>> Okay, thank you
for showing up today.
This is the Project for an
Informed Electorate's panel
on the election, the
recap of the election.
The Project for an Informed
Electorate is a new entity
on campus.
We have a website.
If you just Google Project
for an Informed Electorate,
you can get there.
We have one more event this
fall and that is on Thursday,
we have Mark DiCamillo of
the Field Poll who will come
and talk about the differences
between the election results
and what the polls projected
which actually are very new,
so that's-- it's sort of a
big year for election polls.
That is at 10 a.m. on Thursday
in the lobby suite just
across the hall here.
Also, if you go to our website,
we have streaming versions
of previous events, electoral
information, exit poll data,
all sorts other things.
And then in the spring,
we'll have new events coming
up so keep an eye on that.
All right, I wanted
introduce our panel today,
in spite of what their name tags
say, everybody does have a Ph.D,
they're all professors
right here.
Not all here, but
they're all professors.
So first of all, closest to me,
we have Stacy Gordon Fisher.
Her main areas of research
are congressional behavior
and political behavior.
Her book "Campaign Contributions
and Legislative Voting:
A New Approach" covers the
effect of campaign contributions
on legislative voting.
Her articles have been published
in the "Journal of Politics
and State and Local
Government Review."
Next to her is David Andersen.
Dr. Andersen teaches
classes in US Foreign Policy,
War and Peace, and
US National Security
in the Government
Department at Sac State.
And his research interests
include foreign policy crisis
decision making and the
changing role of nonstate actors
in international politics,
so he'll be talking
about the foreign
policy peace today.
Next to him we have
Steve Boilard,
and he has extensive experience
in government and education.
During his 14 years in the
Legislative Analyst's Office,
he served as the Managing
Principal Analyst,
Director of Higher Education,
and a Senior Analyst.
He's also been an
assistant professor
at Western Kentucky
University and instructor
at UC Santa Barbara,
and a policy analyst
with the California
Department of Housing
and Community Development,
and he got his Ph.D
at UC Santa Barbara.
And then next to him
is Wesley Hussey,
and Wesley Hussey is
a native Californian.
He joined Sacramento State's
Government Department in 2008.
He's interested in the
intersection between elections,
voting, and political
institutions,
and he was a finalist
for California Citizen
Redistricting Commission
out of more than 30,000 who
applied which was Prop 40.
We actually voted on if we like
the results or not this time.
He recently wrote an article
exploring the politics
of California's budget
process for the French audience
and this was particularly
challenging
because he doesn't speak French.
Impressive, though.
Okay. So our panel had-- will
talk about various things.
First of all, we'll start out
with California and we'll get
to national and then
go foreign policy.
So we'll start sort of local and
go farther field as we progress.
So if we could start with--
which one should we
say, Steve or Wes?
>> Steve, right?
>> Yeah.
>> All right, well, thank you
and I appreciate the opportunity
to talk a little bit
about the elections
and really looking forward
to be able to engage in more
of a conversation
'cause I don't pretend
to have the kind
of definitive take.
But there's three things I
really wanted to emphasize,
three themes that I see
as really important come
out of the elections.
And again, I'm focusing
primarily on the initiatives
and some of the statewide races.
Number one is, I think,
voter showed some
measure of discernment.
There's a lot of--
with the initiatives.
There was a lot of anticipation,
I think, with 11 initiatives
on the ballot that people
would be overwhelmed then get
frustrated and confused
and just, you know,
kind of vote them all
down which is a default
when you really don't
understand these things well.
And instead, the people, the
electorate approved almost half
of the initiatives on
the ballot, which, again,
I don't think a lot
of people saw coming.
And you saw some discernment
between yes on 30 but no on 38,
these kind of rival
tax measures.
People kind of made choices
about one versus the other.
There was-- they cracked
the code on Prop 40.
There's a lot of conversation
about whether people
would really understand.
Prop 40 is the referendum
on the redistricting lines
and this is one where if you
vote yes, you're kind of voting
against the referendum,
you're voting
for the original line
preserving the status quo.
And that confused a lot of
folks who had a conversation
about that, and at
the end of the day,
75 percent of the people voted
to retain the district lines
from the Citizen's Commission.
So, again, I think, you
know, people made choices,
people showed discernment
but at the same time,
you have to ask really
how well-grounded their
choices were.
There's a lot of exit polling
I saw, a lot of surveys I saw
that showed the people really
didn't understand a lot
of the nuances between Prop
30 and Prop 38, for example.
They discerned to make choices,
but how well-informed
were those choices?
And one of my analogies,
I think,
of a lot is you've seen those
billboard ads for Kaiser
and essentially it
says Thrive in it.
They've got a nice picture of
some kind of bucolic setting
or something that
just says Thrive.
And who's going to
base their choice
of a healthcare plan based upon
a one word on a-- in a picture.
But I think a lot of voters,
if you look at the mail
that comes in, it's
basically, you know,
a phrase or two and a picture.
And, you know, and you look
at polling, it shows a lot
of people's decisions
are based upon a pretty,
superficial understanding
of, you know,
what the issue is about.
So, again, people are engaged,
they made choices but you have
to ask how deep that
understanding
for those choices was.
I think we'll talk more--
Wes will talk more about the
overall turnout, et cetera but,
you know, in general,
the turnout number
of registered voters was,
you know, pretty high.
About 77 percent of
people are eligible
to vote, registered to vote.
Only about 63 percent or so, at
least the last numbers I saw,
of the people who registered
actually turned out to vote.
So you put those together and
you get somewhere around half
of potential eligible voters
actually turned out to vote.
So once again, you have
to ask how engaged the
overall citizenry is
in an election like this.
So, anyway, that's kind of my
first theme about, you know,
voter engagement, voter
discernment et cetera.
Second one is, and
I think, you know,
this comes no news to anybody.
The voters raised taxes and
really raised three taxes.
Prop 30 raised the income
tax on wealthy households.
It also raised the
sales tax on everybody,
and then prop 39
raised corporate taxes
on out-of-state businesses.
And put them all together
and we've got them
about another 7 billion
dollars a year
in revenue coming
in into the state.
The direction's right there.
We've had a pretty substantial
structural budget shortfall
in recent years,
as you all know.
And here are some decisions
that the voters have made
that are going to bring
additional revenue
into the state.
There were also number
of local measures that--
tax measures that passed and
bond measures that passed.
So, again, I think this is
some good news for those of us
who worry about the
overall state
of our budget, public financing.
But I wouldn't say happy days
are here again and this is,
again, the kind of
other side of the story.
You know, we talk a lot about a
federal fiscal cliff right now.
These tax measures,
particularly Prop 30,
only go for a limited
number of years,
four years on the sales tax
and seven years on income tax.
At the end of that time
period, that money disappears.
So, you know, once again, we
have a temporary measure to try
and overcome what maybe is
much longer term revenue need.
In addition to that, much
of this revenue coming
in into Prop 30,
particularly the income tax,
is coming from a very narrow
band of upper income taxpayers,
really the top one
percent of taxpayers.
And this is a notoriously
unstable source of revenue.
