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Transcript

Election Day is finally here! · The SEANC View

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Music.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast. And happy Halloween!
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Insert sound effect here. Boo. Spooky.
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I'm Jonathan Owens, the communications director here at Scenic.
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I'm joined today by executive director Artis Watkins.
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Hello, Jonathan. Government relations director Suzanne Beasley. Hello.
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Digital communications specialist and producer of the fine podcast, Sam Klein. Hey. Hi.
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Hey, Sam. So I wrote it all down Or I took notes so I didn't stop While I was
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naming people Like you don't know us.
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I got through it that time So welcome everyone And election day is upon us This
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will be our last podcast Before we know the results I guess next week we'll
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have to do a Wrap up Post election.
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Yeah everybody and their brother's going to pontificate About this so we have
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to Yeah this is our one chance Part of the club. Give us a chance.
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So we're going to go in depth what we're seeing right now and kind of give it
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to you straight, Scenic members.
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You expect us to do that. So that's what we're going to do.
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But first, I want to talk a little bit, as we have for the last three or four
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episodes, about what's going on in the West and how people can contribute to our relief efforts.
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We're still collecting goods. And we had a huge donation from Margaret Reeder,
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District 38 chairwoman, of blankets that she brought from her own personal.
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Yeah, that she, well, she went shopping. She got some amazing,
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they were gorgeous blankets that are headed out that way.
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Yeah, so shout out to Margaret Reeder. Yay, Margaret.
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And her husband came by with her. Yeah. Does not leave him out of the equation.
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He was doing the work with her.
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Yeah, something. We will be collecting them until November 8th,
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and the pod goes out on the 13th.
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Okay. Are we just taking the pod up there? Is that how we're doing?
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Or are we loading a truck? We're loading a truck.
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Okay. I guess we can't really take somebody else's. You can move a pod.
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Okay. But it wasn't cost effective to do it. It'll be a lot more labor this
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way, but it's going to be better.
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Are we going to be expected to partake in that labor?
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I'm going to make sure John is at the front of the pack loading.
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No, we're excited for any little things that we can do for folks who've endured
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that kind of devastation.
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But we really wanted to do a very cool effort with a very cool partner to raise
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money for state employees who were impacted by the storm and have run into the
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biggest mess of bureaucratic red tape you have ever seen in your life.
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I have a lot of legislators from out west wanting to help us try to cut through
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the tape, but we can't even figure out from the bureaucracy exactly what the tape is.
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So we're going to keep on that, though. We'll give you more details on this
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later, but it's frustrating.
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You know, it is frustrating. Our members are the government and we know the
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government has to have rules and regulations and things.
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But in disasters, we also know help has to get to the people.
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It's a catch-22, I guess, because I bet that charities are among the most regulated
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entities there are. Yeah, and you know, I mean, it's important so that people don't get ripped off.
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What we were trying to do would have been blind donations not coming to us or
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anything, but would be in a fund for folks.
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I still don't see why it's so complicated to try to get state employees who were affected.
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There were a lot of opposing legal opinions on how this would be set up.
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Something we're not letting go because if including how
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many lawyers really should get around the table in the first
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place to talk about you know so this will
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be something we get it established it will be in place so and
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that's not the last storm north carolina is going to have yeah if you
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let enough of us lawyers get around a table i promise you we'll figure out a
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reason you can't do something but you know the the impetus for us wanting to
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make sure we did that is that you've got folks who are putting bridges back
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together still helping our most vulnerable populations while their personal
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lives have been completely destroyed.
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Some of their homes literally washed away.
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So we wanted to find a way. Yeah.
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There's so many niche efforts to help specific groups of people.
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All of that is important.
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Certainly the catch-all charities just generally helping people are so important.
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But our members are state employees or public employees. Sometimes they're city, county.
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We wanted to try to make sure we could help the group from which we have members.
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So the other thing about that is we feel like they're getting overlooked often by the public.
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You know, the public has no idea what state employees are doing or what state agencies are doing.
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Sometimes that's contracted out. So if you see trucks with names of private
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companies or with no name on them, maybe license plates from out of state,
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you may think, oh, these are people who've just come to help us because they're
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so sweet. And that may be true.
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But it also could be one of a jillion contracts Department of Transportation
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has. Because there are a jillion. Right.
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With different folks who are by the very existence of that contract an arm of the state for a bit.
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Right. Yeah. As you guys know, I'm an addict of TikTok and I'm on there a lot.
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And I'm seeing a lot of TikToks about this West Virginia boys who came and cleared
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a road to the Chimney Rock area, which is a great thing. Great, great success.
