Latest / the ACT OUT podcast / Pregnancy, Politics and Public Perception: The Double Standards Women Face in Politics

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Pregnancy, Politics and Public Perception: The Double Standards Women Face in Politics · the ACT OUT podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Act Out Podcast.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Adam Tomlin.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Today's guest is former congressional candidate and all-around political knowledge badass, Lisa Vadernikova-Kana.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's roll the tape.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Lisa, how are you?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing well.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited that it's almost the weekend.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh very excited for the weekend, but at the same time, I am going to be uh at a uh polling location on Tuesday pretty much all day, like handing out the leaflet.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm kind of like I'm excited for the weekend, but at the same time, as soon as it passes my oh no.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, totally.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: And have you voted yourself yet?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I already did.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't like to wait for election day, like pretty much as soon as uh early voting starts, I'll try to go like right around then.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: How about you?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: I um, you know, we have so many elections here in Virginia that I love to pick and choose when I'm gonna be really type A and really early in voting or last minute.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I just had a baby two months ago.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm going to be at last minute and vote on election days.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I am voting in the afternoon on the 21st.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: I also am really curious.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, because we have so many elections and because we just had statewide elections this past November, I um am actually really curious to see on election day just how many people will be at the polling site to just have my own anecdotal look into turnout.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of why I'm excited to be voting on the last dayslash election day itself.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've kind of been wondering that too.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh like there, it, you know, uh, especially with Virginia having these off-year elections, you go like right out of 2024 and you're like, oh, well, 25, we've got a uh gubernatorial election, all the statewide offices and stuff.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then right on the heels of that, now we have the uh the the uh redistricting referendum.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So uh did I am kind of curious to see what turnout will be like.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you know so far, like if uh early voting has uh like matched um 2025 and 2024 turnouts?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I I don't know in terms of cycle over cycle.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: I highly doubt that it has matched 20.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: I highly doubt it's matched 24.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean a presidential with the first black woman um or not the first black woman running for president, but a presidential with such a significant um figure running for president in such a consequential election, I'm sure was really high.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I highly doubt that it matches 24.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I could be wrong.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm speaking off of gut vibes.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I can't imagine that it matches 25 either.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: I do think it's pacing at the level that they have expected for turnout to be pacing, just based on this specific issue in the specific election.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: But my gut after being in politics for half my life is that this is such this is going to be a smaller turnout, but a very high propensity turnout, just in, you know, in in plain terms, that it is going to be people voting who are really active on either side, um, and less so sort of everyone voting as their civic duty, not not like America's great at that anyway, because we have so many people voting um in terms of the population percentage, but I think it's gonna be a very concentrated in terms of people who are really active Democrats or Republicans voting for their issue, but not sort of a mass, a mass turnout.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: So what that means, you're not trying to persuade any undecided.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So at this point, it is all about turning out the people that have voted for you in the past, right?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and and just given the where we are in the cycle, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like election day, especially in a state like Virginia, is the end of the term because we have such a long early voting window that, you know, you and I are talking four days before Tuesday.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: At this point, you're certainly probably not convincing anyone to change their mind, and you're really just driving out so that people know that the 21st is the last day to vote.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, in this environment, particularly like with how divisive everything is, are there really that many undecided people, do you think?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: I have, I, I mean, I I have a hard time understanding how people are undecided, particularly on an issue like this referendum that we have on redistricting.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's pretty sophisticated, and you have to have kind of a lot of context to understand what where we are, right?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: We are even having this conversation of redistricting in Virginia because of what Republicans did in Texas.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of a long tale that starts well beyond Virginia.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not sure who is undecided, though.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: I bet there are people who are undecided on an issue like this one because it is more sophisticated and because it doesn't have that cult of personality so much, because it is an issue.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: When we are in presidential election years in particular, I do not understand how people are undecided because the candidates couldn't be more different from one another in terms of their views.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: But there are people who are undecided.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there are people who, you know, unlike me, are not consumed hour by hour by politics.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I get that.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: My parents are like that.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're people who are working three jobs and simply don't have the capacity to sort of be fixated on every single personality flaw or policy flaw in a candidate.