These households really are very
susceptible to the stock market
and the real estate market, and
they can make use tax loopholes.
So we're balancing yet more
of our overall state budget
on this very volatile
source of funding.
And what worries me about
that is it makes it very hard
to project going forward how
much money we can really expect
to get, which has really
haven't gotten this problem
in the first place, you
know, about 10 years ago
that there was this
one-term time blip in funding
that the legislature
committed for ongoing purposes
and it turned out to only
be really a one-year source
of revenue.
So anyway, that's kind of the
good side and the bad side
about some of these
tax measures.
And then my third
theme is, of course,
the Democrats have handed--
or the voters have handed
the Democrats a two-thirds,
super majority in the state
legislature, you know.
There's a couple races that
are still a little dicey
but it looks like the Democrats
have two-thirds, super majority
in both the Senate
and the assembly.
And what that, of course,
means is that the Democrats--
and the Democrats maintained, of
course, the Governor's office.
So when it comes to the
budget, the Democrats can kind
of do whatever they want.
They can pass a budget
and pass tax increases
without any Republican votes.
A couple of years ago,
the voters passed Prop 58
which gave the Democrats
the ability to pass a budget
on a simple majority vote
but it could not increase
taxes in simple majority.
They still need the Republicans
to do a tax increase.
Now, you don't really need
those Republicans at all.
And it calls in a question
really, what is the relevance
of the Republican Party
in the state legislature
if they really aren't
needed in order to do--
pass almost any legislation?
The Republicans, in terms
of voter registration,
had fallen beneath 30
percent of registered voters,
like 29 percent of registered
voters are registered
as Republicans.
That compares to 21 percent
which registered as independents
and if you add, you know,
roughly four or four
and a half percent, the register
with some other minor parties,
you're getting close to the
Republicans as a voting block
about the same as the
independents and third parties.
Another, Democrats don't have
majority either , you know,
they're still around 44 percent
of registered voters but, again,
I think you have to really
wonder what the future is
of the Republican Party.
And I think this has larger
implications besides just what's
happening on the budget.
There is really, I think a
one-party state is unhealthy
for the state, a one-party
government is unhealthy,
and you don't have
robust competition,
you don't have a robust
need for a compromise
and I think we've seen in
variety of other states
and nationally what happens
when one party locks
up all of the power.
So for me, those are kind of
the three large themes that came
out of the election on a state
level and with that, I guess,
we'll go to Wes or to--
>> Right, thanks.
So I'm going to talk about
kind of more national trends
and maybe at the end
talk a little bit
about what's happening
again in California.
So, you know, Obama won
reelection and about--
and in the two-party vote,
he got around 51.38
percent of the vote.
That's pretty much the same
as George W. Bush got in 2004.
So we're looking at a
pretty narrow victory on top
of a victory of around
53 percent in 2008,
but Obama is the first
Democrat president since FDR
to win two elections with more
than 50 percent of
the popular votes.
So in one way, you
can look at it,
it's a very close
election that is.
Another way, you can look at it,
this is a big victory
for Democrats.
In fact FDR and Obama are the
only two Democrat presidents
in the American history to get
more than 50 percent in the vote
in more than, you know,
in two elections or more.
So that's a very big victory
for Obama and, of course,
the electoral vote was
very strong, too, 332.
But one of the big winners of
the election is Nate Silver,
who runs his blog,
FiveThirtyEight
through the New York Times and
he predicted and other websites,
too, that used kind of a
complicated algorithms predicted
on the nose both the
electoral vote and the vote
for the popular vote, too.
And one of the reasons that this
happened in other sites weren't
as good is that Silver was very
skeptical of a lot of polls
that warn including cellphones.
And so in fact, after the
election, he ran his analysis
and he found out
that telephone polls
that included cellphones had
around a 3.5 percent
average error
and maybe a 1.9 percent
bias towards Republicans.
In fact, most polls had a
bias towards Republicans.
I'll get to that in a second.
But for telephone polls
without cellphone users,
we had an average error 4.7 or
1.2 percents more and a bias
of three points to
the Republican Party.
So a lot of people
and a lot of websites,
and I'm sure you've heard
a lot of pundants talked
about this big Republican
victory come election day
and it didn't happen.
One of the reasons is
they were looking at polls
that weren't sampling people
who only have cellphones.
In fact, the population
of people in America
who only have cellphones
and don't have landlines are
younger, they live in cities,
they're more likely to be
poor, and they're more likely
to be non-white than
the average voter.
And all of those constituencies
correlate very strongly
with the Democrat party.
So if you don't include
cellphone users,
who in some senses are about
a third now of the population,
cellphone-only people,
you're not going
to get an accurate sample
of the national population.
And so that's a big concern,
and people like Nate Silver
and others kind of saw that and
they tried to downplay polls
that didn't have, you
know, cellphone users.
So I found that was
pretty interesting.
For the House, the
Republicans kept their majority.
They lost a few seats.
It looks like when we're still
waiting for all these returns
to come in, it looks like
they're going to get a net gain
of eight seats in
the Democrat Party
but not clearly enough
to retake the House.
And one of the reasons
the Republicans did
so well despite doing poorly
for President and for Senate,
but did so well for the House
and kept the House
majority was redistricting.
And across the country,
there were far more states
where the Republicans control
the redistricting process
than states where
the Democrats did.
So the Republicans were able
to kind of create firewalls
or levees to protect
themselves against the surge
of Democratic voters, the
surge like we saw here in 2012.
Republican-controlled
states drew about four times
as many districts
as Democratic-controlled
states did, and so, of course,
that really helped them.
Again, the Democrats gained
around eight seats nationally
against the Republicans
for the House,
half of those seats
came in California.
And the real comparison
here is California,
I'll get to in a second,
has a very different way
of redrawing sits but
California was very beneficial
to the Democrats in the
national level for the House
where they picked up half
of their net seat gain.
In fact, the new
California delegation
for the House is 38 Democrats
and only 15 Republicans.
And so Steve had mentioned
that Democrats have a two-thirds
majority in both legislatures
and both chambers of the
California Legislature,
they have a two-thirds majority
of the House delegation.
So it just kind of
reiterates the point
that the Republicans are doing
really bad and if you draw fair
and equal lines, they're not
going to win in many parts
of California anymore.
This yet was very interesting
because before the election,
for months, even years,
people would predict the
Republicans were going
to pick up seats.
The Democrats had a lot
more seats to defend
than the Republicans and a
lot of those seats were won
in a very good year when
the Democrats, 2006,
when they kind of
surged victory.
So a lot of people thought
the Democrats would do poorly
and even those who have
supported the Democrats said,
"Well, maybe we'll lose one
or two seats and that won't be
that bad, we'll still
control the Senate."
And surprise, surprise,
Democrats picked
up seats in the Senate.
They went from a 53-47
majority to a 55-45 majority.
And so that's still short
than the 60 votes necessary
to end a filibuster but it
gives them a little more clap.
And, in fact, the
Democrats won three seats
from the Republicans, only
losing one seat in the reverse.
And so the Democrats did better
when they picked up these seats.