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And a lot of the TikToks are going from that to DOT did not do this and they've
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been dragging their feet.
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And I don't think that it's a fair comparison when you think about what,
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you know, DOT would come in and build an actual road. This looks more like a
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dirt road through the woods.
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So DOT carries obviously tremendous liability for making sure that whatever
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they put down is safe to traverse because it's if DOT is doing it,
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that's the stamp of approval of your government. But, you know,
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it's getting lost in this whole thing.
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Your government in the immediate aftermath of the storm, it was too early to
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talk about any of this. Right.
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You don't point fingers and you don't backseat drive or our chair quarterback
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or any of that mess right after a disaster. But it's been long enough now,
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and I've had just about enough of people complaining about state employees.
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Because what the public doesn't understand is that there's a whole lot less
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of them ever since COVID.
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And we have been begging to get measures taken to increase the pay,
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to stop whittling away at their benefits, to do the things you need to do to
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keep your state employees from leaving. And to attract new ones.
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And we have pockets of state government where those vacancies are over 60 percent.
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Yeah. Just positions sitting there. Now, taxpayers have been paying 100 percent of their taxes.
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We say this all the time. And on average, they're getting somewhere between
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75 and 77 percent of that investment back.
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But the rest of what they're paying for isn't there for them.
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And the chickens were going to come home to roost on that. And they've come home.
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We had a disaster. And the fact of the matter is the people who usually get
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us out of these disasters are public employees.
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Well, if you just don't do the right thing by them and they leave and you don't
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do the things to bring them back, eventually this is going to happen.
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Yeah, we're seeing that even in not just in road construction.
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You know, we're seeing this at the prisons where folks are being moved from
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six prisons to other places across the state that are also understaffed.
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And so, I mean, our prison system, I think just about every one of our prisons
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is understaffed and has been for a long time. It's been a miracle.
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We haven't had another Pasquitane. Exactly. Honestly.
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But they moved, I think it was 2,200 offenders from the West out to other prisons.
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And now, you know, the folks who work in prisons out West are having to load
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up and be sent somewhere else across the, you know, the state,
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wherever those offenders were
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move because they have to have help in those prisons for the extra people.
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And these may be people who have lost their homes. They've got family that they're
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having to pack up and leave.
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So we, I mean, we have state government so far understaffed from just having
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to take care of day-to-day operating the state, much less if something bad happens.
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So if you're listening to this and you're not a state employee,
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please understand you've got people who were already doing the work,
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their work plus somebody else's because the position is vacant.
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And now they've got their normal work plus somebody else's normal work plus a disaster.
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I don't think there's been anything this big in terms of landmass,
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a disaster this big in our lifetimes. Especially in North Carolina.
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And not to belittle what the West Virginia boys did. I think it's a great thing.
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It looks really, you know, it's very necessary.
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So I don't want anybody helping is an awesome thing.
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Very, very thankful for that happening. But then the TikTok folks who are throwing
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off on DOT need to just chill a little bit about that, I think.
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Oh, yeah, that's the point. The point isn't that people helping,
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although I would say always be careful if somebody's just created a road for you.
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Well, I'm serious. DOT has engineers for a reason, and especially in those mountains.
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Our members from the mountains will tell you, you've got to know that you've got enough under.
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That the road's not going to crumble. That's right, that the road's not going
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to crumble on you. They said they've had some trucks that have crumbled.
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The roads crumbled underneath as the trucks were trying to do good things.
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But, you know, I think it's wonderful that people are helping.
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It's not surprising because Americans tend to be that way. I think people tend to be that way.
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But America's been pretty good about it in the past. But again,
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what you said is the point. In the meantime, they're pointing fingers at state employees.
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And what bothers me about that,
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is mainly that they have no idea. We don't even have enough of them on a good day.
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And then who's getting blamed for that? The actual employees and not the folks
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that could have done something about this.
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Yeah, there's such a disconnect there, you know, and you hear people talking
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smack sometimes about staying employees.
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But there's a disconnect between understanding that those are the people that
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live on your street, you know, that are providing these services that you're just used to having.
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And people want the government out of everything until something bad happens
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and they need the government. And that is, you know, it's fine.
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We understand that, that that's a normal human reaction to things.
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But the bottom line is, yeah, we should expect the government to come help.
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It's the employees who can't do anything about it.
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It's your elected officials who are the ones that can make sure the government's in place.
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So if something happens, they're ready.
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We've got those positions filled with trained, qualified people.
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So, FYI, you might want to talk to your elected officials about that.
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Yeah, so there have been some victories, though, in the mountain areas.
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I saw that I-26 is now open, at least one lane per side, at least.
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I think it's through Tennessee, not so much North Carolina.
