Latest / NO FILTER / Politicians _putting us all in jeopardy_ by staying in office too long_ Dem strategist(MP3_160K)

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Politicians _putting us all in jeopardy_ by staying in office too long_ Dem strategist(MP3_160K) · NO FILTER

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  Speaker 1: The generational change movement in the Democratic Party just launched
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: its most pointed challenge yet. A thirty five year old
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  Speaker 1: firefighter and former Jeopardy contestant, Harry Jaron, says he will
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: run for the seat currently held by eighty five year
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: old Steny Hoyer, so fifty years older and who would
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  Speaker 1: be eighty nine at the end of his next term.
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  Speaker 2: Here's the bottom line. You don't put out a fire
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  Speaker 2: by sending in the same people who let it spread.
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  Speaker 2: You send in a firefighter. So I'll ask you again,
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  Speaker 2: do you really think that Stenni Boyer, at eighty nine
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  Speaker 2: years old is the best person to represent us? Maryland
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  Speaker 2: deserves a new generation of leadership and I'm ready to
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  Speaker 2: take up a fight.
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  Speaker 1: That statement is essentially the mantra for young Democrats who
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  Speaker 1: believe the party is in troubled because the old guard
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  Speaker 1: keeps making the same bad decisions, and so they argue
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  Speaker 1: it's time for new blood. Kevin Madden back with us
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  Speaker 1: and joining me in studio. Julie Riginski, a Democratic strategist
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and author of the Sulti Politics new letter on sub
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: staff So Julie Harry Jaron points out in his website
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  Speaker 1: campaign website that he was born during Sennie Hoyer's fifth
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  Speaker 1: term in Congress. Hoyer hasn't said these running again, and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: members of Congress have served into their nineties. But could
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: this challenge push Senni Hoyer a little bit toward retirement,
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  Speaker 1: maybe push people to suggest he might want to think
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  Speaker 1: about retirement.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I don't know that Senny Horror wants to
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  Speaker 3: retire because I look at Jim Cliburn, who was in
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  Speaker 3: leadership with Senny Horror for a long time, who said,
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  Speaker 3: what do you want me to do? Give up my
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  Speaker 3: life if I don't run for Congress. Well, we're not
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  Speaker 3: here to make Jim Cliburn's life easier. We're here to
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  Speaker 3: make sure that we have a full compliment of Democratic
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  Speaker 3: congress people and senators who can vote against the Republican's
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  Speaker 3: bad policy IDs. And I'll give you an example. Since
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  Speaker 3: the start of this year, three Democratic members of Congress
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  Speaker 3: have died. And this horrible bill that Donald Trump and
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: the Republicans just passed, this budget bill passed by one vote.
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  Speaker 3: Had they been alive, this bill would not have pat
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: And I say that to say that we have to
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  Speaker 3: have a serious reckoning as Democrats about the fact that
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  Speaker 3: this is not a retirement community. We need to make
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  Speaker 3: sure that we have young, healthy people who are able
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  Speaker 3: to serve. And time comes for all of us. It's
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  Speaker 3: going to come for me, it's going to come for you,
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  Speaker 3: hopefully many many, many decades down the road. But these
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  Speaker 3: people are many dikeis down the road, and we need
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  Speaker 3: to make sure that they understand that it's not just
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  Speaker 3: their careers that they're harming. By sticking around too long,
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  Speaker 3: they're putting the lives of all of us in our
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  Speaker 3: future in jeopardy if something happens to them and they're
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  Speaker 3: not able to vote for against legislation, that's good for
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  Speaker 3: the country.
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  Speaker 1: So, Kevin, as you know, one of the most prominent
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  Speaker 1: Democrats calling for this generational change is the DNC vice chair,
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  Speaker 1: David Hogg. These are photos of the candidates his leaders.
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  Speaker 1: We Deserve organizations supported in the last election lots of
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  Speaker 1: young blood, but only four of the twelve won their races.
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  Speaker 1: Can you work against you? I mean, you're a comms guy.
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  Speaker 1: How do you frame the fight depending on what side
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  Speaker 1: you're on of age, youth, fresh blood versus experience.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, look, I think I largely agree with what
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  Speaker 4: Julie has laid out, you know, this is any time
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  Speaker 4: you have a youth movement like this, or especially when
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  Speaker 4: you have political parties which are essentially organizations around ideas,
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  Speaker 4: organizations around issues, having new fresh blood pushing on ideas
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  Speaker 4: and pushing on issues is ultimately a good thing. I
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  Speaker 4: think the hard part for the David Hoggs of the
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  Speaker 4: world and other young leaders inside the party is that, look,
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  Speaker 4: Stendy Hoyer is there for forty years for a reason.
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  Speaker 4: He knows every single inch of that district that he represents.
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  Speaker 4: He's spent the time working at VFW Hall's, you know,
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  Speaker 4: all the party picnics that take place, and as a result,
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  Speaker 4: he has a very strong base of support in the district.