And in fact, one of the
reasons why the Democrats did
so well is they held on
to places like Montana
and North Dakota, places--
the Republicans do very well
and in fact won the Presidency
but Democrat incumbents still
held out and kept those seats.
So we see the House,
the Democrats picked
up a seat not enough to
take back the majority,
in the Senate, the Democrats
increased their majority.
So I want to shift, again,
back from the United States
to California and talk about two
reasons why there are these kind
of changes going on in
California in our elections.
And one of them is Top Two.
Top Two is just the term we use
for a new kind of primary system
in California, where
in the primary,
the Top Two candidates advance
the general election regardless
of party.
It can be two Democrats,
it can be two Republicans,
it can be a Green and a
Democrat, and that's kind
of shaking things
up in California.
For example, we have 28 races
across the state in legislative
and congressional districts
where we had two candidates
of the same party pitted
against each other.
So it wasn't a Republican
and a Democrat, in most,
cases it was usually two
Democrats although we had some
cases of two Republicans.
And what this meant
was, in fact,
we actually had some House
Democrats loose their race
in the general election
to another Democrat.
So not that Democrats
didn't lose
but this certain
incumbent Democrats lost.
So Top Two is going to be a
really big change in California,
it's going to allow, you know,
a different way of voting
in the general election.
In some cases where one party is
very strong like the Democrats
and occasionally the
Republicans, they're going
to see two members of
the same party face off
in the general election.
Now that draws money
away from other races.
They're usually very nasty races
because it's inner fighting
among the party but that's going
to be a big change
in California.
The other big change to
happen is redistricting.
And I talked about
California was a place
where the Democrats did
really well in the House
and the reason is California
voters passed November 2008
Proposition 11, which changed
the way California does
redistricting for legislative
and then later congressional
races.
It creates an Independent
Redistricting Commission.
It's no longer done by
the state legislature
and so it allows citizens to
draw a much more impartial
and a much more fair
district lines.
Now, I don't want
you to take this away
that the Democrats are going
to do poorly because of that
or the Republicans
are going to do well.
Obviously, we saw the Democrats
did really well in this election
because there's a lot
of part of the state
where one party really
is a dominant party.
You're not going to see a
difference in the Bay Area.
We're still going to
see Democrats elected.
But what you are going to
see with redistricting reform
and now the Top Two primary
is a very different way
for candidates to
appeal to the electorate,
no longer it benefits candidates
to appeal to the extremes,
to appeal to the
conservative or liberal basis,
because now in the
general election,
you have to appeal
to all voters.
And so in a very
democratic area,
there are still Republicans
and a smart Democrat is going
to position himself
in the center,
gather some Democratic votes,
gather this increasing amount
of independent votes, but also
gather some Republicans who'd
rather vote for a
moderate Democrat
than a liberal Democrat.
And you can reverse that
for more conservative parts
of the state and
conservative Republicans.
So what we have is kind
of a changing California
structural system
because of these two
initiatives that voters passed
in the last two or three
years, they are kind
of fundamentally changing
the way California works.
One last change that
happened at the voter level,
California is recently
in our primary
in 2012 changed [inaudible].
And so now, a member
of the assembly
or the State Senate can serve in
one chamber for 12 years rather
than shorter term
implements before.
Well, we have 38 new members
out of the 80-member
assembly in California.
So basically, half of the
assembly is brand new,
and they're going
to be able to serve
in that chamber for 12 years.
So we're going to have a lot
of experience in building up,
and a lot of members who won't
be thinking about jumping
into the State Senate because
they don't gain anything
from that, and they'll
spend no possibly 12 years
in the State Assembly building
up expertise, remembering things
that we've forgotten, bringing
back institutional memory
to California.
And they're going to
be there for awhile
and there's a lot of them.
And on top of that
with the two-thirds,
I see a really big change
occurring here in California
in the next few years.
>> Thank you.
Stacy?
>> Okay. Hi.
I'm going to be talking
a little bit
about campaign finance reform.
So I'll be talking a little bit
about the rule of Super PACs
at the national level
and then a little bit
about some initiatives at the
state level, and then finally,
a little bit about
how the Tea Party did
in the national elections as
well and what that might mean.
So the first thing that I
want to talk about is the rule
of Super PACS and as
probably everybody knows,
Super PACs are these new
political action committees
that were sort of generated
after the Supreme Court
case Citizens United.
And essentially, there
are different rules
for different types and
groups depending on what types
of activities they're
going to participate in.
But for the most part,
if you structure your
organization correctly,
as long as you don't coordinate
with a particular campaign,
you can spend an unlimited
amount of money for a campaign.
And this is a change
for this 2012 election.
So these are the
Super PACs created
by Citizens United, essentially.
So-- and the numbers I'm going
to be giving you are
probably pretty low.
There-- all the numbers haven't
come in yet for the election.
And also, too, some of the
money, not all the money has
to be disclosed in
a particular way.
So there's probably a lot
of money that's not
being disclosed yet.
So the numbers I'm going
to be telling you are huge
but they're actually
probably not even as big
as one would expect if we
knew the actual numbers.
First of all, over one
billion dollars was spent
in National Federal
Level campaigns in 2012.
Out of that one billion dollars,
about 300 million was spent
by liberal groups and about 700
million by conservative groups.
You can compare that
to 2010 and in 2008,
which was the last
presidential election,
combined with liberal
conservative groups spent
about 300 million in each
of those two elections.
So it's more than
tripled in 2012
than in those last
two elections.
In terms of the first--
the top two candidates,
Romney and Obama,
spent in that race,
there was about 645 million
dollars spent by Super PACs
in the presidential race.
What I find interesting about
this money is about 68 percent
of that money was run on ads
against the other guy, okay?
So most of the money was not
spent supporting the person you
supported but it
was instead running
as against your opponent,
which I'll talk about--
sort of an interesting
empirical question we might have
about that.
And then about 70 percent of
the 645 million that was spent
by Super PACs was spent
by conservative PACs
and this probably has a
lot to do with the fact
that the Republicans
had a primary process,
had a nomination fight this
year and the Democrats didn't.
But conservative
group spent more
than twice what the
liberal group spent.
And then also in the
top three Senate races,
there was about 130
million dollars spent
in three US Senate races
by Super PACs alone.
This was spent a bit more
evenly about 55 percent
by conservative groups and about
45 percent by liberal groups.
But once again, and this
is a huge number, I think.
About 87 percent of the
Super PAC money was spent
against the other guy, so not
in support of your candidate
but in negative advertising
against the other candidate.
So I think the empirical
question-- I'm sorry?
>> Which state races?
>> Those would have been
Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia.
So those were the top
spending Senate races.
What's interesting about this,
I think this might raise
an interesting question
about the nature of
negative campaigning
in an era of Super PACs.
The question that I would ask
and I don't have the numbers
on regular campaigning
on whether it was spent
on negative or positive ads.
But this number of 87 percent
of Super PAC money being spent
on advertisements against
your opponent suggests
that may have made these races
significantly more negative.