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Then the parkway, some of it is open. I think most of our state parks are back
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open. I saw a tweet about that.
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We've still got, yeah, it's more than a handful that are still closed.
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See some information about some a few of
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them are reopening so that to five or six yeah
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parks strike that then not most
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but yeah five western nc state parks have reopened eight will remain closed
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so that's a good thing we'll continue to work for you guys and pray for you
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guys we're all north carolinians so what about the concert last week did you
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guys watch it the uh concert for carolina yeah that was so cool yeah i wish i'd
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Made it out there, but I didn't. It was great to see the clips,
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especially James Taylor singing Carolina in My Mind. So good.
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Which is sung at every UNC event ever.
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Always, yeah. You kind of get a little tired of that song. You got 1,000 listening.
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You can never get tired of James Taylor. Come on.
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Well, I'm obsessed with Eric and Luke, so that's just very cool.
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I like to hear the stories of how it was put together, which you need to go check out.
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And I won't bore you. There were some funny things about how they got James
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Taylor and they had to go through like Joe Walsh from the Eagles to get James
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Taylor. I haven't heard those stories.
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So I'll send them to you. But it is election time. And I was told that we didn't
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get to election talk fast enough last week, apparently. Oh, yeah, I heard that too. OK.
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Let's talk election. So let's get to the election. Of course,
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the biggest thing going on right now is early voting.
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The numbers are pretty crazy across the country. It seems like turnout is pretty huge.
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Suzanne, you have some information about it? I do. And since we were just talking
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about out west, Henderson County has had more early voters than any other voting
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site in the state. Wow. That's fascinating. I know.
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I didn't write down where I heard that, but it was... Where is Henderson County?
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Way out there. Way, way out there. 30% of the electorate has voted.
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3.6 million votes have been accepted.
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191,000 absentee votes have been accepted. 3.43 million have voted in person.
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47% of all registered voters' ballots have been accepted. We have 7.8 million
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registered voters in North Carolina. That's staggering.
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I wonder how it compares to 2020. I know there was a lot of mail-in ballots
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in 2020, but I need to look at it.
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The age of COVID. So Hendersonville.
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All right. Hendersonville and Flat Rock, Mills River.
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I can't remember. Etowah. Anyway, the communities around Hendersonville.
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Yeah, that's kind of wild.
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But I don't know how Henderson County normally votes. I don't know if they're
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always a superstar voting group.
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So 47 percent of the state has already voted.
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The state's 47 percent of registered voters ballots have been accepted.
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OK. As of the end of the day yesterday.
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OK. And we have three more days counting today to two and a half more days.
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Do you think that more people will vote early than on Election Day this year?
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I guess they'd have to, right?
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If you get asked 50%, there's no way you could have. Right. Well,
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it depends how many same-day registrations also happen. True. Yeah.
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To expand that, because it was seven million registered voters at the end of December 2023.
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So I don't know exactly what they are right now, but you've got to figure you're
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going to still see a big, huge election day turnout.
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And a lot of pundits are trying to read into what these numbers mean.
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I know that it looks like a lot more Republicans are voting early this year
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than in years past. They are.
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Yeah. But that was the messaging from the Republican Party was go out early
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and get your vote banked. Yeah.
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Swamp the vote or something like that was there. Well, you know,
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remember in 20, Trump told voters, don't vote early.
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You can't trust that. And so they they did not.
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And, you know, I think they rethought that whole. Yeah, that's a weird strategy.
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It's a bold strategy. Let's see how that plays out.
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But I mean, I think they've gotten as a flagship of the party,
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they've gotten Trump to stay fairly on message about that recently to telling
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people vote, vote early. Yeah, I think so.
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I don't know. I'm a little bit torn about what you can read into early voting,
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because regardless of whether you vote early or vote day of, you don't get two votes.
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Like you don't get to vote both, you know, so like it's all going to come down
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to the unaffiliated. How are they breaking? Yeah.
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Sam smiling. There's just really nothing. One of them. Yeah.
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I'm registered independent. Most people your age are.
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Yeah, I am too. I feel like that's because a lot of us who don't lean heavily
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one way, we very much consider ourselves directly in the middle, very moderate,
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or have different views economically versus socially that we, as a big thing, focus on.
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Yeah, and I think the unaffiliateds are pretty on track for early voting,
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aren't they? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
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Say it was 34%, maybe. So many numbers, y'all. So many numbers. Yeah.
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It just makes your head spin. And then it won't even matter by Tuesday. It won't.
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None of these numbers will matter. Well, no, they kind of won't.
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I mean, you think about in 16, the numbers were absolutely looking like a Hillary landslide.
