Latest / The SEANC View / EMPAC Passes on Incumbent Races — Inside the Decision

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EMPAC Passes on Incumbent Races — Inside the Decision · The SEANC View

• 0:09
  Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
• 0:13
  I'm Jonathan Owens, along with Suzanne Beasley and Flint Benson from our staff.
• 0:19
  And Junior Hewlin, statewide impact chairman, is here, too. And we're going
• 0:24
  to talk a lot of election talk today because the election is almost a month
• 0:28
  away, right? Five weeks away. Five weeks. Kind of snuck up on us, huh?
• 0:33
  Well, podcast-wise, I'm sure you guys are working hard at it.
• 0:36
  But election day is November 3rd, correct?
• 0:40
  And it is what's termed a midterm election. But for the legislature,
• 0:45
  it's just another election, right? It's just another two-year election.
• 0:49
  Yeah, well, they always figure they have an easier time when it's not a presidential
• 0:53
  election. But this year may be the exception of that noble rule.
• 0:58
  We'll get into all those dynamics. But first, I want to talk a little bit about
• 1:02
  the structure of impact.
• 1:03
  And I'm going to turn it over to you, Suzanne, to kind of guide us through that.
• 1:06
  Yeah, I was talking with Mr. Houlin before we started the podcast just about
• 1:11
  the structure of impact. So if you would explain that to us,
• 1:14
  impact is the Employees Political Action Committee.
• 1:18
  It's the political arm of SCENIC. So, Mr. Houlin, you want to explain how?
• 1:23
  With Impact, it is member-driven, and each member that's a state employee,
• 1:28
  that's a scenic member, can do a contribution toward Impact to help our political.
• 1:34
  Completely voluntary. Yeah, completely volunteer. With Impact,
• 1:38
  you have an Impact district chair, you have Impact at-large chairs,
• 1:43
  and then you have an area chair.
• 1:45
  The area chair is listed on the state committee. Our political strategist helps
• 1:50
  us out, so that way we're navigating with what's going in the politics.
• 1:54
  They keep everything, let us know what's going on because it's kind of hard to,
• 1:59
  Because you got the state of North Carolina to cover. Then you have the vice
• 2:04
  chair, that's Mr. Walton Jones. You have me as chair, Junior Hewlin.
• 2:08
  And then we have our past chair, Mark Dierman. So basically,
• 2:11
  it's the district chairs.
• 2:13
  There's a chair at each district. And then the areas make up a group of districts.
• 2:19
  And they send that area chair to the statewide meetings or, you know,
• 2:24
  whatever decisions have to be made.
• 2:26
  They get to vote for that area of districts. And I think it's important to remember
• 2:31
  for those that are just on the district level, if you're just involved in the
• 2:35
  districts at this point, each district has the district chair, the area.
• 2:40
  The district impact chair, and two at-large members. So you've got four people
• 2:45
  from each district that goes to the area.
• 2:48
  So if you've got three districts in that area, then that's 12 people on there.
• 2:51
  So that's the way to get started.
• 2:53
  You may not be able to be a district impact chair, but a lot of times we are
• 2:57
  looking for people to take those at-large positions within the district.
• 3:00
  And we're always looking for participation just from district members because.
• 3:05
  That's key to having the boots on the ground.
• 3:07
  And I think it's really important to stress here, though, that all of these
• 3:10
  decisions and participation is not staff-driven.
• 3:14
  These are members who... It's member-driven. Primary duty is endorsements, right?
• 3:19
  Correct. So can you tell me how an endorsement comes about?
• 3:22
  We sit down, send out invitations to both candidates, or all three if you have
• 3:27
  three people running, Democrat, Republican, and Independent.
• 3:31
  We do interviews with them. Normally what we try to do is have at least the
• 3:35
  area chairperson there. I try to attend also for the interview.
• 3:39
  And then we have multiple scenic members that are impact contributors there during the interview.
• 3:45
  We ask them the questions. And my district in Fayetteville did it where each
• 3:50
  person got to ask a question.
• 3:52
  That way, everybody has participation. We go ahead and do all three sets of
• 3:56
  interviews, and then we'll sit down and send it up to state level.