And this may have an impact on
voter turnouts, so that's sort
of an empirical question
that we don't have an answer
to right now, but I'm sure
there's someone doing research
on it as we speak.
What's also interesting is
that even though a majority
of the money was spent
by conservative groups,
Democrats won all three
of those Senate races,
and then they also won the
Presidency obviously as well.
So Republican-- conservative
groups spent more money
but weren't particularly
successful.
Now, whether that was a failure
of the money or the types of ads
that they ran, it
is hard to say,
but there should be a question
as to whether this money
was successful for them.
So in terms of the overall
influence of Super PACs,
it's going to be hard to tell,
they may have a more negative
influence on campaigning,
but certainly they've raised
the bar and the amount of money
that needs to be spent.
In 2004 Presidential Year,
about 1.4 billion was spent.
In 2008, it was 5.2
billion and it went up again
by almost three quarters of
a billion dollars to 5.8.
So if you look at all of
the national races in 2012,
almost six billion
dollars was spent
by both candidates'
parties and Super PACs
as well in these elections.
And that's just an
enormous amount of money
to be spending on those races.
The other thing that I wanted to
talk about as well were a coupe
of sort of interesting
initiatives.
There were really only three
campaign finance related
initiatives in various states.
One was California's
Paycheck Protection
which was essentially,
ultimately what it really
would have done was limited the
ability of unions to raise
campaign funds and spend them.
And it was voted down
by California voters,
only received 44
percent of the vote.
But in relation to Super PACs,
there are a couple
of initiatives.
One was in Montana and
then one was in Colorado,
and these were initiatives
that basically directed
the US House delegations
within those states to introduce
a constitutional amendment
to override Citizens United
which created this situation
that allowed Super
PACs to flourish.
And both of these passed with
over 70 percent of the vote.
So there appears to be some
sort of public backlash
against Citizens United.
People understand sort of
what created this situation
of the Super PACs and the
amount of money being spent.
The question is whether
Americans will--
they did have short
attention spans.
You know, the election is over,
the six billion dollars
has been spent,
and we tend to sort of move on.
But there seems to be that
someone wants to put this
on the agenda of attempting to
overturn Citizens United or deal
with the Super PAC issue.
There might be some
public support for that
if these initiatives are
any example of those.
And then the final-- and then
finally, the last thing I want
to talk about was how
the Tea Party had done.
It's not really campaign finance
but I find it interesting.
2010, the Tea Party
candidates did relatively well
in House elections
and Senate elections.
They did generally
well in primaries
in the Republican Party this
year but did relatively badly
in the general elections.
For the most parts,
Senate candidates
that were generally just
backed by the Tea Party lost
in the general election,
and House candidates,
a lot incumbents,
Republicans who were supported
by the Tea Party were
voted out of office
in this election as well.
And the reason I sort of bring
this up is because there were,
you know, we ended up in
the national election sort
of spending six billion dollars
and then voting in
the status quo.
We still have a House
controlled by the Republicans,
we still have Senate and
a Presidency controlled
by the Democrats, and now we
have the decisions to make,
and I think both parties
were really hoping
that they would get a mandate
or some sort of message
from the public and
I don't think
that message is particularly
clear.
And the Republicans have to
decide whether they're going
to stay split with a very
conservative wing of the
of the party, the Tea Party,
versus the relatively more
moderate wing of the party
that might be more willing to
negotiate with the Democrats,
the Democratic majority and
the Senate and the President.
The Tea Party is
very against that,
so now I think the
Republicans need to sort
of read these election outcomes
with how the Tea Party did
and decide whether it's in
their best interest or not
to fight the more conservative
wing of their party or stick
with the more conservative
of their wing.
And I think we'll probably see
before the end of the year,
because we do have this
fiscal cliff coming up,
we've got to make some
decisions about the budget.
So we'll have to
see how that goes.
>> Okay. I feel a little bit as
the odd man out on this panel
as I am shifting you over
to foreign policy which,
as we saw from this election,
really was probably one
of the most meaningless
issues for the election.
There was a Fox News exit poll
where they're asking what
was the most important--
what was the important
issue for each voter,
and only five percent
of the electorate said
that foreign policy was the
most important issue for them
and that-- that was down from
previous years when we were kind
of in the middle of
our wear and tear.
But what was most interesting
about that five percent is
that Obama won that
five percent, 56 to 33.
And it is sort of we've been
kind of talking about shifts
in the electorate for
each of the panelist,
and that's actually a very
interesting shift that's
occurred in the realm
of foreign policy is
that the Democrats have
been, and President Obama
in general has been
polling better
on foreign policy
than the Republicans.
And I think a lot of that
is the sort of vestiges
of the Bush Administration,
the eight years
of the Bush Administration in
which we have an electorate
that is, I think,
very, very hesitant
about any foreign
policy initiatives
that could once again put
American troops on the ground
and what would be a Civil
War type situation, I think.
You saw that, you know, I never
watched the CNN debates just
because the little line
that they do annoys me,
but I went back in
during the Biden debate
with our Representative Ryan.
Whenever Ryan seemed
to be talking
about more interventionist-type
policies, for example in Syria,
and Biden kind of
laughed him down, I guess,
which was his general
approach in that debate,
you saw the public-- whoever
that public was, I don't know
if it's connected to all
our brains or something,
but as the-- whenever
Biden was sort of shooting
down the more hawkish
Ryan responses,
you saw whatever way it
goes to say they approve
to what Biden was saying
and very much disapproving
of what Ryan had said.
And I think you saw
that being taken
to heart during the
foreign policy debate
in which they seemed
to only talk
about the Middle East
and then education.
And where Romney's
sort of strategy
in the whole debate seemed
to be, "Yeah, what he said,"
and then he really
messed up in Benghazi.
And so that sort of seemed
to be the whole narrative
of the Republican Party
on foreign policy during
the election and it was--
it was a shift from how we have
typically seen the Republican
Party during elections in which
they typically have more trust
in foreign policy issues over
the Democrats in the past
and that doesn't seem
to be the case anymore.
And so I think the next four
years in which, you know,
the final four years
of the Obama Administration
will be interesting
to see how the Republican
Party adjusts to that.
It doesn't seem like
they can tryout
for the neoconservative wing
anymore, but many of those
who kind of represented the
more traditional realist wing
of Republican foreign policy
decision makers are long retired
or have just shifted over
to the Democratic Party
because they get
jobs over there.
And so it's a real question
of how they lure kind
of this other group back.
Now, part of what I wanted to
kind of talk about a little bit
since the election wasn't really
that interesting with regards
to foreign policy issues, but
sort of think a little bit
about Obama's second term.
One of the reasons why I
think President Obama is very
successful in not making foreign
policy an issue and really,
you know, kind of keeping
that area out of the--
out of the debate was--
last year when Alex Smith,
the quarterback for the
San Francisco 49ers,
was seemingly doing improbable
things, one of the ways
that they would talk
about in was
that he was a good game
manager which is, I guess,
in football kind of
a down-- a put down.
And I kind of though see, you
know, the foreign policy team
for Obama has been
very much like that,
kind of good game managers.
They're not great but they
don't get themselves in trouble.