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I do, I do understand it.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I would never be undecided myself, but I do put a memorize with people who don't have the capacity to figure it out until pretty late in the cycle.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: What got you into politics?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I got into politics when I was 15.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so a very long time ago.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and what got me into politics is, you know, I grew up um the daughter of an undocumented immigrant.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I grew up on Medicaid.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up on eventually I went to college on Pell Grants.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up a product of public schools.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of government programs was very much a reality of my day-to-day life.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have this exact vernacular to talk about it when I was a kid, of course, but I sort of understood that politics affected my life at a very early age, particularly because my mom was undocumented.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, ICE was obviously already in the picture.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: ICE was established after 9-11.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: So just my sort of personal upbringing got me really interested in public service and government and how government should really be supporting people.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I started interning for my local congressman out on Long Island in New York, which is where I'm from originally.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the rest was history.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Then I got really into campaigns, did a bunch of campaigns, worked on Hillary Clinton's presidential in 2016.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that is how I started my career.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: I started I was full-time um through college, um, working on the campaign and finishing college.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And what did you do for her?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I worked in first in fundraising.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was on the campaign from the very beginning to the very, very bitter end.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I started in fundraising for the first year, and then I worked in operations, which is essentially the business side of a political campaign.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that campaign had raised$2 billion.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really like a$2 billion business that needs to be run.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So my team was legal, contracts, the CFO, the accounting, the budget team.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: We manage the plane.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so sort of all of the mechanics that um keep a campaign of that size um running is what I did.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then um, you know, worked at the New York Times for five years after that, and then was the chief of staff of the DNC.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: So long, long way of saying my my sort of personal background is what got me into politics at a really young age and then has really kept me interested um from there on out.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so obviously Hillary Clinton, the$2 billion campaign, that is a very like special case kind of thing.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: But let's talk about like going all the way down to uh like someone running for uh Congress, right?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like how much of that uh like the the operations and the budget and the fundraising and all that, how much of that like kind of trickles down sort of responsibility-wise for that person like running for like a a more localized seat?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a great question.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I ran for Congress as well in in Virginia one, which is now you know being redistricted.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I ran for Congress in the 26 midterms and and dropped out earlier this year, which I'm sure we'll talk about.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: But it is the role of money in politics is insane for so many reasons.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can talk about, you know, obviously the funders, but also the thing that's insane in this context is just how much money you need to run a campaign, even at the local level of Congress.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Most congressional campaigns will cost, if they're not competitive, if you're an incumbent or if it's an easy seat, then it'll cost one to two million dollars.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I know, unless you're like an incumbent who has just been in there for 15 years and nobody's gonna fuck with, I think Bobby Scott is probably a great example of that.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna ask you about Bobby Scott because he seems to be almost untouchable.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like uh the way that uh like Mark Warner and Tim Kane, and like it seems like the way everyone talks about him, it's like with almost like veneration, it seems like.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think Congressman Scott is really remarkable for many reasons, including the fact that he is so focused on the community that he is a part of.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are Congress members who are swamp creatures.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is they live in a place, but they get elected from that place, and then they go to DC and that place that they're from never hears from them again and never sees them again.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Bobby Scott, I think, is the exact opposite of that.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think when you're the exact opposite of that, it is really clear to your community that you care about that community and that you are from that community and will represent that community to the best of your ability.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I think, you know, that's why Bobby Scott is deeply beloved and deeply respected.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's the case for I think there are people who are untouchable for different reasons.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, in the case of Mark Warner and Tim Kane, I think Tim Kane is deeply beloved.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think Mark Warner is respected.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think something that someone like Mark Warner, who is running in the cycle, has to his advantage that is untouchable and unsurmountable is cash advantage.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think too for at the Senate level, you just need so much money that it is basically impossible for a newcomer or even not even a newcomer, but someone who's a delegate or a state senator to raise that much money against a senator who is respected.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I think those are, you know, two different examples of how you can be quote unquote untouchable.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um but so at the congressional level, yeah, again, if you have a safe seat, you need like one to two million dollars.