US Election Special Newsnight

It's not what you would call a ringing endorsement, but Barack

Obama's election machine delivered the required results, so he stays

in the White House, and so gets to face this country's awful economic

crisis, while Mitt Romney gets to spend more time with his money, and

his magic underpants. It may look like more of the same.

And tonight, despite all the hardship we have been through,

despite all the frustrations of Washington, I have never been more

hopeful about our stpurture. There is -- Future. There is hard

business to attend to and urgently. Mitt Romney was gracious in defeat.

At a time like this we can't risk partisan bickering and political

posturing, our leaders have to reach across the ail to do the

people's work. But his failure -- Aisle to do the people's work.

his defeat leaves the right wondering what can they get people

to buy into. They have to empower people. They have to find a way to

make conservative principles more attractive to that demographic.

Among our guest, Clark Judge, speechwriter for Republican

Presidents in the past. And a Dean, who once thought he was the best

Democratic hope for the White House at one time.

At first glance, a visitor from outer space might wonder what all

the fuss is about, $6 billion spent, and same bloke is in the White

House and the country is still $16 trillion in debt. The Republican

challenge for the presidency failed and while a couple of men with

crackpot views on rape also failed to get elected today Congress, the

political complex of the legislature has hardly change --

complexion, of the legislature has hardly changed. We have a sumry

first up, a pretty well-managed campaign by Obama, it delivered?

Very well managed, strategyy targeted and often quite negative

in the stone. The difference between the popular vote between

the two men, around about 1%. The difference in the Electoral College,

more like 33%, 34%. They went to the battleground states, they

blitzed the ad, two or three-times as many as Mitt Romney's people.

They fought the perception that on the economy was weak, instead

turning it negative, running ads about Mitt Romney firing people

when he was running Bain Capital, to the point where one comedian

said, he looks like the guy who fired your dad. What do we make of

America from this election? A great deal about division, polarisation,

the way the electorate divides into different cohorts. You mentioned

the Senate race, the issue of rape cost those two Senors their jobs.

And derailed Republican' tempts to take control of the Senate. The

house of rep -- attempts to take control of the Senate. The house of

representatives still showing the views that proved so threaten to go

President Obama, and trouble ahead. For the moment people are still

focusing on the momentous events of last night.

Barack Obama's first term may have disappointed many Americans. But

you would hardly have known it. His campaign workers in Chicago, had

laid on a particularer tape welcome for a moment of crowning triumph.

Re-election, vindication, and a powerful lesson in America's new

electoral politics. We are not as divided as our

politics suggests. We're not as cynical as the pundits believe. We

are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain

more than a collection of red states and blue state, we are and

forever will be the United States of America.

Battleground states proved decisive again, and never mind shares of the

national vote. Mitt Romney had to win most of them. Ohio, Virginia,

Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire, all went for Obama

instead. Only North Carolina and Indiana chose the Republican

candidate. Florida, that other key battleground remains too close to

call, but it is clear that the Democrats targetsed -- targeted the

swing states and ran a superb campaign. They had a tremendous

volunteer turnout, they used technology in smart ways. If you

were on Facebook yesterday, and signed into their app, every ten

minutes, for most of the afternoon and evening, it would recommend a

new set of people they wanted you to go and talk to in that swing

state. Remind your friends to do this or that. That targeting of

people, that sort of getting in people's, getting people to focus

on reaching out to their friend, is really the critical thing. But they

organised it all, in a very efficient way. At polling stations

in Virginia, yesterday, our random survey confirmed this country's

shifting electoral dynamics. The Republicans seemed too much like a

party of angry white men, the Democrats had tailored their

message better to women and ethnic minorities. At the end of the day,

you have to draw the line down the centre of the paper and write

what's good about this one and what is good about the other one, Obama

had the longer list of good things. Four more years, that is definitely

what I'm looking for, I'm so excited, thank you, Obama!