When crisis emerged,
they typically managed
it fairly well.
They don't dig themselves
any deeper.
The successes that they
do have, they, you know,
they highlight those and
kind of play down areas
that they haven't been--
that they haven't been
performing as well on.
So when we think
about the second term,
my guess is that we're going
to be seeing more of that,
just kind of a very
deliberate managerial style
to foreign policy
decision making.
We've already seen
in the first week.
Now, I was away this weekend,
took a little vacation Menisino,
so I haven't really been paying
much attention to the news
so I'm assuming that no
major news story has broken
in the last few days.
[Laughter] So if something has
happened, it's not on my notes.
The-- for those of you on
your phones, you can look
that up quickly, I guess.
The-- but what we
have already seen
in the first week is
more multilateral,
like more movements towards
multilateral engagement
which is something that the
Obama Administration was
interested in its first term
but I think it was trying
to avoid a lot of criticism
from especially the
neoconservative approach
which looks down on
multilateral agreement.
But in the first week ,
e've already seen the Obama
Administration indicated
that it's willing to reopen
talks with the Arms Trade Treaty
at the United Nations, so
that's a major step forward.
And we've also seen the Obama
Administration lobbied very hard
to get re-elected again
to the United Nations Human
Rights Council and won.
So their region was the only
region that had contested seats
and United States was
selected over, I think,
Sweden and Greece, which is
actually kind of a big deal
because the United
States did not participate
in the United Nations Human
Rights Councils for a number
of years saying that
a number of countries
with bad human rights
records were being voted on,
they often would pass
resolutions against Israel
and so the United States
would not participate.
And the Obama Administration's
response to that, since they--
when they first came
into office, lobbied hard
to get elected onto the
Human Rights Council,
was that it's better
that the United States is
on this multilateral council
so that they can pressure it
to actually pass resolutions
that are meaningful
and that can advance the United
States' Human Rights Agenda.
And they have, they we're able
to pass an LGBT resolution
in the last administration
and that the member states
voted the United States back on,
shows that they respected
the leadership role
that the Obama Administration
took
on that council during
its first term.
And so that was something
that was fairly important
if we're thinking about the
United States and its role
within multilateral
institutions.
Now, things that we're
going to also be able
to expect during the next
four years and, you know,
I don't like to make predictions
because we see how
often I'm wrong.
The-- but also, you know,
sort of the best way
to predict future behavior
is to look at past behavior.
So we should expect to
see more of the same.
This would be a much
more interesting talk
if Romney had won, by the way.
[Laughter] All right, the--
but we're going to see the
United States remove itself
from Afghanistan.
Well, so going to see,
Syria is going to be one
of the biggest challenges in
terms of how do you contain
that civil war and bring
resolution to the civil war
without a bleeding into Turkey,
without a bleeding into Israel,
the-- and also sort of the
problem with arming, say,
a united opposition
group which has been sort
of a major foreign policy
initiative in the last week
without those arms kind
of going [inaudible] style
to extremist groups that then
get turned around and used
against US allies, particularly
Israel and other people
in the region who
we want to support.
This will have to be
accompanied with a reset,
with our relationship
with Russia
and also working
closely with Turkey.
Obviously, Iran's going
to continue to be an issue
and also, Iran-Israeli
relations.
I mean, a lot of the issues
that we've seen around Israel
and also around Iran has-- or
around Iran has been related
to also Israel's sense of
insecurity vis-a-vis Iran
and vice versa with Iran.
And so I don't think you
can really link those--
you can't really
talk about those
without linking those
two states' sense
of insecurity together.
The, you know, one interesting
thing to look out for
in the next few months is
the election in Israel.
Netanyahu kind of threw his eggs
in the Romney basket and a lot
of the opposition groups in
Israel are kind of annoyed
that now they are-- that--
with President Obama continuing
to be president, so essentially
the Prime Minister vote,
you know, openly
was opposed to him,
and Israel sees United
States obviously
as his most important
ally and friend
and they don't necessarily
want to be linked
with a Prime Minister
perhaps who had done that.
And so there is a-- you know,
if Netanyahu is no
longer the Prime Minister,
that might also change course
for Israel-Palestine
peace processes
and other types of things.
So that's something
to look out for.
Arab Spring issues
sort of the transition
from these new Arab Spring
governments from autocratic rule
over to democratic rule,
the most insecure time
for a state is during
that transition.
So you have a number of states
that's going through this period
and that will be interesting.
Also, the Russian
Reset, the China Pivot,
and what was never talked
about during the campaign,
the EU debt crisis which
is going to be huge,
and issues related to the
larger global economy.
If we want our economy to
be strong, it's only going
to be strong if the rest
of the global economy
is actually functioning
as well 'cause we
like to sell things
to other people and
buy their things.
So I think that's all I have
to say for nowm so its--
>> Okay. All right, there's
a lot to digest there.
We have time to open it up
for questions and answers.
I understand that some of
you are journalism students
so I'm hoping that you have
some excellent questions
for us today.
So who has a question?
>> Yes.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> I think just the fact
that you mentioned Prop 13,
some people will come to
your house later tonight.
[Laughter] I don't
think Prop 13--
I don't think there's any real
movement that's going to reduce
or reform or change Prop 13.
But the one thing
that might come
about is the Democrats are
very reluctant to say, "Hey,
we have a slim two-thirds
majority, let's try taxing
and doing the things we
like to do as Democrats."
But there is some talk about
kind of reforming the tax code,
and, you know, I mean, we
passed Prop 13, as he says,
we're very-- we'll have a
very volatile income tax.
And taxing really rich
people produces income
but it also is very volatile.
So we do need a broader tax.
There's talk about maybe
lowering the parcel tax
for school districts from
two-thirds down to 60
or 55 percent and that
would make it easier
for local government to kind
of augment their property tax.
But like-- I don't see any
chance of a split role happening
in the near future or a
big change for Prop 13.
Obviously, you're not
going to see a change
in the two-thirds requirement
'cause it doesn't really matter
in some sense.
So I think there
might be more money
and maybe the state would be
willing to give some of that
to the local government to
help them and help schools,
but I don't see kind
of structural changes
of Prop 13 in the near future.
>> And I guess something about
that is, I think you're right,
there have been some
surprising changes in, you know,
redistricting is out of the
hands of the legislature,
and it's down with Citizens
Commission which is imperfect
but that's pretty big change.
Majority vote for
the legislature
to pass the budget,
pretty big change.
The [inaudible] change
that Wes was talking about.
I mean, the Top Two primary,
these are big changes.
I wouldn't say this
really fixes everything.
But it-- I think it does
illustrate that a lot
of things look like
they were set
for saying maybe could
change that, I think,
leads to your question
about Prop 13.
Prop 13 for whatever reason,
I don't really understand why,
it's almost a religious tenet.
You know, it's really--
I agree with Wes
that it's highly unlikely
that it would ever, you know,
be challenged-- successfully
challenged ahead on.
That said, I think we--
and then we can also--
I think it's a good illustration
of a structural impediment
to the state being able to
develop budgets and come
up with revenue and
fund programs in a way
that makes a lot of sense.