• 3:59
  That's where the area chairs get together. That's when we sit down and choose
• 4:03
  who we're going to endorse. After we've chose who we're going to endorse,
• 4:06
  we notify that candidate that we're going to endorse them and try to do everything we can do.
• 4:12
  We do the boots on the ground, as in helping with campaign signs,
• 4:16
  call booths, door-to-door knockers, anything that candidate needs assistance with.
• 4:23
  We help them financially and physically to get them elected.
• 4:27
  The questions, just side note here, are the same for all candidates.
• 4:31
  So there are no, you know, there's no slipping in a question here or there.
• 4:35
  They all get to answer the very same questions across the state. So basically...
• 4:40
  Area invites candidates to interview, candidates interview, the area makes the
• 4:45
  decision, sends it up to the state level.
• 4:47
  And state confirms that everything has been done in a proper order,
• 4:51
  and then the endorsements are now. All done by members. And now we don't have
• 4:55
  any statewide races this year, but if we did, that would be handled at the state level?
• 5:01
  Yes, the state impact generally interviews, sometimes via Zoom, sometimes in person.
• 5:06
  But state impact committee, they interview those candidates and they make the decision.
• 5:12
  So I think it's important, you know, we always try to point out that everything we do is nonpartisan.
• 5:18
  And I think that you guys pointed it out with, you know, everyone gets a chance.
• 5:22
  Every candidate gets an opportunity to respond to our questions.
• 5:26
  Is it frequent that both sides answer a questionnaire or how does that usually play out?
• 5:33
  Yes. We tell them at the beginning of the interview, we don't care if you're
• 5:37
  a Democrat-Republican. We care that you care about state employees.
• 5:41
  That's our main goal. It's about the issues. It's about the issues for state
• 5:45
  employees and state employees only.
• 5:47
  Our questions are always going to be about raises for state employees,
• 5:51
  about COLAs for retirees, and state health plan.
• 5:58
  Those are our main focus, and that's what we're going to ask about.
• 6:00
  We're not asking about social issues. We're not asking about local issues.
• 6:04
  We're asking about the big three, state employees, retirees, and state health plan.
• 6:09
  Let's get into this election specifically. Can you guys kind of just give me
• 6:13
  a rundown of what we did this time and why we did it?
• 6:16
  All right. This year, we chose not to endorse any incumbents in any races.
• 6:22
  We just looked at brand new candidates versus a brand new candidate.
• 6:26
  And the reason why we did that is because state employees said that today's
• 6:31
  candidates weren't doing anything for state employees.
• 6:34
  It was nice that we got a raise, but inflation's higher. We need a higher raise.
• 6:39
  Yeah, everybody's kind of frustrated. Yeah. And we listened to our membership.
• 6:43
  It was all over social media about you shouldn't be giving money to any of them.
• 6:47
  You shouldn't be endorsing any of them. And State Impact really took that into consideration.
• 6:52
  And they said, well, let's just look at the open races then.
• 6:55
  If the race has an incumbent, we'll just stay out of it this time.
• 6:58
  We just had our convention just a few weeks ago.
• 7:01
  And when Mr. Huland gave his report to the delegates, and that's a big deal,
• 7:05
  y'all. There's about 600 people in the room. There was rousing applause when
• 7:09
  you said we're not endorsing any incumbents. So I thought that really spoke
• 7:14
  loudly to where folks are right now.
• 7:16
  Because it being state employee driven, we listen to our state employees.
• 7:21
  Right. So and in particular, retirees are pretty upset, right?
• 7:25
  Yeah. I mean, they haven't had a COLA in years, you know, which it looks like
• 7:30
  we're moving in the right direction.
• 7:32
  Treasurer Briner's work is paying off. But, you know, that's a hard blow.
• 7:36
  And, you know, the one-time bonus is not the same as a COLA.
• 7:39
  So they're very interested in where we're going. As a retiree as myself,
• 7:43
  the one that 2.5 for two years wasn't great needed to be better.
• 7:49
  But we chose to endorse two new candidates, Charles Taylor out of District 51 and Mr.
• 7:57
  M. Batutis out of District 63. Okay. So you mentioned boots on the ground.
• 8:03
  What will you be doing for those two candidates as elections comes?
