Obama sees another historic night

>>> joins me now. the country is changing and the political party , the republicans at least, have not.

>> i've been for the last year or so been going around the country and talking about the need for big ideas , bold ideas, we've always been at our best when we have that and what i do is turn the conversation to what goes on in silicon valley . we're transformed by the technology that comes out of it. we're in awe with it. i never see you without that in your hand. we used it last night. the mantra in silicon valley is be disruptive. change convention, challenge it. do things in a new way to adapt to the new world. and while we're all in awe of that and use it and spend money on it, when it comes to the other parts of our life, we're playing by the old rules and the republican party and this campaign especially was playing by the old rules. they got trapped in the primary season if which week after week it was this reality show of horror of proportions in which they would beat up on each other and move the party farther to the right. they have a big reclamation job in front of them and we'll see how that comes out. at the same time the president, who sometimes is the luckiest candidate in the world when he runs, but he had a brilliant staff putting together this campaign for him, i just came from a group of kind of high-powered businessmen, and they're wondering will he change? will he seize the reigns of leadership and be as good as a politician and political leader as he is as a campaigner.

>> we've seen second term presidents really seize the reigns and try to perform in that way and think about their legacy and he did tell the " des moines register " he's thinking about immigration as a top priority because everything was so calculated in their approach. ands he specially their approach to congress. it's remarkable how alienated senior democrats, democratic senior chairmen felt from the white house .

>> in part because he was not a creature of washington. spent little time in the senate. he's a very reserved person as we know, more insular than he appears to be when you see him in public. he didn't have a big ramp up time. he didn't get to the white house through the senate and the kind of, you know, putting your arm around the guy across the aisle and twisting the arm and having a drink at the end of the day . he's a post-modern president as well as running a post-modern campaign. but now to get things done in washington, as you know, be you've got to step up and you got to spend some of the political capital that he now has. that's always that's the test of a leader. are they willing to pend the currency or just going to play it safe? a lot of people are talking to him about what he needs to do. he's reaching out to folks, asking them for their advice so we'll see.

>> business community you speak to people here in new york today again. they're very suspicious and very angry.

>> yeah. i don't have a lot of sympathy for them. the fact is that they have done pretty well in the last four years all things concerned and the big banks bailed out and didn't spend the money anywhere else in the country. i think new york does distort your view a little bit given the amount of money available around here and what their expectations are about what they're owed. there's a lot of that. i just came back from the great plains. i was out pleasant hunting in south dakota and spent time in montana and iowa and nebraska, minnesota, business is booming. people are doing well. agriculture is gone to a whole different level.

>> and natural gas .

>> and natural gas coming out of the shale in north dakota . that's a big piece of it, obviously. but the small cities like sioux falls and ames, iowa, it's kind of throbbing with promise and possibilities. because they didn't do anything dumb in the downturn and they have a sense of proportion. they're not overreaching constantly for whatever the next brass ring is.

>> important lessons.

>> right.

>> thank you so much. lessons from the prairie and the great plains.

>> right.

>> tom brokaw .