An hour with Michael Dukakis

from the dole institute of politics at the university of kansas k pr presents an hour with michael dukakis i'm j mcintyre michael dukakis was the three time governor of massachusetts and is often given credit for the massachusetts miracle digging the state out of one of its worst financial and economic crises in history dukakis won the democratic nomination for president in nineteen eighty eight and was defeated by george h w bush he currently teaches at northeastern university in boston and ucla he spoke november twenty nine two thousand seven with state representative barbara ballard who asked him about his early interest in politics or grows this is in the pre television days in nineteen forty we set up a card table a living room robot names of that then forty eight states and sat there listening to the national conventions and taking down the boat as they're now there was seven years of a i ran for president lies they're great question i was a fiat don't know

why it is a genius something that the team and you're a political direction but always interested are about to tell you know i grew up in the forties and fifties born nineteen thirty straight one of the things that was so evident at that time was that america's expresses that huge win that they reflected what happens but i spent the fall of my senior at swarthmore on the waters of the us program at american university was a nineteen fifty four were running around the world telling people would move the capital of the free world not in this fight against berlusconi's of washington dc was a segregated johannesburg south africa nineteen fifty four you were telling people what wonderful democratic values we believe and i took a lot of upset at something wrong with his pitch and for a change in somerset to get in politics do something about the meantime joe mccarthy was running around question people's

loyalty and i was in the senate chamber with my buddies an american university than it was sessions are a good moment to truth and one of the republicans of the recession was on president bush and what's happened in the family but that's exactly what one of the things we stress here acted only after the politics the facts public services than honorable profession wife said our students get involved in the political arena why significance of making puppets because there's nothing more proportionally for selling recession and being in a position where you can make a difference to a lot of your fellow citizens as again this audience and pad georgetown were a republican an agreement was a state legislator and the city power and i've been members of the national task force on the state's substance substance abuse alcohol and drugs work

together and why the best groups i think that without a work with terrific people from all over the country and only two republicans democrats have to do with dealing with a very serious problem in this country which involves continued addiction and substance abuse so especially for young people but with particular reference to young people and we're not do a damn thing about have you heard a single presidential candidate has recently the party talk about so those abuses covered for most serious social problems we face well as like pat meehan lots of other people healthy young people in this audience are people that they were going to sell about this idea do what the politics isn't the only way to do that if you want to have a real impact on this or anyone of countless challenges we face as a country i don't know of a better place to do it than in public life in some capacity or maybe liked about it

maybe working for like an official it may be turning yourself into super public manager public servant gets things done but you know i mean i've been on medicare for eight years you get some sense of where i am chronologically i feel like i'm twenty five i just turned seventy four a cuban away it's going to be seventy one she's the best looking so security recipient of her but i've been blessed with the opportunity to be part of the political life of this country and that my mission like these days aren't for everyone agrees is it so much is because i want her junk people to have that same opportunity and the those of you who are students in this room i hope you will seriously think about careers in public service was nothing like it won't get rich but he'll have wonderful opportunities to do good things and we get to my age so much money have folks it's really done so that's one of the reasons that i spent as much time and weather

is or what about it was a normal security line at one international airport and said you got a kansas white on a canvas but her cousin's kansas missouri what other young folks out there the not so young folks they're afraid of the challenge ahead even afraid of the possibility of failure i'm not sure it's a year i mean those of us again the problems were competitive and that we want you run the way it when people say to me well you know you lost an eighty eight but done ran a good race that's at the most socially thing here i mean look i'm responsible for the current mess but the deal made in every kid we would be in the relentlessly every day amelia you know we all know when we run

we may not win and nobody forces us to those were right we were all volunteers but i don't think fear has ever been a part of the equation you know you write you cared deeply about things you run because you care deeply about things and obviously you run to win and one of the things that i regretted most about it and that is the fact that it was was that there were thousands and thousands of peoples owner in this room who worked a dancer forward and ne feels as you up and that i think that's it's the fiercest the disappointment of having let them a lot of people believed in you and hope that you would become brazilian and states where rupturing for him just to make you fear for years and an attitude that they had a forty eight forty or whatever and then you ran for the senate don't want a little itching for those how in their legislature country

