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Full Episode - Why Democrats Are Breathing A Sigh Of Relief After Wisconsin + The Structural Reforms Democrats Can't Keep Ignoring · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: three four three nine eight five. Hello, Ared, Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the Thursday edition of The Chuck Podcast. And to say
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: that I got a lot to get out there is
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: an understatement. I think we just experience the most consequential
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  Speaker 1: statewide primary that wasn't a presidential primary. I I'm going
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: to say it's certainly in my adult lifetime this and
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: it is because of the road not traveled and the
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  Speaker 1: what if had things gone a different way that I
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  Speaker 1: think in hindsight, and we'll see come November, but I
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  Speaker 1: think we are going to look back and we're going
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: to say that the Democratic primary and Crawley's upset victory
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  Speaker 1: over Francesco Hong might have been the single most important
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  Speaker 1: results for the Democrats since losing the twenty four election.
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  Speaker 1: That it is that consequential, The fallout is that consequential.
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  Speaker 1: The lessons that, frankly, that there is to learn on
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  Speaker 1: the progressive side of things and in the establishment side
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  Speaker 1: of things is that big looks. As a political junkie
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: and history junkie. Later with my top five lists, I'm
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: going to put this Crawley upset in some perspective. I've
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: put together what I think are the five greatest shockers
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: in primary history and I've got my own definition of
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: what shocker will be and we'll discuss that, and I'm
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: going to save it for the top five lists. So
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: from all my for you history junkies out there, my
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: true sort of diehards that love that stuff. When I
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: go through and say here are the five greatest upsets, this, this,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and this, I want to put this in some context
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: for you, but we'll do that later. But I think
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  Speaker 1: we need to spend more than just a few minutes
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  Speaker 1: about what happened on Tuesday night. I mean, here we are. Look,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: we got the near all nighter. I think we took
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: our live stream to three am. For those of you
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: that are on it, thank you, thank you for watching.
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  Speaker 1: We're just astonished and how many people hung with us
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: till the bitter end. But this is no small feat
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  Speaker 1: because if you had told most people who follow Wisconsin
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: politics closely a couple of weeks ago that this was
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: going to happen, they wouldn't have necessarily told you it
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  Speaker 1: was impossible, but improbable. Absolutely. In fact, I had that experience.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, my guest on this show for this episode
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  Speaker 1: of the podcast, Ben Wickler, now the former Wisconsin DEM
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  Speaker 1: Party chair. He's got his own book. He's been on
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: this book tour. We had a pre scheduled interview taped
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: for the Monday before the primary, so you're going to
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: hear a conversation that took place before the primary. We
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: don't spend a lot of time on it. We were
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: both mindful that a lot could happen. But look, I
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: sort of in the in the in the small part
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: of the conversation that we did talk about this gubernatorial
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: primary and what the fallout could be if Long is
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  Speaker 1: the nominee, I could tell you this. What I sensed
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: from Ben was he just wasn't comfortable making an assumption yet,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: whether it was whether he was smoking hoping him at
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the time, or he knew something. I think in hindsight
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: it now can be said, I don't necessarily think he
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: knew something, But as the architect of putting together what
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: is the Tony Evers machine that kicked in and worked,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: let's just say I think it's worth it. Certainly it
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: is worth you listening to how he talks about this
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: race before before we know the result, because I think
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you'll want to read between the lines there. But we
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: really don't spend a lot of time on that race
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: because we knew that anything could happened, and that instead
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  Speaker 1: we spend more time what he thinks the Democrats need
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  Speaker 1: to do going forward, some branding issues and all of that.
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  Speaker 1: So it's a I think it's a conversation that you
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  Speaker 1: definitely will want to spend a few minutes with. But look,
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  Speaker 1: let's unpack this a little bit more, because you know,
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  Speaker 1: obviously a lot of people are poking at a lot
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  Speaker 1: of things. Francisco Hong. She led in all the polling
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  Speaker 1: heading into this race. It is notable that her eventual
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  Speaker 1: number right around forty one percent, She never polled anywhere
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  Speaker 1: north of sort of the high thirties, low forties. You
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  Speaker 1: could make a case that the polling wasn't totally off
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  Speaker 1: the mark and that it knew what the Hong number was.
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  Speaker 1: It just didn't you know, and you had you saw
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  Speaker 1: that there was potential for consolidation. But let's just be realistic. No,
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  Speaker 1: you don't see consolidation happen the way it happened as
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  Speaker 1: quickly as this gotten happened. I mean, let me remind
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  Speaker 1: you Crawley had just gotten out of the race, then
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  Speaker 1: he gets back into the race the establishment lane. If
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  Speaker 1: you want to call it that democratic field had basically
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  Speaker 1: blown itself up around him, and somehow he ends up
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  Speaker 1: winning this thing by about four tenths of one percentage point.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, I do think this qualifies as one of
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  Speaker 1: the great statewide primary upsets in history. So, like I said,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to put that into some context. But before
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I get into the political trivia side of this, there
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  Speaker 1: is this bigger story here, because, as I've said before,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes what doesn't happen in politics can be every bit
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  Speaker 1: as important as what does you know. I love the
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  Speaker 1: what ifs the alternative histories. Change one thing in history
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  Speaker 1: and ask how many other things change behind it. And
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  Speaker 1: that's how I want to begin this conversation about Wisconsin,
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  Speaker 1: because let's imagine the alternative here. As we're talking, I'm
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: taping late Wednesday. You're listening to this. I assume on
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: sometime on Thursday or Friday. Let's imagine the alternative and
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  Speaker 1: French Jessica Hung had held on and won, she would
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  Speaker 1: not simply have become the Democratic nominee for governor Wisconsin,
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  Speaker 1: fairly or unfairly. She was about to become one of
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  Speaker 1: the national faces of this new progressive and democratic socialist
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  Speaker 1: movement inside the Democratic Party, and that would have had
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  Speaker 1: consequences far beyond Wisconsin. Hung had a collection of old
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  Speaker 1: statements that were almost perfectly designed, if you will, to
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  Speaker 1: become national political shorthand to outherising her or other rising
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  Speaker 1: the movement, abolishing the police, cancel Thanksgiving, other cultural positions
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  Speaker 1: that let's just to be generous require quite a bit
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  Speaker 1: of explanation before you ever get to the economic agenda.
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  Speaker 1: She actually said she wanted to run on and look,
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  Speaker 1: we can. People can debate the context of her Thanksgiving
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: post a few years ago, but go ahead, explain away,
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  Speaker 1: have a debate about it. But let me tell you
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: what politics is. It's also about understanding which arguments are
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: worth spending your time on, which arguments are worth explaining
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: because you get and which ones aren't. Because you can
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: introduce voters to new ideas. Voters are not inherently opposed
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to new ways of thinking. But there are also some
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: things that simply set off an alarm in the heads
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: of a large number of Americans that says, wait, what right?
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  Speaker 1: And once you're explaining why cancel Thanksgiving doesn't really mean
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: what people think, Cancel Thanksgiving means congratulations, You're no longer
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: talking about childcare, housing, healthcare, or the cost of groceries.
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  Speaker 1: You're somehow talking about Thanksgiving. That's not a political problem,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: or that excuse me, that becomes a political problem. So
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  Speaker 1: what a hung win would have meant? And this is
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  Speaker 1: why I think the outcome matters so much Nationally. We
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: spent the last couple of weeks talking about Abdul Saya
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  Speaker 1: winning right next door in Michigan, and this larger question
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  Speaker 1: of whether democratic socialism or the socialist ad chase and
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  Speaker 1: progressivism is becoming something much bigger Inside the Democratic Party.
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  Speaker 1: L Saietta had defeated Haley Stevens in Michigan last week,
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  Speaker 1: and another race had scrambled assumptions about where Democratic voters
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  Speaker 1: were headed. So imagine now following that with a Hong
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  Speaker 1: victory in Wisconsin. Suddenly you have l Sayeta Michigan next
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  Speaker 1: door Hong and Wisconsin two of the most important battleground
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  Speaker 1: states in America, right next to each other. And Republicans
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  Speaker 1: have a very easy national story to tell and a
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  Speaker 1: narrative to create about what is happening inside the Democratic Party.
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  Speaker 1: Now you may sit there and say, well, that story
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have been entirely fair, of course not, this is politics.
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  Speaker 1: It's never fair. But would it have been politically potent?
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  Speaker 1: I think unquestionably, and I wouldn't have stopped at the
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin border. Right would have created an immediate problem for
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Democrats in Michigan. In fact, I think the biggest the
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: second biggest victor after David Crawley on Tuesday Night is
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Abdul Elsaietta, Michigan, because Abduel Sayete had been gone out
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  Speaker 1: of his way in this first week as the nominee
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to he desperately tried to distinguish himself away from democratic
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: socialism right, even as he shares some of the movement's
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: policy priorities, like I'm not a socialist. It would have
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: potentially created a problem in Iowa, also a state Wisconsin
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: borders where Rob sand is building an entirely different brand
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: of what the Democratic Party is in Iowa. And if
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: you were Rob Sand and I'm not suggesting I have
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: insider information here, but I have no doubt he walks
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: away be like, hey, that is not that I am
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: not that kind of democrat, Like he would have thrown
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: her away under the bus because her brand of socialism
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: would have been toxic for his campaign. He has got
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: to win over not just independence to win, he's got
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: to win over some soft Republicans. And that would have
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: just been a nightmare for Rob sand because it again
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: he would have tried his best to ignore it. But
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: it is right next door, right, So contasion was very possible.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: So instead of making you know, talking about Iowa and
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: being a different kind of Democrat, one that you don't
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: normally see in national TV, you're being asked about somebody
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: else's old tweet about Thanksgiving, right, And that's how political
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: contagion can take over. And it's why I think Democrats
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: nationally are probably more relieved about this result than they
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: will publicly admit at all. I'm not saying Hong winning
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: automatically would have caused Democrats Wisconsin, Michigan or Iole you know,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: possibly not right. Trump is doing everything he can to
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: hand Democrats a huge opportunity here in the mid terms,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: but it would have changed the conversation and it would
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: have made life a lot harder for all of those candidates.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And in an election where independence are once again extraordinarily important,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: they're totally turned off by Trump. You might have had
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: voters saying, wait, wait, what the hell is going on
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: at the Democratic Party and now those same independence it's
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: something different, right, those same independence go oh okay, Democrats
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: looks like they're fighting the socialism. Right, it's a big difference.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Republicans didn't do a good job of fighting their natives
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: nationalist wing from taking over. They failed to push that
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: wing back. So if you're an independent wondering, well, which
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: party is trying not to let its extremes take over, you,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: at least are see some evidence that the Democrats were
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: trying to fight back. So look, that's what happened. And
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: that's a huge story. A whole bunch of Democratic primary voters,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and I had to tell you it's remember Wisconsin's partisan
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: primary system does not require party registration, so the electorate
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: can be very broad. It was not a closed party primary.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Had it been closed primary, no chance Crawley would have
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: had On would have won. But you had one of
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the largest turnouts in the history of democratic primary politics Wisconsin.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Now here's what I'm curious about. I'm interested in what
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Democratic leaders do with this outcome because it will become
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: an interesting little political litmus test. Who's going to look
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: at the Wisconsin result and just simply say, explicitly, not
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: round the edges, that there is a distinction between the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party and socialism, and Democratic voters just demonstrated that distinction. Right.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: If you want to basically make the case that there's
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: no room for socialism in the Democratic Party, you have
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to do so, and you can say it
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that cleanly like I just said it. So which Democrat
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: does that? Who says nothing? Who tries to blur it?
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: The reason I think this is going to be interesting
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: is if you're thinking about running for president, you probably
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: have your own theory the case I'm going to try
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: to be a you know, I want to make progressives
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: not hate me, or I want to make progressives. I
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: want to be the progressive can or I want you know,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I think my path is over here. I think I'm
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: on the electability path. I think it will be revealing
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: as national Democrats react to what happens. So pay a
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: lot of attention this weekend to those that you see,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: you know, being floated for president to see what they
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: have to say, because elected Democrats eventually have to decide
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: whether they believe that there should be an ideological line
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: in the sand inside the party between socialism and capitalism.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: What's interesting is the voters appear to think some distinctions matter.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: But before if I turn this into what you might
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: think is just oh, look the progressives blew it. They didn't.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Let's not overlook Minnesota. So you can't just look at
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin and say, ooh, progressive progressive hit a wall. They
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: can't win. Minnesota is a big deal. Peggy Flanmagan one
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota on the very same night. She one pretty
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: substantially by twenty points. Right, she didn't have to sneak
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: through some five way primary she be and Angie Craig
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: had to head. So if your takeaway from Wisconsin is
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: ceed democratic voters rejected the left, it's not that clean
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: because Minnesota just ruined that segment if you're trying to
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: build it. But I actually think this makes it a
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: lot more interesting because it's these distinctions and nuances and
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: how some progressives can win and some can't. That I
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: think means these are the lessons that you can draw from.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: So let's keep going here because we have enough races
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that we can begin asking not simply whether progressives are winning,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: but under what conditions progressives can win? And I think right,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: now that's the best way to tell this story. So
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Michigan else I had wins Minnesota, Flannagan wins Wisconsin, Haun
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: loses by a hair. Right, these are three Midwestern states.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: They're all slightly different makeups. Right, by the way, Minnesota
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit wider of a state. I think that
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: explains why Flannagan was able to win a bigger margin.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: But all these electorates are similar, but they're not identical.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: The candidates are not identical, and the brand of progressivism
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: they were selling not quite identical. So what are we learning?
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Less than one there's still a coalition problem. The first
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: things progressives now continue have to grapple with is something
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders has dealt with since he started running for president.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: African American Democratic voters remain a major obstacle to a
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: certain brand of progressive politician. That was the wall Sanders
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: hit in South Carolina multiple times in his candidacies for president,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: and more broadly, there's always been this cultural gap between
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the highly educated progressive activist electorate and many of the
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: working class Democratic voters that largely are African American voters
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: but also Latino voters in some states, and it's not
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: necessarily on economics. It's on culture. And I think that
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: distinction matters because I think if these candidates stick to
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: economic issues, they can get more of a more of
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: a they can have more of a potential opening here
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: with some voters. But the rhetoric of the progressive movement
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: is built around the working class, right, that's what they say,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: We're fighting for working people. Okay, But sometimes this coalition
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: itself can look almost inverted from the rhetoric they're spewing. Right,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: The most enthusiastic support for progressives comes from highly educated
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: voters who are explaining what they believe working class voters need,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: while a meaningful number of those actual working class voters
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: themselves remain skeptical of what these folks are selling. And
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I think it's something progressive need to spend more time
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: thinking about, because if the people you say your movement
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: is designed to empower are among the voters most reluctant
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: to join your movement, And I would argue, inside these
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: democratic primaries, the entire economic message app is geared towards
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: working class democrats, those that actually are working class democrats
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: are the ones most allergic to these candidates. So I
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: would say to progressives if you're trying to figure out
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: what's wrong here. I know my friend Adam Green thinks
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: about these things. My fen Faz Shakur runs Bernie's World,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: thinks about these things. And I'm sure I have a
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: feeling I know why Bernie didn't endorse Pong because I
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: know how Faz Chakor thinks about these things. If you're
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: not talking economics, you're wasting your time. But I do
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: think the progressive movement needs ask itself. Why are the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: voters that they say they're trying to help the most
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: with their economic policies the ones that are having the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: hardest time joining their movement. It's not simply a messaging
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: glutch folks. I think it's telling you something subsident. This
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  Speaker 1: Quins dot com slash chuck hung almost seemed engineered in
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  Speaker 1: a Republican laboratory to activate the stereotype that Republicans want
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: to attach to progressivism. Right Madison, highly educated, very culturally liberal,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: very online statements. It sounds completely normal inside a particular
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: activist community in the isthmus of Dane County and completely
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: foreign outside of it. It doesn't mean the policy agenda's unpopular, right,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the ideas may be popular, but it means the cultural
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: virtue signaling that's coming from progressive can frankly just swallow
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the policy ideas completely, and people don't even see the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: policy ideas, They just see the weird now. Second lesson
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the structure of your primary matters enormously in the likelihood
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: of success of a progress of candidate. Look at where
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: progressive candidates have succeeded crowded primaries. Right. If you don't
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: need fifty percent, look at the Michigan seven Democratic primary
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: one progressive two establishment. The establishment splits a majority of
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the vote forty percent of winning number. Fragmented opposition helps enormously.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: We saw that Hung had a big lead when there
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: was multiple people running against her. Low turnout electorates help right.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: These massive turnouts have also brought out the occasional primary voter,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the occasional primary voter nearly as far left as the
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: everyday primary voter. Wisconsin. Massive primary turnout, and because when
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: the electorate broadens, progressives run into trouble. So this is
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: why I'm a big advocate of open primaries and I
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: say this not to say that, you know, I mean,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I don't like the far right and far left. I
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: don't think that as politics that can work. That doesn't
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: mean your ideas shouldn't be part of the conversation. That
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean they shouldn't help influence the larger debate. But
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I could tell you it is, you know it is.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: It is tough to get a majority for you to
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: support that. Open primaries, though, allow for the majority to
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: have their voice heard inside a primary, and Wisconsin effectively
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: allows a voter to choose which parties primary to participate
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: in without having a register to that party. You cannot
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: vote in both party primaries. Right, It's very similar to
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: what we have in Virginia, but you have considerably more
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: freedom than in a closed primary state. And I find
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: it fascinating that party establishments, right. You know, the biggest
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: opponents of open primaries in these state by state efforts
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to open them up are so frequently the actual political
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: parties themselves, and they oppose it, and yet they don't
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: want to. They don't they're afraid of more voters into
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: their primaries when those very systems sometimes right, the more
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: open the system is, they can actually save the establishment
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: from an insurgency. But anyway, Republicans have been experiencing this too. Right,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: the smaller, more ideological self selecting you make the electorate,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the easier it becomes for the highly motivated faction to
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: capture a nomination. If you want fewer extremist candidates, let
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: more voters vote more democracy keeps you away from extremism.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Sit with that. It's just not that complicated. And in
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin another case study, let's go to lesson three. The
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: attention economy can eat your campaign. What do I mean? Then,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: let's talk about what I think was Hong's biggest unforced
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: air Nobody forced her to spend the final stretch of
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: her campaign doing a national media tour. So you might say, yeah,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: why the hell did you do that? Like that seems stupid, Well,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: there was a tactical reason she had to do it. Money.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: This is the structure of progressive politics becomes important, and
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I think it's a problem progresses have got to figure
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: out how to solve. Progressive candidates, on one hand, have
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a very effective national fundraising network. It's a very effective
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: grassroots network. Maybe semi elite grassroots, but it is grassroots. Nonetheless,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: there isn't like, you know, a couple of offices that
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: they could go to in downtown Chicago or downtown New
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: York where twenty people sit around writing giant checks and
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: deciding which campaigns get funded. Right, the progressive movement doesn't
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: have doesn't have a donor network like that. You have
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: to activate thousands and thousands of people. So how do
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: you activate them? Attention, You go viral, You get the
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: cable clip. Right, this is what cable news hits are about. Now,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: they're almost all fundraising hits. You get a podcast clip,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: you get an influencer clip, right, it gets shared, and
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: suddenly you raise four hundred thousand dollars in six hours.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Now it's not exclusively a left wing phenomenon. By the way,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the right has built the same machine. A Republican politician
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: goes on Fox or Newsmax, produces a viral confrontation. Maybe
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: they even go on a Sunday show, try to have
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: a viral confrontation with the host, simply to watch the
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: fundraising meter move right. Sadly, most media appearances by elected
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: officials now increasingly function as simply fundraising appearances. It's why
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: they don't want to you know, they'll either go They
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: either want to go into the lions den and force
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: a fight. Look, my candidate went on Fox, or my
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: candidate went on MS right if they're on the right
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: or the left, whatever it is, or they go to
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the friendliest environments because they want that audience to get
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: money too. Right. So the incentives are obvious, but the
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: danger is also obvious. The thing that raises you half
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: a million dollars nationally may cost you the ten thousand
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: votes you need at the very end locally, your national
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: online audience and your state why I'd electorate are not
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: necessarily the same people. Hong needed money. She didn't have
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the same kind of established Wisconsin financial network Crawley eventually
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: had behind him. So the national intention machine made sense
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: until it didn't. And once the conversation became let me
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: explain what I meant by canceled Thanksgiving, it was already over.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: The machine was feeding on her rather than feeding her campaign.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: That's politics. Everything can matter. Now, let's talk about the
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: mom Donnie comparison for a moment. This is where I
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: think it becomes quite useful, because if I were advising
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: people trying to understand why Nanni succeeded and Hong didn't.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I would not begin with socialism. I'd simply begin with discipline. Mom.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Donnie's message was very disciplined. Your life costs too much.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Your rent costs too much, groceries cost too much, transportation
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: costs too much. That falafel you eat costs too much.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Here's how I'm going to make it cheaper. Now. You
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: could disagree with some of his solutions, but he was
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: focused on one thing. How do I make life a
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: little bit easier for you to navigate in New York City?