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  Speaker 4: And it's not just about what you read or hear
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  Speaker 4: or what you're fighting about on social media. And I
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  Speaker 4: think that was one of the criticisms that you've seen
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  Speaker 4: this candidate lob against the party, which is that you know,
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  Speaker 4: they're not in touch with the young base, They're not
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  Speaker 4: in touch with the social media communications tools. It's a
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  Speaker 4: lot more than that. So if they're going to be successful,
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  Speaker 4: they're going to have to get really good at the
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  Speaker 4: grassroots and the organizing as well as how they communicate
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  Speaker 4: inside the party.
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  Speaker 1: We should say, Julie that David Hawk isn't exactly reinventing
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  Speaker 1: the wheel. I mean, I go back to twenty seventeen
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  Speaker 1: when an organization called Run for Something really pushed young progressives.
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  Speaker 1: They've had a pretty good success record. Their argument at
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  Speaker 1: the beginning when I interviewed the founder was that we
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  Speaker 1: need to have a pipeline, right. We need to start
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  Speaker 1: people maybe at the local level, at the county level,
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  Speaker 1: and then they go to Congress, and then they go
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  Speaker 1: to Senate and maybe we will have a future president.
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  Speaker 1: You work your way up. Have Democrats figured out the
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  Speaker 1: way to use because they're not the only ones either
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  Speaker 1: use these different disparate organizations or what seemed disparate but
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  Speaker 1: have in many ways the same goal.
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  Speaker 3: Look, and Kevin can speak to this as a Republican,
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  Speaker 3: but I can tell you as a former Republican Navy Kevin,
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  Speaker 3: I don't know where you are these days, but go pack.
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  Speaker 3: It was a brilliant it continues to be a brilliant
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  Speaker 3: pipeline organization for the Republicans that has been around since
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  Speaker 3: the seventies. They have developed an incredible pipeline. Michael Steele
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  Speaker 3: was the former chairman of it. He could really speak
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  Speaker 3: to this. But the reality Democrats have not done anything
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  Speaker 3: like this. And there's this very famous phrase, the Democrats
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  Speaker 3: fall in love and Republicans fall online. Well, Democrats are
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  Speaker 3: always looking for some leader to come along and be
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  Speaker 3: the president and to lead them out of the wilderness.
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  Speaker 3: We can't have that. We need to build an entire pipeline,
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  Speaker 3: whether it is a pipeline for the courts like the
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  Speaker 3: Federalist Society has on the Republican side, on the conservative side,
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  Speaker 3: whether it's go pack as Republicans have for the state
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  Speaker 3: legislature that eventually these people work their way up to
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  Speaker 3: Congress and eventually maybe even further to the Senate and
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  Speaker 3: maybe the presidency. Democrats don't have that right now, and
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  Speaker 3: it's a huge miss. And I would say that if
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  Speaker 3: you are a Democrat who is worth billions and billions
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  Speaker 3: of dollars and you're thinking about how to reinvent the
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  Speaker 3: wheel here for the party, the best way to do
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  Speaker 3: that is start these kinds of organizations that really find
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  Speaker 3: local young talent and nurture them and develop them. And again,
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  Speaker 3: it's not reinventing the wheel. The Republicans have done this
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  Speaker 3: incredibly effectively. We need to take a lesson from that.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Kevin she brings up a very good point, and
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  Speaker 1: that is money that is fundraising.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 1: If you're a twenty something, you may be smart, you
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  Speaker 1: may be committed, you may do the hard work that
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  Speaker 1: David Hogg does, although he had a platform based on
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  Speaker 1: a terribly unfortunate situation to say the least, But you
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  Speaker 1: need to have money. It's very hard to find a race,
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  Speaker 1: a competitive race recently where they're not spending more money
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  Speaker 1: than has ever been spent in that district or that
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  Speaker 1: state in history. Right, And you probably don't have the
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  Speaker 1: contacts for fundraising when you're twenty five or twenty six
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  Speaker 1: as someone older has. So it does become a part
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  Speaker 1: of either a billionaire or somebody with deep pockets, or
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  Speaker 1: the party which gets to decide which races they support.
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  Speaker 1: Talk about the money issue and the challenge that presents
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  Speaker 1: for promising young leaders.
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  Speaker 4: I think money is only one part of it. When
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  Speaker 4: when when I worked on campaigns, we used to talk
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  Speaker 4: about resources. Resources meant time, money, effort people. So I
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  Speaker 4: think looking more holistically is of a huge advantage anytime
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  Speaker 4: you're trying to build and manage and be successful with
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  Speaker 4: the political movement. And to Julie's point, you know, I
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  Speaker 4: think they will. I'll start to believe that these young
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  Speaker 4: leaders inside the party have a better chance when they
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  Speaker 4: start mapping out what their plan is not for the
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  Speaker 4: next midterm election, but what's their plan to build, grow,
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  Speaker 4: and manage their movement over the next ten years. And
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  Speaker 4: that is where money is part of this bigger, broader
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  Speaker 4: infrastructure of time, effort, resources, you name it. Because it's
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  Speaker 4: if it's just about writing checks, you're right, it's only
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  Speaker 4: going to be the big donors. But when it's that
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  Speaker 4: bigger argument and it's a it's a ten year plan,
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  Speaker 4: that's where it has much greater impact.
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  Speaker 1: Kevin Madden and Julie Riginsky. Not the last time we'll
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  Speaker 1: have this conversation. It's an important one. Thank you both,