . . . it’s so clearly condescending to rural America.  But inevitably if you’re in a city, you can never quite understand the effect of outsourcing on sort of a regular man when the factory goes and the town is left destroyed; and what that does to his family and his wife who may have lost her job as well on some industry that was related to that factory.  And you can never fully understand what that does to that family and how it might destroy the marriage; and why that family might suddenly veer towards divorce; and why that daughter is more likely to be pregnant than if she was raised in, you know, sort of in a city.  Not in the urban hard aspects of many of these cities, but certainly Republican red states if you will have higher teen pregnancy rates.  They have high divorce rates – sometimes dramatically higher.  And part of this emphasis on values . . . on moral values is not because these people necessarily think they’re more moral.  This is what liberals sometimes get wrong.  It’s that they often see a need for moral imperative in their lives because many families around them are breaking down.

Recorded on: 2/5/08

Question: Who are you?

My name is David Paul Kuhn.  I’m a Senior Political Writer with Politico.com.  And I’m also the author of “The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma”. Most of my youth was spent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  I come from a long family of New Yorkers.  I’m the fifth generation in this city of my family, possibly the sixth generation on one side.  And my father especially was a New Yorker who wanted to get out of . . . raise his kids outside New York.  And when I was in high school I would come here all the time.  I spent many summers in New York City, and I always wanted to move here right away.  And so I was really intent on going to college here.  But because my mom taught at the medical college in Wisconsin as a geneticist, all Wisconsin state schools were free.  And at the time I wanted . . . I didn’t wanna stay in Wisconsin, but it shaped me immeasurably to have stayed in Wisconsin through college because in a deep respect, I understand this country in a way I never could have if I was raised in the city, as much as I love the city; and especially because I went to college there, because they’re such formidable years between 18 and 22.  So I think it really made me understand this country far better.  Also one of my majors was World Religions, so I actually lectured the 101 Religions course which everyone would take.  Because if you were a religious Christian, you’d have to take that to take New Testament courses.  And if you were like a philosophy major and interested in like Zen Buddhism, you had to take that to take any Zen Buddhism courses.  So you would get this amazing mix of students, at least half of which were truly Bible belt, bedrock Christians.  And it’s an entirely massive slice of America I never would have understood if I would have simply stayed here. 

Question: How did you know you wanted to be a journalist?

Transcript: I did at a pretty young age.  It’s very cliché.  I was one of the many people who saw “All the President’s Men” when I was . . . I had to take a summer school course because my parents were academics and I was a very . . . I misbehaved a lot as a boy.  I didn’t take school too seriously.  I took my friends more seriously and sports.  And my parents made me take summer school, so I was like, “Okay, I’ll take journalism.”  And I do think I saw “All the President’s Men”, and I got this concept that I could challenge authority for a living, you know?  And that was, you know, now some 15 years ago if not longer.  And of course, you know, one shifts.  I’m not trying to be Bob Woodward anymore.  But you know you do . . . I do think that I, like a lot of reporters, which is often I think also misunderstood by the general public, went into it with those sort of quixotic intentions.  So it’s . . . You know from a very early age I wanted to be a reporter.  Before that I wanted to be a top gun pilot; a Wall Street broker, I think.  Basically based on movies I would shift my career ambitions.

Recorded on: 2/5/08