housing in the legislative body me an active member legislature not learned about one of things about what about policy for one thing that about it get things done now i was your life when a message was sort of nineteen sixty two where the mass is one of three or four most corrupt prison camp and it was a bet and i remember out campaigning knocking on doors and on and on are people saying to me you look honest call vote for it and they are calling my mother and same i think you for producing at least looks honest and i was cavalier the young turks of the buffalo harbor noises greek immigrants reading the paper this song as the leader of the young turks and just me there's a disgrace ok i'm a rebel militia which you are rebel rebel with my fellow rebels and all i learned a

lot and i think if you ask people in ten days pretty effective i don't think i prepared me well for the governorship because one of things you learned today about twenty years worth of fixes that getting things done a public sector is all about building coalitions it's all about building coalitions and reaching out to the pad georges and others bring him in the process if you do that you find out that with some rare exceptions most people agree on what the problems are and to get people together and they agree with a prom sir you have with our solution for the great things are quite frankly but the governor once i figured out delegates from employers had to fight my way back i was much better go to the second member of the first time but one of things that i learned is that that's the way you do things and if you're a governor and you ask people to come together to help you solve problems there are very few people who say screw you governor coming

the most americans want to be a part of the solution and the great thing i have as governor or as a key legislative reason is that you can reach out to people and bring them together and have been working together on real solutions to problems so in my second eight years ago were quite successfully but being the leader of the rebels a legislature was extremely that was first learned a lot obviously was a great preparation for the chemical issue going to have to do i think if you can be infected that happen a bit about the fate of nasa chief with we need to have your economy and job well we were there in the toilet the mean time magazine was going as the new appalachian they can you just they just elected to the new appalachian be the biggest eight there's a proportionate country with the second highest unemployment rate we have unemployment rates are over the

twenty twenty to twenty three percent and that was bad so we all our to do in the un you know wasn't just mike dukakis it was a lot of things look at gmo harvard and mit in your state and and the economy begins to transform itself into a knowledge based economy and yellows ph he's at mit who are geniuses were churning out all the side deck about economic kinds of ideas and that's a huge asset but i think we're able to transform state government into a very positive force for change in the glover good things but it was only after i learned that coalition building isn't and again and to me to want to do that now i try to teach this so people doesn't make the same mistakes i made wayne newton nineteen eighty eight i had a tough primary eighty five campaign variously well

there was a wonderful experience and i don't get i don't get too romantic about the center of a coverup that is something about the folks in his own country which is very special that includes islands kansans and folks alone this part of the country a fundamentally decent people will give you a fair shot or was i anyway because it's good for the northeast for the country were carted great people i've always been a very strong believer in grassroots organizing and speckled in it and so i was able to emerge as a very close third to the comparable son both on the next door neighbors know quite frankly was disappointed as i want to do better than that and so setting up a hotel room that night waiting to gather five hundred people waiting for me of course that's the night when more americans are watching you the nevada watched it before it was the night of the iowa caucus so you'd better make your speech whatever it is a good one like some

some candidates have forgotten that with disastrous results and them i sit here in this hotel room with my semi reclusive people and candy in there all morning and groaning and they're happy we lose was waterloo when you gotta go negative on these guys and so forth and i was determined to do that and finally one of the phone said well it is an olympic year member every presidential years of olympic year but those the year the soccer olympics and we did when the brass that sound both campaigns are you have more than slow down stairs in regional affairs think people violent said the night we won the bronze next week that was new hampshire we win the gold and cheered and went to new hampshire and falling we can use bullion gold medal around the neck and major submissions but was you know was a lot of fun hard work organizing at the grassroots in the states working

hard on super tuesday to win maryland florida texas and washington on one day and we did that but that that was a result of these deals were the work of each of the states and then you know as the field narrowed down as to emerge on top and read a read a great army of service a number of the final the mayor when i was reading on the iowa caucuses one of the things i noticed that also a nineteen eighty eight campaign he saw the growth of conservative evangelical strength inside the iowa gop were you aware that indeed it had any impact on democrats and moderate republicans were there because of a prairie folks you're focusing on your walk in fact i remember going into a meeting of the executive board of the iowa teachers association which i guess under their charter has to be one have republican one of power and i walked in i looked around i just