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: You understood the argument. He didn't spend the campaign explaining
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Thanksgiving or someone. I mean, imagine, right, he's doing that
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: in New York City. What are you gonna do about
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade? Right? I know that sounds glib,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: but it's actually an important point here. Right, Very ideological
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: candidates can win when they spend most of their time
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: talking about things the electorate. The larger electorate already agrees
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: are problems. The moment the campaign becomes a seminar and
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: a candidate's most culturally exotic beliefs, well, the relationship changes.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: The voters stop hearing, Oh this person wants to fight
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: for me. That's a little aggressive, but you know, I
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: appreciate the sentiment. But then they hear this other garbage
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: and they say, is this person even like me? Do
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: they understand the Do we live in the same world.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: That's a dangerous transformation, you know. On the right, I
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: see this with this flirtation with Christian nationalism, does the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: same thing. You know, you start explaining why America needs
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to adopt your particular theological understanding of government, and suddenly
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: a voter who agreed with you about taxes being too
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: high as thinking, oh, wait a minute. So it's amazing
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to me how ideological movements forget this just constantly. And
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I think part of it is they just hang out
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: with each other, and so what sounds normal to them,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: they don't fully appreciate how weird it sounds to literally
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: somebody who lives in the next county. Now, let's talk
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: about the establishment, because the establishment here wheneveryone, the governing
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: wing of the Democratic Party needs to be very careful
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: about spiking the football about Wisconsin too much, because, let's
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: be honest, they almost screwed this thing up. How the
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: hell did they get in this position? Tony Evers, the
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: outgoing governor, was getting dangerous, really close to becoming the
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: other definition of goat. Not greatest of all time, right,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: the goat, the guy everybody points to afterward and asks,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: how the hell did you let this happen? The Wisconsin
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Democratic gubertatial primary is man. I hope there's a documentary
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: on this. It's been. It's one of the strangest slow
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: motion political train wrecks I can remember. Evers took his
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: time to first, let's go back to the beginning here,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: and we got a lot of this on our live
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: stream from a terrific Milwaukee Journal centerl reporter Molly Beck
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: and my friend Charles Benson, also from NBC four in Milwaukee.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: You know when you sort of sayd how did the
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: establishment wig of the party get into this mess in
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the first place? And so I'll give you a little
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: bit of the backstory they share. Evers took his time,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: first of all, deciding whether to see a third term.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: There was no term limits in Wisconsin. If you wanted
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: to seek a third term, he could have, so that
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: already froze the field early. Then you had then you know,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: then there was a little bit of you know, a
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: whisper campaign. You know, maybe you need to move on.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Governor Evers. You've been here a while, you're getting up
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: there in years. You've been terrific, But why didn't you
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: move for the next generation? And so you know it,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: it sort of still was a frozenness to the field.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Then you had a series of potential establishment alternatives emerge
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and disappear. You know, the city Attorney General, most people
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: thought would have been the traditional front runner. He chose
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: not to get in. Progressives weren't too thrilled with him,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: So maybe he feared getting involved in a primary where
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: he may get challenged from the left. The sitting Lieutenant
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Governor Sarah Rodriguez. You know, she was initially the candidate
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: that everybody was rallying around us. Who Crawley got out
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: of the race to endorse. Well, she had a drop
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: out because she had some sort of campaign finance embezzlement
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: scandal where where the amount of money she thought she
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: had and what she actually had was like the ten
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: x difference and not in a good direction. Bendela Barnes,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: you may remember him from narrowly losing the Senate race
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: to Ron Johnson in twenty twenty two. Well, he was
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: also running for governor. He's the first term lieutenant governor
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: for Tony Evers. He withdrew about an hour after Milwaukee
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Journal sevenel began asking him about allegations of inappropriate behavior
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: that had been raised with state Democratic officials involving younger women.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: And of course, as I noted, David Crawley, the Milwaukee
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: County execut had already gotten out in order to help
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: clear the field to stop Hong, and he endorsed Rodriguez.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: So Rodriguez exits, Crawley gets back in, Evers, who had
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: been sitting on the sideline, decides to endorse him, and
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: suddenly you had what amounted to an emergency rescue operation. Right.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: It was like it was like a bad movie plot.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: It was like, let's get the let's you know, let's
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: get the replacements, let's get the old guys together. It's
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: sliced the loon, It's Arnold Schwartz and a or whatever
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: bad movie metaphor you want to come up with. The
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: dirty doesn't. Meanwhile, Hank is sitting there with an organized
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: progressive base out of Madison, while the rest of the
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: party looks like somebody dropped a grenade into the filing cabinets.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: It was crazy. And if somebody like I said, please
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: make a documentary about this primary, it's the rare documentary
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: w in which the establishment gets to be the underdog,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: you know. But the establishment had to mount this last
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: minute insurgency in order to stop an insurgent, which is
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: why we were all skeptical it was going to work.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: But somehow it worked. Now there's some one more thing
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: here I don't want to lose, and that is this
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: idea that David Crawley is an established It's sort of
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: you know, he got his back up, but he was
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: referred to as establishment, and I understand it. Let me
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: tell you a little bit about David Crawley, right, because
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: he's going to be described, he's being described nationally all
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: over the place as the establishment candidate. Right. Here's why
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: David Crawley cringes a little bit at that lat all right.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: He's forty years old. He became Milwaukee County executive after
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: serving in the State Assembly. He's got a personal biography
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: that looks very little like the caricature of somebody groomed
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: by an elite political class. He grew up amid poverty.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: One of the poorest zip codes in Milwaukee, one of
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: the most dangerous zip codes in Milwaukee family instability, spent
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: part of his youth in foster care. This is nobody
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: that was born on third Place Silver spoon right. Frankly,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: both Crawley and Hong have biographies that are much more
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: interesting than the standard story of two Ivy League lawyers
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: deciding they out to run for something. It is. These
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: are two people who actually lived lives before politics, who
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: had struggles like you and me. Like a lot of people,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: they worked. They came into politics through very different routes.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: That's worth remembering amid all this ideological labeling. Let me
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: also give Tony Evers a little bit of credit for
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: something here. He didn't issue an endorsement and disappear, and
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: this could have some recriminations next door in Michigan, he
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: campaigned and heart he put his own political capital behind Crawley.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Crawley had some outside spending helping him, but the outgoing
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: governor effectively said, nope, by oppressmen's here, get on my back,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: let's go, let's try to move some voters. And boy
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: at work by the skin of his teeth. Now I
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: want to ponder a few more what ifs. And I'm
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: going to aim this in both directions because the establishment
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: isn't going to be the only side that is going
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: to have some hindsight conversations with himself. It's worth noting
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: some Hong supporters, when you lose a look, when you
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: lose by as close of a margin as she lost by,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: you can point to one hundred things that you would
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: have done differently. Obviously, the big one is not to
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: debate whether Thanksgiving should be a holiday or not. Probably
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: number one, number two, number three in the list. But
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: it's notable that AOC and Bernie Sanders and many of
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: the national progressives declined to endorse her, and she worked
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: really hard in the last week to try to get
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: she and it all goes back to what I was
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: telling you before. Why did she start doing national television.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: She didn't do it because she thought it was a
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: good idea to win votes. They needed money and if
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders and AOC weren't going to use their donor
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: lists to help her, and they decided to not do it, which,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: by the way, I'm trying to does this make them
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: look prescient or will some progressive say it's your fault
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: she came up short. That's going to be something I'm
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: very curious to watch over this weekend and over the
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: next couple of weeks what happens there. You know, AOC
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: just simply said she didn't get involved in that race
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: because she's just focused on Congress. Okay, maybe, but she
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: didn't have the two biggest names in the movement. And
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: so there's there's something there. And the question is did
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: they see something? You know? Is this I think it's Look,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: some of the people advising Bernie and AOC and these
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: things are very shrewd. They very much have a north
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: star on keeping this focused on economic anxiety. That that's
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: how you can have the broadest conversation with the broadest electorate.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: At the minute you start getting into these boutique cultural
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: debates that maybe feel good in a dorm room, it's
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: a problem. Now. Compare that to Michigan. Right the weekend
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: before the primary, Abduel Outside had campaign in Michigan's largest
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: cities with Bernie Sanders, with Elizabeth Warren, with AOC all
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: in person. And it's a good thing he had him there,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: right because he only won by a point. This episode
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• 38:49
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• 38:51
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• 39:12
  Speaker 1: one purchase. He bought a life insurance policy. Wasn't a
• 39:15
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• 39:18
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• 39:20
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• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Application times may vary and rates may vary. So here's
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: the pattern that nobody has said out loud. Here two
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: primaries one week apart, both decided by roughly a point.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: In Michigan, the progressive cavalry got on a plane and
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: the establishment governor mailed in a video. Eleven days out
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, the establishment governor got in the car and
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: drove to Osh Gosh and the Progressive cavalry stayed in Washington,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: and in both states the side that physically showed up
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: won by a point. I'm not saying, I'm just showing,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Which brings me to the question back around to Michigan.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Gretchen Whitmer and Alyssa Slocken, could they have done what
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Evers did? Whitmer endorsed Slocken actually never endorsed Haley Stevens,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: because remember Evers didn't just endorse, he talked to candidate
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: who had quit back into the race and then endorsed.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Whitmer had eight years of political capital just like Evers.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: She had a fifty two percent job approval rating, Slochin
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: had the organization that beat Mike Rogers twenty months ago.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Neither one of them lacked that disability. What they lacked,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: arguably in hindsight, was urgency and maybe if there, if
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: we're being fair here, a reason to believe it was necessary.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Perhaps they saw abdul Lsied as electable enough, while Evers
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: looked at Hang and thought this is a disaster. So look,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: everybody had a defensible reason in this AOC and Bernie
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: were focused on flipping Congress. They didn't want to get
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: involved in governor's races. Okay, it's an explanation. Slocken has
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: to serve with whoever wins, It's an explanation. Whitmer might
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: be thinking about twenty twenty eight, not wanting to take
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: a side just yet, right, or maybe she's not running
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight and wants to keep her powder dry.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Evers is retiring. And even he said he might have gone,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: he said he might have gone a week or two earlier.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Every one of these was a rational call at the time.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: But none of these decisions are going to be judged
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: on whether they were rational. They're going to be judged
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: and the results in November. If Elsi had wins Michigan,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Whitmer's caution will be read as respect for the voters,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: and Slatkin's neutrality will be read as statementship. But if
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Elsi had loses and Crawley wins in Wisconsin next door
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: on the same night, then the entire Democratic Party wakes
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: up on November fourth with one data point in one story,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: the state where the governor showed up held and the
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: state where the governor sent a video did not. Nobody's
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: decision will have changed, Only the verdict will have still.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: If you're Haley Stevens today. Do you wonder what happens
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: if Gretchen Whitmer does for you what Tony Evers did
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: for David Crawley. Do you wonder what happens if Alissa
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Slotkin had spent the last week stumping with you in
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: the state? Look, there has been enormous sensitivity among Democratic
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: elected officials about making candidates look two establishment if they
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: endorse right. Nobody wants to be the person telling voters
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: whom they should nominate. Fine, but primaries are about a
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: time for choosing. It's on the calendar. You can't vote
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: for both. You have to pick one. And one lesson
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: of Wisconsin is that there are moments when straddling the
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: fence is not really a position. If you choose, if
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: you choose not to decide, you've made a choice, but
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: it may not be a good one. And if you
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: think there is an important distinction between the socialist wing
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: of the party and the rest of the Democratic Party,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: eventually you're going to have to be willing to say so.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Otherwise voters are entitled to wonder whether you actually believe
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: the distinction and exists, And it's pretty important for Democrats
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: nationally who are trying to say they're not socialists to
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: have evidence that others are trying to make this distinction clear.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: So look, I want to watch what happens next. As
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: I said earlier, I want to see because Wisconsin has
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: created a fascinating opportunity for those with national ambition inside
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party who do not consider themselves democratic socialists
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: to finally say so without sounding like they're simply lecturing
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: the left. Tony Evers picked a side. He didn't say.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Francesca Hong is a perfectly fine Democrat, but David Crawley
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: happens to be my guy. He put his political capital
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: into stopping her and making it clear, and it worked.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: So I'm curious does Andy Basheer use this moment He's
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: the DGA chair, real fascinating opportunity for him to draw
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: a bright line Wes Moore, another governor, Mark Kelly Gavin
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: new Right, Who's going to use Wisconsin to draw a
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: bright line because that there is an incentive question here
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: that mainstream Democrats have been ducking. If you're if you're
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: only kind of progressive, the progressive movement isn't necessarily going
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: to reward you for it. There's no look at all
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: the ones that tried to straddle the left in the establishment.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Mally McMorrow bombed. Kamala Harris, I would argue in twenty
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: nineteen tried to do this and it bombed. Right, you're
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: either on one side of the line or you're on
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: the other on this one. So perhaps the smarter political
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: identity is not to spend your time proving that you're
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: progressive adjacent, make the distinction a virtue. I'm a Democrat,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not a democratic socialist, and here's what I believe,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: and then defend it. Because one lesson of Wisconsin is
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: that picking aside did not kill Tony Eavers politically doesn't
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: appear to kill Tony. And now look, I mean, I
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: guess if Madison doesn't show up in November, then maybe
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: you'll say it was a mistake. We'll say I don't
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: think that's going to happen. But Tony Heavers may have
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: saved his party from a nomination it badly feared. There
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: could be something liberating about that, if Democrats are willing
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: to learn it. Now, let's go back to Minnesota for
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: a second, because Peggy Flanagan gives progressive an answer to
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: anyone trying to turn Wisconsin into some sweeping repudiation of left.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: It isn't. Flannagan beat Angie Craig solidly. She had support
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: and she had some institutional sports. Flannagan, unlike Hung, had
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: the support of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and with the
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: retiring Senator Tina Smith. Then you had immigration become a
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: significant issue in this race due to the ice killings
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: of two Minnesota residents. And then it made Craig's vote
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: for the Lake and Riley Act, which clearly was calculated
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: at the time as somebody who represents a very swing
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: district and she just guessed wrong on the politics of immigration. Right.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: And if that vote doesn't happen as this race closer, maybe,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: but I still think planning and wins. But still, Minnesota
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: has always struck me as one of the better environments
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: for a progressive victory. And you've seen it, right, They've
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: had some select because the Democrat electorate is different, the
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: ideological geography is different, and Flannagan herself was different. She
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't some outsider who showed up from an activist organization
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: and announced that everybody currently running the Democratic parties corrupt, right.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: She was the lieutenant governor. She was kind of already
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: an insider and a progressive, and oddly that mattered, right.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Minnesota is kind of an instant progressive state, but it's also,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: you know, it's also a rules base state. Right. There's
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: also a pretty important difference in tone. You know, neither
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Flannagan nor Craig went as nuclear on the other as
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: they theoretically could have. You know, by Minnesota standards, was
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: it negative. Yes, By normal American political standards, it was
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: patty cake. Craig certainly could have run a much explicit
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: electability campaign against Flanagin, tying her to the unpopular side
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: of Tim Walls and all of that. She could have
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: turned her entire campaign into the if you nominate her,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: you risk you might lose this sentency. But that argument
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: was going to be harder to make when this Tina Smith,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: the sitting senator who seats you're trying to fill, was
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: supporting your opponent who you just said was unelectable. Flannagain
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: had some establishment validators in addition to progressive support that
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: allowed her to be progressive without being defined as some
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: sort of alien to the party. And I think that's
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: a big difference from home. So now, big picture, how
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: well are progressives actually doing? And this is why I
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: don't think the scorecard is progressives are winning or progressives
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: are losing. The bottom line is they're doing better. They're
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: doing better this cycle than they did last cycle. They're
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: doing a lot better. And you know me, I'm going
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: to do a sports analogy. So if you don't lie, well,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: tough shit. I'm gonna If I were describing them the
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: way I talk about a college football rebuild, I would
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: say this movement has gone from being a six and
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: six team to maybe an eight and four team with
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: the possibility of getting better. It's progress. The question is
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: whether they can become a playoff team, and one answer
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: may come in November with abdual Lsi and Michigan. But
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: regardless of what happens there, one thing is almost certainly true.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: The Democratic Caucus that comes back to Washington next year
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: is likely to be somewhat younger and somewhat further left
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: than the Democratic caucus sitting there today. That's true in
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: the House, and it will be true of the Senate.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Right the collective Democratic House of twenty twenty seven will
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: collectively be slightly further than the left than the current
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Democratic caucus in the House right now, and the same
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: holds true with the Senate. So when you look at
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: it through that prism, that's a long term trajectory win
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: for progressive that they can point to. They are changing
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: the personnel of the party slowly, but surely, they are
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: moving the conversation. They are winning enough races that nobody
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: can simply dismiss them as a Twitter phenomenon anymore. Right,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin doesn't erase Michigan, and Wisconsin doesn't erase Minnesota. But
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Michigan and Minnesota don't erase Wisconsin either. We just have
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: more evidence. Let's go back to the establishment. They still
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: have a pretty big problem. Because here's the part mainstream
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Democrats should not miss and should not overlook about how
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: lucky they got. Francesca Honk gave David Crawley an enormous
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: political gift. She gave him a very easy answer to
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: the question why shouldn't she be the nominee? Right, But
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Crawley's campaign was still urgely about what he wasn't right.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: He wasn't hung, he wasn't socialist, he wasn't anti Thanksgiving. Okay,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: but tell me what he is and that remains. You know,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: this was the Hailey Stephens problem, that remains the central
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: problem for this governing wing of the Democratic Party. We
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: know what the Democrats aren't. They aren't Trump, they aren't Magot,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: they aren't socialists, they aren't DSA. Okay, what are you?
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: What is this governing project? What is the larger economic idea?
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: What is the role of government? What is your plan?
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: What is the thing an ordinary voter can explain to
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: a neighbor in ten words, not why they're not for
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: the other guy, but why why should they be a democrat?