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Yeah. So that tells you what the numbers sometimes tell us.
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Yeah. So this week, Elon University released a poll that I thought was,
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it seems like it's maybe the last really good poll we're going to get.
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I don't know. We may see...
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Some big polling come out in the next week or so. But this one has turned a lot of heads.
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I can kind of read through what the results were in the presidential race.
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It was a 46-46 tie.
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And this is just in North Carolina, by the way. So you see that and you see
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maybe it's like a neck and neck race.
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But then you see reports that Harris is pulling ads in North Carolina.
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But she was here yesterday in Raleigh. Right. Right.
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Yeah. Yeah, I also heard that report's incorrect, and she's actually making
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an even larger by $300,000 purchase on ads. I don't know. You know, who knows?
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Her campaign is not called and let us know.
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Yeah, we have not been consulted on ad buying.
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I think that both sides are grasping at anything they find out,
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you know, about what happened. Oh, Harris did.
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And I mean, it was a fact that she had pulled, but she may have been.
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She was here and Waltz was in Charlotte. So it's hard to imagine they're not
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still making a North Carolina play.
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That doesn't sound like people who've abandoned hope in that state.
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They would just adjust their travel plans. And there was a report yesterday
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that Trump was doing pretty much the same thing or, you know.
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Well, he was in Rocky Mount and I think he's going to be in Gaston County next.
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And in Pennsylvania, there was some talk that he was shifting his resources
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there. But I haven't, I don't know.
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But, I mean, it's just people are kind of grasping at straws at this point.
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And what does it matter with five days left in the election?
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You know, everyone knows who's running. You probably know who you're going to
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vote for. Or you already have.
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Or you already have, like, 50 percent of North Carolina.
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The same poll had the governor's race at a 9 plus 21 number.
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So, Don was ahead 21 percent. I don't know if that's accurate or not.
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But so at what level does this become a landslide?
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Obviously, that's a landslide, right?
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Well, that would be an obliteration. That would be more than a mandate. Yeah.
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Who knows where that's going to end up? You know, you just don't know how much.
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It's interesting to me when you see voters at some of the Trump rallies who
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are interviewed and they're asked about Robinson.
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A good number of them have not heard any of the news articles that other folks
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say, well, these are going to sink Robinson.
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And a ton of people say they hadn't even heard those things.
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And then there are some I've seen videos of who are still Trump voters,
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but not Mark Robinson voters. Yeah, I've seen that too.
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I'm not voting for him. Which is
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interesting because there's been a lot of similar stuff said about Trump.
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So that's fascinating to me. It is. Yeah.
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So the same poll had information on four Council of State races.
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Hunt leading Weatherman for the LG race or Lieutenant Governor race by five points.
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Attorney General race, Jeff Jackson was up five points on Dan Bishop.
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Elaine Marshall, I had not seen any polling in this race.
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Elaine Marshall was ahead five points in the Secretary of State's race.
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And then the state superintendent race is very hotly contested and getting a
19:34
little more publicity than the other races, I would say.
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But it has Mo Green up eight points on Michelle Morrow, which I thought it was a lot closer than that.
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It was for the longest time, but recently she's gotten some national coverage
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on some of her old tweets.
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Yeah. You know, there was one saying a pay-per-view execution of Obama would
19:55
be what she would want to see. And when it got national attention,
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that is the kind of thing that can move some of these council estate races that nobody knows about.
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If that goes viral, you can see a race like that move.
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But most of the council estate people don't care unless something becomes kind of salacious.
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So given that, is there anything we can glean from these races?
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Because these were the only ones that were polled in the Elon poll.
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For the state treasurer's race, which is so important to state employees and
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retirees. It is an important race.
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Brad Briner, in the last one I saw, so that was, gosh, that had to be a week ago, though.
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Briner was up by two points, I think.
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And, you know, we talked on the last podcast about the fact that he's a very
20:37
confident person, but maybe overconfident about his understanding of the office.
20:43
Because, well, definitely overconfident about his understanding of the office
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because he, as we talked about last week, thinks that retirees cost our system
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$4 billion more than they do.
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That's not a good sign for retirees if you've got an incoming,
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potentially incoming treasurer who's coming in with the idea that the retirees
21:03
whose plan he would run are some big, huge burden after their whole career sacrificing for the state.
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That's not a good sign. So I think, you know, Wesley Harris's message is certainly
21:14
one that these folks matter and we've got to look out for them.
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This is going to be an interesting race. But does the public feel that retirees
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and state employees need to be looked out for? That's the question.
21:28
But the treasurer does other things. Very important things. I mean,
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it takes care of the states.