didn't say the road to three minutes i said i just wanna be absorbed this i've never met a republican school teacher at allen in kansas i know i've never met one of messages every cow laughter but i just had no it was going out there on the republican side you are focused very intensively on those caucus goers those people in an area to identify people ten people love and they were a cocker spaniel and it's absurd you don't like anybody and your title five it to talk back to the tree and so you're really focused on the butt and one of an insurance and in the final and the bush family you know and people are worried that the visual ability respect and affection for they come out of the democratic convention you write that you were ahead and they will live set over a vice president with a simple question what happened well two things first post poll numbers

are actually worse of folks are by the way the current poll numbers are worth paying no attention there are no frontrunners in primary races ever ever ever as the criticism of the alleged front runners it's just its fortunes it is one of the reasons why front runners and the crumpled up because they are good people but because they were never in the first word and you oh if you would've convention you get about a regular guy wins it's about we know it will be a competitive race but i made some serious mistakes first one and was my decision on wheels as was that i was in the response of the bush attacked him that is another spot and i was just a conscience and revealing as media just cares if there's another usually don't have to win by twenty points all year when his blank won more than fifty percent

and i feel like i can raise doubts about you with those kinds of attacks however justified or unfair or whatever they are the bees aggressive some people begin to believe that stuff and then we saw this with a swift boat that when i was just descriptions of that was that it hurt and to this day i can't tell you what kind of a strategy kerry should have used to try to deal with that but that was a mistake we stopped doing precinct based grassroots organizing don't ask me why he did that you know the guys that was abuzz abuzz something about presidential campaign said wow you don't do that a final believe me folks that respect as an elitist if my party's know when this presidential election next year we don't organize everyone into one thousand precincts in this country no exceptions and that includes their guesses on greece's devastating cancers in women and even some

robert dole institute saw in sanaa but i'm serious but we just elected a democratic governor massachusetts would never want like a vase african american great at the lobby of a normally know because you organized everyone over two thousand women fifty seven preseason slate won by twenty one percentage points he was outspent three to one think about that for reasons i can't explain a red districts aren't we stop doing what they've always gotten elected that i was every precinct with a precinct captain six block captains making personal contact with every single voting also face to face not phone banks face to face and we just didn't do that well there was another slide into but you asked me and say those were the two most serious mistakes i made in grocers association well

was another example of how some are even attacking for something like that you got to respond now the truth is that the most liberal furlough program america nineteen eighty eight was the reagan bush furlough program in the federal prison system they were throwing people for forty five days while the furlough his mom early and pregnant mothers of why scientists said that well folks are feeling as the yuppie the furlough program and forty five a fifty states and fro and he's part of an administrator liberal program like that you know say that i'll be surprised if people begins at a soft on crime or like that but again serious mistake in not being ready for that stuff and taking it on to have to have to lead into wichita kan and eight about lee atwater the apology it was you know out what it was was hit with a terminal disease and i think was in this

last month of life something real worry connor wanna make amends to his credit my judgment and you know he knows a racist thing that hopelessness and kind of apologize for the guys were enforced by reporters it's near the end of the year but i thought it was reasonable to do it too and immigration what kind of a president we give them a well i'm not sure anybody can really turn whatever president you'll be in to get there i will say this and this may sound a little strange to as governor i never had security i would have busted two was another constant nor do we have a mansion in massachusetts that was a legislator as well william legislation killed a proposal for comforts we should have the god i want is all about light and imagine we had one i wanna live that for the night

i was a kid you know i tried very hard to do was to live our personal lives and our family lives in his normal always possible we had two basic rules but i was fanatic about what was dinner at home at six o'clock at night and i did and the other was no politics on sunday and i bet three terrific isn't someone of the grandkids i think was to some extent some into effect we tried to live that kind of life even though i was a chief executive my state but no security at the post return to work but license violation and the grocery shopping and it was wonderful and once i said yes to the secret service who by the way terrific people i found it very difficult to be myself surrounded by an animated used to having people of machine guns dinner at my house and i once as bill clinton what was like winning the white house says the crown jewel in the federal correctional system