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Progresses have an answer. You may think it's a bad answer,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: but they have an answer. The establishment too often simply
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: points to resumes and that isn't the same thing. So
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin may have been a successful rescue mission, but it
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily a renewal just yet. And those are two
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: different things. Can we step back and look at the
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: big picture here about some pretty big barriers that are
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: going to get broken this year? You know me, I
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: like to talk about some of those historic firsts. We
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: have a pretty remarkable thing happening underneath all of this
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: that I don't think we've paid enough attention to look
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: at the potential class of governors emerging around the country.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: Keisha Lance Bottoms of the Democratic nominee in Georgia. If
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: she wins right now, it's a total toss up race.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: She would become the first black woman elected governor of Georgia.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin could elect David Crawlett, who would become the state's
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: first black governor. Ohio is going to choose between Democrat
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: Amy Acton and Republican Vivik Ramaswami, meaning either they will
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: elect the state's first woman governor they've had one that
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: assumed the office but never directly elected, or they will
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: elect their first governor of color ro'm Aswami, an Indian American.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Deb Holland is the Democratic nominee and heavy favorite to
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: be the next governor of New Mexico. If elected, she
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: becomes the country's first Native American woman governor. If you're
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: wondering who was the first Native American governor, it's actually
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: the current governor of Oklahoma right now, Kevin Stitt, who
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: is Cherokee. All of this is happening kind of quietly,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: you know, which is I think that in itself right
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: that that isn't the lead here tells you in some ways,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: that's its own type of progress. Crawley, by the way,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: is forty, so he's young, which brings me to one
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: of my favorite ridiculous Washington rituals. If Crawley gets elected
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: governor at the age of forty, you, David Crawley, are
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: going to get invited to the club shortlist. It's an
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: exclusive club. I've got velvet ropes, it's got fast tracks
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: to South Carolina and New Hampshire. What am I talking about? Well,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: the minute you become a governor or senator of either
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: party from one of the handful of states that everybody
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: obsesses over for presidential politics, a new question begins appearing.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Could that person be on a national ticket someday? Now,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: David Crawley's got to win the general election first before
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: we get completely carried away with his membership to club shortlist.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: But if he does, mister Crawley, your membership card, your
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: invitation to club shortlist, will be in the mail. I
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: obviously am very hopeful I can make club shortlist a
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: thing and make it a recurring segment. There really is
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: a whole category of American politician who is not necessarily
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: running for president. May have no intention of ever running
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: for president, but has reached the point where every reporter
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: in America is legally required to put their name into
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: a vice presidential story. Right, you get a membership card.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you get to keep that card for years. You know,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Gretchen Wimer's had that card since twenty eighteen. I think
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: she still gets to keep it. Sometimes you get thrown
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: out of the club. Sometimes you can get readmitted. I
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: think Ruben Diego, I think he may have his membership
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: card rescinded. But you know, we'll see. There's some rules,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: there's some bylaws. You may not know him. We've got
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: a committee that we will consult who gets to get
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: in and out. But in all seriousness, this is probably
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: a segment I'm going to have some fun with. But
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. Tell me who you
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: think is my governor or senator going to get an
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: invitation to club shortlist, Because honestly, the larger takeaway from
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: Tuesday isn't that the progressive insurgency won, and it isn't
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: that the establishment won. It's that Democratic voters are becoming
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: much more discriminating about how they want change, and it
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: has to do with what I said earlier on my
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: previous podcast, we know voters want change. Michigan showed us
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: that Minnesota showed us at Wisconsin has showed us at two.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: The progressive movement is stronger than it was. It is
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: winning races it would not have won a few years ago.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: But it is not in charge of the Democratic Party.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: It is not one control of the Democratic Party. And
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: perhaps the most important thing that watching Wisconsin demonstrated is
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: that Democratic voters can be furious with the status quo
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: without becoming indiscriminate about the alternative. For a lot of
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: national Democrats, Abdul l Sayed's victory has caused a bit
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: of heartburn this week. David Crawley's victory may feel like
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: the best bottle of thumbs the Democratic establishment has ever swallowed.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: That's how much better the party feels today, and it
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: is a huge look. This means that control of the
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: legislature is realistic in Wisconsin. Moving to the Democrats. This
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: takes Like I said, this makes Abduel l say Ed's
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: life a lot easier rather than having to have the
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: Hong stuff bleed over into his state. It is a
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: way to blunt this narrative that the somehow the socialists
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: have taken over. The socialists may want to take over,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: but the democratic establishment fought back successfully. It's something in
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: the Trump era we've never seen from the Republican establishment.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: For what it's worth, all right, let me move on
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: to a few other things. Speaking of mister Trump, We've
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: had three primaries in six days. Actually, if you go
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: back to we could go Thursday in Tennessee, where Trump
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: endorsed candidates lost primaries August sixth, Tennessee's fifth district. Trump
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: re upped his endorsement of Andyagles the morning of the election,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: complete and totally, you know, the whole bullshit. Ogle's lost
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: by about six and a half points to a gentleman
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: named Charlie Hatcher. The former state ad commissioner, had helped
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: from the sitting governor, had helped from a couple of
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: outside groups that are pretty anti Freedom Caucus a bit
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: of a black mark on Trump. Tuesday, Minnesota, Trump endorsed
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: mister My Pillowman Mike Lindell for governor. Lindell got thirty
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: one percent. Lisa Damouth, the state House speaker, won the
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: primary to the absolute relief of the Republican establishment. By
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: the way, in that state because Democrats are with Amy
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Clobershar at the top of the ticket. They'd like to
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: get total control of the state legislature. They don't have
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: it now, and Mike Lindell as Republican nominee would have
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: made it a cakewalk. Now it won't be a cakewalk,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: and it may not happen at least literally, the Republicans
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: lucked into the one candidate of the three that we're
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: running that isn't Looney Tunes, and that's a big deal.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: So but presidential endorsement number two Lindell right finished the second.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: Let's go over to South Carolina, the special primary election
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: to replace the late now late Senator Lindsay Graham. Trump
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: personally encouraged Darlene Graham to run for her late brother's seat,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: and then he endorsed her. There were ten candidates on
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the ballot. She she didn't even get a third of
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: the vote. That's how that's how effective the Trump endorsement is.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: He can't even help a candidate get thirty three percent.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: She got thirty two point seven percent. Ralph Norman, retiring
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: member of Congress who ran for governor instead of running
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: for reelection, he got he got stuck into Senate place.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: There's going to be a runoff now on August twenty fifth.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: And I have to tell you I'm not I don't
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: think Graham's a shoeing here. Runoffs are quirky. This is
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: going to be you know, this is literally the fourth
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: statewide Republican election in three months that we're going to
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: see there. And it began we had the regular primary
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: in June, then a runof at the end of June,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: then this special primary last Tuesday, and then we went
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: on a runoff. Right, I mean it's within two and
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: a half months four statewide Republican primaries. Turnout has gone
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: down a little bit and a little bit, so this
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: is going to be a super low turnout. The base
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: South Carolina voter was no Lindsey Graham fan. I'm just
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: saying she's no shoeing. What'll be interesting to see is
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: whether Trump does any actually helps her, actually spends money
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: on her behalf, tries to get over the finish line,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: or does he you already saw he already sort of hint.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Do you could see he's not going to expend too
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: much capital on her behalf. He just said, well, I
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: endorsed her because of my friendship with Lindsay, which has
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: the if you're her campaign that should make you nervous.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: The dreaded dual endorsement, a mega can't lose type of
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: endorsement where he duel endorses could be although Nikki, remember
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: what's interesting about Ralph Norman is Norman didn't endorse Trump
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four endorsed Nicki Haley. Nikki Haley has
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: said she's going all in to help Norman, to repay him.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe that motivates Trump to help Graham. I don't know.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: But let's look at this big picture here, this is
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: three it is. There's no ambiguity here. Trump endorsed candidates
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: have a worse track record this cycle than any cycle
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: since he showed up on the scene and started doing this.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: And I think the question is is Trump losing his
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: grip on the party or is the endorsement losing its power?
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's quite it. I think what's happening
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: is a bit more structural. I think the endorsement isn't failing.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: It's sort of it's kind of like inflating. It's like inflation, right,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: He's you know, because even the candidates that defeat. The
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: people Trump endorses, they all go out of their way
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: to say that they want to be a Trump candidate
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: and all this stuff. So you know, it's not a
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: you can't say it's a full rebuke of Trump, but
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: the fact that Trump doesn't have this grip over the
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: electorate is worth noting. And that's what happens when a
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: president gets into lane duck territory. That's what happens when
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: you're unpopular. So you know, it's and it's also possible
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: that the endorsement is just meaningless now to most voters,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: right because the endorsements stopped. It's not really information anymore.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: It doesn't separate anybody from anybody other than who's his
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: personal preference. So it's you know, I kind of think
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: that it's just he's made the endorsement meaningless in some ways.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: He gives it out too easily, so it's diluted. Yes,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: he's also losing his grip, so all of it is that.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: I think it's all that, But I think the bigger
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: you know, if she can't win a runoff with Trump's
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: endorsement in in is in sort of in a state
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: that is as important to the Republican party sort of
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: identity as South Carolina is. And then I think it's
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know how many different times we
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: have to say, hey, he's officially a lame duck, but
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: it's she had another way and another instance to be
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: able to say, hey, look he's a lame duck. A
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: few other things from Tuesday night, We lost another member
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: of Congress to a primary defeat. John Larson lost Tuesday
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: night fourteen terms. You know, he actually had some old
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: school established with people behind him, including Nancy Pelosi, Nakim Jefferies.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: He had some labor unions as well, but he lost
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: to somebody who had frankly younger, didn't lose to somebody
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: that was running to his left, lost to a gentleman
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: by the name of Luke Bronham, who was the former
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: mayor of Hartford. He actually had his own constituency. And
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: I think this was about general this was about generation,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: This was not about ideology. So I wouldn't file it
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: into that one. But it is worth noting when you
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: add up everything so far that we have seen the
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: most incumbent House members lose primaries in a non redistricting year,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: the most we've had since nineteen seventy. Now is it
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: a non redistricting year anymore? Right, This mid cycle redistricting
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: certainly has made it there, if you will, But we
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: already have larcense. Defeat means we are guaranteed to have
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: at least seventy three new members of Congress if no
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: other member loses, and we have even gotten to November.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: If this is a wave, the likelihood of twenty five
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: to forty incumbents losing from both sides of the aisle, right,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: that's not the net, right, just a total of another
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: twenty five to forty incumbents losing is not unrealistic in
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: wave elections. It's about the norm it would put. It
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: would mean that we would be right around pretty close
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: to twenty five percent and over of the House of Representatives,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: which would be one of the largest turnovers in the
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: post World War two era. What's interesting is, pre World
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: War One, it was consistently you'd have turnover in the
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: House of forty percent, forty five percent, things like that.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: But in the post World War two environment, it's very
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: very rare. Basically, it's nineteen ninety two, nineteen forty eight,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: and nineteen forty six are when we had at least
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: one hundred new members in those congresses, and those are
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: the only times that's gotten over one hundred since World
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: War Two. We I think the likelihood of getting there
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: with this cycle is as high as ever, that's for sure.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: All Right, Two other quick stories I want to touch
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: on that I normally would spend a lot more time on,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: and it is. It is this. Chris Christy went on
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: the was on one of the Sunday shows ABC, I
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: believe it was, and said the thing that will bother
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump more than anything anyone has said about him
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: so far in the last couple of months. He said
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: the Iran war was quote an adventure without a plan,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: and then he said Trump is about to become the
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: one person he never wanted to be. Jimmy Carter held
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: hostage by Iran, and Christy added the knife All of
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: it was voluntary, right. Carter didn't do this, He didn't
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: choose to have the Iranians humiliate him. Donald Trump made
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: the choice. Obviously. Christy has known Trump right quarter century.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: He knows what he's doing. He picked that comparison on purpose.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: He knows this is going to drive Trump's crazy, right,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: But it lands And I know it landed hard, But
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Christy's even more right than he's arguing, and he's more
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: right for a different reason than everybody's assuming. Because here's
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: what's happened over the last few days with Iran. Iran
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: Supreme National Security Council put out its list of conditions
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: right for reopening the Straight of Horn moves, lift the
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: naval broadcad, end sanctions, with draw forces, release ros and assets,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: you know, commit to never threatening Iran again, and pay
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: reparations for the war that is not They're not negotiating
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: with the United States at the moment. They just sent
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: a ransom note. This was like a big fu And
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: the timing here to me is fascinating because the Iranians
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: put out this wish list days after White House officials
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: were telling reporters, Oh no, no, no, no, they've got
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: a deal is close, deal is close. The deal is
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: any day now. Oh no, no, no, no, We're close. So
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: here's the question nobody's asking if Faran is broke. I
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: believe that their own officials are saying it out loud.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: The blockade is going to cretor their economy. Fine, they
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: need sanctions relief. This is not sustainable for Yan. So
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: why on earth would a country in that position escalate
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: its demands. Well, I think the answer is simple, and
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: it's the most dangerous thing on this list. They're reading
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: ourn't political calendar. Every month that the straight stays closed
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: is a month of oil price and shipping costs and
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: empty shelves, and all of those months are running into
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: November third. The Iranians don't have to win this. They
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: don't have to beat the United States militarily, they don't
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: have to hold a position. They just have to be
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: more patient than an American president who's eighty something days
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: from a midterm election that's about that, and is hand
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: him a pretty big defeat. And that's the real Jimmy
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: Carter parallel. It's not the hostages, it's the clock. Go
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: back and look at what actually happened in nineteen eighty.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: The Iranians understood the American electoral time better than the
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: American president at that time did. They held on through
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: the campaign, and then they timed the release to the
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: minute Ronald Reagan put his hand on the Bible. Because
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: the humiliation of Carter was the point, and the calendar
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: was the weapon. And it wasn't that they were humiliating
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: Carter because they liked Reagan. They were humiliating Carter to
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: send a message of other American presidents. Trump's problem right
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: now is not that Iran is strong. We know Iran
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: is not strong. Iran is broke, it's bombed, it's isolated.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: Trump's problem is that Iran is correctly identified that he
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: is the one on a deadline and they are not.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: Trump has the watches, Iran has the time. It's why
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: his bluster's not working. His response to the reparations demand
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: this week was essentially, fine, we'll bill you too, fifty
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: years of damage. Okay. I guess that's what I would
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: have retorted if I were in his shoes. It's a
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: line that works when the other guy needs something from
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: you this week, but they don't need anything from you
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: this week. They need November. Carter got trapped by an
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: adversary who understood American attention spans. Trump is getting trapped
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: by one that understands American election calendar. Same trap, more savvy.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: All right, let me close with this before I get
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: to the interview with Ben Wickler. I want to do
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: something I've I don't think I've ever done, and I'm
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: going to give Mark Zuckerberg some credit. I want to
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: be careful here because frankly, he's earned a lot of
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: the grief. He gets Cambridge Analytica, the Team Mental Health, hearings,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: the rebrand and run when the heat got bad. There's
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: a reason people are super skeptical when he publishes a manifesto,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: and the skepticism that people have of anything he has
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: to say is not irrational. But he published one this
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: week and it says something that the other guys in
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: the big tech world, in the air world aren't saying,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: and I think he deserves an atta boy here a
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: little bit. The argument that the AI labs have been making,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: some of them explicitly, most of them implicitly, is that
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: this technology is so dangerous that the only responsible thing
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: to do is to keep it in the hands of
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: the very few, their hands generally right. Well, to Zuckerbert's
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: credit is peace says the opposite. He says, concentration of
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: power is the danger here here, man, it's ironic that
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: the CEO of Meta is saying is coming out against
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: concentration of power, as he has his own set of
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: power concentrations. But look, I want to give him credit
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: for what he wrote down. Zuckerbert also said there's no
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: such thing as a benevolent superintelligence held by one company,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: because there's no such thing as a set of values
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: that's benevolent to everybody at once. And he says, the
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: way you get safety is the way we've always gotten
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: safety in a liberal society. You distribute the power and
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: you let the competing interest check each other. Very medisonian
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: of him. Good for you, Zuck. And he's also committing
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: to have an independent board sign off on release criteria
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: rather than making that call himself. And he's staying with
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: open models when the AI industry has been drifting the
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: other direction. Now somebody you are going. You can argue
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: that this is all a pretty convenient position for Zuck
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: to take. Meta is Behindness is what you're for when
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: you're not the lead dog. Right, If their model was
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: the model everybody wanted their hands on, he might want
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: to build a gated community. Fine noted, But honestly, I'd
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: rather have somebody out there making the argument for transparency,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: and then it's being made by a self interested party.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: Then if it's not being made at all, openness and
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: disclosure is a better place to stand than the alternative period,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: and right now he's more or less standing there by
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: himself in the big tech world. So that's a step forward.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: But this manifesto also took two steps back. Buried in
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: the back half of this thing, after the philosophy, after
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: his thought experiment about the super intelligent lawyer, after the
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: section on the recursive self improvement that was a little
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: creepy at times, is the part of his manifesto that
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: I think actually mattered politically and should have been at
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: the start. At the very beginning, Meta is calling it
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: a community compact. In Richland Paris, Louisiana, teachers got a
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars bonus this year because of the tax
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: revenue from the data center. There's also a free training
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: academy for electricians and carpenters and welders with a job guaranteed.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: At the end, Zuck claims they're building their own generation
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: so that they're not eating capacity that would have gone
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: to the town, and Meta committed to putting more water
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: back in the watershed than they take out, and he's
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: establishing a billion dollar fund for police and fire departments
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: in the towns hosting these data centers. That's not a footnote.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: He kind of used it as a footnote, but it's not.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: That's the whole ballgame, because here's what's actually happening in
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: this country right now. Data centers are becoming the zoning
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: fight of the next three years. They're getting voted down
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: in New York, They're getting fought over in Texas. It
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: is one of the very few issues we have where
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: the left and the right are showing up in the
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: same Commission meetings on the same side. May be there
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: for completely different reasons, but they're all against this expansion.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: And Zuckerberg, who's more to offer than fight, you know,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: than anybody led with a debate he's having. He what
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: was frustrating here is said Zuckerberg decided to make his
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: manifesto at first a retort to sam Oltman, like he's
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: in a debate with him, and he buried the stuff
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: that I think the public would want to know more.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: Nobody at that County Commission meeting is litigating whether super
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: intelligence should be centralized or distributed. They're litigating whether their
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: power bill goes up and whether their kids' school gets
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: anything out of it. Zuckerberg, to his credit, has a
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: real answer to that question. The problem is he spent
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: eight thousand words of his manifesto and all the other
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: questions first before he got to it. If the community
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: Compact is the strongest thing you've got, Zuck, and I
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: think it is, then put it in the first paragraph. Brother,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: don't put it in the last paragraph. You don't win
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: a zoning fight by winning a philosophy seminar with Sam Oltman. Anyway, Look,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: I threw it out there because it's really easy to
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: dunk on these big tech CEOs who are very out
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: of touch with this country. And there is no doubt
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: that there is a business incentive for Zuckerberg taking the
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: position that he did. Good. I hope more tech CEOs
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: share his philosophy on this. You need it. The community
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: needs to win on these They have to win too.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: That's number one and two. Yes, this thing needs to
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: be open accessible to everybody. Right now, this entire AI
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: stuff feels like it's an insider trading scheme somehow, being
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: run by Trump and a handful of these tech bandits.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: And that's a bad look. In to Zuckerberg's credit, he
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: came out against it. All right, let's think of a break.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: We're going to continue. Junkie discussion here the future of
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, how does it build a better brand?
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: With Ben Wickler, former chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Well,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: joining me now is somebody who's been on here before.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: And I'll be honest, I thought if he was going
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: to the next time I had him on, i'd be
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: introducing him as the chair of the Democratic National Committee.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: But the committee chose to go another way, and instead
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: Ben Wickler is out here with his own diagnosis of
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: what the party could be doing better. How he rebuilt
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which is no easy task, which
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: we will get into here. As many of you know,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: I like to talk about how Wisconsin's one of the
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: more unique swing states and that there is no swing
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: geographic areas it is. It is in some ways balanced
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: by extremes being a little stereotypical there. But I will
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: get into that, and I'm sure there are many people
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: at the DNC right now who wish that mister Weckler
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: were there, but I won't make him respond to that.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: Ben Weckler joins me now. He's got a new book,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: The Plan, right is that what it's called? What's the
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: plan there?