But Prop 13 is not
the only piece.
Prop 98 on schools is highly
[inaudible] and the results
in this tremendous contortions
to the state goes through.
The volatility that
we talked about,
I think that it's not
Prop 13, that has to do
with just the overall tax
structure on income tax
and shrinking the amount
of funding that comes
from sales tax, for example.
So I would have offer a
number of other candidates
as an addition to Prop 13
but, yes, I agree with Wes
that particular one
is just unlikely be
challenged successfully.
>> Yes.
>> California led,
speaking of Proposition 13,
California was the lead--
[ Inaudible Remark ]
Can you guys speak to the
issue about that change
in demographic shifts
in the United States?
[Inaudible Remark]
>> Well, that's a
great question.
We've seen, you know,
increasing talk about that
and I think there's a good
reason for that and California,
for example, more than
half of the young voters
in the state are Hispanic.
18 to 39 are Hispanic,
35 percent are Asian.
We have a huge number of, you
know, a growing minority number
and there has been this
talk for a long time
of the white electorate and
the non-white population.
And I think we're finally
just trying to see--
there's still going to be a
huge difference for a while
but the kind of non-white
population leading
into the electorate
and affecting results.
I mean, there are big
stories nationally
about the white vote very
strongly going out for Romney
and it didn't let him win.
And, you know, the
Democrat share
of the white vote has shrunk
but with their coalition
of non-white-- the growing
non-white population,
they're still able to
win the Presidency.
And so, I mean, obviously, the
Republican Party nationally has
to think about what's happened
to the Republican
Party in California.
I mean, I want to add
one additional fact
that just blows me away.
Since 1988, California has
added 10 million people
but there are now fewer
registered Republicans
than there were 24
years ago, fewer number.
So the National Republican
Party needs to look
to the California
Republican Party and say, "Oh,
we don't want that
to happen to us.
We don't want to be a
tiny fraction of the state
that has no influence,"
'cause remember, nationally,
there aren't these
two-thirds rules built
in like there are
for California.
And so a change in the national
electorate could very quickly
make the Republicans a minority
and the House and Senate
and the Presidency and then
not have any influence.
So it's something to think about
and, I mean, just another thing
to think about, three out four
kids in Los Angeles County
in school are Hispanic.
So-- and those are
mainly citizens.
So it's going to take 15, 20
years and then they start voting
and we know low SES levels
mean they won't vote as much
as wealthy or middle class
people but pretty soon,
the electorate of California
is not going to be 23, 25,
28 percent Latino, it's
going to be 30 and 40 percent
and they're going to have a
big influence on today politics
as they already do kind of--
some kind of inside
politics in California.
>> Stacy?
>> Yeah, I guess the only
thing that I would say is
that I think the
Republicans were hoping.
There's clearly been a
tipping point of the percentage
of minority voters and sort
of the distribution of voting
within the white community
versus the minority,
people of color.
And I think they
were really hoping
that that tipping point was a
couple of election cycles off
and I think that this
election illustrated to them
that it came sooner than
they expected it to.
I do think we're going to
see the Republican Party have
to have some sort of discussion
about where they want to go next
because if they continue,
particularly,
is it deals with the Hispanic
community and the direction
that they are going and
I would argue that a lot
of the Republicans' problems
with their Hispanic community
are their own doing from,
you know, initiatives in the mid
to early 1990s, for instance.
They've got to make a decision.
And I think it will
have a huge impact
on public policy particularly
if Republicans start to look
at what it is-- what
is important
to the Latino community
in particular in trying
to pick them up as a
natural base of support
within the general population.
>> Yes?
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> I'd offer just a
couple of thoughts in--
I don't think [inaudible]
is especially profound.
I mean, one is, it's kind
of implicit in your question
that younger voters look to a
range of sources of information
that you're not what, you know,
my generation will look to,
you know, the idea of a hard
copy newspaper and looking
for endorsements et
cetera is just, you know,
if you look at the numbers,
you're just starting to have--
newspapers are coming extinct.
And so I think candidates
need to move
to these different platforms.
And I think, you know,
the successful ones are,
whether it's, you know, Twitter,
Facebook, and other kinds
of image in MTV which feels
like it's becoming kind
of long in the truth itself.
But, you know, I'd
make one other point
which I think is
really important.
And that is-- I-- there is one
thing to look at the medium,
right, of, you know,
which particular platforms
should candidates be going to.
But there's-- my concern lies
and I kind of suggested this
at the beginning, is what kind
of information are
people receiving,
not through what source, but
what is the kind of information?
And if it's just, you know,
140 characters saying that,
you know, candidate X,
you know, is the bomb,
I'm not sure that's going to
really be that enlightening.
And it doesn't mean you have
to go to the voter pamp--
I used to work for legislative
analyst office and, you know,
there is this thing
called the voter's pamphlet
which is sent everybody's,
every house of voting household.
And in this voters pamphlet,
there was a nonpartisan analysis
what each initiative would do.
And, you know, it's very dry and
it's-- but extremely reliable,
I think, you know, I'm speaking
to somebody to help
work on this.
I think it's a pretty
authoritative source.
But not a lot of many
people read this.
And what I'm thinking
is, you know,
how can we engage
people not just to--
not just how can we
respond to what voters want
and just give them information
to the platform they're looking
for, it's how do we get people
to actually engage and ask
that kind of depth questions
about what is at stake,
and what things mean?
And that's kind of a
change in the whole approach
to citizenship, irrespective
of the platform.
I think we're talking
about a cultural element.
>> I think it's great.
I mean, I love Twitter, and
Facebook is not so bad either.
But it creates a whole new
way to get information.
I mean, you know, within one
minute on my Twitter feed,
I'll get 10 to 15 links to
state department reports,
news accounts, people
saying filthy things
about the state department
report.
You know, my link is-- my
Twitter feed is a little nerdy.
But, yeah, but I think
when we look at the results
in the last two elections,
young people came out in droves,
and I think their connection to
information coming at them from,
you know, friends that
they trust and, you know,
communities that they
trust and they join groups
and they learn more about that,
only improves young
people's engagement.
So what I hope is that the
political parties see that
and figure out-- well,
actually, I don't even hope
that the political
parties do that.
I just hope the young
people will continue
to stay engaged politically
because I think in many ways
in this election, what
you saw were, you know,
young people looking at what
the different candidates were
presenting and saying,
"This candidate seems
to be supporting issues
that are important to me.
This candidate doesn't seem
to be supporting issues
that are important to me."
And they voted in the
way that, you know,
that reflected that, you know?
So I think it's great.
Keep tweeting or tweeting
or whatever you do, yeah.
[Laughter]
>> I guess I have one
concern about that,
and that is that people, because
there are so many sources
of information, that people tend
to gravitate toward
those sources
that already agree
with how they feel.
And if this means
that people are--
if there is no longer any
unbiased source of information
and people are continually
just going
to read The Huffington
Post because they
like what The Huffington
Post says
and they're not really
getting a good distribution.