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But the banking commission is under the treasurer, the local government commission.
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I mean, this is very important stuff. It will directly affect you as a taxpayer
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and citizen, not just a retiree or a state employee.
21:44
And I've got to say, I was watching Wheel of Fortune this week.
21:47
Oh, my goodness. You know, when Representative Harris, when he was here,
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he mentioned that the Wheel of Fortune advertising is the slot that you want to be in.
21:55
And they really must, both of them must have taken that to heart because the
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Wheel of Fortune episode was like Brad Briner, Wesley Harris ads all three times, you know.
22:06
And none of the ads, honestly, I think are going to make sense to a lot of folks. That was my takeaway.
22:13
Yeah. That was what I wanted to mention, that how could either one of those
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ads or how effective they are at explaining what the treasurer does.
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And it just seems really to steal a term from sports, an inside baseball type
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story, you know, like. It is.
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I mean, the biggest parts in terms of huge amounts of money that the treasurer
22:34
deals with are more of an inside baseball. small story.
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And in fact, you know, I thought that's where in the debate,
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I thought Wesley Harris did a great job of explaining that, hey,
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I've been in the legislature.
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I've got a parent who was a state employee, and I know how these benefits affect
22:48
millions of lives in North Carolina.
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So I thought he did a good job of saying, this is why I'm going to be the person
22:54
who will understand how imperative bringing a certain viewpoint to the job is.
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But I don't think any of the ads really got any of that through for either candidate.
23:03
No, I was not taken by either one of them.
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But I think for a race like that, you just kind of got to distill your message down to –.
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Who I am and why I matter to you, because I don't think a lot of people know
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what the state treasurer does, period, you know, and how it affects them.
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They definitely don't. Our members know.
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Yeah, our members do. And we encourage all of them to vote.
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And please go to the Scenic website if you want to see who your fellow Scenic
23:29
members who decide our endorsements went with. Go to the Scenic website, www.scanc.org.
23:36
And go look, because, I mean, we are a nonpartisan entity. Impact works very
23:41
hard at not endorsing a party.
23:44
They endorse candidates who align with our issues.
23:47
So definitely go look at it. It's not partisan. It's who helps us.
23:52
Yeah, we're not, we don't endorse expecting like anything in return.
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We do it because we think these are the people who will support state employees and retirees in office.
24:03
Well, yeah, we're endorsing people who've either shown they do the right thing
24:07
by state employees and retirees when they get a chance, or who seem the most
24:13
competent, qualified on our issues, and sincere.
24:17
And sometimes it's two unknown quantities and you have to take a chance.
24:21
In the treasurer's race, we've worked with Wesley Harris now for a number of
24:25
years over at the legislature, so that was helpful.
24:28
And so let's talk about how you vote, because maybe people still have questions.
24:34
Early voting will still be going on until Saturday, I think at three o'clock.
24:39
If you go to our website, you can find a link to where you can find your early voting site.
24:45
You can still register if you're not registered at an early voting site,
24:49
but you cannot register on election day.
24:53
If you are not registered, you need to try to vote early.
24:56
On election day, Tuesday, polling places will open at 6.30 a.m. and close at 7.30.
25:03
Any voter in line at your polling place will be able to vote.
25:07
So if you get there at 7.29, you get in line, you'll be able to vote.
25:11
That will mean that the results are a little bit later.
25:14
But please take advantage of this civic duty and go vote.
25:19
I feel like we need to iterate 7.30 p.m., not 6.30 to 7.30 a.m.
25:23
Yeah, you only have an hour to vote on election day. Who would vote?
25:29
It says here on the Board of Election website to try to vote in off-peak times. What would that be?
25:36
Like 6.30 to 7.30 a.m.
25:39
And then? Well, people generally go before work during their lunch break or
25:43
after work. So you have to go kind of 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. it seems.
25:47
But before people who've picked up their kids get there. Right.
25:50
You know, so it's tiny little windows, it seems like. It has to be strategic.
25:54
Most of the places around here seem to have been pretty packed.
25:57
Yeah, I think that election day should be a holiday, that everyone should get off and vote.
26:01
I think some other countries do that. I think Australia has like a...
26:05
I think we should have, like, weekend voting where you vote any time during
26:08
a whole weekend. We do. It's called early voting. Well, that's true.
26:12
Saturday till 3, y'all. But people work such weird schedules,
26:16
I do think. If everything shut down for Election Day.
26:20
It's that important, you know? It is that important. We get off for President's
26:23
Day. Well, I don't know if we get off for President's Day, but it is a holiday, President's Day.
26:28
It is a holiday. So, is there anything about the election that we haven't covered
26:33
that just free-for-all time, What's going on? What are you hearing?