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: It is?
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: This is the plan? Yes, yes, and when you say
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: the plan is that A this a tactical plan to
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: how to make the Democratic Party mainstream, mainstream to a
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: majority of Americans. Again, is that the idea? What is
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: your plan? Is it? That is it? You know? If
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: you could l elevator pitch the plan to me?
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: Sure? So full title is this is the plan how
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: to end America's meltdown and save democracy. And you'll notice
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: that there's a fire extinguisher on the cover. That is
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: because I think I'm not alone and feeling this very
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: widespread sense that the country's on fire right now, that
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: things are just not working for regular folks, that we
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: need political change to be able to accomplish that. And
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: as I kind of lay out in the book, to
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: get the political change we need, we have to actually
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: change the political system, which is a shorthand is saving democracy,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: but broadly is how we change our system so that
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: it's responsive to what people actually want, which right now
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: the government is not. It is very effectively serving a
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: very small group of people who might be members of
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: the mar A Lago Club but are not representative of
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: a general public that is freaking out about everything from
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: the economy to ice agents shooting people in the streets.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: So the shorthand of the plan is step one. There's
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: a very real question about the future of free and
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: fair elections in this country. Trump is kind of slamming
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: a battering ram against the gates. The most powerful way
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: to ensure we have a real election in twenty twenty
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: eight is for people who believe in democracy to win
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: at the state level in twenty twenty six. Step two
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: is over two cycles, to win a democratic federal trifecta,
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: which will also include independence.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: This is not a.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: Two party doopoly advocating book, but we have to have
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: people who think the government should work for the public
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: and not just for a handful of billionaires win in
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: twenty eight. And then step three, and this is in
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: some ways the most controversial thing. I argue that the
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: immediate first thing that has to happen is an end
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: to the filibuster. And then you need to do US
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court reform. Because this era, i argue, did not
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: begin with Trump descending the Golden escalator. It began with
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: Citizens United. It began with a string of US Supreme
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: Court decisions that have transformed the American political system without
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: actually changing any laws. Then you do national jerrymandering band,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: you do a set of different things that can actually
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: ensure that everyone has a voice and a vote in
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: this country, and then you can get real policies through
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: that will make life affordable and make the American dream
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: accessible to people. But it's a multi step, years long
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: process that mirrors what we went through in Wisconsin to
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: escape from a kind of trapped in democracy here. I
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: think it's the only realistic thing is to realize there's
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: no one office or one candidate that gets us out
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: of this mess.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: Look, I think the tension in your plan for me
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: is systemic reform versus tactical reform. Right, the Democratic Party
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: has a set of challenges in order for the Democratic
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: Party succeed hardstop. There is systemic reform that I think
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: has a broader potential group of people who would be
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: in favor of. But the challenge is the party that
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: wins immediately doesn't want to give up powers that got
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: it there in the first place. Right, the reforms we need,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: like I mean, you know, let's do the most simplistic,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: which is weakening the executive branch. Right, There's no doubt
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: Congress does not understand it. Sometimes I joke I don't
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: think any member of Congress has read Article one of
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: the Constitution. I don't think they fully appreciate what powers
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: they actually have. And you need to sort of strengthen
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: Congress here regardless of party. But if the Democrats, I mean,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: the problem has been is for forty years. It's the
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: moments of the trifectus which you just called, which is
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: success for the Democratic Party or success for the Republican Party,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: but it does not address the systemic breakdowns, and that,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: to me is the trap we're in. It's almost like
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: the Chinese finger trap, you know, articulating the cur I think,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: what a combination of the correct answer. But the minute
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: your party gets power, I promise you they're not going
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: to be reformers. I know that's always a but you
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: just it just never happens that way.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: Why do you think this can be different? Well, you're
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: exactly right. I am arguing that instead of just struggling
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: over the ring of power in Lord of the Rings,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: that you know, my readers should get involved in an
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: epic quest to get the ring of power and then
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: cast it into Mount Doo. That you have to change
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: the way power works in this country to be able
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: to get out of this mess. And that's why throughout
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: the book I advocate one elects people who share those values,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: and then two advocate and push for them to actually
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: act on them when they have power. And this is
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: you know, something on the right that we've seen over
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: and over that when the right wins at the state level,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: at the federal level, there's an immediate focus on changing
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: systems and you know, appointing Supreme Court justices j luys,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: you know, federal employees are scheduled changing the systems itself
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: to lock in power and control. On the democratic side,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: there's an admirable focus on getting the country out of
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: whatever crisis or mess it is, you know, fallen into
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: under Republican leadership, which was you know, most recently the
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: COVID pandemic and then the Great Financial Crisis before that.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: But that hasn't been married to systemic changes. Yeah, I
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: think in part for the exact reason that you're saying
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: that people you know, get there via a certain road
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: and they're like, what do you want us to blow
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: up that road? You know, that's how we got here.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: I think that has to change now. And what I
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: argue in the book is that if it doesn't change,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: then we will predictably be in an even worse situation
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: than we are now starting in twenty thirty that you know,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: there's a pendulum swing, but when one side grabs the
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: pendulum and you know, wrenches the system so that democracy
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: falls apart whenever it swings in that direction, if you
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: just like you know, keep writing the pendulum, then you
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: wind up in disastrous trouble. And that's part of the
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: reason we have change election after change, election after change
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: election without change on so many of the things people
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: are mad about. So this is, this is you know,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: I'm addressing this book to you know, as many people
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: as possible as were involved, as volunteers, as dotors, as activists,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: as people who might run for office, because there needs
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: to be a shift away from just thinking it's about
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: winning the next election and a recognition that this has
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: to involve changing the system itself.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: You know, bet I get my hope in history, right,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: I ground I look at I look at the first
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: twenty years of the twentieth century and think, you know,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of similarities. Industrial age was coming about
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: powerful robber barons, you know, so called the so called
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: robber barons, and ironically it took a third party, or
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: it took me essentially, Teddy Roosevelt breaking off a piece
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: of the party sort of forcing that. That sort of
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: forced some change. We had some you know, we got
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: the most difficult thing there is to do in our system,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: which is add constitutional amendments, and we added some big
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: ones in that period. The power to tax, I think
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: is one we never talk enough about, especially at a
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: point where you now have a movement to get rid
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: of property taxes among some on the right, which I
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: don't think is going to succeed. I mean even at Florida,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: a state that prides itself on wanting to be a
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: place you go to hide your money, right, there's not
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: people get it. Oh you mean so we're not going
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: to have firefighters, We're not going to pay for these things.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: So I don't think there's there. But we couldn't even
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: do those things. We added the tax, We gave women
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: the right to vote direct election to senators. These were
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: monumental changes. Yes, none of which were led by a
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: political party though, but.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: The movement that's how they happened. And guess what that
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: movement started in my state in Wisconsin. This is you know,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: the first successful progressive taxation was in Wisconsin. First date
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: to ratify the ninety amendments so women could vote in Wisconsin,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: open primaries started in Wisconsin. I have a footnote forgive
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: me for reading a footnote from my books.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: That showed you we're really geeking out when it's gotten
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: a footnotes.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: All right, So, so part of I document how we're
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: in a period of greater instability than any other period
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: in American history in terms of which party controls the House,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 2: the Senate, at the White House.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's really only been a that's it's
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: the nineteenth century before we had this kind of tumult.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: That's right now. Yeah, The footnote says, the only other
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: time in the history of the Republic that Congress was
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: this unstable, flipping four times and twenty five years was
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: in the period of hyper industrialization after the Civil War,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: from reconstruction into the Gilded Age, a time of advancing
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: racial justice and bitter backlash, rapid economy, transforming technological change,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: enormous overweening oligarchic fortunes in the hands of titans who
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: bought and sold politicians to advance their wealth and power,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: and a media landscape reshaped by new technologies in which
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: partisan venom reigned in place of fairness and objectivity, thanks
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: in part to leaders from Wisconsin. As chronicled in this book,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: that period gave way to the progressive era, trust busting,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: union protections government in the book interest and reforms that
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: spread prosperity more widely. Unfortunately, you such a different time,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: But there's nothing we can learn today from that period.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exactly, nothing to learn at all. No, I'm
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: obsessed with it. I mean I find it like we are.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: You know, the old joke history history. You know, it
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: may never be in itself, but it certainly rhymes yes,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: and it is it is. I mean, the last time
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: we've had three straight one term presidents was the nineteenth
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: century in that period. It's like the last time for
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: all of these things is in that period. So that
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: is what gives me hope. I'm just not as my jokes,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: I'm short term pessimistic, long term optimistic. I know, as
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: Winston Churchill, I repeat this all the time, he says,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: you can always count on the Americans to be there
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: after they've exhausted every other path in some form of it.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: And there's some truthiness to that, right, like that is
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: sort of right. We finally got into World War One,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: we finally got into war. We're reluctant warriors, but when
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: when we're in, you're glad we're there. But it does
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: take forever for us to to become an ally I
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: do I just you know what you and I are
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: both describing, though we're outside forces, not inside forces. But
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: let's talk about inside the Democratic Party right now. Matthew
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: Iglesias wrote a terrific piece a couple of weeks ago quoting, uh,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: this one of the Star Wars series and Or, there's
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: this quote in and Or which is as good of
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: a political comparison to where we are today right They
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: It was a it's a really smart series, and the
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: simple question was do you want to fight or do
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: you want to win? Ye? And I sit here, Ben,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt in my mind your goal is to win.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: But you and I both know that the constituency rising
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: inside your party right now, I think is more animated
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: by the fight and anding this that they're not interested
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: in the larger fight until they win this fight. How
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: do you stop that?
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 2: So here's the weird thing about this moment that is
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: also true within the Republican base, and it's in the
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: general public. There's this sense of, like, does anybody notice
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: how hard this is, how screwed up everything is. There's
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: a hunger for that, and you can see that, you know,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: in Iowa, in Alaska, in Wisconsin, in Texas, in Pennsylvania,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: in Michigan, everywhere in the country, including in places that
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: have these heavily contested primaries, but also places that don't.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: Nobody running on the status quo right now is winning.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: There's a sense of like, there has to be change,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: and to me, the entergy the kind of fighty energy
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 2: that can be channeled into the energy to win and
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: then create change from winning. That's, in a sense my
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: argument in the book that's also been my work for
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: years in Wisconsin. I also quote and Or in the book,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: which is the idea of one way out, which is
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: a pivotal speech and a pivotal scene. In some ways,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: there's one way out of the mess that we're in
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: right now. As a country. We could be polarized, not
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: just polarized, but so gerrymandered that basically no one gets
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: a vote for the House the same way almost no
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: one gets a vote for the presidency and the Senate
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: can block every major reform from going through if one
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: party decides to veto it, and then you're just stuck
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: with the laws that we've got on the books. And
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: then a totally unchecked executive that operates like a king
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: and gets rubber stamped only when it's a Republican by
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: this US Supreme Court. That's the status quo at the moment.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: And unraveling that, you know, requires having a straight effective
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: that's committed to change that then acts on that commitment.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: I think it's just part of politics in a time
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: of unrest that there are enormous divisions within primaries. And
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: the central question, which is really a question about will,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: is whether after primaries everyone unites, as Michigan just did
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: and as Wisconsin is going to do this coming Wednesday
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: after the governor's race. The question of whether everyone gets
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: together and then focuses on goal one, which is actually
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: winning the general election. That's up to millions of people
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: who wake up sometimes feeling you know, agony that their
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: favorite primary candidate didn't win. Sometimes they're feeling joy. The
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: question of whether they can then hold hands rather than saying,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: you know, I told you so or dragging each other
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: through the mud. That's the question everyone has to answer
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: for themselves. And my argument is my experiences that right
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: now there is a sense of the stakes. If people
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: who believe in democracy don't get together and win, they
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: can channel into the fight. Now, all of that said,
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: and that was a lot that I just said. Yeah,
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: I also argue in the book the thing that I
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: found over and over when I'm knocking on doors, and
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: you can see in every poll and focus group, which
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: is the people who might swing either way or might
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: not vote, they generally think both parties are totally corrupting
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: out of it. They've given up on the system itself. So,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: you know, the the differences between you know, different kinds
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 2: of Democrats or Democrats and Republicans all seem very distant
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 2: and seemed like partisan noise to folks who don't put
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: politics at the center of their lives, and you know,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: feel like they're ready to see the whole thing go
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: up in flames. So the question of how to reach them,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: that's the central thing that I kind of try to
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: guide readers towards. It's less about the internesian battles that
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: seem very obscure to folks.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, look, I don't believe. Let's take michig
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: I don't believe that the people that chose a Democratic
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: ballot in Grand Rapids in Kent County want socialism, all right,
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: I don't buy that. What I buy is that a
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of people in Ken County were so disgusted
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: over the last fifteen years about what happened to the
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: Republican Party, and then they've never been big fans of
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, certainly not the establishment version of it.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: And then they're like, well, the only Democrats that are
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: saying what I think of the party happen to be
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: these progressives, right, And you know, I compared it in
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: my previous episode in a previous episode too. If you've
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: got a couple of different doctors you've gone to and
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: one confirms how you're feeling and the other one says
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: you're not feeling what you think you're feeling, You're going
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: to then listen to the doctor that confirms what you're feeling. Yes, Now,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: they may be the herbal crazy person, you know, they
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: acknowledge and it may turn out that their prescription is
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: not a good idea, but maybe they help you find
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: the person with a better prescription for your problem, but
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: you at least are comfortable talking with them about your
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: current problem because they agree with the diagnosis where we
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: all disagree. I mean, now, this is to me, it's
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: like the Democrats have such a math challenge, and it
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: isn't you know, it isn't as simple as addition and subtraction. Right,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: There is a majority in this country that don't want
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: anything to do with Trump or trump Ism. It is
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: crystal clear. The problem is it's the only thing about
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: a fifty five percent majority agrees on, right, Like, is
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: that true?
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: I think fifty five percent of people want, you know,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: a higher minimum.
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: I think that that's the thing. Whether I correct? Can
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: you have a top line agreement on some things, maybe
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: have some disagreements on how you get there? You know?
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: Take you know, this week's the anniversary of Social Security
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: written by A.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: Wiston Tonight.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: Incidentally, Yes had had FDR and introduced what social security
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: looks like today in nineteen thirty five. There's no chance
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: it passes. What a large program are you talking about? Right?
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: It would cover just and it was wait for it,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: incrementalism that created perhaps the single most important social contract
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: government has with the public, and it is something that
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: took We just made the most recent adjustment to what
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: get to who gets benefits last year ninety years. We
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: continue to build upon this thing. I do think that
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: there's a huge disconnect at times between those that want
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: it all in the moment and those that understand that
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: politics is an aircraft carrier, especially when you're trying to
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: govern three hundred and fifty million people. And I think
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: that's another challenge, is that I think, you know, take
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: your rama manuals of the world. Who I think at
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, he wants to be a reformer.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: I really do. I don't think this is a guy
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: that wants to see the status quo, but he's he's
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: not for throwing everything out automatically. There will be people
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: that say, well, you don't want to throw out the
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: whole system, so I'm not listening to you. When that's
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: what I say. The fifty five percent agrees on, right,
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: the disagreements become, you know, do you burn it down
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: and rebuild or do you do you sort of keep
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: us structure up and renovate. And I think the question
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: is is it rebuilders or is it renovators. Both are
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: going to be for change, and they have more in
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: common than you think, but right now it doesn't look
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: that way. I was.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: I agree that it looks like a bigger golf than
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: it is. And I think part of the issue is
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: if you look back at FDR, you know, fighting for
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: the New Deal, giving the four Freedom speech, he was
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: not saying we should reduce elder poverty by you know,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: ten percent and then maybe ninety years from now we
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 2: can reduce it by ninety percent. That was not the pitch.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 2: That was like a fundamental principle that you know that
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: we should have freedom for one in this country, we
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: should have freedom from fear. Those those were big inspiring
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: ideas laid out as values with a you know, a
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 2: kind of big swing about changing the nature of what
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: it meant to be an American in the economy to
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: make it work for everybody. And then the thing that
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 2: got through Congress involved an enormous amount of compromise, and
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 2: there were some compromises upfront, some compromises along the way.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 2: Part of that is just, you know, how the legislative
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: process works. And I think people can have different in
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: some ways. You don't all have to agree on the
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: destination to be able to get there. But I do
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: think that laying out a vision that's inspiring for where
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: you're trying to go and then finding the path there
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: is a core quality of leadership. If you look at
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: the discussion about the Affordable Care Act versus Medicare for
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: All in general, almost everybody agrees that we should get
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: to a point where nobody doesn't have health insurance, more.
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: People to get coverage. I think every where everybody's there,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: everybody wants to get care right, everybody wants more coverage.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: You know, it just depends on how.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: Much of costs you have to figure out how do
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: you pay for it? You know, how do you balance
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: giving everyone as many choices as possible versus you know,
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: containing the cost structure all that stuff. But the core
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: principle that's animating all of it is this fundamental idea
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: that no one should go broke because they're sick, and
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: no one should die because they can't get the health
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: care that they need. Like those are those are things
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: that the vast majority of everybody agrees with Medicare for
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: All advocates, you know, like all said, is arguing that
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 2: it's going to take step by step that he's going
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: to vote for and support things that are short of
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: Medicare for all if they help expand the circle who
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: has coverage. And he has a destination. Other people think
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: that that policy arrangement to reach that destination isn't the
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 2: right one to get there.
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: You've heard it. Look at the Obama eight years and
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: tell me how progressives in Madison talk about the Obama
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: eight years today compared to even what they to how
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: they talked about it five years ago. Right, there's this,
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: there's a weird like, well, boy, he didn't use his majorities.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: He didn't do this. And I want to say, you
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: folks do not understand the politics of health care, and
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: you have no idea the leap he was able to
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: make in the six of healthcare. It was a huge
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: Like I always compare it to same sex marriage and
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: civil unions. In hindsight, civil unions looks ridiculous, but if
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: you never had civil unions, you wouldn't have gotten the
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: same sex marriage. It took the absurdity of civil unions
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: going oh, what are we doing here? That's ridiculous, But
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: we didn't know that that's where the country would be
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: at the moment, and you had to sort of bring
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: people along. Now people say, you think, oh Obamacare was
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: my god, you know it.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: Was you know, I mean, I are talking the books.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: You had to get that, having.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: Volt in the house, the nuns on the bus, like
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: this incredible Titanic battle in which the you know, the.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: Any today's progressives think that, oh Obama gave up too easily.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 2: I you know, at the same time, the most hardcore
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 2: single pair advocates were like, you know, fighting and fighting,
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: fighting for a public option, but then also at the
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 2: end of the day, fighting to get the damn bill through.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 2: Like if it hadn't gone through, there's no way any
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: government since then it would have had the votes to
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: be able to do that. That was the whole art
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: of politics is like you have your your values and
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 2: your vision in mind about where you're trying to go,
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: what you're trying to achieve. You have to lay those
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: out in a way that people can rally and fight
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: for it, and then you figure out every possible thing.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 2: You know, how much can you squeeze through the eye
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: of a needle to get to the kingdom of policy heavens,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: so to speak. And it is it's a you know,
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 2: it's a gigantic Titanic fight. Also, we stopped repeal by
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 2: one vote, and that was also a gigantic fight. The
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: part of what I'm doing in the book is trying
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 2: to map out, like, how do you get to the
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 2: point where it's not this hard to be able to
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: make policy changes because for most of American history, most
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: policies were not subject to a filibuster. You wind up
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 2: having more two thirds, you know, the Senate voting for
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: something because everyone realized it was going to pass, and
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: then plays a role in trying to shape the outcome
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: of the legislation. It's not because you put a super
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: majority upfront that allows everything to buy, default, die. And
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: that's right. Now, that's the way a political system works.