• 8:08
  The area chairs and the district personnel will be getting with that candidate
• 8:13
  and helping them put campaign signs out,
• 8:16
  polling sites, being volunteers at the polling sites of the early voting and the election day.
• 8:24
  That way we're getting the word out. These are the individuals that we endorse.
• 8:28
  These are the ones that we have talked to that are looking out for state employees.
• 8:34
  And I think this is a perfect time to say the staff is completely out of these
• 8:39
  decisions because I was at convention and all of a sudden
• 8:44
  Charles Taylor walks up to me and is like, hey, I didn't know you were in this organization.
• 8:49
  I was like, yeah, I've been in here 15 years.
• 8:51
  So Charles and I, I worked with him a lot as a reporter in Sanford and he is
• 8:57
  a city councilman in Sanford.
• 8:59
  So we had kind of a relationship, you know, I mean, but I had no idea that Scenic
• 9:03
  or Impact were, you know, even involved in that race.
• 9:07
  So obviously I'd had nothing to do with him being picked.
• 9:11
  I think Charles is a good guy. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with him.
• 9:14
  I did vote for him in the primary outside of Impact's endorsement.
• 9:18
  Full disclosure. Yeah. Full disclosure.
• 9:21
  I could tell you were surprised that day, John.
• 9:24
  He's like, what are you doing here? And I was like, what are you doing? What are you doing here?
• 9:27
  But, Suzanne, you can attest to that too, right? I mean, we don't have our thumb on the scales.
• 9:32
  Yeah, at all. As a matter of fact, it's pretty interesting to be a staff member
• 9:36
  and watch this whole process play out.
• 9:39
  Now, occasionally you guys do ask for our input on specific lawmakers,
• 9:44
  and we're happy to provide that just as information for you guys to use while
• 9:49
  you're making your considerations for endorsements.
• 9:52
  But when you're looking at new candidates, staff really doesn't have anything.
• 9:56
  Anything to tell you about it.
• 9:57
  If it was incumbents, we could say, yeah, they stood up in committee and said
• 10:01
  such and such, or they voted such and such.
• 10:03
  But with all new candidates, you really didn't have any staff input.
• 10:07
  No, it wasn't staff input. It was actually boots on the ground individuals who
• 10:11
  lived in that area that conducted the interview that actually knew him.
• 10:16
  For an example, Mr. Walton Jones, who's my vice chair, actually knows Mr. Batutis.
• 10:22
  And knows that he was their mayor at one time on the city council.
• 10:28
  He was the one who was able to give us information, and that's what we need.
• 10:32
  Individuals that are there, that they are boots on the ground,
• 10:36
  that's our state employees.
• 10:38
  That's their choice, and in that way, they can sit down and help us decide at
• 10:43
  the area level who we endorse and who we don't endorse. Shout out to Mr. Walton Jones, man.
• 10:49
  And he is he is a key member of the state impact committee.
• 10:53
  Yes, he has and has been for decades.
• 10:55
  Charles Taylor is a Republican and Mr. Baltutis is a Democrat.
• 11:00
  So that obviously shows that we're nonpartisan, right? We're 50-50 this year.
• 11:04
  50-50. Right down the line.
• 11:06
  Which generally, even in big elections, that's pretty much where impact ends
• 11:10
  up landing after you guys make your decisions.
• 11:12
  It's pretty much down the middle. So, you know, there is absolutely no way for
• 11:16
  anyone to call us partisan. You know, opportunity is there for every single candidate.
• 11:21
  Each candidate has the same opportunity. That's right. Whether they choose to
• 11:25
  accept that or, you know, some, I'm not going to go to another interview,
• 11:30
  interviewed with this group or that group.
• 11:31
  Right. But that's totally on them. But it's hard for them to get considered,
• 11:35
  especially as a new candidate, if they're not going to interview. Yeah. Yeah.
• 11:39
  And we're like beforehand, like I said, beforehand, we're happy to see them
• 11:43
  because that way with being a new candidate, never been in,
• 11:48
  politics at the House or the Senate, you get to see who state employees are
• 11:53
  and what we bring to the table. Because state employees are.
• 11:56
  Well, I know specifically in like in Sanford, we don't have a lot of state employees.