The ethnic vote is increasingly important. Black voters were a key

constituency for Barack Obama, in states like Virginia, where they

represent 20% of the population, and 93% of them voted Obama. But

the Hispanic vote is growing faster, and voting more Democrat, for

example, in the Colorado battleground, 74% of Latinos voted

Obama, up from 61% last time. So he won, despite the white vote

increasing for Mitt Romney. And the demographic trends are visible even

between elections. Ohio contained 4% fewer white voters than in 2008,

and 4% more black ones. What you saw for the first time in 30 years,

yesterday, was a set of social issues, the women's issues and gay

rights, actually helping Democrats. In presidential election after

election, going back to 1984, social issues like abortion, and

crime and welfare, and gay marriage, have been used as bludgeons to

attack Democrat. But as attitudes have changed, as the population has

shifted, there has been an enormous change in the way people view, for

example, the rights of gays and lesbian, that has had a huge impact

on electoral politics too, that will probably continue.

As the night wore on, in New York's times square, the scale of the

victory became clearer to those who had gathered. But the challenger

waited until the early hours before appearing in front of supporters in

Boston to concede defeat. Thank you, thank you. I so wish, I so wish

that I had been able to fulfil your hopes to lead the country in a

different direction, but the nation chose another leader, and so Ann

and I join with you to ernestly pray for him and for this great

nation. Thank you and God bless America, you guys are the best,

thank you so much. At the end of it all, though, the

Republican candidate was weak and so was his message. Despite being

around 80% white, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, all stayed

Democrat. Mitt Romney increased the Republican white share of the vote,

but never above 57%. Mitt Romney had picked Paul Ryan from Wisconsin

as his running mate, in Anne tempt to nail it. But in states -- in an

attempt to nail it. But in states where union membership was above

the national average, the President's help to the car

industry and active base did it. The labour unions are amongst the

heaviest spenders in American politics and highist constituents.

In Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan, they provided a firewall.

What you see is when you remember the angry white voter, if he's a

union member, he behaves very differently electorally. That has a

huge impact on the way that electorate works. So I would point

to that phenomenon in particular, to understand why those states

played out the way they did. In particular Wisconsin and Ohio, the

issue of the autobail out was compelling. These are places with

some of -- out toe bail out were compelling, -- auto bail out was

xelgs. These are places of some of the biggest plants.

It was a big banker or Obama, but it is also somewhere that was once

solidly Republican, but which, with a candidate so influenced by the

party's white wing idealogs, Mr Romney just couldn't win. The big

thing is to be careful not to play to your base in the primaries, and

hurt yourself in the general. The Romney people, in the die ex-

section of their campaign, they will look -- desection of their

campaign, they will look back and see they made enormous mistakes in

the primaries, going to the Rick Perry, on immigration, by angered

latteenys. They really cling clainged.

By the time -- Those things really clanged. By the time President

Obama leaves in 2016, the Republicans may offer the country

something very different. Until then, Mr Obama will occupy office,

facing challenges every bit as daunting as those of his first time.

The former Vermont governor, Howard Dean, ran for the Democrat

nomination for presidency in 2004, Andrew Sullivan is a New York-based

writer, columnist and blogger, he joins us from there. Howard Dean,

first off, this isn't really glad, confident morning, is it? It is not

that kind of inheritance? It is, actually. I tell you why, obviously

the President had a great victory, and to add two seats in the Senate

is extraordinary. No-one in Washington thought that was going

to happen. But the really big reason is, I think that this

signals the end of the culture wars in this country. It won't be the

end of the war, the right-wing will still fight rear guard actions,

butt question for four states to essentially approve gay marriage,

on ballot, never happened before in this country. I think that

discussion and debate is over. There will be further discussion,

but it won't be brought up in the campaigns. Abortion rights. This is

the first time in my memory, this is the first time, period, that any

candidate for President, on the Democratic side, has stood up and

fought for abortion rights and gay rights in the campaign. And he won,

and convincingly. Andrew Sullivan, what do you think we learned about

America from this election? I think, firstly, one critical thing, which

is the big original thing that Barack Obama did, was get America

to universal healthcare. That was something that Presidents from

Johnson, all the way through to Clinton had wanted, including Nixon.