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 2: It shouldn't be this hard. You should have a system
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 2: where people can pass laws and then the party can
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 2: be judged on the results of them. But right now,
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 2: this is the system that we've got that Well, there's a.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: Part of me that thinks it should be that when
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: you're governing for three hundred and fifty million people, it
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be easy to change laws. That should be difficult, right,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: it should be you should get consensus. Oh, and that's
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: a fair point, but it should be a system that
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: is at least predictable in its difficulty. I think what
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: you've done, what we have is an unpredictability in the
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: difficulty due to all sorts of I mean, the biggest
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: thing is money. I mean, trust me, I've got recovering
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: Republican governors John Kasik and Pat McCrory who are becoming
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: huge campaign finance reform advocates, who both of them admitted
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: ten years ago they never would have been right, but
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: they finally were on the receiving end of it, and
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: they understood, Oh my god, where did this? Where? Where
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: do these people come from? Nobody knows who they are,
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: so you do I think, you know, there's so many
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: challenges here. Money in politics is only just one of them,
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: but there is a In some ways, the the ham
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: handedness of the Trump era might actually create the conditions
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: for a for a campaign finance or for but a
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: way that might never have been there without it. I
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: know that seems odd, but in some ways that you know,
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: you're I think that's someways we've got too drunk on
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: transactionalism in this.
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: Town, you know, I think that's right, And at the
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: same time, I at this point, I think you need
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: to perform the US Supreme Court to be able to
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: have a shot, to have real campaign.
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: I am of two minds, and this I think you
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: go Constitution Amendment I. It takes forty years to change.
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: When you look at the just the way it is, right,
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: Supreme courts are lagging indicators. Right, this Supreme Court is
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: essentially the ideology of the first decade of the century. Right,
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: we sort of you know, it is weird, but yeah,
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: that's that's probably right.
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, are your term limits in the in the book,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 2: which is a way of speeding up the process of
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: the lagging indicator and creating the expectation among Supreme Court
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: justice is that the majority will evolve over time, and
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: they need to not just ask, you know, whether they're
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: you know, four closest ideological bosom buddies are able to
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 2: sign on, but actually ask, you know, will this ruling
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: survive you know, a couple of presidential terms. There's different
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 2: ways to approach it. But what we can't have is
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: as a system where every attempt to reign and money
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: in politics gets slapped down and every attempt to expand it,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: you know, gets lifted up. There's going to be a
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: greater concentration of wealth and power in fewer hands in
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: the next few years, even than the Gilded Age than
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: at any point in American history. And we're already seeing
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: floods of money. You know, we had a mini version
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 2: of this with Elon Musk coming in with fifty six
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: million dollars in the state Supreme Court race, which is
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: more than not only more than anyone's ever spent in
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: a state Supreme court race, it's more than the total
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 2: spending in any judicial election in American history other than
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: the previous one in Wisconsin. And that's that's child's play
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: compared to what's sccum in less, unless we change the
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: system to say that that that can't be the rule.
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: I will say this, you know, you know I never
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: underestimate the voters. I'm heartened that there are three races
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: in Michigan. One was the Senate race on the Democratic side,
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: one was the Republican race on the with the governor's
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: race on the Republican side, and one was the member
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: of Congress who lost. But the biggest spender lost in
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: all three of those races, right like there is now
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: part of that is fractured attention and the way you
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: know things work these days, but you know voters are
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: paying paying some attention. Let me dig into Wisconsin here
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: a minute.
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: Francesca Hong to me, feels like a classic Madison candidate.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: Am I being too stereotypical there? So obviously you know
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: represents then Assembly district in Medicine. Well, I like to
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: remind people of of Dane County, as I always note
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: in Dane County, you want to understand how liberal Dane
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: County is. Ralph Nader carried precincts in two thousand. There
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: were actual precincts in Dane County. I think in the
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: city of Ministry, specifically in her recincts that Natter carried,
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: and I probably know the precinct I'm talking about.
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: I will actually I have an even stronger version of that,
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 2: which is that in I believe in her district on
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 2: the Isthmus in Madison. In ninety six, Natter beat Dole
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 2: was the number two candidate, beat the Republican candidate. At
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 2: the same time, She's been actually traveling around the state
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: and talking to people for several years, and her campaign,
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 2: which is all about like childcare and all a ton
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 2: about in the centers. It's responsive to stuff that people
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: are bringing up to her as she travels the state.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: There are no data centers being built in downtown Madison,
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 2: but there's a level of rage and some of the
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: reddest parts of the state about this sense that this
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: is being imposed from the outside and you know, attempts
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: to bypass the democratic system. This is a campaign that
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: has energy all over the state because there's a real
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: sense of fury about the way the system isn't working
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 2: for people and the Yeah, we don't know how the
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 2: primary is going to go. It could be her, could
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 2: be David Crowley, who knows there's four candidates in the race,
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: but in any direction, sua hard to see.
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: Her losing this At this point, I'm taping. Look, I'll
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: be honest, people are going to hear this after that primary,
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: So okay, I don't want to, you know, but you know,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: so we're taping literally twenty four hours before the voting.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: It feels like it's about everything happened about a week
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: too late, if you want to, if for the for
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: the forces that we're trying to stop.
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 2: Her, this has been one of the most topsy turvy
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 2: twist attorney primaries in the history of certainly Wisconsin politics.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: Who's on the ballot?
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just gonna say that since ninety two
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: and Russ Feingeld, could I think of a multi candidate
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: primary that totally threw so many people for a loop?
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: And that one in Hindsein turned out to be the
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: class You know, Rich Guya attacks Rich Guy B. People
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: don't like either rich guy and they support Candidate C.
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: That is not the dynamics of this one, right.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: This has its own particular set of plot twists and
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 2: god dropping changes. But whatever happens in the primary, I
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 2: know that the day after everyone's going to wake up
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 2: and notice who the Republican candidate is in this race.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: Tom Tiffany is a the kind of candidate that if
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: you were running for a Senate Democratic superbacs tend to
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: have been propping up across the country. He was actively
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: involved in the twenty twenty plot to overturn the election.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: He's continued to string of election denilis. This is who
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: you would have wanted Tammy Baldwin to face. It's just
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: been up this cycle. This is the the beatable candidate
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 2: who can't has a record that is so stark it
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: just lashes him to Donald Trump. Now in twenty twenty four,
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 2: less of a liability, Donald Trump won the state in
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, Trump is less popular than he's ever been.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: So the guy who you know didn't vote to curb
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 2: the Trump's war powers with a ran and played a
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 2: role there before and helping shoot up the cost of
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: groceries and gas. The guy who supported the tariffs, the
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 2: guy who first voted you know, on Trump's side to
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: hide the Epstein files. The guy who just over and
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: over has supported the most extreme Trumpy House Freedom caucasy
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: position and Trump endorsed and said he's been with me
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: every step of the way. That guy is going to
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: put Donald Trump on the ballot in November. And this
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: is this is a year when Donald Trump could not
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 2: win the state of Wisconsin. I think voters have a
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 2: very clear choice about whether they want someone who would
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: be in Trump's plot, whatever the next plot is, to
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: overturn American elections, or do they want someone who thinks
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: voters should decide who's in charge. Most critically, this is
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: a choice between someone who's helped Trump jack up prices
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 2: even after getting elected on the basis of saying he'd
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: bring down prices or someone who is, you know, manifestly
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: on the side of working people when it comes to affordability,
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 2: and that it's pretty clear that affordability in this election
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: cycle is the central voting issue for people that are
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 2: on the fence about whether to vote or who to
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: vote for. And it is just very, very hard for
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: a guy who has this giant voting record in favor
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: of higher cost of everything, you know, including healthcare, that
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: tons of wisconsinents are not losing. Tom Tiffany, mister Jackson
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: prices up, is going to have a hard time in
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 2: the flow.
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, a guy like me is going to say. So,
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: what you're describing is you're going to have two nominees
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: who normally the middle would probably not support. But if
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: you've got two extremes, you've got to pick one.
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 2: You know, Wisconsin is the land of Joe McCarthy and
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: fighting Bob la Follett.
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: No. I know, I remind that all the time. You know,
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: if you never find in Wisconsin that middle of the
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: road person, it's always somewhere on some progressive laughter or
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: nationalist's right.
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 2: Rusfeingeld was the only US editor to vote against the
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 2: Patriot Act, and he was the you know, the pops
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 2: on both parties. Ian McCain put through the bipartisan camp
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 2: being fenished for format. This is is a state where, you know,
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: people have strong feelings that don't necessarily align with a
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: single left right spectrum. And so I think the question
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 2: of who captured the energy in a year where people
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: are really mad about the way things are going is
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: a I'd rather be on the Democratic side.
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: You know, I was. I would regularly. I saw Evers
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: in eighteen as sort of the preview of Biden. Right,
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: It was this foreshadow can we just get enormy right?
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: There was this exhaustion with Scott Walker. Right, it was
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: just sort of the partisan wars. People were exhausted. Can
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: we have somebody who's not been engaged in them? Right?
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: And like Evers came in as this sort of like, ah, right,
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: he's not going to be he's not looking for headlines
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: every hour, he's not constantly looking to run for president.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: And that worked.
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I remember president. They started laughing, why do
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 2: you now?
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: The The upside is is you're able to sort of
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: get that second term. Nothing is easy in Wisconsin. But
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: it certainly was easy in comparison what we've seen in
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: previous in previous years, Biden was supposed to be that same,
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: that same idea. He was coming here to calm the
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: water we're all tired of. Like you know, I'm seasick.
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: I just want the boat to stop rocking, right, And
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: that didn't work on a national level. That did work
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. What's your why? Why do you think that
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: it is?
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: Well, there were a bunch of major factors in the
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: presidential race. I'll say in Wisconsin. You know, Governor Evers
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 2: was the only Democrat to get re elected during a
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 2: Republican presidency in sixty years. The last one was Democrat
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 2: won the governor's race during jfkse president and ze right
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 2: after the Cuban missile crisis. And so how how do
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: you pull that off? A big part of that was
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: that he was, you know, somebody that Republicans didn't loathe,
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 2: and he was also someone who was totally clear in
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: his response to Dobbs and the overturning of ROVERSUS weight.
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 2: He came out immediately after and said he'd grant clemency
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 2: to anyone prosecuted under Wisconsin's abortion ban, and the Republican
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: he was up again supported you know, an abortion ban
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: with no exceptions for rape and incests that had passed
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: in Wisconsin before the Civil War. I write about this
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: in the book. Simultaneously, Evers was literally out filling potholes,
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: as you know before mom Don he was doing it.
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 2: You had Governor Evers on pothole patrol and he we
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 2: had scott holes in Wisconsin, which is the term for
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: you know, the defunding of all public services under the
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 2: GOP led to just giant pits in the middle of
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: the road that made everybody's tire bills go up every year.
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 2: So this is like delivering literally concrete stuff that can
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 2: the matters in everyone's lives and being really clear in
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 2: the biggest issue that you suddenly was imposed on people.
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 2: I argue in the book, if you want to save democracy,
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 2: talk about roads, and this is you know, it's from
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 2: that to city camademy.
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: So what you're saying is, if you want to save democracy,
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: you've got to make people think government works.
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to.
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's as simple as that. I mean, to me,
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: is the real challenge to the socialist and a socialist
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: adjacent crowd which is you're trying to convince the majority
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: of the public who already thinks government has broken, that
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: if you give government more to do, they can get
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: it done. Right. I think that's the central challenge of
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: the What I would tell my progressive friends is that
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: I get you can make the case what's working now
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: is not working. That's the easy part. We agree in
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: the diagnosis. But you're making people no, no, no, no, trust me.
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: Government hasn't been able to fill the potholes, but now
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: we can run a grocery store, you know what I mean.
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, And when you actually do it, you can actually
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: win trust. People could really tell that it was different
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 2: when they drove, especially in rural areas. You drive to
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 2: uh you know, the health clinic might be two hours away,
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 2: and you really notice if every time you go over
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 2: a bump, right, you know, the all the different parts
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: of your body hurt. And the governor had credibility on
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 2: this elemental thing. Through COVID, he channeled COVID relief money
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 2: to keeping businesses open on main streets across the state,
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 2: so all over the state they are actually thriving main
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 2: streets right now. He also helped, you know, move money
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 2: back into schools. There's still a lot of work to do,
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 2: but this the school quality is shot up in national rankings.
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 2: These are things that are just the everyday stuff that
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 2: everyone wants to work and not have to think about.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 2: And you're if you're able to do that. And then
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 2: in his campaign he ran ads for every county about
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 2: what he'd done in that county. It's, you know, it's excellence.
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 2: It's that's something you know deep in the Wisconsin tradition too.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: But you can see mom Donny's working to do the
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 2: same thing in New York, seeing an effect that that is.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 2: It might feel incremental and small, but if it's the
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 2: pothole is in front of your house, it really doesn't
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 2: matter to you.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: That a lot.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 2: That gives you the grace and the trust to be
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 2: able to shoot for bigger stuff. And I think that then,
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: you know, so much is about ideology, and I get
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: people have big disagreements about issues, but at bottom, trust
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 2: is earned by saying what you're going to do, doing it,
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: and showing what you've just done. It is about being
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 2: able to actually keep your promise and make a difference
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 2: that is tangible to people, not theoretical, not far away.
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: Is it narrowing your ambition a little bit. And I
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: say it this way because if you say it that way,
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: you know that drives I'm not it's making promises you
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: can achieve rather than you know, did sort of Biden's
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: eyes get bigger than his stomach, like I you know,
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: and I've talked with Biden people about this. Where had
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: they had a Republican Senate, they had an entirely different
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: legislative agenda, and they decided to go for broke with
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: a progressive agenda that they didn't run on nor win on.
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: And I think sometimes you know, ultimately this and this
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: is the lesson of Scott Walker. If you start doing
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: stuff you didn't run on, people really get pissed off
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: in a weird way. If you're doing controversial stuff but
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: you promised it, well, there's weirdly more patience that voters
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: will have with it.
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 2: I think it is good to run on something and
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 2: then do the thing, and then show that you did
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 2: the thing, and like, you know, there's actually to a
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 2: surprising degree, I like the officials often keep a list
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 2: of the things they ran on and do try to
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 2: do them. I also think there was a very specific
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 2: giant problem with the way policy unfolded in the Biden administration,
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 2: which is that in the COVID pandemic, there were these
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 2: huge relief bills. There was unemployment insurance, there was you know,
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 2: they expanded benefits for people. There was the childcare tax Credit,
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 2: and it produced a huge lift in people's disposable income
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 2: in the bottom bord. For you know, working folks, especially
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 2: folks in lower wage jobs. It had a huge effect
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 2: on their lives. I was doing a press conference through
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party of Wisconsin every month with families that
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 2: got the childcare tax Credit, where they talked about what
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 2: it was like to be able to say yes to
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 2: their kids joining a sports team when they couldn't afford
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 2: the uniform before and then it all stopped. And so
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 2: for yeah, the people who were most affected by economic
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 2: policies and maybe had the least time to you know,
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 2: keep track of who voted for what.
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: Who voted for what, and who promised that they become
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: fell and I know, you get it, you know, sometimes
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: make your north star your north star. Yeah. I do, not,
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: for the life of me understand why that the childcare
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: tax Credit didn't become the be all and all of
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party and of the Biden era, and that
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: that would have been a hill worth dying on, because
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: ultimately you're dying on a hill to help people with
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: their kids, which is always a better place to be
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: than being in the right place or wrong place of
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: AI companies right like or the crypto crap. I mean,
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I thought the Democrats gave up that
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: fight way too easily.
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 2: I I mean, you know, I was in the room
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 2: when the deals were hashed out, but to me, it
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 2: was the most greatest source of pride in the Democratic
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 2: Party that they cut child poverty in half in this
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 2: country for that one year and then then it went away.
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 2: And there's you know, should they have had a smaller
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 2: credit that was permanent instead of baking in the sunset?
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 2: Could there's something some deal that could have been made
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 2: to allow it to continue at the cost.
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you had met Romney and JD vancedrly
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: with you on this, yes, you know, you know say
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: if they said, therefore it great, let's go, let's write
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: a bill, let's find what they do this? Yeah, we could.
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 2: We should be able to do greeze a society no
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 2: kids hungry like that is should be very basically, there.
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: Was one hundred percent of constituency on the right. Josh
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: Howley pans, there's this you know exactly the senators I'm
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: talking about, and there was this sense of, well, if
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: you don't do it the way we want it, we
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: don't want it right.
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 2: And it also with this incentive to make sure the
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 2: other side doesn't get to do things. And that's I
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 2: think a poisonous effect of the filibuster is that it
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 2: makes it very easy to say, oh, look, if I
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 2: deprived the other side of this achievement, then I can
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 2: get a political benefit from it. And I think that's
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 2: I think that's bad for the country and bad for
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 2: the public, and it makes politicians behave, you know, in
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 2: ways that are just not good. So I want to
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 2: take that thing away structurally. But to your point, like I,
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 2: you know, I think that if people had experienced a
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 2: permanent change, that if if every parent who's you know,
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 2: struggling to figure out whether they can send their kids
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: to Stummer camp or if their kid's going to spend
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 2: the whole summer on YouTube has a child tax tread
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 2: of coming in, I do think that would have made
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 2: a long term difference. So obviously big other things got
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 2: in the way in twenty twenty four. But I think
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 2: that the like we shouldn't overread the sense that you know,
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 2: Biden did too much as the as the central problem
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 2: not the same.
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: Well, it was not too much. It's sort of it
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: wasn't focused. It was all over the place. It was
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: like he was trying, I mean, there's a part of
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: me it was sort of like he was trying to
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: fulfill every promise that Obama couldn't fulfill, right, and do
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: it in like a two year period, and let's like
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: slow down, cowboy, right, like you know, you know, do
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: one thing and trust me, your name will be on
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: it for a long time. Ask Obama Obamacare right like
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: you know it is. And I think these Trump accounts
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: are going to have legs and Democrats are going to
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: have to figure out a way to live with it
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: and maybe even not just live with it, turn it
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: into something, uh that that that that might be tangible.
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: Let me get another aspect on evs. What was similar
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: to evers that Biden had was the not so clean
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: handoff to an heir apparent. And you know it's frankly
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: been I'm sure it's been awkward for the multiple lieutenant
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: governors that he had, and maybe that his initial instinct was,
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be involved with these fights. Now
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: he's jumped in here, I know it's awkward to just
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: address evers address succession for term limited governors and presidents.
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: If you don't have an heir parent, that really can
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: screw up the party, can it not.
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 2: Weaver was not term limited in Wisconsin. It's Wisconsin. Tommy.
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 2: Tommy Thompson wanted to go seven terms if he could have, yes,
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: until he you know, sublimated up to the federal government.
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: So yeah, if he doesn't take that job, he might
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: still be governor. Now I'm not saying, you know, there's
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: a chase.
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: Tommy Thompson threatens to run for governor every time there's
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 2: a governor's race.
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: God bless him, you know. And if you didn't have
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: Tommy Thompson, you wish you would have. It's a character.
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: We need characters like it. Anyway, go ahead.