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you have a really competitive seat, if it has a primary, you'll need anywhere from one to three million dollars.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if it doesn't, and then for the general, depending on how competitive it is, you need millions more.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you can end up spending three million dollars on a house race for US House, and that is gnarly.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like it is, it is just so gnarly for so many reasons.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one reason that it's gnarly is candidates spend essentially all of their time fundraising while they're campaigning instead of doing things like thinking about the policies that they would want to enact while they're in that office.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: It is kind of crazy how few candidates and how few electeds, I think, spend time figuring out their vision for policy rather than just hiring people who figure that out for them.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the more money you need to raise, the less likely you are to do that because raising money takes a fuck ton of time, even if you're independently wealthy.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, another reason why the role of money in politics now and the fact that these campaigns are so expensive is insane, is because it just self-selects candidates who are coming from richer backgrounds, who are coming from, you know, richer networks, and it really ostracizes people who would be excellent in their office and who actually would be representing the American people more because they just don't have access to that sort of capital and networks with that sort of capital.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, and a third reason, but I could go on for why it's so problematic that campaigns are this expensive, is where is the money coming from?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's not possible most of the time for it to just to come from individual donors.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how you have the influence of corporate PACs, the influence of APAC, and even darker money sort of come into play in our elections.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So again, that that's just three.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's probably 17 million reasons, but yeah, that's that's my view on how we fund these crazy congressional campaigns acts.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: No, anecdotally, so I've started to uh follow more uh political accounts and things like that on social media, and the amount of content that is based on fundraising is absurd.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And even like on threads where you're not like posting campaign videos, but it's more like just your thoughts or whatever.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can see, like candidates, like all they're thinking about is fundraising.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're right.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's into their kind of like in their defense, it's impossible to think about policies and legislation they're going to back whenever you need to have five million, you know, three, five million dollars in order to like be able to compete.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the candidate's fault.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think can't I think 99% of candidates would be doing anything else other than fundraising.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think they'd love to be thinking about policies.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that's just not what anyone cares about.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: So when I say that's not what anyone cares about, what I mean is like the the consultant class and sort of the politicos in Washington, D.C., they do not really earnestly care what your policies are.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: What they care about is how much you are going to raise in that quarter.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm speaking from personal experience, having run literally just months ago and last year, the amount of times that I was asked about my policy views is a fraction of the amount of times that I was asked how much I would be raising in a quarter and how I would be raising that amount in a quarter.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I do not blame candidates.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: I very much blame, you know, um Citizens United.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I very much blame um the consultant class and politicos sort of just accepting the status quo of this is what money in politics has to be, and not um trying to find ways around it and trying to find candidates who are policy visionaries or policy curious or really representing people from the place that they're elected.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of shows how easy it is to I hate to kind of saying this term, but like fall into the swamp, so to speak, you know, like become a creature of the establishment because the only way that you are going to get any kind of attention is with money.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so that you're you're right.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: That that self-selects so many people.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: I do think we're seeing something interesting going on that is a little daunting but still exciting.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So there are, you know, there is a class of people who are candidates for Congress or in Congress because they are personally independently wealthy or they have access to donors who can donate a lot of money to them.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: A new, and I think a new thing as of this cycle and maybe two cycles back is the attention economy and influencers and the role of influencers.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think young influencers, basically people who have, let's say, 30,000 plus followers on social, are really starting to carve out lanes for themselves as candidates when they don't come from those sort of esteemed backgrounds because they can access more people.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: They can access more people who are voters or who are donors and they can make, or and frankly, who are reporters.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's what I mean by attention economy is that they can sort of get donations that way, um, which I think is exciting and inspiring.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: I do think it's really hard still to get 30,000 followers on social media.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's not like the easiest path, but I do think that is something that is a bit of an antidote to a lot of the candidates who we see who are just sort of um chosen by DC politicos for the amount that they can fundraise.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: So will you kind of like take me behind the scenes?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so whenever you decided that you were going to run, that that you wanted to run for Congress, like what was the first thing that you you knew you had to do?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um so, you know, I am professionally a chief of staff, and the reason why I started there is I focus a lot on teams, and I think that you're only as good as the people that you work together with.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: So something that I I thought about very early on is who is coming on this adventure with me and um who is going to be honest with me and say the hard thing to me and not just be a yes man to me.