26:37
What are you excited about in the election? Anything?
26:39
Just excited for it to be over? Excited for it to be over, definitely.
26:43
But I'm not excited about this, but it's interesting. Lawsuits.
26:47
Which brings us to the big winner in the election, which is attorneys.
26:51
Never seen anything like it. People just are suing the mess out of each other, out of the media.
26:58
Mark Robinson filed a $50 million lawsuit against CNN, which was amended to
27:04
be a $25,000 lawsuit against CNN the next week, I think.
27:08
But we've got the candidates for attorney general now suing each other.
27:13
There's a lot of lawyers being kept really busy.
27:17
And any time anybody thinks, I don't think I've seen it in North Carolina,
27:21
but in other states, there have been all these reports of fraudulent activity.
27:27
And lawyers are drawing up papers, and then the pictures show that it wasn't
27:32
even law enforcement, that it was supposedly law enforcement keeping people
27:36
from voting. And then if you look at their uniforms, that's not the uniform
27:40
of law enforcement for that area in that state.
27:42
But attorneys are still getting the business.
27:46
That's just winning. Attorneys. I've seen...
27:50
Three different mail-in ballot boxes set on fire in Oregon. Yeah. Or Washington.
27:57
It was in the West. Yeah, Washington. I saw today there was this big brouhaha
28:02
on X about a man who was carrying a bunch of ballots into a courthouse at one time,
28:10
and everyone lost their minds, and it turned out he was a postal worker delivering them ballots.
28:16
I'm telling you. And the guy who posted, he's one of these operatives,
28:20
and he still was like, it's still suspect. Like, it's still.
28:24
People need to watch it, though, y'all. Listen, first of all,
28:27
people working the polls are
28:28
being good Americans, and they're putting up with an awful lot of guff.
28:32
But be careful what you say about them, because bear in mind,
28:35
Rudy Giuliani just lost all his stuff this week. That's right. Yeah, you can be sued.
28:40
Elon Musk is talking about Dominion. He's in court today in Pennsylvania.
28:45
Yeah, yeah. Well, supposed to be. I don't know if all the parties showed up
28:49
or not. But, I mean, this is a free-for-all.
28:50
And, again— It used to not be like this. That's all I'm saying. Right.
28:55
Like, you know, I'm not 80 years older or anything. I have watched elections for the past 30 years.
29:01
And you didn't have— Oh, yeah. The biggest dogfights look like nothing.
29:06
Dogfights of the past, you know. Even Bush versus Gore was not this contentious.
29:09
Oh, it wasn't anything like this.
29:10
And it was decided by 400 votes in Florida. Like—,
29:15
And it's not, and it's already starting. People are already. Well, social media.
29:20
We have, you know, open the door to just throw in all kinds of crazy out there.
29:25
It's just really disheartening for the whole American experience.
29:29
And I'll leave it at that. It is. You know, I have to always look for some kind of silver lining.
29:34
And I'm hoping that, Sam, young folks like you, as much as this is awful for
29:39
you, and I think it's from an anxiety standpoint, I think it's really damaging
29:43
to all people, but especially younger people.
29:45
And who don't have a point of reference for what a normal election should look like.
29:49
But as much as it is all of those things for y'all, I'm thinking y'all are also
29:54
going to know a lot more about the process than we did at your age.
29:57
I know. Yeah, that's the truth.
29:59
So I'm just prayerful that at the end of this, we come out of all of this somehow
30:04
with these generations that are going to lead us forward being— That really care.
30:09
Yeah. Whereas our generations, maybe not— We were a little too complacent.
30:13
Yeah. And we can sit here and say that, oh, it's never been like this.
30:17
But like, Burr shot Alexander Hamilton.
30:21
There's been fights on the Senate floor, you know? So, I mean,
30:25
it's just different times, I guess. But we did fight a whole civil war.
30:28
We did do that. That was a big skirmish. But I am hopeful. I believe the children
30:34
are our future. I really do. As Whitney said.
30:37
No, I really do, too. I have good feelings about the future.
30:39
Teach them well and let them lead the way. Yes, we remember all these lyrics.
30:43
Honestly, at this point, I'm right there with you guys and just wanting it to be over.
30:47
Every time I talk about it, I get a tension headache and I just start pressing
30:50
on my eyeball so that it stops hurting.
30:53
Yeah. And that part, I do think, is the really not good part,
30:56
is the truly physical manifestations that people are reporting right and left
31:01
of anxiety. So that's...
31:03
Glad it'll be over soon. And may we all move forward because our members have
31:09
to still keep this state running, no matter who's in charge of any aspect of it.