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 2: The thing is that as much as you know, anyone
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 2: who's in an elected position can try to smooth the
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 2: way for someone that they want to support or can
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 2: endorse and campaign for them, voters ultimately decide these things,
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 2: and voters change their minds over time and circumstances change,
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 2: and like, you know, I think that there's a like
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 2: at the federal level, lots of presidents have been previously
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 2: vice presidents. That's absolutely true, But it's also true that
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: lots of vice presidents haven't gone the distance, and things
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: have gone sideways. And you know, sometimes you get Nixon
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: who was a vice president and then lost and then
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 2: came back on his own terms and won in a
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 2: very different way. I think in general, the level of
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 2: control that anyone in public life has is much less
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 2: than it looks from the outside, or that it feels
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 2: from the inside that in fact, the world is so contingent.
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 2: What everyone can try to do is, you know, make
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 2: the biggest difference they can during the time that's allotted
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 2: to them. But big, you know, events transpire, things outside
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 2: their control. Happened, the oil prices shoot up. Most of
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: the time, you're not directly the author of it the
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 2: way the Trump is. But like big things wind up
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 2: upsetting everyone's apple cards. And so I do think, you know,
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 2: for any kind of leadership role, you want to think
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: about succession and how to how to set the next
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 2: person up to be able to win and do the
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 2: best job they can. But the extent to which your vision,
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 2: you know, is how it plays out. It's it's very,
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 2: very limited, and that's just part of the political reality,
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 2: especially in a democracy, and it's probably different for the
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 2: Chinese Communist Party, but here it is up to the people,
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 2: and that's this amazing, miraculous gift that we have if
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 2: we can keep it. I think that the sometimes it
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 2: can look if you're not immersed in politics, as though
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 2: there's some secret committee that's pulling the strings and calling
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 2: the shots. And there are lots of people who are
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 2: trying to call the shots all the time. But the
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 2: number of shots that they call that turn out exactly
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: the way they call them, it's very very small. People
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 2: have more power. General public has more power in these
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 2: things than most people can possibly realize.
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: Joe Scarborough went on a rant earlier this week about
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: he thinks the Democratic Party essentially he didn't say it
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: this way, but I'll shorthand it, which is that they're
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: so enamored with the energy that the socialists or socialist
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: adjacent crowd is bringing that there's a hesitance to speak
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: out against some things that that maybe long term aren't
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: good for the Democratic brand. So let me just put
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: it this way, when is the tent? When you're a
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: big tent guy, and in Wisconsin to succeed, you have
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: to be because of the what we just described. The
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: people showing up to every meeting are going to be
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: Madison people, so you've got to have a good relationship
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: with them. And the people that elect Tony Evers governor
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: are not the people that show up to every meeting
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: and are not the people that live in Dayton County.
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: So you've got to be this bigger tent. At what
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: point do you think the tent rips is there too far?
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: What's the line on the left, and frankly, what's your
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: line on the right?
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 2: Well, I think often the ten winds up being bigger
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 2: than people realize that it can be, So I think
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 2: we should start there. The second thing is, you know,
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 2: when someone in the tent is, like, you know, screaming
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: at all the other people in the tent, then the
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 2: other people are going to leave the tent. And so
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: in some ways, the way that you draw the circle,
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 2: it's about getting a good bunch of people who can
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 2: actually stand being in the room together. And sometimes that's
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 2: less about the positions that people have, but more about
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 2: how they comport themselves. To build a coalition, you have
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 2: to everyone has to be willing to be in it
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 2: with each other. And you know, anyone who's planned a
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: party or you know, a wedding recognizes there's some people
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 2: you don't want to sit at the same table, and
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 2: there's some people that you have to keep on the list,
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 2: and there's some you know. Like it's a complicated, messy thing,
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 2: even more so in a country of three hundred and
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 2: forty million people. I think that the coalition looks different
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 2: in different states. We're in a moment when the regional differences,
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 2: local differences are flattened out by the nationalization of media,
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 2: the fact that everyone listens to the same podcast, no
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 2: one subscribed to their local newspaper anymore. But successful politics
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 2: often looks like building something from the ground up. Where
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 2: you are and what's happening in Iowa right now, you know,
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 2: it doesn't fit any of the national storylines about what's
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 2: happening nationally. There's this incredibly integrated campaign from the state legislature,
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 2: through the attorney general's race, house races, the governor and
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 2: Senate campaigns.
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: It's amazing what losing four election cycles in a row
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: can do to a party.
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 2: It can focus the mind. We experienced that in Wisconsin.
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 2: You know, Wisconsin.
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: Losing Suddenly everybody said, yeah, Tony Evers, let's be honest here,
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: Tony Evers doesn't win that nomination had there been three
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: straight Democratic governors.
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 2: That's I mean, he was the only here. I guess
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 2: Douglas Fall, the Secretary of State, were the only state
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 2: wide elect the Democrats at that moment. He was elected
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen in Elean.
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: Do you understand the point I'm making. I'm not trying to.
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: It's just sort of Rob sand becomes more appealing to
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: everybody in the tent because maybe there's a bunch of people.
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 2: Just tired to losing simultaneously. Yes to your point, But
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 2: also Rob sand was the only Democratic state wide elected official,
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 2: like after you know, all these other people had lost, and.
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: It must be doing that.
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 2: He must be doing something right as we figured out
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 2: how to win, and that he'd figured out how to
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 2: draw together a big coalition in a very hard place,
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 2: and people respond to things that work. This is I
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 2: think part of the reason why the whole Republican Party
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 2: seems to have gone off the deep end at this moment.
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 2: Is that very clearly the most successful Republican politician of
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 2: our era is Donald Trump. So people are like, what
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 2: does success looks like? It's it's to you know, not
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 2: just to be in Trump's good races.
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: Is he successful though? I mean, he's really you know,
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: it's funny, He's done a lot of there's plenty of
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: things we can point to. They say, he's done a
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: lot of damage. And culturally he's been a huge influence.
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, he's his actual impact on the sort
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 3: of on governing and you know, it's sort of like
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 3: he might inspire similar similar attempts, but structurally he hasn't
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 3: been able to make many changes.
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 2: Well this I'm talking purely from the perspective of a young,
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 2: ambitious Republican wants to wants to win power.
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, they're going to look at Trump's model.
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 2: They're going to look at Trump percent. And Ron Johnson
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 2: couldn't stop talking about how Trump had gotten more votes
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 2: than anyone else in the history of the state, and
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 2: so he wanted to, you know, do like he did.
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 2: He looked at the twenty twenty Trump number he got
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 2: so many votes, and Ron Johnson one of those same
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 2: votes in twenty twenty two, and you know, ran a
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 2: campaign to try to reach those people. He Trump has
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 2: created this army of mini mes because he's the guy
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 2: who's you know, beaten expectations overcome over, time after time.
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 2: So I think that's bad. And I think one way
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 2: that we can get a Republican party that is not
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 2: constantly trying to set fire to you know, basic rights
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 2: and freedoms for Americans is to have some other model
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 2: that Republicans conclude is better for them. And the only
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 2: way for that to happen is if people running in
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 2: Trump's image lose and lose and lose and lose until
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 2: Republicans conclude that that's not the way to win. And
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 2: that's a job that I take very seriously. I think
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 2: that on the Democratic side right now, there's a lot
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 2: of people who looked at Joe Biden and thought he
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 2: didn't win against Trump, and so they want to run
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 2: in very different ways. And there's lots of ways to be,
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 2: you know, different from from the last thing. And you
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 2: can see one way in Iowa and you can see
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 2: you know, a different way and uh, you know, and
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 2: take your pick in Michigan right now, Like, there's a
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 2: bunch of different ways to run as a different candidate.
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 2: But there's there's this old saw in politics that each
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 2: president's the opposite of the previous one. The question is
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 2: what are you the opposite of Trump? In what way?
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 2: Are you the opposite of Trump? Is it that, you know,
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 2: his reckless attitude, you're more careful? Is it that his uh,
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 2: you know, being so far to the right, you're going
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 2: to be so far to the left. Is it that
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 2: he is has this abhorrence for the Constitution and any
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 2: norms of power, and you're going to be someone who's like,
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 2: let's actually, you know, reform government, getner systems in order.
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 2: There's lots of different ways to be the opposite, and
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 2: part of a midterm process is to try out, you know,
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 2: which what is it? What kind of change are people
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 2: hungry for? That's a that's a fair point. Let me
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 2: get you out of here. In a couple of things.
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 2: One is what's Ken Martin doing right? Everybody wants to
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 2: talk about what he's doing wrong? What's the going right?
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 2: In your opinion? So I happen to believe and I
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 2: argue in my book that having strong state parties that
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 2: have year round staff that are on the ground and
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 2: become part of the life of their communities is really
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 2: important for building power and winning elections. And so this
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 2: as much as ken Morton gets flack for making this
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 2: commitment to support, you know, all the state parties around
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 2: the country, there's something.
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: With some election cycle calendar, right which has been yep, yep.
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 2: So I you know, I met bat In the book,
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 2: I have a chapter called It's My Party and I'll
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 2: cry if I want to, about the Democratic Party, but
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 2: I tell the story of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 2: and how the model that precedes me that I ran
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 2: for chair because I fell in love with it and
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 2: work to expand. It's continuing right now under Chair Devin Rimicker,
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 2: is to build a permanent campaign through the state party
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 2: that works on every race and so give volunteers something
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 2: to do on a year round basis, keep building in
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 2: community after community, have people showing up at the local.
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: I always joke, if it's Tuesday, somebody's voting somewhere.
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 2: That's exact.
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: That's true all the time, you know, yes, yep.
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 2: And that's to me what the party should be should
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 2: be doing the party should be the place that everyone
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 2: who wants to be part of this fight can find
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 2: something to do and wind up meeting people and making
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 2: friends and getting involved. And then candidates come along and
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 2: they connect with this bigger infrastructure. Figuring out how to
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 2: fund all that is and also all the other things
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 2: you need, big challenge. But I do think that that's
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 2: essential work, and I think our parties impoverished when both
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 2: when neither party gives people a way to plug in
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 2: where they can actually see that their work makes a difference.
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: It's interesting you're essentially advocating because I believe this is
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: for is that it sounds like you wish the Democratic
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: brand were almost more decentralized, that there was such thing
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: as a Kansas Democrat, which maybe you know, you know,
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: could have a different perspective on the gun issue, for instance,
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: or maybe there is an Idaho Democrat, or maybe there
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: is a because I'm a believer that every state has
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: a fulk crum for fifty percent, you just have to
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: find the fulk crum. Okay, it's not always where maybe
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: the National Democratic Party's fulkrum is, you know, that isn't
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: how an Idaho works. In an Idaho you're gonna need
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: half of Trump voters in your coalition, which is always
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 1: gettable if you choose to find it right, it's one
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: of those you have to go find that fulkrum. I
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: think where there's tension is that I don't know if
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: the national Democratic leaders want fulkrums all the time. They
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: only want it when it helps them get a majority.
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: But you know, my big beef is that swing voters
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: matter more in a campaign than they do in governing,
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: and I think we're getting it backwards.
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 2: That's interesting. Yeah, I mean I first, yeah, we need
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 2: not a fifty state strategy. We need fifty date strategies
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 2: that are about how how you win what they're in
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 2: that state, in that state. It canna because look at
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 2: what we just talked about. I'm sure you wish there
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 2: was a Kent County in Wisconsin on the other side
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 2: of the hand and right on the other side of
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 2: the met you know, you wish there was some Macomb
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 2: and an Oakland there just started.
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: No swing. It's a different way. I mean, you know,
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: there was a time Brown County with swing and maybe
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: it'll become a swing county against counties now it's so
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: it is a different way to win in Wisconsin than
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: it is in Michigan, and then it is in Minnesota.
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: Literally three states that are contiguous. You know, uh, we
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: can argue about the lakes, but still fairly you know,
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 1: essentially we would culturally say, yeah, they all love hockey
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: and they all love you know, there's so much they
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: have in common. Yet you cannot win the same way
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: in all three states million percent.
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 2: And it is the way that you build a local brand,
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 2: the way you build any kind of brand is through
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 2: your actions over time, through what people actually experience in
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 2: their lives, how it actually touches you. It is not
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 2: what you put on a bumper sticker. It is not
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 2: some coordinated ad campaign. It is something that compounds over years.
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 2: And to me, if you're in a state where you
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 2: want to say to people, hey, Democrats are your neighbor,
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 2: it's me who's talking to you right now. It's not
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 2: something that you know, you're you're seeing, you know on
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson's X Show. The only way to do that
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 2: is to have a real, sustained presence that shows up
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 2: in places outside of just political meetings and electoral campaigns.
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 2: And that is that is the work, that is the
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 2: part of this is the plan's plan that everybody can
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 2: make themselves part of that can have a huge long
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 2: term impact on reshamping American democracy.
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: When's the first time you ever thought about running for office.
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 2: I have no idea.
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: I think you know I ran for It's always been
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: out there in your head, like I'd like to do
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 1: this myself someday, because I've seen the news about you
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: open to running for the US Senate if there's an
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: open slot and something to do and or challenging Johnson.
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, not every state party chair wants
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: to be a candidate themselves. What would be the allure
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 1: for you?
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 2: I am drawn like a moth to a flame on
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 2: the fights where I think I can have a big impact.
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 2: And so you know, I read in the book. When
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 2: I was eleven, my godmother ran for Congress and I
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 2: volunteered for her campaign, and it was like an amazing experience.
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 2: He was became the first American Indian woman to win
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 2: a congressional primary, so that that was great. In high school,
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 2: I was like protesting our state legislature for cutting school funding,
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 2: and you know, had the experience of.
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: You've been in the middle, You've been in it. Yeah, yeah,
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: and I I love it like I.
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 2: Like being in a big fight for you and I
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 2: think the way to the way to have a big, big,
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 2: the biggest impact that you can is different at different times.
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 2: It's different for different people. But that's that's the that's
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 2: kind of my north star is to you know, like
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 2: try to be a good dad and husband and try
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 2: to make the biggest change I can.
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: So, how do you consume Packers games? And how do
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: you consume Packer news? Are you obsessive? I'm obsessive. I've
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 1: brainwashed my son. He's you know, he's It's the only
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 1: sport team that I brainwashed him on was the Packers.
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: And even if you weren't a real Packers fan, you'd
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: have to lie to me and say you were. It's
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: it's in the But I so, how do you consume it?
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: I only asked that because everybody's down on the Packers
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: this year.
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 2: They are. They're also down in Democrats this year, you know,
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 2: But I think it's gonna be a good year for Democrats.
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 2: I have a mix of like podcasts of watching live shows.
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 2: I also get a little like briefing that I set
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 2: up that gets sent to me every day.
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: By nice you got your little Packer briefing.
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 2: My little backup briefing. But I strongly support Tammy Baldwin's legislation,
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 2: the Go pack Act, that makes sure that every broadcaster
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 2: has to carry live Packers games, or that every media
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 2: market has to have someone carrying live Packers.
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 1: Free place and over the airplace.
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is a team owned by the community, including me.
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 2: I'm a Packers shareholder, and even if you live in
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 2: a media market that's technically part of Minnesota or Michigan,
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 2: you should be able to watch Packers games on live broads.
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: You know why they have an anti by the story
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: of how the NFL got its anti trust exemption. It
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: is one of my favorite stories because that there was
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: a member of Congress who was a key vote and
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: do you know what city they represented in Congress, New Orleans,
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: and the Saints got a franchise basically in exchange for
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 1: for this is Kokie Roberts's dad uh Bogs, not Tommy
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: Tommy's the son Hailbox. But I didn't I had heard
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 1: that story. It was a story that was told to
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: me by the nflp a head. But it was sort
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: of like But the point is the whole point of
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: that exemption was to create this over the air. And
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: you know, then there's that ridiculous the blackout rule, which
• 2:17:35
  Speaker 1: people in Wisconsin don't know what that is because Packers
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: sell out all their games. But for the markets that
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: have teams that don't always sell out, you actually don't
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: get to watch your team on local TV if they
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: don't if they don't sell the game out during the
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: specific period of time, you know, quote unquote gets blacked out. Again.
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: To explain how that works to Packers fans is like,
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: what are you talking about? Because the very what player
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: are you most excited about?
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 2: Besides Jordan Love, I'm going to say Jordan Love because
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 2: I feel like we're on this this hero's journey. This
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 2: is I just walked to the odyssey, you know, and
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 2: sometimes you have to go far away, but you wind
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 2: up coming back and be able to change everything. That
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 2: got my love Jersey, I uh, yeah, things are going
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 2: to happen. We're going to see it.
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I I sort of like the fact that
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: all the experts are down on them. Yeah, because we'd
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 1: actually been the cool team over the last few years
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: that didn't work out so well. So all right, go
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: go ahead, everybody picked the Bears, set expectations here. Everybody
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: picked the Bears.
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 2: And then leaving Chicago, which is uh. I have a
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 2: project called this is Wisconsin where I go around the
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 2: state and make videos about what we love about our state.
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 2: I just did ham and Bears. Are you gonna call
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 2: him in Indiana? Which is that is hamm in a
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 2: real place? It's not clear to me. I didn't know
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 2: about it until the Bears threatened to move there, so
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 2: you know, this is all I.
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: Indiana has a championship team now, and so maybe the
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: Bears were just desperate for reflected glory from the University
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: of from IU football. But who knows? You never Ben
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: good luck with the book. What would convince you not
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: to run for the Senate? Why wouldn't you do it?
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: I will.
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 2: I'm going to figure out everything about the future after this.
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: I've remember right.
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 2: Overwhelming podcast right now is to figure out how we
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 2: win at governorship, re elect attorney general, call when an
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 2: Assembly majority, win a state Senate majority, flip as many
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 2: House seats as we can. This is, you know, the
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 2: kind of this is the super Bowl for Wisconsin politics.
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: Then hang can be that north Star for the party.
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 2: I think whoever the nominee is, has an opportunity, in
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 2: a year where people are furious at the people in charge,
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 2: to make sure that we reject Tom Tiffany, who's been
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 2: exactly part of the whole problem that everyone's so mad about,
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 2: and elect democratic governor and legislators and you know in
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 2: every corner of the state. I really think if you
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 2: ask people if they want change her more of the same,
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 2: nobody wants more of the same. And Tom Tiffany is
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 2: the guy who brought you this. That is a that's
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 2: a that's a losing formula.
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: Ben Wickler. Uh, if you check out the book, it's
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: not a longer. You're not asking people to read warm piece.
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: Uh. It's a clear read. Uh, it's a good read. Uh.
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: And it's there. It is and he's well branded. So
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: there it is. That is the place, so says Ben Wickler.
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 1: Can you see you, Ben, go pack you Jay.
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 2: To chest Top five top top Jest top.
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: All right, it is Top five list time. As you know,
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: my top five list every week brought to you by
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: my friends at Vanduel and as I promised at the
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: start of my monologue, these this is my I want
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: to put this Wisconsin Democratic primary in its proper historic place.
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: I think it's the uh. It is one of the
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: biggest upsets, frankly in my lifetime in a non presidential primary.
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: So look, here's the rule. Everybody's list of biggest upsetts
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: is really a list of races where somebody raised less
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: money than somebody else. And that's not always an upset,
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: it's just math. Right, But the test here, here's my test.
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: It's a bit narrow, a bit harder that the winner.
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I look at this. My sort of rule
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 1: here is the winner had to be behind the week
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: of the primary, right, not behind three months before, and
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 1: they make their comeback, not behind in the abstract, but
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: truly behind going in. So that rule ruled out a
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 1: lot of famous names. You might be thinking of famous
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: primary upsets that sort of were shocking. Christine O'Donnell over
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: my Castle. Well, Christine o'dnald actually led my castle in
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: the last couple of poles. The shock was to Washington.