well you know that doesn't mean that i don't think i could've been a good president i love the fact is governor that i could be the governor of my state to do what i hope were lots of very good things and yet live a life that was open and unrestricted and of the only concession i had to make the fact i was going to was that it could really take my kids on sundays the places where a lot of people coming up to me no use to love to go skating at this outdoor skating rink in our town after three or four those things and you came he said that we just a lot of the reason he was it was the madison well people come up to him to enter this country so so we have to cut our family recreation and in private to some extent but other than that your loving governor love the freedom it hadn't been without these restrictions so so i think that

would've been difficult in is one the reasons folks frankly word recess or do or think presidents tend to lose touch because you're surrounded by folks all economy the end of a breakup and frankly i think in some ways the current president has lost touch because there is this kind of isolation that takes place you're being and it's worse today it was in eighty eight with the presence of slow so so i don't know about that but i'd like to think that you would really exciting time to be president to call war which was wrapping up but we have work to do in that we talked about the peace dividend in those days what would we do with it and lock them and i was the kid of immigrants and prison the united states and that's restrain or thugs when the name kb eleven we're one of the defining what i'll never with

but let's hear what you think of the building who was and said i believe a man can be a liberal with upping spendthrift a great cannes ago was it alf landon i got a highway were made available of the events of nineteen thirty six i believe a man can do what will be expensive it'll cases on the cheapest guy in america i think that's like a little it's strange it is true like inside the dual class to eventually last year so you get some sense what and what gang who sees gaps between our express their views of what's happening in this country for courses in the united states were always striving for perfection can actually get that i see enormous extremes of wealth in this country worse today than advances nineteen twenties and bothered by that salary and bought about them along with one of his war but

anybody inlay thing about the history of and that we should have known that if you invade iraq itself a religious war parents ate guaranteed of those mistakes in the beginning people say that they were wanting to certify people that killed yesterday what does a young americans welcome back thousands more name for life four law that bothers me and privacy and so it seems to me that that this political system of the house which is the most open political system in the world you know that i mean you not because anybody is ring you don't have to ever taken the mission will begin looking into a medically are worrying come from what the colors get what your ethnicity i think it's just so huge artery as the best to

their clothes and eighty eight and i think he did it in the white house having learned that he ran for president three years ago well let's talk about some of them in without being without getting them in the gutter with the other guy you have to be ready and sort of say for what could be coming your way and that will be attacked and a veteran to submit those and you go try to come up with a strategy to blunt them and if possible a german new characters you guys do it without yourself where you sell be dragged out the same time i talk about coalition building i can't emphasize that are not enough in this day and age if you wanna get things done you get to build coalitions you going to get to bring people and make them in the making part of solutions either that people who at the beginning of this process can stand each other's gaps are but who thinks to your leadership position come together

and resolve prominent folks and forty seven made in america told them health insurance right it's a disgrace the national barista it's not because we're spending enough money we spend twice per capita what the other advanced industrialized nation spent on healthy nature everybody we've had forty seven and people who by the way they get so sick they can stand up is showing up in the emergency room a whopper and four but the thousand miles of those and i'm obsessed is is that when we have a deal but none of my own ideas no people said the twenty fourteen texas a lot of drama with like a kitchen when i'll take next you knew it whether to help women it's an el plaza was universal but that you know one of i learned i've learned that if before the year before that assad those kinds of problems are you have to bring people of the table you have to sit down and you use your possession of political leadership to move them for going to try to get some acceptable and

affect the resolution which would you do it again when i ran again the forest and there they look it is wonderful but away and doing great work and i can't say enough for what she's been doing but turn you now she's selling one of seventy four we feel like we got three kids and grandkids the latest to arrive for months ago craig is a terrific one and you know his family matters most important thing in my life was a there's a specter always hearing and that i loved teaching and i loved working with young people in the tennis some folks were provisions of the best young people we've ever produced in the script and read it to reflect an assist great opportunity to guys like me have to petition to share our experiences with them i'm pretty tough know using marker them in a lot of these kids but the most were busy

