Latest / FROM THE INSIDE OUT by BETH ARNOLD / #57 ANNIE vs. DARLINE- THE POLITICS OF POWEIR

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#57 ANNIE vs. DARLINE- THE POLITICS OF POWEIR · FROM THE INSIDE OUT by BETH ARNOLD

• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hey y'all, pull up a chair.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Beth Arnold, and this is from The Inside Out, where American life, politics, and memory meet as we tiny specks in the cosmos try to make sense of it all.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's August 27th, and I'm reading Annie versus Darlene, The Politics of Power.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeeha y'all, we've got us a horse race in South Carolina.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Annie versus Darlene, the politics of power.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably better to have them inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a quote on Lyndon Johnson about J.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Edgar Hoover.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: As Robert Carrow has so deftly shown us, no American politician has known how to acquire and use power better than Lyndon Johnson.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: He learned at least part of it from his daddy, Sam Ely Johnson Jr., who once said, You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Carrow and others have noted that the lesson was about mastering human psychology and situational awareness.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: In Papa Johnson's view, politics was less about reading legislation and more about instantly reading a room.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: He taught his son that a true politician must scan a crowd, look into people's eyes, and immediately calculate the political math of who was an ally and who was a threat.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: A fine lesson indeed.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Johnson had been studying politics almost from the cradle, tagging along with his state legislator father to the Capitol in Austin, where he watched Sam politic with politicians.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: By the time Lyndon got to college, he was ready to stop watching power and start figuring out how to get some of his own, and he was very good at it.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: When Johnson arrived at Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1927, rural Texas was desperately poor and America was skidding toward the Great Depression.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Most of his classmates came from hard, scrabble farm families and needed campus jobs simply to stay in school.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Johnson quickly figured out that the key source of power on that poor campus was control over student jobs.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So he created a political organization and engineered the election of a candidate who then allowed Johnson to administer the jobs.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, Johnson, although personally unpopular, controlled something his classmates desperately needed.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Later in life, Johnson could blow with the political wind as a candidate and legislator, but he never lost the lesson he learned on that poor Texas campus.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Find where the power is, get hold of it, and use it.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was how Lyndon Johnson operated for the rest of his political life.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to Annie Andrews and Darlene Graham.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Darlene certainly grew up knowing what political power looked like.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Her brother Lindsay spent decades acquiring it, using it, and loudly throwing it around.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then Donald Trump came along and Lindsay made a different calculation.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: He stuffed his integrity into the garbage and made his own power subservient to Trump's.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Darlene had a front row seat to all of it.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Which makes me wonder how Darlene felt after the debacle of a debate at Newberry, South Carolina last week, which might have given pause to some people who thought their vote for her was a slam dunk.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or three days later when she had to face a big crowd at the rally Trump threw for her in Myrtle Beach.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: But first, let's drill down further into the political landscape of Myrtle Beach.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been there?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Dancing the shag may be fun, but this tourist town is overflowing with tacky.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand have exploded over the past few decades as retirees and families have poured south from North Carolina, the Northeast, and the Midwest.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Places like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio trading brutal winters, high taxes, and housing costs for sunshine and a cheaper life.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Orie County has grown by nearly 40% in just the last decade, much of it from people moving in from elsewhere in the country.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: But all those newcomers haven't turned Orie County purple.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Quite the opposite.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: In 2024, Trump took nearly 69% of the vote there, beating Kamala Harris by almost 80,000 votes.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Ori has become one of the great Republican vote machines in South Carolina.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's why Trump went to Myrtle Beach for Darlene's rally to drum up votes for his protege.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Did you watch any of the speech?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Darlene tried, she really did, but she had no energy, no charisma, no authority, and no power.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Since she has no political power of her own and is leaning on Lindsay's, Trump called in two more of his flunkies, South Carolina's other senator Tim Scott, and one of Darlene's failed Senate competitors, Congressman Russell Freight, to lend her theirs.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: As Sam Ely Johnson Jr.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: might have asked, could she read that convention center room at all?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Frankly, I wonder if Darlene even wants to be in this race.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: In her speech, she smartly pointed out that she's not a politician, another sympathy move, a plea of I'm a real person, which accentuates the writing on the wall that should be a Trump puppet.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: I can imagine that going through a political campaign could be excruciating for her, although she had many years to see what Lindsay went through in his.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: As I understand it, Darlene had a long career working with people with disabilities, which is admirable, but after that traumatic debate, there was this.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Trump's speech lasted nearly an hour and a half.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Reporters on the ground and live news footage noted that as the speech crossed the one-hour mark, a noticeable stream of attendees began heading for the exits early.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: By the end of the night, while the front sections near the stage remained crowded, visible empty patches opened up in the rear rows and seating, which didn't seem like voters were revved up and chomping at the bit to vote for Darlene Graham.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: On Monday, a New York Times article started with President Trump has stuck his neck out for Senator Darlene Graham.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say just the opposite.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Trump was counting on Darlene to shore up the Senate's Republican majority with a South Carolina vote.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Poor Lindsay is dead.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Poor Lindsey Graham is dead.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why did such a feller have to die?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Trump also wanted to secure another Graham lap dog to be at his beck and call.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I feel safe in saying that Darlene's inexperience and clear lack of knowledge about subjects a candidate running for the U.S.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Senate should have at least a rudimentary understanding of, shocked listeners.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: At the rally, Trump said to the assembled crowd, and I only wish I could mimic his voice, what I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I'm on the ballot.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just come and vote.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's so important.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Trump doesn't simply demand loyalty from other Republicans.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: He demands a kind of political self-erasure.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: They become extensions of him, Stepford Republicans, programmed to fall in line.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And on Friday, he said the quiet part out loud.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Don't vote for Darlene.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Pretend you're voting for me.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: The real power in this upcoming Senate race is Darlene's dynamic opponent, Democrat Annie Andrews, MD, whom I've met twice.