This election made that irreversible. That is a huge step

for the United States of America. They not only re-elected a black

President, but backed universal healthcare for everybody. That will

not be undone. I think that is huge. I agrie, this is a fundamental

alignment. You have a permanent Democratic majority out there,

represented by the young and the minorities, especially women, that

is beginning to lock as if the Republican Party will not be able

to overcome it in the near or immediate or distant future. That

is a huge realignment for Obama. He's the Democrat's Ronald Reagan,

his impact will be that profound. They won't try to overcome it any

more, the right-wing will, and they have a significance influence in

the primaries, but the Republicans will concentrate on the economic

issues, the only way to get voters under-35. There is a big market for

a successful Republican Party in future, it can't include being

anti- Islam, anti- women and anti- anything. Do you think President

Obama is able to be more radical in his second term? I don't think he

will, he wasn't in the first time. That's not his nature, he is a

centrist, he is somebody who wants to bring people together. He will

do that. I think he will take flack from my wing of the party as a

result. Andrew Sullivan? Yes, I think so

too. I think Barack Obama's essentially what we used to call a

moderate Republican. He won a lot of people who call themselves

moderates in this election. The Republican Party is an outliar in

the entire best on almost -- outlier on the entire election. It

believes climate change is a hoax, it thinks that gay people need to

be kept in a second-class status permanently. We have had a

Republican Party trapped in a bubble of its own creation, it has

burst and this is a reality we see in front of us. This is America, it

is Barack Obama's America. He proved last night that he really is

the American in this race. Because, for the first time, he represents

America, not the guy who looks like the dream of the American President

from 1958, but this coffee-coloured, complicated black and white Midwest

and Hawaiian, stranger and total friend, has become the face of

America. And that's a significant and enormous shift in this

country's culture. That is a heck of a task he's

taking on at this time? He's ideally suited to do it. I think

this is a momentous time in American history. Andrew's like,

re-elected an African-American President is almost more important

in elected him the first time. Here is what Americans just rejected, we

rejected racism, homophobia, we rejected misogyny, and we stand for

a diverse nation. I think that's an, we have a affirmed the American

dream, in terms of what we wrote about in the constitution when we

raised the bar on human rights. And, I think this is an extraordinary

moment in American history. I really do. What do you think that

recognition, just a second, will do to the challenges that he faces.

These enormous, complicated challenges, let's leave aside the

monetary crises in this country, Iran, the Middle East, these are

really difficult times? They are very difficult times. The Iranians,

this is the first President who has had a significant effect on Iran.

The sanctions are hurting Iran, we need to continue. I'm a hardliner

on Iran, it is a dangerous country with untrustworthy leadership. He's

choking them off financially we can't have boots on the ground in

Iran, we have been in Iraq for 11 years and Afghanistan for more, we

can't. He's doing something and he's tough about it. I think

eventually that will prevail. Pakistan is a more difficult

problem, because it is the internal nature of the politics is so

incredibly complicated, we can't straighten it out, we can certainly

provide guidelines and some kind of walling off of their influence if

we can, and the rest of the Muslim world. Supporting the Arab Spring,

very smart thing to do. We stopped the historical American policy of

supporting dictator, no matter how awful they were, as long as they

were our friend. That is a lot of work to do there, and it is an

important thing for America to do. You are sounding like a man who

would like the job of Secretary of State, that job will be available

too? Thank you very much, I appreciate that. Andrew Sullivan,

what do you think will be the impact on the world stage of this

second term? I think it is enormous. What we are threatening to happen,

with Mitt Romney, in alliance with Binyamin Nethanyahu, was really a

global religious conflict on steroids, if you weren't careful.

The image that would have been sent in the direction of foreign policy,

would have been dramatically back towards a Cheney-like position.

