Special: Webcast Extra: Why Americans Hate Politics; Immigration Politics

GWEN IFILL: Hello, I'm Gwen Ifill. Welcome to the “Washington Week” Webcast Extra.

Joining me around the table, Hannah Allam of McClatchy Newspapers, Alexis Simendinger of RealClearPolitics, Greg Ip of The Economist and Dan Balz of The Washington Post.

First to Dan, who wrote an interesting piece this week about Texas Governor Rick Perry's aspirations for 2016. The question he posed: Is there really a new Rick Perry? The answer?

DAN BALZ: Well, there's a little bit a new Rick Perry. He's -- he learned a lot from that terrible run in 2012. One of the things he told me at the time was you can't get in late like I did; he's starting very early. He's doing briefings on foreign policy and domestic policy. He's got -- he projects more confidence and more comfort on the trail. He happens to have gotten himself indicted, two counts, which --

MS. IFILL: Which, you know, in a weird way may not completely hurt.

MR. BALZ: It may or may not. We don't know the answer to that. So far it's helped him. I mean, he's played it very well.

I think the big question that a lot of people have who have watched him for a long time is, how will he still stand up in those tough moments in a presidential campaign? I mean, what he's doing now is not that difficult. He's very good at retail politics. He's shown that off in Iowa this summer in New Hampshire. He was in South Carolina this week.

But the question is, when he gets into those debates, when he gets into the heat of the campaign, does he really know his brief? Can he project the same kind of confidence he does now? And I think that until we actually get into, you know, get out exhibition season we don't know the answer to that.

MS. IFILL: I want to ask you about another thing that you wrote about, which is why Americans hate politics, which I believe was the title of a book. Was that --

MR. BALZ: E.J. Dionne.

MS. IFILL: -- E.J. Dionne. (Chuckles.)

MR. BALZ: Right.

MS. IFILL: But the answer to the question is, what? Is it that money drives negativity drives disaffection? What is it?

MR. BALZ : Well, I think it's a combination of things. I think first of all it's this perception that, a, Washington just doesn't work, that it's, you know, this partisan gridlock isn't working. The second is that, to the degree that it works, it works for somebody other than, you know, everyday people, that it works for Wall Street or big corporations or people with special interests or people who have lobbyists.

And then people look at the way campaigns are run and they see enormous amounts of money going into these campaigns. They see billionaires on the right and the left now creating super PACs and putting a lot of money into campaigns to influence the outcome.

They look at television ads which are heavily negative and which seem to deal them out. And I think a lot of people just feel as though this -- I'm somewhere outside this system, and I think it makes them angry and it makes them disdainful.

MS. IFILL: Alexis, I wanted to pick up on that because you alluded during the regular broadcast to this immigration debate which is going on, and the debate seems to be Democrats saying, Mr. President, don't do anything and Republicans saying, Mr. President, do something so we can make it an issue. I don't know which it is, but is that about to explode?

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: Well, there's no question that the concept of the president using his own authority, administrative authority to provide deportation relief or whatever it is that the president ends up deciding to do is part and parcel of our political warfare right now.

The advocacy groups on the left are very nervous that the president is not going to what they call go bold, be bold and they're trying to persuade the White House to think about the benefits, the Latino reward electorally, especially heading to 2016.

Republicans are already suing, preparing to sue the president of the United States, House Republicans, and have already spent, expended money to do that and so they want to do that. And they're just rubbing their hands together, go, go, go.

And then, of course, the candidates themselves, Democratic candidates, seem to be less sure that the president is on firm footing to help them. And that has to do with the states they're running in. So you could argue that maybe Colorado, a Senate race in Colorado may be the only race, a red state, where there's a clear benefit in a midterm year.

So it really is fraught. And I noted myself the president seemed to put a lot less brio into his response about what he's going to do.

MS. IFILL: Everyone's searching for a way through that particular one.

I want to turn to you, Hannah, because you know, it's interesting, for the past several weeks we've been waiting for something to happen along the Middle East -- I mean, the Israeli-Gaza border and something actually happened. After seven weeks --

HANNAH ALLAM: That's right.

MS. IFILL: -- of rockets falling and missiles falling, we finally have a ceasefire that appears to be holding. What was different this time?

MS. ALLAM: That's right. Well, one tries not to be too cynical. So yes, good news, hostilities --

MS. IFILL: Or too optimistic.

MS. ALLAM: Too optimistic, right. So yes, hostilities have stopped for now. But what's different? I don't know that there is much different. I mean, now, the Egyptians were very eager to come back in and reclaim this role as broker that they hadn't really played and had been sort of, you know, feeling a bit isolated since the ouster of the democratically elected president, Morsi, and so they were able to step in and act as mediator here.

But again, the underlying issues to the conflict, they're all still there, there's no Band-Aid fix for those. And so --

MS. IFILL: And maybe their war of attrition was just heading nowhere.

MS. ALLAM: Right. And so, you know, the blockade of Gaza, the settlement, the tunnels from Hamas, I mean, all of these things are still in the mix and, you know, are still obstacles to any kind of real, enduring settlement.

MS. IFILL: And finally, Greg, all the smart people were in Jackson Hole, Wyoming this week -- (laughter) -- including you --

GREG IP: (Chuckles.) As well as me.

MS. IFILL: No envy here, but why? Why? What's going on there? What is that every year?

MR. IP: Well, I guess you could call it Davos for central bankers or maybe Woodstock for central bankers. (Laughter.) But instead of strumming ukuleles, they're out there talking about their dynamics to casting general equilibrium models.

However, abstruse though it sounds, this actually does matter because the topic this year was labor markets, and certainly the state of the labor market in the United States will be the number one criterion that determines when the Federal Reserve finally begins to raise interest rates.

We had a very interesting speech from Janet Yellen. Now, Yellen and her colleagues have been trying to figure out what's going on in the labor market. We know the unemployment rate's fallen a lot so that suggests that things are getting better. Well, we also know wages are barely growing so that's just they're actually not getting much better. What's the truth?

And she didn't really come down one side or the other, but she seemed to give more weight to the possibility of things really are getting better and, therefore, they do need to start thinking about raising interest rates in the next six to 12 months.

Now, there was another speech which a lot of Americans may not have paid attention to, but they should have, and that was from Mario Draghi who is the president of the European Central Bank, basically Janet Yellen's equivalent in Europe. And he is very worried about the European economy and his speech strongly hinted that he will soon do something that the Fed has been doing for the last few years, which is to go out into the market, buy a whole lot of bonds and pay for them by printing money.

Now, if you're wondering why the stock market is doing very well over the last few weeks, it's because they're all saying, hey, even though the Fed's finished with their money printing and bond buying, we're about to get some of it from Europe. So that's why you should care about what the European Central Bank is about to do.

MS. IFILL: Quantitative easing. How do you say that in Italian or Swedish? (Laughter.) I don't know. Don't bother, it's OK.

Thank you. Thanks, everybody.

Stay online and read what else our panelists are reporting as well as my blog about surviving the 2014 midterms.

And we'll see you next week on the “Washington Week” Webcast Extra.