position open up doors for them for internships in these kinds of things which i love doing so you know you can do good in a variety of of ways around it i had a great run politically for gunners what thirty thirty five years to love the teaching of sixteen years' cellist lynn the question isn't the answer you put it in one of our papers and said to print the presidential primary system is broken crazy absurdity if we don't do something about this next to the next time the iowa caucuses will be on thanksgiving and its staffing were warned nominating to people one of home is going to be the most important political war leader in the world folks and we've got this day after the nominating process workers staged a lead frightening states might be the fourth of july next time we had an atheist now what we do well there are a lot of

ideas out there i think the one that i like is the one for a series of regional primaries in sex in the six regions of a god maybe picked by lottery have you don't have one region always going first or if you want retain this kind of iowa new hampshire historical thing that's ok but to do that we generally for war ii and then you have a regional primary every other week for three months february march and april so we were just a lot of the candidates they have a chance to campaign within the same time so believe me that's canada border dr flamm back and forth new jersey to california for a factor to those few times merrill but you function or germans want to go for the bus goes wake up before the morning for more on now that may be other ways to do it but it's got to be better than this out there's gonna be something where states are treated fairly

as i say in rotation or by water whatever but it's huge and it's really unfair to the candidates and these folks didn't know until what a few days ago barbara the aisle carson real surgeon or in the division are really a media plan to campaign and it is that you do with that so would that work typically we cannot have a repeat of the sheer again out if we're serious about a sound effect of the minute push for a focus on the two thousand a presidential race i want you to come in your bar at feathers really no front runner but on the polls they might be ahead with the possibility of the first woman president and the first african american president and i would say what role will race and gender play and is it realistic to think that they dont matter and they will not have any impact will be collected through its elections and know that

race religion and all of other things have had an impact i think for some people race and gender may make a beverage let me go back to my own personal history i was like i'm a mess huge legislature nineteen sixty two it was inconceivable in nineteen sixty two the weak american to be elected governor is just like it would be like this that the greeks you know that not enough just to threaten the rest of the rays and anyway we thank you all right all of restaurants twenty years later it was a great window as i was that was made was really as they say that was paul simon recently retired her nickname like a roach all of us sons of immigrants and twenty and by the way i had an armenian american speaker of the massachusetts house even more consumable twenties or what is that ten year is about a country that was still got a long way to go at work on his tour of what's a vicious race ethnicity policy and immigration

stuff around which troubles me greatly but i don't think hillary clinton a baroque obama will lose the presence of what went on the book this one will win the presidency because she's a woman and he's african american i think the question is do people believe that they are qualified to be president and states and i think that is much more importantly merck and they believed it and their color first birth important something will fail without a big deal on just there but how will he accomplish on when you talk about the greek you're being the first flight as being the first reading what a great you know work sesame brother or ethnic heritage region itself becomes the reasons

great record that we made last year drought now you know just a was a second great american league of course it was only half right so maybe that was the problem i don't know barbra you have no idea how embarrassed agree to new viewers well done and the sense i came along and you know what other people thought of the numbers of a question i don't think was ever question my commitment to a heist is integrity and they were just very proud to meet my great american sculptor and edited to make individually you're in chicago whether join fifteen thousand greeks you walked into a small town in iowa wins a pizza place you'd walk in and you could tell a guy by the

guy was your greek family <unk> the pages but i was very proud of that on my ethnicity of the fact that with the help of thousands and thousands of people many greek americans i be able to do what i had done i think that's a natural reaction is a weird chord first we just like to laugh about african american governor only the second african american governor in history the united states how he filled out an african americans messages across the country than good i would think right prices and opened it up and their candidates lost control of their own campaigns as the internet has no rules no consequences and no accountability is that this in certain questions you know candidates have not