• 12:01
  We don't have we have a prison.
• 12:02
  We have teachers and schools. But so it's good to get our issues in front of
• 12:08
  someone that maybe doesn't have a lot of familiarity with state employees and things.
• 12:13
  And that is important. But quite frankly, we have some incumbents who are not,
• 12:19
  you know, really well educated on.
• 12:21
  There's so much to being a state employee.
• 12:23
  You know, it's impossible for one person who doesn't do state employees every
• 12:29
  single day of their life to keep up with all of the things, which makes scenic a resource. yeah um.
• 12:35
  It's amazing every year when we start the new session and have new legislators,
• 12:39
  there'll be somebody that will always say, well, I didn't realize correctional
• 12:43
  officers were state employees. I thought they were all county employees.
• 12:46
  Yeah. So the lobbying team has a lot of education to do when we come into school.
• 12:50
  Yes. January is our education month.
• 12:52
  Or even like UNC employees. People don't think they're state employees. Yeah.
• 12:57
  It's a huge, huge swath of people. The umbrella covers a lot of people. Yeah.
• 13:02
  And just another little shout out to DOT down at the Outer Banks that Nor'easter
• 13:08
  came through and caused quite a bit of damage. And I know our DOT folks,
• 13:11
  especially the ferry folks. Shout out to the.
• 13:14
  Yeah. And see, another thing, I'm not sure people realize those ferry folks
• 13:18
  are. Yeah. A whole lot of them never know that.
• 13:20
  Let's get into a little bit of prognostication. I have Flint here.
• 13:25
  Maybe I can ask him some questions while he's here, right? So what's going to
• 13:28
  happen, Flint? Well, we have five weeks, so a lot can change.
• 13:33
  You've got some key races to look at to see how big a night the Democratic Party is going to have.
• 13:39
  Now, you hear some people talking about there's going to be a blue wave.
• 13:42
  Generally, when we start talking about there's going to be a blue wave,
• 13:45
  it usually becomes a blue trickle in North Carolina.
• 13:49
  This time, you could be looking at a blue wave becoming a blue tsunami if you just go by polling.
• 13:56
  The biggest thing I think, and I think Charlie Cook with the Cook Political
• 14:00
  Report, I think he summed it up best the other day, when he said it's not so
• 14:03
  much a blue wave that's coming, it's a red undertow that's coming.
• 14:08
  There is an undertow that's coming in that may sweep out some very good incumbent
• 14:13
  legislators on the Republican side that those are races you need to watch.
• 14:19
  And any of these, I'm not saying this is going to happen, but I'm just saying
• 14:22
  these are key races to watch now.
• 14:25
  In North Carolina in the House, I would say District 62, 63,
• 14:29
  and 64 are going to be the key ones to watch.
• 14:33
  If the Democrats were to win those
• 14:35
  three races, it's going to be a big Democratic night. Where are those?
• 14:41
  Most all of them are in the Greensboro area. You've got District 62 where John
• 14:46
  Blust is the incumbent, his Democratic opponent.
• 14:49
  Even the party has disavowed her because of some Facebook posts she made years ago.
• 14:55
  But polling is showing that race is still close.
• 14:59
  So District 63, we talked about that earlier with Ian Baltutis.
• 15:05
  If he was to win that, and then District 64, where the incumbent is Representative
• 15:10
  Dennis Rydell, if he was to lose, if the Democrats would win two out of those
• 15:14
  three, I think you're looking at a big Democratic night.
• 15:18
  Because those three are really drawn to elect Republicans.
• 15:22
  Yeah. And if they break through in there, and District 20 down in Wilmington,
• 15:27
  that would be a big one, too.
• 15:28
  There's no incumbent in that race, but it's drawn for a Republican,
• 15:32
  but it's like an R plus four.
• 15:34
  If that one was to go Democrat, you could be looking at a big night.
• 15:39
  On the Senate side— We've already had an earthquake on the Senate side, right?
• 15:42
  Sure have. Yeah, well, in the primary. But, again, if you were to look at,
• 15:46
  say, Senate District 1 where Senator Hennig.