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a shock to the data. Right. Ned Lamont
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: led Joe Lieberman in that primary. Joe Sestak led Arlen
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: Spector Murdoch, Richard Murdock led Dick Luger Gray Davis was
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 1: ahead in the final Field poll of ninety eight. All
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: of those were incredible stories and thought to be incredible upsets,
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: but they actually weren't surprises by the final week of
• 2:22:11
  Speaker 1: the campaign, right, it's it's it's when you're it's where
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: you're like, wait, what happened? You had no idea that
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: morning of the prime of election day itself that it
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: was going to turn out the way it turned out.
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: So after I threw all that, you know, all those
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: rules in there, and I have five races that I've
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: come up with my five non presidential primary all time upsets.
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 1: Number five Joe Crawley, New York fourteen, Democratic Primary twenty eighteen.
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: Fourth ranking member of leadership in the Democratic Party. He's
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: also the Queen's county party boss. He's the presumed successor
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: to Nancy Pelosiat. He hadn't faced a primary in fourteen years.
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: An internal poll had him up thirty five. He lost
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: by fifteen points, So why is this one consequential? Didn't
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: change his seat, but it did change the party internal clock.
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 1: Every House Democrat over sixty spent the next six years
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: running like they were forty. By the way, who did
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: do you remember who Joe Crowley lost to Alexandria Cassia Cortes.
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: So that's number five in the list. Number four Carol
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: Mosey Braun Illinois Senate, nineteen ninety two. It's probably the
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: most underrated result in modern American politics. You had Alan
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 1: Dixon had not lost an election in roughly forty years
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: of Illinois politics, thousands of votes cast, never beaten. He
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 1: voted to confirm Clarence Thomas. Six months later, a Cook
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 1: County Recorder of deeds with almost no money beats it
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: in a three way race and becomes the first black
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: woman ever elected to the United States Senate. This is
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: the race where the Anita Hill ring stopped being a
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: media story and became an electoral story. Everything called the
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: Year of the Woman runs through this March primary of
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two. Number three on my list. Andrew Gillam
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: Florida Governor Democratic Primary twenty eighteen. Gwen Graham, who, by
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 1: the way, is now the running mate for David Jolly
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 1: for governor this cycle, Gwen Graham, daughter of the late
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 1: governor and Senator Bob Graham, led in all the final
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 1: public polling. In fact, there was a third candidate Philip Levine,
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 1: who had spent enormous sums on television, and a fourth
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: candidate that spent a bunch of extra money on TV.
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: Gillam was running third in most of the primaries, who's
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: funded largely from outside the state. Bernie Sanders came in
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: with a late endorsement, George Sorels came in with a
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: late check, and Gillam pulls an upset. He ended up
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 1: losing the general election by just thirty two thousand votes
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: after more than eight million casts. As you know, though,
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: his victory sent the Florida Democratic Party basically into purgatory.
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: It has not recovered since. But it was a massive
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: upset engineered by Bernie Sanders. Number two on the Great
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: Shocks of the last thirty eight years. I guess you
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 1: could call it. Eric Canner Virginia, seventh Republican Congressional District
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: at the time Republican Primary twenty fourteen. He's the sitting
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: House majority leader, number two on the list, the only
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: one to lose a primary since the position was created
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety nine. His own polster had him up
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: thirty four points. A guy named Dave Bratt spent somewhere
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: around two undred thousand dollars. Polling just didn't even miss
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 1: it wasn't even just wrong, it missed the direction, just
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: totally missed it. And it was turned out it was
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 1: the beginning of realization where Republicans were like, we don't
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: know who our voters are anymore, because a whole new
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: Republican electorate was developing. Dave Bratt took advantage of that,
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: and the Eric Canner Wing Paul Ryan Wing has been
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: in retreat ever since, and you know, largely for a decade.
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: It was probably the number one shocker of all time.
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 1: This was one nobody saw coming on that one and
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: now number one David Crawley. I mean it is I
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: know this can come across as recency bias, but you know,
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: let me put it. Let me let me make the
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: case here on the Merits, every other race on that
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: list that I included required one improbable thing to happen.
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: For David Crawley, he needed like five improbable things in sequence,
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: like five weeks in a row. Right, Crawley suspends his
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: campaign July eighth. Campaign traction endorses the sitting Lieutenant Governor
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: Sarah Rodriguez. Sarah Rodriguez, who a week earlier looked like
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: the mainstream frontrunner. Her campaign had to collapse over campaign
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: finance problems. Right, You then had to have the Mandela
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 1: scan to get Mandela Barnes out of the race. Crawley
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: re enters on July eighteenth, somehow gets the governor to
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: endorse this time, and lo and behold, he somehow finds
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 1: a way to win. So if you remove any of
• 2:27:12
  Speaker 1: those things from that chain of events, he's not the nominee. Right,
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: Cannor lost because his electorate changed underneath him. That was
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: a shock, and it was a big one. This is
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 1: a candidate who quit became the nominee of a battle
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 1: around state. Anyway, I don't know. I can't find any
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 1: precedent for that, not at all. So it is it is.
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 1: And if he wins this governor's mansion, and right now
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: I think he is the favorite boy. That puts him
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: in some rare are And yes, it also means membership
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: into club shortlist, but that will be I can't wait
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: to save that one. I just want to put up
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 1: a few honorable mentions. I came up here for this
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: top five list, So my honorable my favorite presidential upset,
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 1: primary upsets, the big one Henry Cabot Lodge or right
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: campaign in nineteen sixty four, the New Hampshire primary Right.
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: He won a writing campaign while serving in Saigon. Folks,
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: he wasn't a candidate. Didn't ask my old mentor. Doug
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 1: Bailey ran this campaign, so I know a little bit
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: extra about it than most people. He never set foot
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 1: in the state. It is easily the most improbable primary
• 2:28:18
  Speaker 1: result ever recorded. And it was the beginning of sort
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: of what you realized. This was when you know, eventually
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 1: Barry Goldwater in some phenomenon. But the Republican Party was
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: a mess in sixty four. And this was the fact
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 1: that the New Hampshire primary began with a rite in
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 1: winning only only reinforced that. Jesse Jackson the Michigan caucuses
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 1: in eighty eight. It was the biggest upset at the
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 1: time that any black candidate had in a presidential primary.
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: He ran fifty five percent in an industrial state. He
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: briefly led the delegate count. There's Hillary Clinton New Hampshire eight.
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 1: Every final poll had Obama up by high single digits.
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: I think that was more polling air than anything else.
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: And then Rick Say tm Iowa twenty twelve you know,
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 1: no public poll ever showed him winning, and Selzer's final
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 1: poll she said, you know, the last two nights Santorum
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: seemed to be surging lo and behold, there was definitely
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 1: something there. It took an extra two weeks, but eventually
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 1: Santorum was declared the winner on this There were a
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 1: few others that I could have included. You had Larushi
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: Democrats in Illinois in eighty six, out of nowhere winning
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: crazy primaries. There was this Victor Morales who woned Texas
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: Senate runoff of ninety six. He was a high school
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: civics teacher who had a pickup truck and no money.
• 2:29:34
  Speaker 1: The entire Democratic establishment was behind his opponent, and he
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: won the runoff. Anyway. It was sort of the It
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: was the first time Democrats realized, boy, Hispanic surnames must
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 1: matter to voters. Huh. You had Al Green, those of you,
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: I think he's now the late Al Green. He shockingly
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: won a Senate Democratic primary in twenty ten out of nowhere,
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 1: had no campaign, no website, no yard signs, did have
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: one pending felony charge. Any sign my one. And Joe
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: Miller's out of nowhere upset of Lisa Murkowski, which led
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: to her running as a rite in, is also on
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: my honorable mention list there, but there you go. I
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 1: put Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary twenty twenty six. I think
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 1: it is my number one all time shocking primary upset,
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 1: over and above any presidential primary I could come up
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: with on this one.
• 2:30:34
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  Speaker 1: As Chuck, all right, let's do a little last Chuck.
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 1: First question comes from Nick Michigan's second congressional district, and
• 2:32:23
  Speaker 1: he's got a little bit of concern about I think
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 1: the election administration. And he writes recent pollings suggests James
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: Talerico is genuinely competitive with Ken Paxton and Texas. If
• 2:32:35
  Speaker 1: Talarico were have win by one to two points, how
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 1: confident should we be that the certified result would accurately
• 2:32:40
  Speaker 1: reflect the vote? Is Texas's decentralized elections system robust enough
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: to prevent partisan officials from altering the outcome of a
• 2:32:46
  Speaker 1: close state wide race? Thanks? Well, look, I understand your skepticism.
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: After all, Packson's the sitting attorney general. God only knows
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 1: how he would abuse. You know, he's he doesn't seem
• 2:32:58
  Speaker 1: to have too many ethical or moraligns across. So if
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: you're one assuming he would be willing to use his
• 2:33:03
  Speaker 1: office to try to gain an advantage, he's probably willing
• 2:33:06
  Speaker 1: to do that. But do realize that whether some of
• 2:33:10
  Speaker 1: the largest counties are run by Democrats in Texas, Harris County,
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 1: Dallas County, Bear County, Travis County, and you know that's
• 2:33:19
  Speaker 1: that that's where you know, that's where the big vote
• 2:33:22
  Speaker 1: chunks that Democrats are going to need to come from.
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: So i'm I am, I am, Look, I think our
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: decentralized system is a feature. The fact this is run
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: by locals it's precincts, it's counties, it's it's it's different municipalities.
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 1: You know, you look at what the work I'm doing
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 1: with my friends at DDHQ and my partnership with them.
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 1: You know, in some ways, we're we're a public check
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: on this, right. You know, that is why we don't
• 2:33:53
  Speaker 1: trust them to report. We do the count, we go
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: and get it, they do account. We basically double check
• 2:34:00
  Speaker 1: their count in real time. We've got people down there
• 2:34:04
  Speaker 1: and doing that. So I'm not saying that it isn't
• 2:34:08
  Speaker 1: possible to screw around with this stuff. I'm just saying
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to get away with it. And that's
• 2:34:14
  Speaker 1: probably the best way I could It's probably the most
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: realistic way I could reassure you on this. But if
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 1: tall Rico gets more votes in Packson, I'm confident Tall
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: Rico is going to be the US Senator from Texas,
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 1: all right. I am fully confident in that. Is it
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: going to be a fight. Might there be a court
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: fight or two maybe, But if that's the honest vote count,
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 1: I'm confident that vote count is going to get certified.
• 2:34:41
  Speaker 1: As you know, I'm I'm not an alarmist, but i
• 2:34:45
  Speaker 1: am I'm but I'm not. I'm not naive either. I
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: hope that helps. What do we got here? It's John B. Bellingham, Washington,
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 1: second Congressional District. He's working. He wants to work his
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: way to the five timer club. He's hoping this becomes
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 1: number two. He says, sorry to hear about the Nationals
• 2:35:04
  Speaker 1: yard sale. I say, yeah, you and me both. It
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 1: is a fail. Your pain as a Mariners fan. Honestly,
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 1: you have more pain. I got a World Series out
• 2:35:12
  Speaker 1: of the Nationals and you guys haven't. So you have you,
• 2:35:15
  Speaker 1: my friend, have felt more pain as a Mariners fan.
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 1: I am. I am convinced of that, all right. The
• 2:35:21
  Speaker 1: vice president, he's often called the least powerful elected office,
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 1: but some vps have had enormous influence behind the scenes.
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 1: What do you think makes a vice presidency successful? And
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: who would make your top five list? All the best?
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 1: John B. But that's a fun item. I think. Look,
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 1: it's the vice presidents that that are that that presidents
• 2:35:47
  Speaker 1: want to use as as an asset that end up
• 2:35:51
  Speaker 1: becoming assets. Right. If the president doesn't want the vice
• 2:35:55
  Speaker 1: president to be anything but a representative at funerals, then
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 1: it's a shitty job. But ultimately, you know, the list
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 1: I'll come up with of sitting vice presidents, you know,
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 1: only as effective. And it's really only been in the
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: twentieth century did president start start thinking about their vice presidents,
• 2:36:18
  Speaker 1: using them more than just than just in ceremonial roles,
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: you know, and look the vice presidents, you know, most
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: of them in the pre sort of the pre World
• 2:36:33
  Speaker 1: War two going per World War two were really just
• 2:36:36
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, basically they had to s right
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: in order to keep a coalition. I mean, if you
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: if you watch Death by Lightning about Garfield and Chester Arthur,
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 1: you know that was a forced marriage. It wasn't as
• 2:36:49
  Speaker 1: if Garfield wasn't thinking he was getting a partner in
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 1: Chester Arthur. In fact, he just assumed Chester Arthur was
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: going to be a problem to deal with. And that's
• 2:36:58
  Speaker 1: in some ways many a president that was. They're vice
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: presidents that way. I think it's really more of a
• 2:37:03
  Speaker 1: of a modern a little bit more of the modern
• 2:37:08
  Speaker 1: era where you had this and I guess you could
• 2:37:11
  Speaker 1: say it starts with with Harry Truman, the decision to
• 2:37:14
  Speaker 1: dump Henry Wallace and get Harry Truman right that you know,
• 2:37:18
  Speaker 1: the essentially the team behind FDR realized, Hey, he's gonna
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: he may die in office. We need a more legitimate,
• 2:37:24
  Speaker 1: we need somebody that can handle this job type of thing.
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: And they were worried about Henry Wallace taking going too
• 2:37:32
  Speaker 1: far to the left. Remember, he was the progressive inside
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: the movement more so than FDR. I know, in hindsight,
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 1: FDR looks like the progressive, but back then Henry Wallace
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: was Iowan. By the way, there's a terrific Henry Waller's
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 1: biography of those of you that would love to study
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: sort of the progressive, the progressive, the history of the
• 2:37:52
  Speaker 1: progressive movement. Henry Wallace a very important player. Great biography
• 2:37:58
  Speaker 1: written by a former senator from Iowa named John Culver,
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 1: whose son served a one term as governor. Anyway, enough
• 2:38:06
  Speaker 1: Iowa trivia for you there, let'sh my quick of sort
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: of and I guess the question, it's consequential effective, right,
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 1: you know, there's different ways to handle it. I think
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt, you know, Dick Cheney is sort of
• 2:38:23
  Speaker 1: he was a partner. He was almost like a chief
• 2:38:26
  Speaker 1: of staff as much as he was a sitting vice president.
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 1: And I think, you know, it's funny one of the
• 2:38:33
  Speaker 1: reasons w trusted him so much and I think gave
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: him is that he didn't he didn't view Cheney as
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: somebody who had one eye on the top job. Right.
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 1: A lot of presidents look at their vice presidents and
• 2:38:44
  Speaker 1: assume that they're you know, constantly looking at them as saying,
• 2:38:48
  Speaker 1: you know, how's your health? You know, are you sure
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 1: you want to finish this term? You know? Can I
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: finish this term for you? Right? So I think you
• 2:38:55
  Speaker 1: have to put Cheney one. You may not like what
• 2:38:58
  Speaker 1: Cheney did, but I think as sequential, effective, you know,
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 1: running policy, you name it, you know. He certainly he
• 2:39:08
  Speaker 1: certainly created a few political enemies inside of Bush world,
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 1: namely the former First Lady herself, Laura Bush. Go to
• 2:39:16
  Speaker 1: the Bush Library, where Laura Bush had a heavy hand
• 2:39:19
  Speaker 1: in the design, and note how well Condi Rice is
• 2:39:23
  Speaker 1: treated and how not so well Dictaney is treated. But anyway,
• 2:39:26
  Speaker 1: but I digress. But if you're going to ask me
• 2:39:30
  Speaker 1: my top five list, definitely Cheney al Gore was. I
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 1: think al Gore certainly was seen as a as a asset,
• 2:39:42
  Speaker 1: though he was still a little bit of decorative furniture.
• 2:39:46
  Speaker 1: If you will. Biden in the first term in particular,
• 2:39:50
  Speaker 1: was an extraordinarily important partner for Obama because Obama hated
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: the Capitol Hill glad handing and Biden loved the Capitol
• 2:39:57
  Speaker 1: Hill gland hate. So he was actually a nice partner
• 2:40:00
  Speaker 1: for him. So I think you'd have to put him
• 2:40:01
  Speaker 1: on the list. So I got Cheney, I got you know,
• 2:40:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not quite there on Vance just yet. I'm not.
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: I don't buy that Vance has has that side, you know,
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: I don't. There's no proof yet that he's you know,
• 2:40:17
  Speaker 1: I guess it's it's I'm incomplete on Vance. Let's let's
• 2:40:21
  Speaker 1: let the whole term play out. Let's get a little
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: better under Let's see if he actually, you know, lands
• 2:40:25
  Speaker 1: the plane with Iran. You know, let's see what happens here.
• 2:40:29
  Speaker 1: He certainly is being treated more than more than decorated,
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: more than decoration. But it's there. You know. I think,
• 2:40:41
  Speaker 1: because of James Baker's important role in the Reagan presidency
• 2:40:45
  Speaker 1: that H. W. Bush deserves to be on that list
• 2:40:49
  Speaker 1: as an effective and consequential vice president because while it
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: was hot or cold, it was hot and cold sometimes.
• 2:40:57
  Speaker 1: HW's relationship with Reagan personally, the fact that Jim Baker
• 2:41:01
  Speaker 1: was such an important player there in Jim Baker and
• 2:41:04
  Speaker 1: hw I mean essentially, you know, the number one advisor
• 2:41:08
  Speaker 1: to George H. W. Bush was chief of Staff and
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: then in Secretary of Treasury. Mean, that's that allows you
• 2:41:14
  Speaker 1: to be very consequential as a vice president. So look,
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: I Lee, I feel bad that this list is very modern.
• 2:41:24
  Speaker 1: But my argument, but my defense of keeping it modern
• 2:41:26
  Speaker 1: is it really it really wasn't until the selection of
• 2:41:30
  Speaker 1: Harry Truman did I think presidents view a vice president
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: as more than just decoration or constituency management, right, you know,
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 1: dealing with some sort of constituency that they wanted to appease.
• 2:41:44
  Speaker 1: But you know Eisenhower, you know famously in an ad
• 2:41:48
  Speaker 1: that Kennedy used effectively, would ask you know, what important
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: decisions was Nixon involved with? He says, give me a
• 2:41:53
  Speaker 1: little bit. I'll get back to you in some form
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: of that famous line. Look, he picked Nixon. That was
• 2:41:59
  Speaker 1: that was that was constituent, right, that was to appease
• 2:42:02
  Speaker 1: the right way, who were very skeptical that Eisenhower was
• 2:42:06
  Speaker 1: a was a real conservative. Kennedy right, picks Johnson more
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 1: to just win the election. And there's actually they keep
• 2:42:12
  Speaker 1: them at arm's length. You know, nobody thought Agnew was
• 2:42:17
  Speaker 1: was was an effect of anything for for Nixon and
• 2:42:20
  Speaker 1: even the selection of Ford, so it was an important
• 2:42:23
  Speaker 1: vice president that was that was. It felt like in
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 1: some ways that actually cemented Nixon's eventual resignation. You know,
• 2:42:33
  Speaker 1: the best protection Nixon would have had from being forced
• 2:42:36
  Speaker 1: out of office would have been if he kept Sparrow Agnew,
• 2:42:38
  Speaker 1: But that scandal forced Agnew out of office. If Agnew
• 2:42:42
  Speaker 1: stays it, one of my what ifs that I'm working
• 2:42:44
  Speaker 1: on for my holiday what if series coming up is
• 2:42:48
  Speaker 1: what if Agnew doesn't go? Because if Agnew doesn't go,
• 2:42:52
  Speaker 1: Nixon's Nixon serves the full two terms. Republicans don't get
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: rid of them, because there's no way they would have
• 2:42:59
  Speaker 1: hated the presidency day anyway. Just something to think about.