Then people aren't making
decisions based on a comparison
of candidates but simply digging
their own hole deeper and deeper
to the point where we're
not connected with anyone
who doesn't agree with
exactly how we feel
about political issues.
So I think that's probably
my one concern about that is
that people aren't getting
a good cross-section
of information.
>> Yes?
>> Haven't you analyzed the
voter identification laws
for a candidate and
how that relates
to our current demographic
profile
and what the next election
might be like, who people rely
on that, on voter identification
laws to [inaudible]
in the election or
will just give it up
and change the party philosophy?
Talk about that,
about, you know,
parties-- [Inaudible Remark]
>> Well, Republicans were
really a big fan of voter ID
and it seemed like as time
went on, it became more
and more clear, there was
just such little evidence
of corruption of actually people
voting who weren't supposed
to be, that it became
more and more clear
that people thought the
Republicans were using this
as a way to decrease turnout or
kind of make it more difficult
to turn out and I think that's--
I think they're going
to be abandon that.
I think that's not a good
strategy as they saw.
Clearly, here's a good
strategy, is online registration
and California just
implemented that
and it had massive
support and it was great.
People didn't have to figure out
where the card was and turn it
in and go to their
library or whatever.
They could go online and
register and then they just have
to turn up and vote or
do it by mail voting
but we saw a massive increase
of online registration and a lot
of that was told to
the Democratic Party
and the Democratic Party
benefited from that.
And so, I think other states
are going to adopt that
and it's a great idea.
There's nothing wrong
with that, you don't have
to be a Republican or
a Democrat to say that.
But voter ID, I think, is a
lose issue for Republicans
and it sure didn't
work for them.
And what happens is the longer
they talk about and the less
and less evidence there is that
it actually is a big problem,
the more Democrats are
going to take it as like,
"This is an attack on us."
Before, the Democrats weren't
ready, they're like, "Well,
maybe this is a good idea."
And they're like, "Oh, well,
it turns out, you know,
that really isn't
much of a situation."
But you might get some kind
of compromise where, you know,
you might have some kind
of picture ID, right?
And really easy ways for people
who don't have picture ID
just don't register and vote.
And that wouldn't
be a horrible thing.
I mean, we have to
show a picture ID
in all sorts of places.
Most people just think
if they show up to vote,
they probably should have their
picture ID with them anyway.
I mean, they drove
there probably
and that might be pretty minor
ways of making everyone happy
and then the Republicans
have been in the more kind
of harsh measures that
didn't go anywhere.
>> Regarding the demographics
of those who did not vote
and the demographics of
those who are eligible
but do not register to
vote, is there a trend?
>> That's a great
question 'cause those are
different groups.
You know, there's a lot
of people in this country
who aren't citizens and it's not
just all Latinos from Mexico,
it's people from all sorts
of places across the world
who come here who
aren't citizens.
Sometimes, they're
illegal residents,
no permanent residents.
My grandmother was
Canadian and never decided
to become an American citizen
for really weird reasons
and so she never
could vote, right?
And as the-- as there's this
growing population of people
who aren't citizens, we've done
a very bad job of removing them
from the kind of coordination
of how many people
are there to vote.
So it looks like there's
less and less people voting
as to percent of our population
but we're not doing a
good job weeding them
out from our numbers
and once you do that,
you see that turnout
is not dropping.
That turnout, in
fact, is increasing.
But there is going to be
a difference between those
who could register and don't
register and those who register
and don't vote and that
fits very classically
with social economic status.
You know, the poor are
less likely to vote.
Obviously, the poor are more
likely the non-white in America,
younger, urban, all of
those things and so, I mean,
the Democrats should
do more to get them
to register and then vote.
But I see a lot of like
registration efforts
and oftentimes, it doesn't lead
to more votes, and
this time it did.
This time, that was so--
and there's all this talk
about Obama's fancy "Get
Out To Vote" effort and I
think if the Democrats can take
that apparatus and use it next
time, they'll be in good shape.
The Republicans have this
fancy thing called Orca
and it failed miserably.
It just, I mean, and they
couldn't even get the data
into their headquarters
on election night.
So, you know, both parties
should be spending more research
on figuring out who doesn't vote
and how to get them to vote.
And the Democrats were
definitely ahead of the curve
on the Republicans on that one.
>> And I guess I'll just add one
thing on that that, you know,
there's a lot of things
you could do to try
and increase voter
turnout, voter registration,
voter turnout, and most of those
things are to make it easier.
So you have same
day registration,
you have online registration,
you have mail and ballots
so there's lots of ways
to make the job easier.
But my concern is-- and
again, this is a theme I think
that I keep bringing up, is it's
one thing to enable somebody
to cast a vote or encourage
somebody to cast a vote,
it's another thing to encourage
somebody to become involved
and cast an informed vote.
And I really see a
tension between those two.
The easier you make it to
register on the same day
for example that, you know,
I've been ignoring everything
but on the day of the
election, I get this phone call,
and somebody says, "Look, I'm
going to help you register
and you can go cast a
vote," I said, "Okay."
I think that that increases
the turnout without increasing
and perhaps while reducing kind
of the level of civic engagement
and understanding of issues.
So I see those are
parallel issues
that both need to be addressed.
>> Yeah.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
>> I probably didn't make
my point clearly enough
and I appreciate the opportunity
to kind of clarify a little bit.
I'm speaking to somebody who
actually has Kaiser as my help
but I'd made that decision.
So I didn't mean
at all to suggest
that that people foolishly
would decide to go to Kaiser
because they're not as
good as other options.
All I was trying to say is
when you make a decision based
upon kind of an empty message,
Thrive, you know, that's
the advertising campaign.
And to think, you know,
that that should, you know,
sway somebody's decision is
the analogy of trying to draw
to somebody getting, you know,
a one-sentence line
about a candidate.
So, again, pick whatever other
advertising campaign you like.
I was just trying to
set up the analogy
of low information voters.
>> And I certainly
agree with you on that.
>> Okay.
>> At what age does an
individual can decide
to become a Republican or
Democrat, or independent
and what influences
that decision?
[ Inaudible Remark & Laughter ]
>> Overwhelmingly, your
parents, overwhelmingly.
We like to think that we're our
own unique individuals, but--
and we are, just so
we're clear, we are.
[Laughter] But our, you know,
we look at voter ID and we look
at party ID, I mean, and it's
overwhelmingly influenced
by our parents and then
following it by SES.
And of course, a
lot of our SES comes
from our parents,
socioeconomic status.
So it's, you know, our parents
drive our voting overwhelmingly.
And, you know, the second
biggest thing is education
and obviously, the
easiest way that this--
that kind of dislink people
from their parent's
voter ID is education.
And so, people who have
degrees are the most likely
to have opposite party
ID from their parents.
But it is, you know, it comes
from the very beginning.
>> And there is some research
that says it's genetic, too.
[Laughter] I mean,
like seriously,
we're moving that way.
Yeah?
>> Could you guys
comment on the future
of the two-party system involved
in California, the rising power
of the independents and
the third-party systems
and the divide of
the Republican Party?
That's completely poor in my
opinion but could you comment
on California and
then nationally,
what their future is?