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that was really important to me.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the other thing is um, you know, what is my angle?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I running?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is it an important angle in this moment?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um, that was something really important to me to figure out.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think we are in a real affordability crisis, um, even more so today than even a year ago when gas is four plus pounds.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so um, you know, I personally, um, as I already mentioned, grew up thinking about affordability a lot in my life.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my background of um Pell Grants paid and I I hate to see us losing those um really important um rights that we have.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, so just figuring out what exactly I was bringing to the table was really important to me and sort of what policies I could really want to push and and champion if elected.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, again, fundraising.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the very early things that I had to think about was how much could I fundraise?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Would I be a viable candidate?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: I raised um$100,000 in 24 hours, which I'm super proud of.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then I raised about um$300,000 in in a few months, which again, super proud of for the time candidate who was 30 years old and running while extremely pregnant.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: But so so those are sort of the top things that I thought about.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: The first being who's do this with me and what's that look like?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: The second being, what am I bringing to the table from my perspective here that's relevant to this current moment?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then the third being, how do we fundraise when fundraising is so important in races like this one?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, just like a little side note, you were incredibly organized.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, even whenever I like tried to throw you off by like asking you a side question about Bobby Scott and uh one of your first answers, you were like, and by the way, your first question that didn't get to finish, jackass, blah, blah, blah.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's very impressive.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it's a little swamp creaker of me, but I appreciate it.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: As someone with a raging case of ADHD, it is like it's almost like superhuman.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and especially like without the especially with the with the new mom thing going on too, like super duper impressive.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so how many people do you I don't know why I just throw up two fingers like I'm telling you the answer.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how many people did you think that you were gonna need like uh to start out on your team?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, there is there's like the concept of how many people you need versus the concept of how many people you can pay and want to pay, right?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: As much cash on hand as possible.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: These sorts of campaigns are there's a formula to to your group of consultants, but I had one person working full-time who is a wonderful campaign manager, and that was essentially the extent of the full-time person.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And she's wonderful, and we're still in touch all the time.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And she was with me supporting on, you know, messaging strategy and and also being out in the in the community and in the district, which we spent a lot of our time on.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then the rest is like you have someone supporting you on your digital fundraising, which are those really annoying texts that you send as a candidate.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I had a wonderful digital fundraiser whose texts were not annoying.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you have someone um, you know, standing at the ready to do polling one day for you, um, and research.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh, who else was on my team?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Mail.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, word.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Digital media, yeah.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing about consultants, though, is that they don't actually get paid unless you, you know, do a poll, which I never did, for example, in my campaign.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I just had like a wonderful pollster who was available for advice, but didn't actually do polling.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's that's sort of how the consultant suite shakes out though.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: So to kind of get a little bit into the weeds with the polling guy or the polling person, I should say.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um woman in with okay, polling.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that I didn't wanna assume.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh um I that was uh polling was something that uh really pissed me off in 24.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh with it looking at uh looking at everything, how um how just like close uh the the polls had uh you know uh Kamala and uh and Trump.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there were a couple of people that uh you know were arguing uh pretty vociferously online that the polls were were wrong essentially.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it's impossible to uh to be able to reach you know the people that are actually gonna going to vote and blah blah blah blah blah.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: How uh how are Poll people able to trust what they're telling you, essentially, with like all of the uh hurdles.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: To get accurate information.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I can't really speak to this from firsthand experience because my pollster never did a poll for me.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if if she had done a poll for me, then I would have more of a perspective here to provide.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: So all I can really give you is um armchair expert views of someone who follows politics.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Which are my favorite kind.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Someone who follows politics really closely.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think polling, I mean, we all know what's going on with polling, right?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: There are people don't have land lines, so you can't call a landline because most people don't answer.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: I have personally never been polled in my entire life.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes when I see polling, I'm like, who are these people?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I think I think we all since 2016, I feel like 2016 is really when people started being like, fuck polling.