• 15:50
  Resigned and was just replaced by Judge Tillett down there, if that one was
• 15:54
  to go to Democratic or the Buck Newton race in the Rocky Mount area,
• 15:58
  Wilson area, I think Senator Newton is safe.
• 16:02
  But if either one of those two were to go Democrats, you're looking at a big Democratic year.
• 16:08
  But, again, we have five weeks, folks. Just here locally, we're.
• 16:12
  You've got two big races in the house. District 37 represented Paré and her opponent, Winn Decker.
• 16:19
  That one's getting heated. That one's getting very heated.
• 16:21
  Yeah. And they're both on the same side of the Wake Med atrium issue.
• 16:26
  Yeah. They both are opposed to it. It's crazy.
• 16:29
  Just an aside, that so many people are opposed to Bennett Steel Pack.
• 16:33
  And now, interesting, District 35 represented Mike Sheetzel and Eva Hopkins,
• 16:41
  his opponent from two years ago. That was one of the closest races.
• 16:44
  And the Democrat National Committee has even committed money to that race.
• 16:49
  But Sheet-Selt is a very hard worker going door to door.
• 16:54
  And he has come out against the Wake Med atrium and she has come out for it.
• 17:00
  He's the most vulnerable Republican in the House. But will that Wake Med atrium
• 17:05
  issue make a difference there?
• 17:07
  And he's been very supportive of, like our tweets and things on.
• 17:12
  You know, we put out information. He's always shared.
• 17:15
  Yes. Interesting. He's a scenic member himself. Okay. Yeah. I know Junior remembers
• 17:20
  that because Junior signed him up.
• 17:23
  It's hard to get away from Junior. It is. Not only has he stayed impact chair,
• 17:27
  but he's a super recruiter.
• 17:30
  He recruited Jeff Jackson at our convention. Yeah.
• 17:34
  But it seems like all of the energy is coming from the national race, right?
• 17:38
  And you think it'll trickle down all the way to the House and Senate in the
• 17:41
  North? I think that's possible.
• 17:44
  Like I said, on the national level, you are looking at that red undertow.
• 17:48
  Yeah. The Trump brand of republicanism is not the same thing it was even six months ago.
• 17:54
  I went to an event back in January. About every third sentence was our great
• 17:58
  president, Donald Trump. That same group had an event the other night that I went to.
• 18:02
  And no one during two and a half hours ever mentioned the words President Trump.
• 18:08
  Wow. Interesting. So that tells me right there that it's more than just leaking down from national.
• 18:15
  It's about to bust a dike, I believe. I don't like when the national focus drives
• 18:21
  local, because local elections are so important. Yeah, and it's your backyard. Yeah.
• 18:27
  Well, something I think people fail to realize, most voters anyway,
• 18:32
  is the closer that elected office is to you, the more important it is.
• 18:38
  That's true, yeah. You think president's important, but actually your school
• 18:42
  board member and your county commissioner has a lot more direct effect on your
• 18:47
  life than the president ever will.
• 18:49
  That's true. I mean, outside of— Outside of national security.
• 18:52
  Yeah, outside of, like, being invaded or the economy exploding, like, yeah.
• 18:58
  Your local folks, your city council, your representative at the legislature
• 19:05
  is far more important in your day-to-day life, it seems.
• 19:09
  We've got some great members who are active in their district level politically,
• 19:14
  and this is probably a good time to remind y'all that, you know, step on in there.
• 19:19
  Yeah. Run for school board, run for county commissioner. We have several city
• 19:24
  council members that happen to be scenic members. Yeah. And stuff that we work
• 19:29
  with and find out trying to aspire into legislators' positions specifically.
• 19:34
  Because that way you have state employees that are actually aspiring to be legislators
• 19:38
  to help state employees.
• 19:39
  So just to clean up our election talk a little bit, there's no real chance that
• 19:44
  the majorities will swing the right.
• 19:48
  I don't think you'll see it swing in the NC Senate. Okay.
• 19:52
  If I was having to make a prediction right now, I would say that that will be
• 19:57
  27, 28 Republicans in the House.
• 20:02
  With a big enough blue tsunami and a red undertow, the Democrats could take
• 20:07
  the House, but I'm not betting on it.
• 20:09
  I would say that the Democrats will probably, they would need 61 for a majority.