lost control in campaigns they just make sure that all of the stuff that's flying around the sun get in the way of an effective campaigner mean remember it's still a relatively small percentage of americans who spend time on those blogs about scotus stuff we must win it for themselves the families but the internet if you use it effectively is a hugely important organizing and fund raising two and in that sense it's a very good thing john mccain and howard dean taught us all that you can raise a hell of a lot of money from a very broad base of relatively small contributors right and stay away from the funny way and that is one thing that the internet has made possible secondly it's an incredibly effective organizing tool

if you're serious about precinct based grassroots organizing because when you get that fifty dollar contributions thought the first thing is i dislike you on the cycling is sales will be a precinct captain fourthly i don't see candidates doing it and it's great thank you not enough to pay the literature anymore you know when you're raising a blackout of those by pat thomas jane unit and places a campaign literature twenty places a campaign would set the pace of the campaign workers you get people about english inn frantically calling and get a recording that on anyone's juice reason for them out there is a knock on those doors all this stuff for free and you can raise lots of money from a very broad base of small donors all the modern drilling partners expects something because i wanted to do it well in that sense it can be

enormously important in this process in the best sense of the word by candidates have to use it but wait wait but i think of the grassroots campaigns are still run for governor where we're spending money on postage and calling people always come sta for me to have the internet available to us as for mark on by the way to deval patrick won the governorship will be very effective use of the internet as an organizing tool as an organism and one attacks begin by the way when the attacks begin if you have those precincts organize the day those attacks began what happens but it all out those the word that every single one of those two hundred thousand precinct captains easily attacks he's the ss get back out on the street most effective way to deal with that campaigns to have this army of volunteers out there banging on those hours by that time you know people people of them have already visited them once twice returns wonderfully effective and you get that message out instantly liked to one thousand people

to atlantic and we would not anywhere like huge but candidates have to use it effectively are not clothes talking about you it in ninety nine eleven public with her personal story of addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs as well as her experience with depression how great to have a lot to tell you why in the beginning about nineteen eighty two kitty for reasons nobody can explain is that we can really explain depression began experiencing these recurring cycles of depression but every nine months she had the best doctors in the latest medications therapy always constant none of that helped her she'd finally came out in these terrible impressions should be okay for about nine months and she

began that should go <unk> folks for seventeen years and the drinking it was soon using acknowledged until only one this happen seventeen years after it first began adopted the message general hospital center are pretty obvious that these medications just aren't working for i think you're trying to like the composer's artie shaw i want to include those because we all we we had the same reaction or emails to well we sat down john matthews and charlie won't use easy to special snowshoe shosh the show was a videotape of people that had the treatment they said well what a question of if it happens again when it happens again and we try and it's not an exaggeration folks to say that aleppo

consultants turkey has been a miracle she still cycles thirty years was through zero introduction let's travel weeks of the first treatment and was impressed and i think some of you know she felt so strongly about the most she and larry tye was well globe says boston globe's type of reporters decided to do a book on electric impulses are we which is a combination of kitty's story engine to restrict research that ties them about the treatments history and so on so forth and she's now all over the country talking about this or i'll tell you my wife is saving lives every day just speaking last night twenty people came up and said we had a ct because your book i assume to live and the fact the mayor's it's not what it used to be and it's painless of season one of the dentist

but that's what she's doing and i'm very very proud of her bills so you know he very courageous she says workers about trying to share experience i've had with other people who are suffering terribly from depression in early antidepressants are only good part about forty forty five cases easy it is affecting a disability why shout electricity does that nobody knows but then was shown electricity restart the heart so one and i my kidney issues the best looking social security or beauty contest for those years a region where a walk so we're you know she's in good for and and you know we just we got a great white folks there were disappointed obviously will distance of the white house but twenty four years or four years or four years and it's it's more fundamental laws of them are great and we're blessed with three wonderful kids the seven

grandkids so what was good and as word about the country folks that were some were given advance staff question digital obit about a part time job as a barber as a barber here water jesse's star thanks for god and i try and talk about what life was like in the forties and fifties growing up an interstate when i arrive at swarthmore college nine miles southwest of philadelphia in nineteen fifty one we had just a handful of african american or three nigerians to support for bobby we had won five six pledges is another liberal quaker institution outside of philadelphia and the barber shops in swarthmore pennsylvania would not happen here or block it well now the one to pass up an opportunity that due to fluid combine my commitment to social justice to economic opportunity hi and so my buddies organized a boycott of the world more martyrs