31:13
And I think kind of to wrap up the election discussion, that's where Scenic's
31:17
always going to be OK, because the fact that some people get very frustrated
31:20
with us on both of the main party sides of the political spectrum because our
31:25
endorsements are somewhat all over the map.
31:27
That's because our members have many different views.
31:30
But I also think that's the beauty of Scenic.
31:33
We really are very representative of the people of North Carolina.
31:38
And it's also because supporting state employees and retirees is not a red or a blue issue.
31:45
Oh, gosh, no. We have friends on both sides. That's right. That's a good point.
31:48
We have people who support on both sides.
31:50
We've had trouble from both sides at times, and we've had great things come
31:54
from both sides at times, and we know better than any group,
31:57
you have to take every lawmaker one by one as who they are.
32:02
And granted, this whole idea nationwide of everybody having to stick together
32:08
in a caucus and not vote outside of the caucus, that's always going to be a pressure.
32:13
Right. But we have to do our job the best we can.
32:16
Yeah. So let's move on then. Today it's Halloween. Yay.
32:20
And you can't see Sam through the podcast audio
32:25
but she is dressed in a rather snazzy Eeyore costume artists did allow and maybe
32:32
encourage the staff to dress up today or not well look we're a weird staff so
32:36
if we can if we can make it socially acceptable to be the weird staff we are
32:40
let's do it if I get to wear an Eeyore onesie,
32:44
I'm comfy. Yeah. And then I get to go to the grocery store in this afterwards.
32:48
Oh, goodness. We've had some pretty good costumes throughout the year.
32:50
I remember Autumn, who used to wear costumes. She used to go all out.
32:54
She was great in the year.
32:55
I think she lived for Halloween.
32:57
Two years ago, I was Dwight Schrute. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.
33:03
We have a fun time. Even printed and laminated myself a name tag.
33:07
All the holidays, I think.
33:09
It's like Jimmy Buffett said. I hope everybody else is, too.
33:11
If you couldn't laugh, you'd go insane. Right.
33:15
Yeah, it's serious work we do here, and we have to have some fun.
33:20
And those of y'all out west, again, we're here in costumes and we're having
33:24
fun, but we know Halloween is not the same out there.
33:27
And next year, John already said on the last podcast, we're all going to come
33:31
out there in the fall and spend money and try to help those communities every
33:35
way we can. For my family members up there, it is picking up.
33:38
People are coming up there to shop and enjoy the leaves. I will say I'm very
33:44
nervous to see what it looks like because I'm going up there this weekend for
33:48
my school's homecoming.
33:50
The roads are, or 40 is supposedly clear all the way up until exit 27,
33:54
which is the exit we take to get to Western Carolina.
33:56
We'll see if that's actually the case tomorrow when me and my mom get on the road.
34:01
And even if the roads are okay to drive on, I know that the sides of the roads
34:04
are going to look different. And I'm a little nervous to see how different it
34:08
looks. Yeah. Yeah. I bet. Yeah.
34:11
So speaking of Halloween costume, my question of the week is.
34:16
What was your favorite Halloween costume growing up?
34:25
And I'll start this time. I never start. So I'll start.
34:28
I remember when I was like six or so, my brother is like 10 years older than me.
34:33
So, you know, we didn't we were on different generations.
34:37
But we also we always love watching wrestling together
34:40
and you know that was a thing that kids did back
34:43
then and he brought me home a
34:46
sergeant slaughter you remember back in the day like
34:49
the the costumes were like just a cape and a mask you know oh yeah but he brought
34:54
it to me like he never did things like that so he brought my costume that year
34:57
and it was amazing and i loved it so much and i thought it was like the i was
35:02
like the coolest person on earth because my My brother was like 16 at the time.
35:05
And so I always remember that one.
35:07
What about you, Suzanne? So I remember being a little girl, maybe six,
35:12
seven, eight, right in there.
35:13
A cowgirl outfit. It was turquoise. It had a little skirt that had fringe.
35:18
I think I had to wear my own shirt, but it had a little vest and a hat.
35:22
I even had the pistols and, you know, the belt.
35:25
And I had white cowgirl boots.
35:28
Nice. Yeah. I remember loving that costume that year.
35:32
Most of the time they weren't that much fun. My favorite costume ever wasn't a childhood one.
35:37
It was, you know, at UNC, everybody likes to go up to Franklin Street for Halloween.
35:42
And it's so much fun. Just wild.
35:45
And one year, I was Vanna from Wheel of Fortune, speaking of Wheel of Fortune.
35:51
And my friend John Wakeford was Pat Sajak.