• 20:14
  I think they'll probably come up short and be about 57, 58 at the very best.
• 20:18
  That changes y'all's job at the legislature, even if it's closer, right?
• 20:23
  It does. It comes close. And, you know, we have conversations with current lawmakers
• 20:28
  who, you know, they're friendly to our issues. But when you have a supermajority,
• 20:33
  regardless of what party is in charge, it makes it very difficult.
• 20:38
  To move things, you know, because there's no wiggle room.
• 20:42
  There's so many legislators who never see the budget before we do.
• 20:45
  Yeah. Yeah. If they're not in the corner offices, as everybody says,
• 20:50
  if they're on the back row, they're new, no matter if they're in the supermajority
• 20:54
  party or not, they may not see it until we do.
• 20:58
  And a lot of times we have, I can't tell you the number of times,
• 21:03
  Suzanne and I have had legislators come to us that's in the supermajority that
• 21:07
  would say, have y'all heard anything? Y'all hear it before I do.
• 21:11
  Well, you know, Representative Donna White, we had her on here.
• 21:13
  It's been a while back. But she
• 21:15
  always said, you know, if you want to know anything, go ask the lobbyist.
• 21:19
  Well, that's the way it should be, right? We got the offices bugged over there. No.
• 21:25
  That is not true. No, but I'm always happy if there's a hot mic. Yeah.
• 21:30
  Is it better or worse to have a— Oh, definitely better because you've got the
• 21:36
  opportunity to consider both sides of any issue and the opportunity to get it your way.
• 21:44
  And it makes every legislator that much more important, right?
• 21:48
  Yeah, it does. Yeah. It does. You hope there'll be a lot more bipartisan working
• 21:52
  together. Yes. With a closer House and a closer Senate. And it kind of forces them to do that. Yeah.
• 21:57
  You know. And is that when we get things done as opposed to?
• 22:01
  Yeah. Well, I guess. I mean, we still, because we've got a lot of friends.
• 22:05
  Yeah. I mean, you know, Flint and I have been around a long time.
• 22:08
  And even though there are new, lots of new lawmakers that we still have to work
• 22:12
  on getting to know from the get-go every session, you know, we still have certain
• 22:16
  people that we depend on that know us and that they respect scenic.
• 22:19
  So we still managed to walk out of there with, you know, something for our folks.
• 22:24
  Most lobbyists in the building, I tell you, they wish no incumbent would ever
• 22:27
  lose or ever retire because you know them.
• 22:32
  Good or bad, right? But if you got some wiggle room on making policy,
• 22:36
  you know, that's always better.
• 22:38
  Working across the aisle. And I think that just comes out at the end of the
• 22:41
  day with better law. And we haven't even started thinking about 2028 yet, right? I have, but...
• 22:48
  And the effect they can have on 2030, actually. Oh, wow.
• 22:51
  You already... Oh, and 2030 is important because of... Very important.
• 22:55
  Very important. Did we mention that Flint's our political strategy? Oh.
• 23:00
  It has no life. But I can always count on when I call.
• 23:04
  Well, speaking of 2028, Chairman Hewlin will be in office till then because
• 23:09
  he did win this re-election. So congratulations on that. Thank you.
• 23:13
  So anything else we need to talk about?
• 23:15
  Check to make sure you're registered to vote. That's the main thing.
• 23:19
  Yeah, that deadline's coming quickly. Yeah, that's actually three more days, I think it is. Okay.
• 23:25
  Double check to make sure you can vote. And if you're a state employee and a
• 23:29
  Senate member, we're happy to have you contribute to impact.
• 23:33
  And we'll have a voter site on our website, you know, with all the links and
• 23:39
  stuff for you to get your poll in place and things like that.
• 23:43
  It'll be vote.scenic.org. We'll have all the things we can find.
• 23:48
  So the registration deadline is October the 9th and early voting starts October 15th.
• 23:53
  Okay. And I'd like to thank you, John, for putting that up there so that the
• 23:57
  Scenic members have an opportunity to see where to go to vote at.
• 24:01
  Because they changed a lot of the polling sites and you'll have that information.