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there is obviously merit to that because the polls um were off in 16.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose the polls were off in 24.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think something that's interesting is I think certainly in 16, I think people were lying when they were getting polled.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think in 16, um Donald Trump was still a novelty, and I think even the people who voted for him sometimes felt weird about it or guilty about it, and they would lost pollsters.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, is that a poll being flawed?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think polls were flawed in 16.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Also, polls are not stenographers, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like they cannot know if you are lying to them.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um we can blame the polls in 16 and also people lied to them.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think in 24, um, I don't know that the polls were as off in 24 as they were in 16.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think in 24 it was a quote unquote close election.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was just close in every single swing state that really mattered.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it just so happens that she lost every single one of those states, but she lost it closely.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um so, and again, I think I think by 24 people were less likely to lie to pollsters because Trump has been around for so long that it's such a movement that I think the people who vote for him have a lot less guilt for it.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, yeah, so I think I think polling is flawed.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think anyone who does polling for a living would not agree with that.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think people are complicated.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think our politics have changed so much in the cult of Trump and MAGAism.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know where else to take that other than it all is not perfect and it is an art, not a science, even though it really tries to be a science.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: People are not a science, right?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's trying to science messiness of humans.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and not only that, but let's see, yeah, like our 250 beer history or something.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like we've had so many presidential elections that we can like accurately have statistics that are going to be able to like point you the in the direction that every single scenario we have.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: And politics is just it's so human, it's so messy.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, we were talking about undecided voters, and it's like, do I personally feel like I would ever be undecided?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, but it's because as I've said like seven times, I'm incredibly type A.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's just not my personality type.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just not, right?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so there are people though who voted for Trump in 16, for Biden in 20, for Trump in 24, and who will probably vote for a Democrat in 28 because they're gonna be so sick of what happened, right?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And is that an undecided voter?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not, but they're a flip-flopper, and that used to be unheard of too.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we're just seeing such a fundamental shift of so many kinds happen in front of our eyes across the last like decade to the next decade that yeah, polling is broken, but it's just it's just like a manic changing of what's going on in front of us politically.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: 24 confused the shit out of me.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: But like it, but it really like it flew in the face of everything that I thought I knew about politics.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like uh like looking around, uh, you know, so uh live in uh Virginia now, but uh I I'm from Georgia.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: We drove down to uh Georgia quite a few times during the 2024 um campaign season.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we had to go through n uh South Carolina, North Carolina, rural parts of Georgia, like these areas that were like heart of MAGA country where in 2016 and 2020, if you go through, there are like Trump signs everywhere.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in 24, there were not hardly any.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you would see like a few smattering, you wouldn't see any comma signs, but you certainly would not be seeing nearly the number of Trump signs.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then looking at looking at rallies, uh, commas were uh uh over like overfilled.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, at capacity.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: There was there was the there was the energy, and then Donald Trump's he was like going out to a uh pro wrestlers theme music that was about a dead man, like with like hardly anyone there.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: It it was super confusing.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I do not like it whenever like the results came in, I was like, hang on, this is not really jiving with what I am kind of like seeing myself, and that kind of made me like made me rethink a lot of things and start a podcast.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think that's totally correct, obviously.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I um yeah, I um I really had my worldview shook in 2016.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I was on I was at Jabbit Center on the night that she lost, and um I um I was 21 years old.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: I started on that campaign when I was 20.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: When it ended, I was 21.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: I had been 21 for like a year.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I already started to have that was when I was just like, I do not fundamentally understand what happened.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like it was like, how did people elect Donald Trump?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: I am a hardcore Democrat.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I really struggled with it in 16.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: In 20, people elected Biden and they were literally dancing in the streets, myself included.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and then in 24, I agree.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's not that I was utterly surprised that people could elect Donald Trump because they did it before.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: But what your point is, which I agree, is that what we were seeing is not what ultimately happened.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was at a lot of those Kamala Harris rallies that you mentioned.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I um do political advance, which I'm happy to go into what that is, but it's basically the team that goes in advance of the candidate and helps set up events.