and i began the campus bar without the benefit of a licensed on tilda barbara gordon pennsylvania i actually made my walking around money coming year but can imagine that this was a nine miles southwest of birmingham for july miles southwest of a laugh but then in the forties during world war two when the philadelphia the philadelphia bus company which are bad times about a bus company rainfall over buses hired its first blockbuster over nine thousand like as one starts of the woodwork so the united states of america what guys are getting killed overseas they couldn't drive a bus full of ribbons of land right so that's how i became a campus parking and it was good for the economic standpoint i hope we start the woes of the us when they get a haircut that day that if the coasters was one of them one of the vice presidents was born african american would be recruited to go private

school when he was a dc like a dc and what nbc grew into a gogo private school in western massachusetts said you know some barbers in lenox massachusetts what that they are black it and the headmaster was a swarthmore graduate said ok i know stood in the school go to your barber shops over again the bones aren't burdened economy that was the us it i thought was drawn up so if if you wander barber with a sense of social justice came from a mean i just i looked at the stuff and i said this is just so reggie he'll accept and being so when i'm being taught julie so what was happening out there looking back on the last seven years the bush administration i find it hard to find a lot of great successes but a lot of weakness is a lot of mishaps what you feel are the is the biggest misstep of the last seven years the bush administration and then what you think is the greatest successes can last seven years can be subtle about this

book i think is the worst president my lifetime but think i think this stupid war has to be one of the worst mistakes of history of american foreign policy you know one of the things one of the reasons we study history it's a whole other reason that use fewer stars in one of the reasons we study history is because only a teach as us lessons focussed anybody who knew anything about the history of iraq in the middle east and you know iraq is not a country you know that's an odd effect was created by the breads the diggs as anybody who knew anything about the history of the middle east direction of no the view is that the place was set up early just walk guarantee it and in any event what it is awesome random numbers on twenty ones of them he wasn't the guy that was causing a problem that was the other guy who still live somewhere up in the mine's

terrible mistake by doing case you've missed it it's costing us four bn dollars a week we can insure the uninsured kids working people in this country billions been forbidden all the weekend's fiasco now what's good about what administration it's not that i love everything about the no child left behind bill but i think he deserves credit for having gotten the federal government deeply and actively engaged in public education in a way has never happened before now i think we could use a modified of that getting can attest happy anomaly of the test gets every single year or before some content great but there has to be accountability in the public schools and after all it was president as entertaining book that building and so i think you know when his his record is says is assessed but i think that leadership on the public

education front is a plus and i hope we can build on it but overall low i don't have much good to say about this administration i really think that war is just a little longer than history as one of the great great mistakes american foreign policy i'm irene jay doormat actually teach history at this institution and i'm wondering if you could comment for us about the history of the rise of the third in the republican write in this country going back not just a reagan in nineteen eighty the reagan in sixty eight and before a chorus or sixty six when he was elected governor of california and the nixon who follow him and sixty eight and both of those getting a lot of cues both from goldwater in sixty four and from the campaigns of governor wallace how do you how do you explain the overall ascendancy of the conservative movement and what do i what has that movement

appealed to in the american psyche and in the american people and the american soldier the economic pattern that democrats haven't been able to appeal to what we say two things first i don't know that in the ascendance again in our best ago congress and i'm i hope i'm expecting and that was just a wish and i think if we do our job and do it well democratic majorities in congress are to grow in this coming election so i don't know that it's in the ascendancy in the end your story i mean there's always been a conservative movement's country when i was a kid it was like it was a teenager i remember those billboards saying get the un and the us and the us out of the un anybody over from animals our mobile billboard saying in teacher a war with the republicans and the us i mean there's always been that that side of american politics so i don't know it feels a certain aspects of our own psyche i mean we're going to a period now love of reaction immigration we've been going through this for a long time felt

