And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN, the Axviles, with your

host, David Axelrod.

Carl Holtz is the Chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, long time congressional

correspondent, as knowledgeable about the process on Capitol Hill and the personalities on Capitol

Hill as anyone in American journalism, and in Illinois and by birth, which makes him a

special person to me.

But we had a great conversation about the election and what we can expect after the election

from Washington.

Carl Holtz, I have to tell you, I had an eye exam this morning.

My eyes were dilated, so I'm going without notes.

But I don't need notes to say why I admire you so much.

One is you're an Illinois guy, and the other is you're an honest to God newspaper man.

Do we extend a wretch?

Exactly.

But let's talk about growing up in Illinois.

You're sitting here with your Cubs hat on, and we're going to talk about that in a second.

Tell me about growing up in Ottawa, Illinois.

All right, so I grew up in Ottawa, which is about 90 miles.

You guys would call it Southwest of here.

We'd call it West.

It's not really downstate to us.

So small town, about 15,000.

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