>> I think our only two choices
are one party or two parties.
I mean, the system is set
up to bias us towards
a two party system.
If you are third-party candidate
or you are someone who registers
as a third-- to support
third-party, the system is set
up and it's biased against you
because of single
member districts.
In order to win any
representation and, you know,
the California legislature
or the Federal legislature,
Federal congress, you have
to win a plurality or close
to a majority of
a single district
and that's mostly likely going
to happen if you're a member
of one of the two major parties.
I mean, the Greens could be
20 percent of every district
in the entire country.
And it could get 20 percent
of the vote in every district
in the entire country.
And how much representation
are they going to get?
None, right?
So we're stuck in
a two-party system.
Now, California is going to be
more and more one party which,
you know, that can happened
depending on public opinion.
But, you know, we would really
have to make substantial changes
to the electoral system
if we were planning
on creating a system where we
could have the representation
of more political parties.
>> And I guess I'd
say I agree with you.
I think that structurally,
we have--
we will have and continue
to have a two-party system.
What I do think is possible
and probably not likely
in the immediate term but what
is certainly possible is the
Republican Party as a
party could fade away.
And what you would end
up with under, you know,
the way our voting
rules are set up,
logically is the Democratic
Party would kind of break
into separate parties.
So, you know, we just have the
Whig's, or the know nothings.
There have been other
major parties before
that eventually kind of
die off and there's a split
in one of the other parties.
So it's-- eventually, our
preferences will be expressed
as two, I think,
it's inevitable.
>> Anybody have a
foreign policy question?
Go ahead.
>> I would think.
If you look at other countries
that have one dominant political
party, it has tons of actions.
And so, you know, for Democrats
in California, not nationally
but California, continue
to be this dominant
party with Top Two.
And in exchange, they're going
to have these kind of actions
within the Democrat Party
that will matter far more
than the trivially
small Republican Party
where they're kind
of perky and growing
but still tiny Green
Party in the Bay Area.
>> And actually, if
you to talk to people
in California legislature, a lot
of them talk about the Democrats
and then the moderate caucus
within the Democratic Party,
that those are really the two
groups within the legislature
that are most important,
not the Republicans
and so you see that-- exactly
that happening, I think.
>> In the back?
>> Yeah. My question
is on foreign policy.
I just want us to know
what does the five percent
of voter is placing
importance on foreign policy say
about the Americans' perspective
and how would speak to them?
>> The five percent you
say is the most important?
>> Yeah, but--
>> I don't-- that's an
exit poll, that doesn't--
didn't ask question
as that detailed.
I mean, they were certainly
putting-- of that five percent,
they were strongly in
favor of Obama over Romney.
But when we look at public
opinion polling in general
of the US population on
foreign policy issues,
there's a much stronger sort
of anti-interventionist.
>> So do you think
Americans are well-informed
about things going on?
>> Well, I mean, the thing
with the Americans is
that they don't--
if you ask them sort
of jeopardy type trivia
questions about the world,
they're very ill-informed.
But if you ask them sort
of a general basic question
about US interests and what
US interests should be,
there actually-- there was
kind of a famous article
on that called "The
Pretty Prudent Public."
The US citizens typically have
a very generally well-defined
understanding of the processes
of international behavior
and are able to support or
not support policies that fit
within that belief
structure that they have.
And so it's kind of
this interesting finding
when we think about foreign
policy, is that Americans,
they might not know
much about the world
but they certainly have a
fairly coherent understanding
of what the US's place
should within that world.
And so if you ask us--
if you ask someone about their
foreign policy preferences,
they might be more
internationalist but more,
you know, with kind
of a preference towards
multilateral institutions.
And then when you ask them,
"Do you agree with this policy
or do you agree with
that policy?"
their agreement or
disagreement aligns
with that believe structure
that they have even
though they couldn't name
who the five permanent members
of the security counsel
are, right?
And so it's kind of a--
it's when we then look
at how foreign policy decisions
are made and how the executive
and congress kind of craft
their foreign policy,
that's why you can see
within public opinion polling
fairly coherent support
or nonsupport of
different issues.
So it's kind of interesting,
did that answer your question?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> In the back.
>> We talked about how the
Democrats have been getting more
control in the state over
the [inaudible] but it seems
like Colorado for example and
maybe like Maine had taken more
of a progressive liberal stands
as California falling
behind the curve.
And they had much
lower support of Obama
than most of the other states.
[Inaudible] states like
Virginia getting close
to 60 percent support whereas
we're much closer to 50.
>> We were 60.
>> California voted 60 percent
for Barack Obama for president.
>> Okay, I must read
an early number.
>> Yeah.
>> I thought you're going
to talk about marijuana?
[Laughter]
>> Beating around the bush,
yeah, I mean there is--
we have this stamp as like
that we were a liberal
state but is that fading?
>> You know, Colorado is
more white than California
and among-- and it
does have this kind
of progressive crunchy
granola image
that California used to have.
I think California is,
as it becomes a more
heterogenous population,
it's going to lose that kind of,
I would say environmental kind
of, you know, middle class,
upper middle class,
white-green focus and be more
of a labor infused Democratic
Party type like in New York
or kind of like-- not
a machine but kind
of like a more traditional
Democratic Party.
And that-- it had to change
but it wouldn't surprise me
in the few years if
California votes on marijuana
and it, you know, it passes.
You know, it failed last time,
it was a horribly written
initiative and, you know,
they could probably
copy the Colorado
or Washington initiative
word for word
which are much better written
and it probably would pass
in a year or next
election cycle.
>> That was also in the
midterm election, too.
>> That's correct.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. One more, yes?
[ Inaudible Remarks ]
>> No, it's just-- I
think it's, you know,
Netanyahu has no real interest
in resolving the
Israeli-Palestinian issue
and he's made that
perfectly clear.
It would extend, you know-- so--
but the US coordinated
with Israel,
I don't think that's really
even on the table as, you know.
Obama is probably annoyed that
Netanyahu came out and sort
of so obviously in favor of
Romney, but I think it's going
to jeopardize any part
of that relationship.
It's just it's going to put
on hold the Palestinian issue
and then the Iran-Israel issue
that's been sort of, you know,
at a slow simmer in the last
four years would just continue
to be at that level.
I think, a change
in party in Israel
which happens quite
regularly would probably allow
for maybe some more
accommodation in Palestine
and perhaps give the Obama
Administration a little bit more
leeway in terms of its
Iranian negotiations
and what happens there.
But I mean, it's
going to continue
to be a tense situation and,
you know, the other side
of it is kind of Syria and just
everything that's happening
there, that's turning
more and more into a mess
and no one wants to
put troops in there.
And it's not even clear that
if one did put troops in there
that it would-- that
that would end well.
So, yeah, I'm glad I don't
run the Middle East desk
in the State Department.
[Laughter]
>> All right, thank you so
much to our panel and thank you
for showing up and
see you Thursday.
[ Applause ]
So, Thursday at 10
in the lobby suite,
Mark DiCamillo talking
about the polls.
See you there hopefully.
[ Inaudible Discussion ]