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you that she's been building her own formidable political base as well as a huge network of donors who believe in her.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Even better, she knows how to accomplish the churlish job of raising money.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: In a February 20th press release from her campaign, she had 189,628 donors with the average donation under$27.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: No PAT money.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's impressive.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: What must those numbers be now?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: As I've written before, she understands the issues and can speak with conviction and yes, speak powerfully about them.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I repeatedly describe her as a powerful candidate.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: She glows with confidence and knows how to captivate a room.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And like a very good politician, she knows how to shower all her attention on whomever she's speaking with.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: She listens and she also gives a damn good stump speech.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't intimately know her big fundraising events, although I'm aware of a high-profile fundraiser in California.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Democrats in other parts of the country see Andrew's powerful appeal.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And now that Darlene is locked in, oh how I hope the money will flow to her.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not only is this a chance for a Democrat to capture a Senate seat in South Carolina, the deeply red South, but it's woman-to-woman.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeehaw! I want to see a debate.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: A debate would clarify this race irrevocably.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Trump and all the cowardly men probably won't allow it because Annie would eat Darlene alive.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: To be totally transparent, I've been to one fundraiser for her already and am intending another on Friday.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Before Lindsey Graham died, when I spoke to some Democrats about Andrews, they told me that invested heavily in Democratic candidate Jamie Harrison, whose loss sorely disappointed them.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I suggested they get over it and jump on board with Annie.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Of course they will.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: But they need to put their hearts and souls and pocketbooks into it.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: My hopes were high as soon as I met Andrews.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: I could see a charismatic and successful politician in front of me.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Lindsay's kicking the bucket has exponentially upped the annie.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: We can smell a victory.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Pete Boudege endorsed Andrews on August 13th, but we only started seeing national press about this race because of Tuesday's runoff between Darlene and Radical Wright Vice Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus Ralph Norman.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Another one of those.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Annie had only popped up in one poll I've seen, and that's because AI found it for me.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Inside Elections currently rates South Carolina, quote, likely Republican, unquote, not solid Republican, and explicitly has an Annie Andrews Canada page and recent South Carolina analysis.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: They see the race, they still don't believe enough in its competitiveness.
• 12:25
  unknown: G.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Elliott Morris of Strength and Numbers is the pollster I respect and follow closely.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he has calculated which states could gain a Democratic senator to flip the Senate blue.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: But he hasn't covered Andrews or this race.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is that about writing off a Democratic win in the South or just not enough data to support it?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about where the South stands in political power and how it feels to us Southerners.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's like our gumption and power are covered by a huge red cloud, obscuring the possibility that we might actually elect a Democrat who could help flip the Senate in the midterms.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: As always, the South is flyover land.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're not only disregarded and ignored, we're also underestimated and looked down upon.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: We native Arkansans have all found ourselves at this very spot at one time or another with haughty people from off who don't realize how ignorant, narrow, and provincial they are.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: This, I recall, was more or less the point of view of most U.S.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: political watchers and voters when Bill Clinton began running for president and no one knew who he was.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Even worse, this nobody was from Arkansas, which on its face defined him as a hillbilly, like little Abner.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Even with the South's history of eminent politicians, from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to Huey Long, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton himself, we can count on this kind of attitude from the East Coast political world of Washington and New York.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: The contrarian interviewed Andrews this week.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's a start to the national attention that will follow because of Dead Lindsay and Trump's Darling Darling.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Will the Democratic establishment step in to help?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: But Annie Andrews has already persuaded people to vote, give money, volunteer, pay attention, endorse her, organize around her, and treat a female Democratic Senate candidate in South Carolina as consequential.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And treat a female Democratic Senate candidate in South Carolina as consequential.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: More than 183,000 people voted for her in the Democratic primary.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Her campaign reported more than 10.8 million raised through June 30th, overwhelmingly from individual contributions, and after her primary victory, she raised another$200,000 in 24 hours with a campaign saying 95% came from first-time donors.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't given much countenance to polls in the past.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I knew Hillary would lose in 2016 and she did.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: People vote like they do everything else from emotion.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't believe polls can always pick that up.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm personally paying more attention to polls now to see how and what they're focusing on.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I quite enjoy being optimistic about the prospect of having a Democratic senator and even better, a female Democratic senator who knows how to acquire and use her own power, even if the pollsters are still behind the curve.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: One thing is certain nobody handed Annie Andrews her political power.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: She has worked for it the way Lyndon Johnson did, by figuring out what people need, persuading them to come with her, building an organization around them, and then putting that organization to work.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Another quote by Lyndon Johnson.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: What convinces is conviction.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: You simply have to believe in the argument you're advancing.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't, your good is dead.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: The other person will sense that something isn't there.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Lyndon Baines Johnson.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: I like to think about what Johnson, if he were still here, might say to Annie in his Texas draw.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sister, expect fierce resistance, public criticism, and betrayal, but view those attacks merely as proof that your power is working and threatening the established order.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hitch up your trousers and keep plowing the field.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: The lesson?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Darlene has the most powerful Republican in America telling voters to pretend they're voting for him.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Annie, confident in her own power, is asking them to vote for her.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hey y'all, thanks for pulling up a chair and listening.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: If this piece stayed with you, I hope you'll share it.
• 17:34
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• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: From the inside out is an entirely reader supported publication, and your subscription helps sustain this work week after week.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, from one tiny speck in the cosmos to another.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: See you then.