• 24:06
  Make your plan to vote. Go to vote.scenic.org. We'll have all that information laid out for you.
• 24:11
  And definitely go vote, even if it's not a presidential election.
• 24:15
  It's important, like we said.
• 24:17
  So question of the week, who was the first candidate you remember voting for?
• 24:21
  I was not actually voting, but I have an answer to this. My mom let me go into
• 24:26
  the ballot box with her and I voted for George H.W. Bush.
• 24:32
  Well, she voted But I was there That's the first time I remember interacting
• 24:36
  With the ballot box And the vote And I think that was Clinton versus Bush So we lost,
• 24:43
  I'm glad we lost But anyway Sorry, Mom Today's my mom's birthday By the way,
• 24:49
  Happy birthday, Mom Happy birthday Okay Anyone What do you remember, Junior?
• 24:55
  Ronald Reagan Okay I'm about to tell Hold down The 1980 or...
• 25:03
  Actually, yeah, it was around about that time. Okay.
• 25:07
  Well, yeah, it was, yeah, around about that time. I remember voting for him.
• 25:12
  Okay. So, yeah, I'm about to tell him old-time dad. I didn't realize I old-time.
• 25:18
  What about you, Flint? It was the first campaign that I helped work on,
• 25:21
  1978, for the U.S. Senate primary. I voted for McNeil Smith,
• 25:27
  who nobody knows who I'm talking about when I say that. Was that against Helms?
• 25:31
  He lost the primary and a runoff to John Ingram, the insurance commissioner,
• 25:35
  and then John Ingram lost to Jesse Helms.
• 25:38
  Okay. And a lot of times when I'm doing talks about what changes in politics,
• 25:44
  the biggest change in politics was probably 1978 in the Helms Senate race.
• 25:49
  Oh, really? Yeah. Well, who was?
• 25:52
  John Ingram was his opponent, but the big thing was up until then,
• 25:55
  everybody thought that you had to go to every county and campaign everywhere.
• 26:00
  But Jesse Helms was actually out with back surgery for about six to eight weeks,
• 26:06
  and that was when TV ads and radio ads became the new norm in politics and quit,
• 26:13
  going to every parade and shaking hands with everybody.
• 26:15
  So that was a big breakthrough in 1978.
• 26:18
  He's an interesting character on many, many different levels,
• 26:22
  but he had a TV career before he was a— Yes, he was a commentator.
• 26:27
  Maybe he understood that.
• 26:29
  And he had almost a photographic memory. Really? I don't think most people realize that.
• 26:35
  Oh. Like Dean Smith, huh? Yeah. Interesting. What about you, Suzanne? Clinton.
• 26:40
  Clinton? Yeah. Oh, you probably canceled out my vote. Yeah, well, clearly.
• 26:48
  So I didn't really get real politically involved until I came to work for CNIC 25 years ago.
• 26:54
  Yeah. But yeah, I can remember my dad.
• 26:57
  I went with my dad to vote. Thank you.
• 27:00
  So the first presidential election I voted in was 2,000, and.
• 27:07
  That was like traumatic, just how it happened.
• 27:11
  It's really the first time you think, man, my vote really did count because
• 27:14
  that race came down to like 400 people, not in North Carolina.
• 27:18
  My first experience was in third grade being the campaign manager for my classroom
• 27:24
  for Jim Gardner, who was running against Bob Scott for governor in 1968.
• 27:29
  Oh, who won that one? Well, Jim Gardner won my classroom, but he didn't win North Carolina.
• 27:33
  Yeah, but he wound up being governor eventually, right? Jim Gardner wound up
• 27:37
  being lieutenant governor. I worked in that campaign in 1988,
• 27:40
  and I used to joke with him that you should have hired me 20 years ago. Third grade.
• 27:45
  Yeah, third grade. Flint's been out in a minute.
• 27:48
  So we can sit here and talk about politics all until for five weeks,
• 27:53
  but maybe we should just leave it there. And we'll have you back on maybe a
• 27:57
  few times before the election just for an update.
• 28:00
  And definitely after. Yeah, definitely after. So vote.scenic.org.
• 28:05
  Check it out. And we will have all the information you need there.
• 28:08
  Please make a plan to vote and make your voices heard. Thank you.