Romney, for example, wanted to bring back waterboarding, torture,

for example, into the American Government. That will not happen

now America will remain what it has been for the last four years, which

is, it's traditional internationalist position, without

the unilateralism and triesism that accompanied Dick Cheney. That is a

big deal with respect to the rest of the world. As to Israel, the

only chance at this point that Israel has of getting a two-state

solution, which will save it from demographic annihilation, is

President Obama. He started from day one to try to get this fixed,

he's still absolutely insistent it happen, I think we may see some

surprises in the next couple of years, in terms it of Israel's

self-understanding, and Israelis beginning to realise this man can't

be run over, and we may have to deal with him, we may also save

ourselves in the process. That is a very interesting point.

The point that Andrew is making essentially is now Nethanyahu knows

who he has to live with for the rest of his primeship. Now he may

be a bit more -- prime ministership. It is a personal problem between

President Obama and Binyamin Nethanyahu. Binyamin Nethanyahu

realises who he has to deal with, and Andrew is exactly right about

the problem in the Middle East. If they continue to occupy the

territories, that is bad for Israel, let alone the Palestinians, because

it has this ethnic, or demographic timebomb. Israel can't be from the

Jordan to the Mediterranean, and be a democracy at the same time. They

want very much to be a democracy. Gentlemen, thank you very much. We

will be back with you in a moment or two. When you look at what

President Obama has to deal with, it is sometimes hard to see why he

wanted to keep the job. We will come to his biggest problem shortly,

consider the Republican challenge. No surprise, perhaps, that nine out

of ten black voters went with Obama, but the figures also show that

women, who make up over half the electorate, Hispanic Americans, an

increasing force in this country, overwhelmingly too went for him. In

the words of one Republican senator, "they aren't generating enough

angry white guys to stay in business for the long-term". Where

do they go from here? One for Laura Trevelyan in Florida.

Miami night life, but not as you imagine it. Florida Republicans

huddled around Fox News last night, anxiously monitoring the results.

Then this. The key moment of the evening.

President Obama will win the crucial battleground state of Ohio.

Not only did Mitt Romney fail to win the White House, it was clear

the party performed lamentably with Hispanic and women voters. They

need to communicate better the positions and explain that it is

not, it is not like, that they believe in the Stone Age for women,

they want to empower people. Typically it is Mexicans, Porto

Ricans, the three big Hispanic nationalties in this country, they

have to find way to communicate and make conservative principles more

attractive to those groups. They may think it is simple, but the

Republican Party's dominant TEA Party base doesn't agree. We have

to become a more righteous nation. That's right. We have to become,

understanding the difference between liberty and freedom and

tyranny. Tired and emotional activists began haranguing a

Congressman. As a battle looms between the party's idealo gs and

pra mat tiss, some say it is time to reach out to a natural

constituency. The Republican Party needs to do a better job of

communicating to a lot of the, say the Hispanic community in the

United States, which shares a lot of Republican Party values, but the

Republican Party, in years past, has, I think, very aggressively

said things that have hurt, and have caused a lot of damage

politically. The face of this nation is changing.

In 30 years time, one in three Americans will be Hispanic.

Republicans fear this demographic shift could give Democrats a lock

on national elections. As Florida goes, so goes the nation. For a lot

of different reasons it is multilingualism, multiculturalism,

the melting pot status of flour ka, the US is turning that way

everywhere, -- Florida, it is turning that way everywhere, but we

are faster on all fronts. Some say the Republican's electoral strategy

is too focused on the white vote, which is shrinking. Back in 2004

George W Bush actually won 40% of the Hispanic vote, since then, the

party's rightward shift, particularly on immigration, has

alienated this growing section of modern America. So what's to be

done. We found the best analysis of the Republican's dilemma with

voters, on the beach. Did you vote Republican? No I did not, mam.

not? Honestly I don't agree with any of his positions, on healthcare

especially, and anything with the middle-class. Republicans perform

really badly among the Latino vote, does that surprise you? In my

experience most Latinos are Republican kan, but vote Democrat

because of the immigration issues. This was the last election where

there even was a chance without the minority vote, and they lost

because of it, that and women. The social issues are the problem for

the GOP right now. As Republicans reflect on how best to court

Hispanics, there will be an early test of how best to put their

position. President Obama wants immigration reform, Republicans

must soon decide how far to go. From Andrew Sullivan is still in

New York for us. Here with me is Clark Judge, speechwriter for many

a Republican President. What do you think, was wrong with the Romney

proposition? Well, I'm not sure what was wrong, but how it was done.

It didn't work, did it? Let's look at the totality of this election.

Three branches, political branches of the US Government were up. The

Democrats won the Senate, conshrisingly. The Republicans --

convincingly. The Republicans won the House, also convincingly. The

popular vote for the President more or less divided. What does that

mean? There were a lot of ticket- spliter, there had to be to have an

outcome like that. So what are they saying to us? They are saying, they

are a little bit like your boss calling you in. Maybe another

reporter in, and saying what do you think about this story, and you

have one story and he has the other. Your boss leans back and says, I

don't want to hear about this, you guys get together, figure it out,

and make it work. That's what American people said to us, to the

whole political establishment. President Obama, or rather Governor

Romney tried to make this an election about economics. President

Obama tried to make it about social issues, and they both succeeded,

but with different groups within the population. Andrew Sullivan,

according to that analysis the culture wars aren't over, are they?

No they are not. The reason for that is that the Republican Party

is not a traditional political party, that has making up its mind,

based upon its rational self- interest. It is a fundamentalist

religious party, whose position on a whole bunch of these issues is

based upon fundamentalist, Protestant religion, that is a kind

of ideology and theology that makes it extremely hard to change without

some kind of meltdown. That is what we have to see first. The

Republican Party has to get theself away from being a primarily

religious movement, into becoming, once again, a more pragmatic,

political movement. Keep those profound issues about whose God is

true, and what we should do in our private lives, leave that to civil

society, and tell us how conservatives want to tackle our

practical, secular problems, growth, the budget, taxes, healthcare. I

think that's their problem. How do you get religious fanatics to

become political pragmatist, when you have handed over your entire

party to them. That takes years to overcome. Well, what Andrew has

said, I imagine he must have liked Mr Romney, because that's all Mr

Romney talked about since the convention. He was talking about

the budget, taxes, energy policy, he was talking about all of these

kinds of things. Now, what went wrong? Some of it, I hate to say

this, because I know it is not the theme here. Some of it was pretty

much how they ran their campaign. President Obama ran a superb

campaign, started very early, established his themes a year ago,

and was consistent all the way through. Mr Romney didn't really

get to his themes until the convention, and then didn't really

well articulate them until the debate. Very late. That was a big

problem, he never really caught up with the President. But do you see

no need for an ideolgical redefinition or rerepresentation of

the party? I have been hearing this all day about the re-representation.

They split the popular vote, and the two parties split the

lengthsure, the Congress. So -- legislature, the Congress. There

are problems whenever you redefine a group, a party. You jettison some

groups, even as you try to pick up others. Those others have

allegiances to the other party, why should they come over to you. You

look for the group inbetween, and that group inbetween has been

moving back and forth. Mr Obama was largely more effective at

articulating his message, and particularly his social issue

messages to the groups that most cared about it. That's the

difference here. Andrew Sullivan, you have laid out very clearly what

you think the party has to do, are there people prominent in the party,

who would make a better candidate embodying those beliefs? There was

one, this time round. A man called Jon Huntsman, who couldn't get more

than 1% of the primary vote. It reminds me of the Tories as Labour

took over, they listened more and more to themselves, and it took a

generation to try and come back and win. This was not a draw this

election, President Obama won it, clearly, won it much more clearly

than George W Bush did in 2000 and yet Bush ran on a very strong

mandate. This was not a draw, it was a win for President Obama, and

the Democratic party in the Senate, and the people who lost in the

Senate in the Republican Party, were precisely the religious

fundamentalists that now control that party. Someone, somewhere has

to get control of that party, away from religion.

You wouldn't call the campaign that Mitt Romney ran as religious. You

wouldn't call the campaign in the House that led to the House victory

as not indicating a broad base. What we did see in the way that

President Obama ran his campaign was that he was very good at

spreading out his strength where Mr Romney was not as good. Mr Romney

failed to appeal to black people in sufficient numbers, to women in

sufficient numbers? With the first African-American President, of

course he didn't. The Hispanics, women? The Hispanic vote, we do

have an issue with the Hispanic vote, that ought to be with the

Republican Party, at least on the kinds of issues that Mr Surlivan we

ought to abandon. And the Hispanic voters are more entreprenurial as a

vote, and upwardly mobile vote, it should be with the Republican Party.

You are exactly right, we should be reaching out to that much more.

failed? We did, but he pulled in other groups. When you get as close

an election in the popular vote as we have, you are not talking about

the kind of upheaval we have been hearing about all through the day.

You are talking about addressing some very specific problems, and

being very focused about them. And that's where Mr Romney fell a bit

short. Can I give awe -- you how specific

religion us was. Abortion was a big issue, and the debate in the

Republican Party is whether it might be legal even in cases of --

illegal even cases of rape, that is where they are. They want to

criminalise abortion in every state regardless of their positions,

criminalise it, the only debate is about whether a woman was raped she

would have to be brought to term. That is where they are in terms of

women's issues. Now that is based upon religion, and an idea about

biology and about women's role in the world. When you have majority

women electorate you are going to lose. Look, Mr Surlivan, apparently

hasn't been paying attention to the Republican Party. Because, first of

all, the men who said those words about rape were immediately

disavowed, the first one was immediately disavowed, it was a

little late to do it with the other one. They were immediately

disavowed and abandoned by the party. They both ran? But they were

off the wall. What you had on abortion in the Republican Party,

the position, broadly, is remove Row versus Wade and then the party

has many, many positions on where abortion should be. It has one

position, which is a federal amendment. I have to bring it to an

end. We are going to have to bring it to an end. Thank you both very

much. Leaving aside what he has to do about simple matters such as

Iran and the Middle East. There is a sense in which Obama is like a

man who has fought off a hijacker and wrestled back control of the

steering wheel of a juggernaut, only to realise the road he's on

leads straight to a brick wall or over a cliff. The thing they talk

about here is a fiscal cliff in simple terms in eight weeks time

taxes will go through the roof at the same time as there are huge

cuts to public spending. It is authoritatively expected tip the

country back into recession, if it happens. And furthermore, it is a

legal obligation. Our Economics Editor Paul Mason is our resident

Cassandra. America spends like a superpower,

taxes like a nation that believes in small Government. As a result,

its debt stands at $16 trillion. That is 104% of GDP, higher than

any developed country except Japan, and it has been growing at over $1

trillion a year. Last summer Congress, controlled by the

Republican, said, enough. Spurred on by the Tea Party movement, they

refused to lift the debt ceiling, threatening the Government with

shutdown. The President was forced to agree to mandatory, across the

board spending cuts, from January 2nd next year. This, together with

the expiry of massive tax cuts from the Bush era, creates the fiscal

cliff. Here is why they call it a cliff. The combined impact of the

tax rises and spending cuts, will be to slash the deficit immediately,

by half a trillion dollars over the next year, and over three years it

would fall to 1% of GDP, but the economic impact would be huge, it

would push America immediately into recession. The fiscal cliff matters,

not just to Americans, but to Europe too. Economists think, if

the full programme is applied, it could push Europe into a deep

recession and half growth in China. The IMF have said, don't do it, so

there is huge pressure on President Obama not to step off the fiscal

cliff. But, from Republicans in Congress,

the pressure is the other way. won't solve the problem of our

fiscal imbalance overnight. And certainly won't do it in a lame

duck session of Congress. And it won't be solved simply by raising

taxes and taking a plunge off the fiscal cliff. What we can do is

avert the cliff in a manner that service as a downpayment on and a

catalyst for major solution, enacted in 2013, to begin to solve

the problem. Making the compromise will not be

easy, the Republicans retained control of the house of

representatives last night, and they are sore. There will be a

fight it keep the spending cuts. And it will not be pretty.

Neera Tandem was head of tkpwhesic policy for Obama, Daniel Mitchell

from the Cato Institute has worked for the Republican Party in the

Senate. Is this a major problem or opportunity? For the President, the

situations we face? I think this was an historic election. Sure, but

the fiscal crisis, this is weeks away? Yes, absolutely. But I think,

what I was saying is, I think people did not expect the

Democratic majorities we have. The Senate Democrats expanded a

majority. The real issue on the table is whether the Republican

Party will shift on revenue, that is always the question. Today you

have seen the speaker talk a little bit more about revenue than in the

past. The issue here is, we know what to do around the fiscal cliff,

it is whether there is political resolve to do it. With the election

results and Republican Party Congress coming to the table to

discuss it. This is a fight we have had for a while, because voters

don't want to see higher taxes, it is like giving the keys to a liquor

store to alcoholics to put more revenue on the table in Washington.

Looking at Spain, Italy, raising taxes, Republicans don't want to go

down that path, but there is the specter of automatic tax increases

if something isn't done. Either Obama has to give, or Republicans

have to give, or they both have to give. When politicians meet in a

room in Washington, tax-payers usually lose, I'm not optimistic,

you will be happy, probably, I won't. That is a misreading of the

election. If you look at the exit poll, the data is 64% of Americans

want higher taxes for wealthy Americans, that is the issue the

President campaigned on. To say that this issue that the President

campaigned on, and of in every debate, and was part of his

campaign stump, it is not going to be a surprise. Can it be fudged

now? I don't believe it can be. First of all you can't spend the

fiscal crisis with spending alone. I think Greece and all these

countries are a great example. will put the country back into

recession? Here is the issue, if we have austerity measure that is

simply put their weight on the backs of middle-class Americans,

then we are going to face the kinds of crisis that Europe is face, less

growth, not more growth. I will make awe deal, if you say Obama

gets the higher tax rates because he campaigned on it, does that mean

we get to undo Obamacare and fake stimulus because he didn't campaign

on those. The American people are split on these issues in reality,

the question is, what economy anywhere in the history of the

world has made itself better by increasing tax rates on

entrepeneurs and small business owners. The problem with Washington

is the town is filled with bloated bureaucracies that are doing things

that central Government shouldn't do. In 1993 President Clinton

raised tax, the rate went from 35% to 36%, we had a large increase on

taxes in wealthy Americans in eight years of growth. That is just the

facts of American his treatment we can say these things aren't true,

but they are. But in 1995, Clinton's own OMB said there would

be deficits of $200 billion plus. There weren't. As far as I can see

with the election of the Republicans in 1994 changed the

spending trend line. That is the whole key to fiscal policy, the

private sector should grow faster than the public, Obama wants it to

be like Greece and the other way round. They re-elected him

yesterday. And the House. You have all these Credit Rating Agencies

deciding if the American Governments are trustworthy or not?

They are a lagging indicator not a leading indicator. If they are

about to pass judgment, you are in trouble as a Government? We are in

trouble as a Government. There is no question about it. Bush was a

big spender, Obama is a big spender, I suspect whoever is President in

2016 will be a big spender. Politicians buy their way to re-

election by spending other people's money. That is why we are all in

trouble. England, the US, France, big trouble. You know, you actual

loo think there is a lot of doom- saying about the American economy.

But it is growing better than the rest of the world at this rate.

trillion of debt? The difference between the United States and other

countries, is people are investing here. People are deciding to move

their money from other countries, into the United States, and

investors are putting their money in the United States because they

know America is a good bet. The the reason why they think America is a

good bet, because our trend lines in growth are increasing. One of

the reasons the President won yesterday is more people were

optimistic about the future yesterday than they were a year ago,

two years ago three years ago. You are right, we do have a fiscal

challenge. We can address it. It is a long-term fiscal challenge, it

can be addressed. The difference between the two parties, and this

was an issue in the campaign, was are you going to put the burden of

the debt, only on the middle-class, or are you going to ask the wealthy

pay their fair share, as President Clinton did in 1993, and we got

years of growth from it. We will reconvene on December 31st perhaps.

Thank you very much. Despite what you, all of us heard from so many

self-proclaimed expert, the outcome of the campaign came nowhere near

in legal wranglings and hanging Chads and all that. They would be

the last to admit all of that, but predicting an election is an

imprecise science, however precise the figures might appear. There is

a lot of egg on lots of faces, more fool us for taking them seriously.

There were some who got it right, staggeringly right in some case.

No-one got it as wrong as the Chicago Tribune got it in the 19478

presidential election, the man holding the front page is Harry

Truman, who had really won! Is polling today any more

sophisticated than a coin toss. Listen to the Republican pollster,

Dick Morris on Folk News last week. We will win by a landslide, it will

be the biggest surprise in recent American political his treatment it

will rekindle the whole question as to why the media played this race

as a nail-biter. Mr Morris's line today was, it was all the fault of

Hurricane Sandy. There was a handful of analysts who got it

pretty right. The new force here is an Englishman, Thomas Baize, a

Presbyterian minister, who departed life in 1763. He will be turning in

the grave to hear it, he was the inspiration in the Brad Pitt film,

Moneyball, there is a new formula to create a winning side. We are

card counter, at the black Jack table, we will turn the odds on the

casino. You don't put a team together on a computer. Drew Linzer

is part of the team of statisticians, and appears to have

called the election exactly right. What's the difference between you

and an old fashioned pundit, Drew Linzer? Well, when I look at the

election, what I'm looking at are measures of public opinion, that

come out of public opinion surveys. These are reliable sources of

information, and by putting those together in a systematic way, we

can get a pretty good idea of how people will actually vote on

election day. So these are good times to be a statistician, as op

poised to someone who intu -- as och posed to someone who

intuitively looks at the polls and believes they know what might

happen? There is no need for intuition if you have a systematic

understanding of how the polls are produced and what the information

they contain is. We know polls contain various sources of error,

there are ways of analysing the polls in aggregate to remove the

source of error. What we found in 2008 and this year, is public

opinion surveys, on average, close to the election, provide a very

accurate snapshot of how people will actually vote. And so, by

putting all these poll together, people like me and others, who take

this sort of statistical viewpoint, are able to make very accurate

predictions of how the vote will turn out yesterday.

Others who followed another methodology, made an inaccurate

prediction or two? They did, I don't know what else to add about

that. I think had a our goal, as people who watch the election,

should be to provide accurate information. And there are sources

of information, like public opinion poll, that have historically proven

to be accurate. That continued to be accurate. And I personally don't

know why we shouldn't use those and take advantage of those sources of

information, and why someone thinks that their gut, or their intuition

will do better than that, I really couldn't say.

You are a naturally very modest man, clearly. Would you like to come

over and predict some British elections for us? I would be happy

to, if you have the public opinion data for me, I'm sure I can put

together a model that would try to ebgts tract the information in

those -- extract the information in those polls. Drew Linzer thank you

very much for joining us. Thank you. That's it from Washington. By the

time there's another presidential election here, we shall have had

the chance to decide whether we want another David Cameron

Good evening, a frost-free night to come tonight. Thanks to the breeze

and cloud and showers. Wet weather in the south of England, clearing,

a few showers elsewhere, not as wet a day in Scotland. Brighter in

Northern Ireland. Brightening up through the day. North West England,

there will be plenty of cloud, one or two sunnier breaks not out of

the question. In southern England occasional sunshine through the

second half of the day. Temperatures 10-12. The key thing,

compared with what we saw this afternoon, temperatures the same,

the winds will fall lighter after a breezy start. It will feel a touch

milder. For Wales we will see sunny break develop, not necessarily just

to the east, across western areas sunshine too. In Northern Ireland

best of the sunny breaks best across Antrim Down and Armagh.

Western Scotland a dry and brighter There you go, we have a weather