• 2:43:06
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Dennis g. He writes from Connecticut's
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 1: first congressional district. Just talked about that. You've got a
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 1: new member of Congress, Luke Bronan. Anyway, Dennis Wrights, after
• 2:43:19
  Speaker 1: Trump's second election, do we have to come to terms
• 2:43:21
  Speaker 1: the fact that many voters knew exactly who he was
• 2:43:23
  Speaker 1: and still chose him. That's true. What does it say
• 2:43:25
  Speaker 1: about the country, and how do we begin to bridge
• 2:43:28
  Speaker 1: those differences moving forward? Well, look, I think it's that's
• 2:43:33
  Speaker 1: the question Democrats have to ask themselves, right, And I
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: do believe if you look at the twenty first century,
• 2:43:39
  Speaker 1: I don't believe anybody has been proactively elected to office.
• 2:43:42
  Speaker 1: I think every single election has been more about who
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: we didn't want. It's been more about a firing or
• 2:43:49
  Speaker 1: about a prevention strategy. You know, did the country want
• 2:43:53
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden or do they wanted it to stop the
• 2:43:55
  Speaker 1: madness of Trump? Did the country want Trump? Or do
• 2:43:59
  Speaker 1: they not want Hillary Clinton? Did the country? You know?
• 2:44:02
  Speaker 1: I think Obama was proactively elected I think in the
• 2:44:04
  Speaker 1: eight election, But by twenty twelve, was the country really
• 2:44:08
  Speaker 1: want to re elect Obama or they just no way?
• 2:44:10
  Speaker 1: They were handing the keys to Romney. And I think,
• 2:44:14
  Speaker 1: you know, if you every single election, are you know,
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: even though four Bush was not super popular, but Carrie
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: did not make the case to be a compelling alternative.
• 2:44:25
  Speaker 1: So I think we've been much I really think this
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: entire century has been voting against, not voting for anybody.
• 2:44:34
  Speaker 1: So you know, I think that that's why I think
• 2:44:41
  Speaker 1: it's the Democrats that have to look in the mirror
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: that because it's not as if the public has decided
• 2:44:47
  Speaker 1: Trump's okay, Trump's ethical and moral now that somehow we've
• 2:44:51
  Speaker 1: changed our own mores to adjust to trump Ism. No,
• 2:44:58
  Speaker 1: we still don't like it. We don't like the corruption,
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: we don't like the self dealing. But we chose it anyway.
• 2:45:04
  Speaker 1: We chose it because the voter seemed to not have
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: enough trust that Harris was up to the task. And
• 2:45:12
  Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing was was she strong enough
• 2:45:15
  Speaker 1: to stand up to the left. I think that's the
• 2:45:17
  Speaker 1: lesson I'm taking away here from some of these voters.
• 2:45:19
  Speaker 1: There's a huge constituency that culture that is decided. It's
• 2:45:23
  Speaker 1: culturally more uncomfortable with the left than it is culturally
• 2:45:26
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable with the right. That's that sucks to say for
• 2:45:32
  Speaker 1: some of you out loud. I'm not going to say
• 2:45:34
  Speaker 1: that makes me excited or comfortable. I don't love that.
• 2:45:37
  Speaker 1: But I think the answer is true, you know, just
• 2:45:40
  Speaker 1: welcome to America, welcome to pluralism. I think it's why
• 2:45:46
  Speaker 1: you sometimes you you know, you can't get into a
• 2:45:49
  Speaker 1: debate about Thanksgiving. I'm not saying that Kamala Harris got
• 2:45:53
  Speaker 1: a debate about Thanksgiving, but it was other cultural issues
• 2:45:56
  Speaker 1: that got her thumbed up a little bit. So I
• 2:46:00
  Speaker 1: I don't buy that we made a choice to go
• 2:46:02
  Speaker 1: back to Trump. I buy that voters felt they were
• 2:46:05
  Speaker 1: given too bad options and they actually went with the
• 2:46:08
  Speaker 1: one that they were more familiar with. You know, the
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: thing that we that's underrated the most is you know you, Dennis.
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 1: I think you know. I think you'd be classified as
• 2:46:24
  Speaker 1: a pretty well informed voter. And so you clearly are
• 2:46:27
  Speaker 1: voting on character. I'm voting on character. Not everybody has
• 2:46:30
  Speaker 1: the luxury to vote on character, right, and if you
• 2:46:34
  Speaker 1: just look at the management of the economy, you got nervous.
• 2:46:37
  Speaker 1: So you know, careful judging your fellow American on why
• 2:46:44
  Speaker 1: they voted on the motive for their vote, because we
• 2:46:49
  Speaker 1: all have different challenges, we all have different problems. I
• 2:46:52
  Speaker 1: vote character, but I have the luxury to vote on character.
• 2:46:56
  Speaker 1: Not everybody views their choice that way. And I think
• 2:47:01
  Speaker 1: that's why it's the Democrats that have to look in
• 2:47:03
  Speaker 1: them and ask themselves, how the hell did you lose
• 2:47:07
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump? All? Right, next question Henry in New
• 2:47:11
  Speaker 1: Orleans rights, to what extent can Governor Pritzker and Senator
• 2:47:14
  Speaker 1: Asof campaign for abduelsied while also helping themselves politically, particularly
• 2:47:18
  Speaker 1: given the concerns you and Chris discussed about Jewish voters,
• 2:47:21
  Speaker 1: could their relationships with Jewish and African American communities make
• 2:47:24
  Speaker 1: them uniquely effective surrogates? The answer is yes. I agree
• 2:47:28
  Speaker 1: with you on Asof and Pritzker. I think they've tried
• 2:47:31
  Speaker 1: to distinguish themselves a little bit from I think they
• 2:47:38
  Speaker 1: are supporters of Zionism while separating their skepticism of Netnyahu's
• 2:47:46
  Speaker 1: government and of the policy. I think if you robustly
• 2:47:50
  Speaker 1: stand for a two state solution, that you can do that.
• 2:47:55
  Speaker 1: But I'll be curious to see if you know if
• 2:47:59
  Speaker 1: Pritzker and and Asof do that. I'll be curious does
• 2:48:01
  Speaker 1: that duel lsayed want Asoff to do that? Is it
• 2:48:04
  Speaker 1: smart for Asof to get off his own reelection campaign
• 2:48:07
  Speaker 1: and dabble up there? I might If I were advising Asoff,
• 2:48:11
  Speaker 1: I'd be like as tempting as it is, you know,
• 2:48:14
  Speaker 1: to quote the monotone voice in the First Star Wars,
• 2:48:19
  Speaker 1: stay on target, Stay on target, Stay on target. I
• 2:48:25
  Speaker 1: might not do it. If I were in as Off shoes,
• 2:48:28
  Speaker 1: I'd stick to making sure I successfully one in Georgia.
• 2:48:33
  Speaker 1: I'd maybe one by enough vote to drag keish Lan's
• 2:48:36
  Speaker 1: bottoms over the finish line that is going to have
• 2:48:39
  Speaker 1: a bigger impact on his future as a presidential candidate.
• 2:48:43
  Speaker 1: Then whether or not he helps up due lsayed carry
• 2:48:46
  Speaker 1: a sendency. But I do think Pritzker. I think Pritzker
• 2:48:53
  Speaker 1: and asof are both in a better position to bridge
• 2:48:58
  Speaker 1: this growing divide and side the Democratic Party more so
• 2:49:02
  Speaker 1: probably than Josh Shapiro or Rob Emmanuel of the of
• 2:49:06
  Speaker 1: the four Jewish presidential candidates. If you're saying you know that,
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 1: you know I'd probably put pritz Gernassov on one on
• 2:49:14
  Speaker 1: one category, and in rom and Shapiro and another. All Right,
• 2:49:25
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna save these next two questions for my next
• 2:49:27
  Speaker 1: episode because I have one more. I want to leave
• 2:49:29
  Speaker 1: you with a sports story, believe it or not, but
• 2:49:32
  Speaker 1: it's not any old sports story. It's a fascinating little
• 2:49:37
  Speaker 1: story that broke h Wednesday morning out of nowhere. The
• 2:49:44
  Speaker 1: Lakers got sold again. They got sold for twelve and
• 2:49:48
  Speaker 1: a half billion dollars, most money ever paid for an
• 2:49:51
  Speaker 1: American sports franchise. The buyers Bob Iger, who ran Disney,
• 2:49:57
  Speaker 1: and Josh Kushner, a venture ca capitalist and yes, brother
• 2:50:01
  Speaker 1: of Jared Kushner, who, of course is the president's son
• 2:50:04
  Speaker 1: in law. Now you may say, Josh Kushner, wasn't he
• 2:50:09
  Speaker 1: just in the news? Stay with me here for a minute.
• 2:50:12
  Speaker 1: Let me just say here this entire Lakers transaction. The
• 2:50:18
  Speaker 1: old managing editor in me, I've run a couple of newsrooms,
• 2:50:21
  Speaker 1: and there's I love, you know, love story pitches and
• 2:50:26
  Speaker 1: sort of both back and forth, that conversation with reporters.
• 2:50:30
  Speaker 1: What are you working on? What you got? Hey? Have
• 2:50:31
  Speaker 1: you thought about this story? I think we need to
• 2:50:33
  Speaker 1: dig into this. Well, let me just tell you, the
• 2:50:35
  Speaker 1: managing editor in me, there's a lot of flashing little
• 2:50:39
  Speaker 1: yellow flags on this story that I think are worth
• 2:50:42
  Speaker 1: some digging. And I know there's going to be some
• 2:50:45
  Speaker 1: investigative reporters on this because here's the part that got
• 2:50:50
  Speaker 1: my attention. Mark Walter bought the Lakers fourteen months ago
• 2:50:54
  Speaker 1: for ten billion dollars. So fourteen months ago and he's out,
• 2:50:58
  Speaker 1: by the way two and a half billion dollar profit
• 2:51:00
  Speaker 1: to the good Hey man, it's quite the flip, you know.
• 2:51:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, if I spent one thousand dollars on a
• 2:51:07
  Speaker 1: baseball card and sold it for fifty dollars. I'd be
• 2:51:13
  Speaker 1: somewhat happy. I'd be a hell of a lot more
• 2:51:15
  Speaker 1: happy if I were bought it for a billion ten
• 2:51:18
  Speaker 1: billion and sold it for twelve and a half billion.
• 2:51:20
  Speaker 1: But that's another story. But let me start where an
• 2:51:24
  Speaker 1: honest person has to start, which is, maybe this is nothing. Okay,
• 2:51:29
  Speaker 1: maybe this is Mark Walter deciding he didn't want to
• 2:51:34
  Speaker 1: own both the Lakers and the Dodgers. Here's what we
• 2:51:37
  Speaker 1: know by the recording says Iiger and Kushner called Walter
• 2:51:40
  Speaker 1: on a Sunday, and he had a day or two
• 2:51:42
  Speaker 1: to decide. Now, let's think about what they were all
• 2:51:46
  Speaker 1: looking at. The NBA is talking expansion. They're taking bids
• 2:51:50
  Speaker 1: already for a franchise in Las Vegas and a franchise
• 2:51:53
  Speaker 1: in Seattle. And those franchises are going to go for
• 2:51:56
  Speaker 1: somewhere between seven and ten billion dollars. Seven and ten
• 2:52:01
  Speaker 1: billion for a team that does not exist, no history,
• 2:52:04
  Speaker 1: no banners, no magic, no Kareem, no Kobe. Right, So
• 2:52:10
  Speaker 1: two guys with that kind of money look at each
• 2:52:11
  Speaker 1: other and ask the obvious question, why are we paying
• 2:52:13
  Speaker 1: eight billion dollars for nothing? When the Lakers are sitting
• 2:52:16
  Speaker 1: right there. So that's not a scandal, that's just math, right,
• 2:52:23
  Speaker 1: And maybe that's the whole story. And maybe they just
• 2:52:25
  Speaker 1: made Mark Walter this great and he just needed cash
• 2:52:28
  Speaker 1: in a moment, right. But like I told you, I
• 2:52:31
  Speaker 1: ran newsrooms for a long time, and when a story
• 2:52:33
  Speaker 1: lands this fast, you don't assigned the obvious thing. Everybody's
• 2:52:36
  Speaker 1: going to chase the buyer this week. The Kushner name
• 2:52:40
  Speaker 1: is right there. It's easy, it writes itself. But I
• 2:52:42
  Speaker 1: just signed the seller because here's what most people covering
• 2:52:47
  Speaker 1: the story don't have in front of them. Mark Walter's
• 2:52:51
  Speaker 1: businesses are under federal investigation right now. The US Attorney
• 2:52:56
  Speaker 1: in Manhattan and the SEC are looking at two in
• 2:53:00
  Speaker 1: turance companies that he controls. Grand jury subpoenas went out
• 2:53:03
  Speaker 1: in February. It started with a whistleblower inside Guggenheim Partners,
• 2:53:08
  Speaker 1: that's his asset management company. The Wall Street Journal reports
• 2:53:12
  Speaker 1: that investigators are examining something like sixteen billion dollars in
• 2:53:16
  Speaker 1: loans made to companies that were connected to Walter. And
• 2:53:21
  Speaker 1: there's one number in all this that should make any
• 2:53:23
  Speaker 1: editor sit up. One of those insurers had told regulators
• 2:53:28
  Speaker 1: that it's related party exposure. What does that mean? It
• 2:53:31
  Speaker 1: means it's money loan to entities tied to its own owner.
• 2:53:36
  Speaker 1: That it was about three percent of the investments, So
• 2:53:40
  Speaker 1: after the subpoenas arrived that number was restated. It went
• 2:53:44
  Speaker 1: from three percent to somewhere between thirty nine and forty
• 2:53:46
  Speaker 1: two percent. It's a big deal. How much money does
• 2:53:53
  Speaker 1: Walter own his own investors? Here? Did he need cash? Now?
• 2:53:58
  Speaker 1: Fair is fair? Nobody's been charged, nobody has been accused
• 2:54:02
  Speaker 1: of anything in a courtroom. Investigations like this, frankly, often
• 2:54:06
  Speaker 1: end in a settlement because they're complicated, or sometimes a
• 2:54:09
  Speaker 1: simple correction, or maybe it's nothing at all. Walter's holding
• 2:54:13
  Speaker 1: company says it is cooperating and expects this to resolve favorably. Sure,
• 2:54:19
  Speaker 1: the teams themselves, the Dodgers and the Lakers, are not targets,
• 2:54:22
  Speaker 1: and he's keeping the Dodgers, which, if you were, if
• 2:54:25
  Speaker 1: you were in genuine financial distress, would be a strange
• 2:54:29
  Speaker 1: asset to hold on to. Right. So I'm not telling
• 2:54:32
  Speaker 1: you the probe itself caused the sale. I'm telling you
• 2:54:37
  Speaker 1: that why did he sell so fast? Is not a
• 2:54:41
  Speaker 1: rhetorical question anymore. It's a reportable one and the reporting
• 2:54:46
  Speaker 1: path is right there, the disclosure filings, the ratings agencies,
• 2:54:51
  Speaker 1: the deal structure. Is he all the way out or
• 2:54:54
  Speaker 1: is he keeping a peace? Did anybody have a right
• 2:54:57
  Speaker 1: of first refusal? And did they really weigh over a weekend?
• 2:55:02
  Speaker 1: Nobody waves this away casually. Now let's deal with the
• 2:55:05
  Speaker 1: Kushner part, because I'm going to be careful here. It's
• 2:55:09
  Speaker 1: easy to go down conspiracy rabbit holes. Josh Kushner is
• 2:55:12
  Speaker 1: not Jared Kushner. His firm says flatly that he has
• 2:55:16
  Speaker 1: no links to the administration. Okay, but he does not
• 2:55:20
  Speaker 1: get to be surprised by what's coming because it already
• 2:55:24
  Speaker 1: happened to him. Two weeks ago, FIFA had a plan
• 2:55:28
  Speaker 1: to sell a minority stake in the World Cup to
• 2:55:31
  Speaker 1: an investor group led by Kushner's firm. Every major European
• 2:55:37
  Speaker 1: soccer federation threatened to boycott FIFA. The plan was scrapped.
• 2:55:44
  Speaker 1: YUIFA has since written a Kushner and the Bank saying
• 2:55:47
  Speaker 1: it's considering legal action and it's now trying to push
• 2:55:51
  Speaker 1: the head of FIFA out of his job in Pantino,
• 2:55:54
  Speaker 1: maybe out of there. That's the pattern, And it's the
• 2:56:00
  Speaker 1: actual point of this segment, because, by the way, if
• 2:56:02
  Speaker 1: Kushner had been involved in the FIFA deal, would he
• 2:56:04
  Speaker 1: still be involved with Eiger?
• 2:56:06
  Speaker 2: Here?
• 2:56:10
  Speaker 1: Look fair or not? In this era, if your last
• 2:56:13
  Speaker 1: name is adjacent to the president's family and you're his
• 2:56:16
  Speaker 1: business partner or his kids investor, the deal's going to
• 2:56:20
  Speaker 1: get a second look every time, not because of anything
• 2:56:23
  Speaker 1: you did, because of where you're standing. Right. Donald Trump
• 2:56:28
  Speaker 1: is corruptible and has practiced corrupt business. He has corrupt
• 2:56:34
  Speaker 1: business practices, and so anybody adjacent to him is going
• 2:56:38
  Speaker 1: to be seen fair or not as guilty until proven innocent.
• 2:56:43
  Speaker 1: Call it unfair, and you can there's a legal argument
• 2:56:48
  Speaker 1: that it is unfair. But welcome to politics. It's not
• 2:56:53
  Speaker 1: a claim about anybody's character. It's a structural fact about
• 2:56:58
  Speaker 1: doing business in twenty twenty six, and it's the price
• 2:57:01
  Speaker 1: of association with the Trumps. Hell, there were protests and
• 2:57:05
  Speaker 1: riots in Albania when Jared Kushner tried to do a
• 2:57:08
  Speaker 1: land deal there. So if you want this access, you're
• 2:57:13
  Speaker 1: going to get audited like this. So look, all I
• 2:57:18
  Speaker 1: know is that there's a lot more to this story.
• 2:57:21
  Speaker 1: A record sale, a fourteen month flip a grand Jury
• 2:57:25
  Speaker 1: on one side of the table, a Kushner on the other,
• 2:57:28
  Speaker 1: two weeks removed from some weird back room feef a deal.
• 2:57:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's all unrelated in nothing. Maybe a guy just
• 2:57:38
  Speaker 1: got handed to and a half billion dollars and said yes,
• 2:57:41
  Speaker 1: and who among us wouldn't. But the Lakers just changed
• 2:57:46
  Speaker 1: hands twice in two years. That was shocking. Actually both
• 2:57:53
  Speaker 1: times it was shocking. And what was shocking was not
• 2:57:55
  Speaker 1: who was buying, it was who was leaving. None of
• 2:57:58
  Speaker 1: us ever saw the buses, and certainly the guy who
• 2:58:03
  Speaker 1: controls the Dodgers and then the Lakers voluntarily gives that up.
• 2:58:13
  Speaker 1: A lot of people are going to be digging on
• 2:58:15
  Speaker 1: this one, and I too will be among them, and
• 2:58:20
  Speaker 1: with that a little more of a serious sports quarter
• 2:58:25
  Speaker 1: that I normally have. Right, But I love me a
• 2:58:27
  Speaker 1: good sports business story. My friends of the Sports Business Daily,
• 2:58:31
  Speaker 1: I think this is the beginning of a wild wild ride.
• 2:58:36
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what my friends at the
• 2:58:37
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal do with this one as well. And
• 2:58:40
  Speaker 1: with that, I will take about a seventy two hour
• 2:58:43
  Speaker 1: break and I will see you when we upload again.