35:55
And then our friend Mimsy Price went as
35:58
the wheel and she was they were also the
36:01
whole thing we put so much work into it and we had the
36:04
best night on Franklin Street that's awesome so
36:07
I mentioned that I watched Wheel of Fortune and did you know Pat's not on it
36:10
anymore yeah that's I just blew my mind like Ryan Seacrest is the host now I
36:15
didn't even know that so where's Pat I know I know end of an era truly so I
36:21
was gonna initially say my favorite costume was when I was like four or five.
36:25
I dressed as Mulan because I was very much a tomboy, but I still love Disney
36:29
princesses. We're so old.
36:31
We are so old. But then I remembered when I was like eight years old,
36:34
it was the year that High School Musical 2 had just come out.
36:38
We're all of this together. And so I dressed as, because one of my friends,
36:43
her birthday also happened to be Halloween. So we would have a massive Halloween party.
36:47
Everyone would dress up and we would go there.
36:49
I dressed as Sharpay in her little goth costume that she has in that movie.
36:55
And I even had the blonde wig with the braided hair.
36:59
Oh, that's awesome. And I remember that was my first like extravagant costume
37:04
that I did for Halloween because I had the whole entire sparkly costume and
37:08
everything. That's perfect.
37:10
I did some good ones when I was older. I thought we were talking kid stuff. Yeah.
37:15
I'll just leave it there. The first time I went to Franklin Street for Halloween
37:20
in Chapel Hill just kind of blew my mind because up until then,
37:25
I didn't think of costumes as like,
37:28
you know, it was just like something you buy at Walmart and you put on your costume.
37:31
Oh, no, people put so much. There's just so much effort. I saw a guy dressed
37:35
as a table and it was like an awesome costume.
37:39
He was wearing a table around and it was like awesome. You know.
37:44
Yeah. Yeah, midterms, schmidterms. We were all working on costumes.
37:49
I feel like that hits once you get to college because I didn't care too much
37:52
about having a fancy schmancy costume until I got to college.
37:56
And then you get to college and you're like, well, I don't want to wear the
37:58
same thing as everyone else.
38:00
I got to do something different, something big. And you can also start doing
38:03
those group costumes, the duo costumes.
38:06
The group costumes are the best. And plus people are just so much more creative
38:09
and outgoing in college than they are.
38:12
You got some freedom. when you're six and your mom's just asking you,
38:15
what do you want to be? I have a college student now. I wonder what he's doing.
38:19
No, I don't want to talk too much. I don't want to talk too much.
38:22
Well, we've come to the end of the episode, but I just want to ask one more
38:26
question. Your gut feeling, who's going to win the presidential race?
38:30
Does anyone want to answer? Like, not your hopes and dreams,
38:35
not, like, your educated opinion, like, what do you think is going to happen?
38:41
I feel like it's too close for me to even think about it. I really,
38:45
I don't even know if I can make it.
38:48
Having trouble separating mind hopes and dreams with
38:51
yeah i i kind of think
38:54
you know what i think harris might take
38:57
it simply because she's got the kind of momentum
39:01
clinton had but she doesn't seem to have the amount of dislike that people had
39:06
for hillary clinton i don't hear a lot of that and that's the thing that's kind
39:11
of made me think huh is she gonna pull this off i i kind of am thinking And
39:15
she might have that momentum because there's so many Republicans that have come
39:18
out and said they're not with Trump.
39:20
And I don't see how you survive that. Yeah.
39:22
And I know that she'd never get the credit from the other side.
39:26
But to put together a campaign in 90 days has been pretty.
39:31
And for it to be so close is very admirable. It's insane. Yeah.
39:36
I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know. I will not be shocked either
39:40
way. I won't be shocked either way. I think she has the momentum at this point.
39:45
Whereas maybe a week ago, even, she didn't. And I think that it matters in the last few days.
39:52
Yeah. The Comey letter came out in 2016, like five days from the election.
39:57
Right. So I guess it's not over yet.
39:59
We'll still see. We'll see what happens. I still say the attorneys win.
40:02
Yes. Without question. Overall, yeah.
40:05
Everybody just keep breathing. A few more days. Keep breathing.
40:08
Vote for who you like. If you're a state employee, check out our website and
40:13
see who your other state employees Like and if you're getting stressed With
40:17
all the stuff on social media go outside Touch some grass.
40:20
Put on a costume and for the record we did Not endorse in the presidential race
40:24
and we are Not endorsing any candidate yeah,
40:28
Well thanks Everybody for joining us and remember After Tuesday we still Have
40:33
to live together so please Don't fight your neighbors it's Not worth it we're
40:38
all Americans Just everyone love everyone Bye Bye.
40:43
Music.