when i was a kid from the world of remember this week about and twenty thousand japanese americans and put him in concentration camps many were citizens and franklin roosevelt was the president and the supreme court of the united states of people like robert jackson you know black so it was ok but not us it's always when national security is threatened that we still have reacted so i don't see anything new about this mean that recurs from time to time and it's part of political life here and elsewhere and for those of us who don't share those views are jobs throughout try to convince people that there's a better way to do things and my concern with my party these days is that we've forgotten how to brew precinct based grassroots organizing and we better get back to this fast and i mean fast because we don't organize

those two hundred thousand precincts in this country every one of the fifty states and forget about this red blue stuff it gets a lot of a lot of folks i mean this it's a red state right soccer marijuana never going to go how come the government look almost a criminal always democratic appointees a couple of colorado's democratic and the state government that is democratic and arizona's that a woman democratic governor and he loses both the red states and i think to many democrats is a time to buy when it been competing in the states i think that's a losing strategy we should be competing in every precinct in every one of the fifty states in this country and doesn't cost a thing you know it's all volunteer drama but there will always be conservatives are the conservative movement that's that's part of our history we kind of forget the jetsons like the new deal where people reacted in the head ft arts ensemble but you know it's been a pretty pretty

consistent thread throughout american history and i think personally right now to the cops i think the neo cons and in that hole right wing thing is is gonna consumes only going out and stuff but that does not mean winning the presidency next year's nominees he thinks that's getting so that's why think organizing grassroots is just so important we better get on tv you get so heavily involved in the whole issue of health care i'm interested that the republican debate the other evening didn't get to that subject i imagine it was a long enough time to go to our cars that have examined integration in unison advice how we can raise that to the kind of urgency and it must have you got corporations that can't handle

the costs of that you've got unions food one way would buy into this but we can't get on it and use them as they were socialized that juliet is the thirty one term describing the clinton edwards and obama eloquence have be ashamed of himself in the run the medicaid program or the city of new york but i think the governments involved medicaid is a pellet guns that means you are around those of us was sixty five or older are covered by medicare right now is a pretty in fact probably the most popular social program americorps i try to abolish that'll get me in a party but why should anyone

about the va which by the way these days gets very very good marks for health care and explain that so they think i certainly when people say to me when he for example chairman of universal like you're gay get them for next nixon proposed uber as arthur you or that nineteen seventy one you want to be your best one all important voice in the workplace with an expanded medicaid program to care for people who otherwise are unsure visit several employer whatever that's what alternatives that that ultimately i don't think it does the region reflected what we have now i don't how can anybody describe this system is an assistant guess as good doctor what it's like to do this is to these days as patients and not only that to repeat what i said earlier folks it's costing us not ten percent more twenty percent or thirty percent

more it's costing us a hundred percent more and health care systems and other advanced industrialized countries all of will provide universal coverage with better health outcomes lauren fort valley high life expectancy and explain the author what's happening i mean twenty twenty five thirty three min dollars going for all that two percent of manicured rose rode to prison a manicure thousand double didn't involve wasn't really involve fifty percent of all health care spending the united states today ridiculous to say that governs the maccabean fall but i don't know i can tell you that i think the medicare system works extremely well that works well those words was sixty five and although i can't work well for folks that are less and sixty for release why should they have the option to be part of that so they we don't know what's going to take to

get universal and affordable health coverage in his country the president at a congress committed to you'll never get it they want to present those names like that the kids of uninsured working people for the wealthy are the way that the one asked where these kids really unhealthy analyst at the middle of the region and that's the dumbest statement over i'm sorry i mean no disrespect to deadly he can't understand how just about getting health care he's in the emergency room every child in this country and have a pediatrician only a second it would go to the doctor for a heck of a lot less than a thousand dollars across to cross you've been listening to you michael dukakis were three time governor of massachusetts in nineteen eighty eight presidential candidate we can here with state representative barbara ballard who serves as the door institute's director of our reach it was recorded november twenty nine two

thousand seven at the door institute of politics at the university of kansas i'm kate mcintyre take your presents is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas