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Three C-SPAN Videos Relevant to 2016
The C-SPAN Video Library includes a unique archive of conversation about politics and policy. Here are three author interviews with particular relevance to the 2016 campaign, each in a different way.
Ann Coulter’s interview summarizes her new book, Adios America, which has already impacted the race, and not just by influencing Donald Trump’s campaign. Coulter delves into the sensitive subject of exactly who the “undocumented” are, and whence they came. Her claim is that while past generations arrived legally with ambition and a taste for freedom, we are now being deluged with less productive peasants with an appetite for government benefits.
As always, Coulter is a lively on screen presence. Interviewer Ben Shapiro wisely gets out of her way. Adios America plants a crucial marker on a too often superficially discussed major issue. Candidates should be familiar with its arguments before they step onto the debate stage.
Author and Weekly Standard Senior Editor Andrew Ferguson is a very stylish and entertaining writer, sort of a cross between Tom Wolfe and Mark Twain. In this wide-ranging interview conducted by C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb, Ferguson discusses two 2016 contenders he has profiled, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush. Ferguson’s profiles have in the past have both helped candidates surge, and revealed key concerns – case in point: Mitch Daniels in 2012.
Research for Ferguson’s recent, mostly favorable piece on Jeb Bush’s record in Florida turned up a couple of problematic quotes of the type that opposition researchers salivate over. Watch the entire interview, or jump to 32:40 for an old quote which Ferguson found “shocking and grating.” Ferguson describes another past remark, cue at 34:26, as “crude.” That may be a generous description.
In addition to sparking issues and delineating profiles, video interviews are valuable tools for candidate prep. Authors must digest long books down to the essence, the same kind of shorthand which candidates require. This interview with AEI’s Peter Wallison, about his book Hidden in Plain Sight, opens a window on the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. Democrat and mainstream media mythology about the crisis too often weight the scales against free-market capitalism. Their one-sided perspective has yet to be cogently refuted on the presidential debate stage. Watch it along with a discussion of Wallison’s earlier book, Bad History, Worse Policy: How a False Narrative about the Financial Crisis Led to the Dodd-Frank Act. The two interviews should be required viewing for all candidates.
The five year-old C-SPAN Video Library is a rich historic resource. I encourage Ricochet readers to explore it, and publish your own recommendations.
Published in General
I was rather hoping for a link to an interview with Cecile Richards in which she denounces the recent videos entrapping Planned Parenthood officials. We need ammunition to defeat the social conservatives and anti-choice zealots who are harming our electoral prospects with their religion-based opposition to women’s health and the beneficial use of fetal organs in medical research. An additional link would be appreciated.
Great suggestions.
The C-Span video library is a wonderful resource where one can get lost in the countless hours of relevant footage.
I always enjoy browsing through clips of Reagan’s protege discussing topics including how to turn around the decline of American civilization…. along with his groundbreaking work rebuilding the GOP under Reagan & Kemp and leading it back to its first majority in 40 years in the largest landslide sweep of congress in history… and reelecting it for the first time since 1928.
Here’s a fantastic discussion on one of his many prescient bestselling books:
“Breakout: Pioneers of the Future, Prison Guards of the Past, and the Epic Battle That Will Decide America’s Fate (in 2016)”
enjoy:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?316462-1/book-discussion-breakout
Don’t mention the war (on women)!
Thanks, Flossy!
I have a Newt bobblehead in the garage. Used to keep it in the dining room, where I dine and opine nightly. When ever I asked little Newt if he agreed, he’d bobble “yes.” Eventually my wife tired of the gag.
That is awesome.
Who knows, it could become a valuable collector’s item if voters sour on Trump & Bush 3 and recruit Newt to lead the 2nd Republican Revolution to defeat the Clintons again in an even bigger landslide than his ’94 blockbuster.
Newt memorabilia from the pre-American Renaissance era will probably fetch top dollar in a Newtonian future.
Here’s a link. I don’t think network interviews usually end up on c-span.
Great! This should make their calvaria explode!
I do expect voters to sour on Trump and Jeb, and in my ideal world a deadlocked convention turns to Rudy Giuliani. But the GOP is not my ideal world, and I don’t think it’s going to be Newt’s again, either.
Hopefully some young GOP President will employ the talents or seek the counsel of these two larger than life figures who never got the chance to go mano a mano against Barack Obama.
The Jeb Bush remark which Andrew Ferguson describers as “crude” is, as expected, getting wider circulation than it did originally.
The then candidate for Governor of Florida proposed that women on welfare “get their life together and find a husband.”
So at a time when the rest of the country was moving towards “welfare to work” legislation, it reads like Jeb was for “welfare to gold-digger.” Surely not what he meant, but it’s not very romantic, either.