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um I used to do them for President Biden when he was um president, and I helped do them for Vice President Harris when she was a candidate.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I was at the rally in Atlanta, Georgia when Meg uh Megan Stallion performed, and I was and that was like 30,000 people.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was at the rally when Vice President Harris announced Tim Walls as her running mate, and that was insane.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was at the rally that Vice President Harris did on the national mall.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: That was 100,000 people covering the entire national mall.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: That rally in particular, I was like, wow, this is so powerful.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: There are 100,000 people who showed up here and were covering the national mall.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then we lost, right?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, what happened to all of that excitement?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I um I think all of those people voted.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't think that they were in the places that the Electoral College needs the most.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like I'm I think 99% of voted for Kamala Harris, but um yeah, but I I agree with you.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it is really difficult to be a part of like a cultural enrollment.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like everyone was coconut pilled for Kamala Harris, and she was the cool thing on even so special, and then to still lose.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think I think a really core, core difference in in 2024 that just sort of went unnoticed um before the election was Donald Trump's outreach, obviously, to young white men and in particular bringing people.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think the people who were always really engaged voted for Kamala Harris.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think what Donald Trump did is he um increased voter turnout for himself amongst people who don't normally vote.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we talk about polling, I think pollsters and polls were not accounting for those people because those people do not historically vote.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of them turning 18 years old.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: They just don't vote.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: So they don't actually get captured, I think, in like predictive politics.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: But Donald Trump, you know, had a strategy that ultimately worked for him in 2024, which was going on podcasts like Joe Rogan or really getting into WWE and just really needing those voters where they were and not even talking to them about foreign policy or politics, but just growing out with them and making them feel like there was this crazy uncle of theirs who they could see um and hear his racist views and really relate to that and want that to be their elected.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was working um a polling site with my husband um in 2024 on election day here in Central Virginia.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: And the amount of young men, like 18-year-old, 19-year-old men who I saw walk in and yell Trump in my face, just completely unprompted, um, was a lot.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that is that day on election day, is when I was like very concerned.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's just like people who do not historically vote.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of those same people are now really upset with how things are going from the Trump administration.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, including a lot of um Latinos who voted for Trump are now extremely upset for, you know, sure on immigration, but really on affordability.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I think we'll see that shift.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's a hoax.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a hoax.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, affordability is a hoax.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh everything is a hoax.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, fake news.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, gas is not a million dollars a day.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um so um I think we'll see that shift again in 2028.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I agree.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: I like I hadn't really thought about until you uh spelled it out the way you did, but it is such a fucking ballsy strategy to go for the frat for the frat bros.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because like I I I was one of them uh uh in um in 2009.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's like the year that I graduated college.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm trying to think like all the guys my age, like, I mean, I was gonna vote because I was like very much like I love politics ever since I can remember.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: But like none of my friends were gonna go vote.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like they couldn't care less.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and now that I think about it, like I a lot of these uh, you know, like a lot of these swing states, Trump gets uh, you know, he he wins at the presidential level, but the Senate race, the uh the Democrat wins.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of these votes were just going in and just putting Trump's name up at the top and then walking out the door, not even filling out the rest of the ballot.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that's why it'll be really interesting to see what happens in 2028.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Donald Trump cannot run.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: He, I'm sure he may try, but he cannot run a third time.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: And is someone like JD Vance going to really be able to capture these same people, or is it really singular to Trump?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the Republican Party has literally no diversity of thought within its own party.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: What I mean by that is look at You could have just stopped at diversity.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know, but I'm actually, and that is true, but I'm actually very specifically saying diversity of thought because look at the Democratic Party.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: We have Mamdani and Abigail Spanberger in the same party who are philosophically very different in their approaches to politics and policy.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: But we're in the same party.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have Bernie Sanders and we have Hillary Clinton, we have just a lot of different views within the Democratic Party, and sometimes it causes for tension, but certainly at the end of the day, it causes for a hell of a lot more vision for policy.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: And Republicans have no diversity of thought within their own party.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: All they have is what Trump last tweeted, and that is just what they're gonna be believing in for the day.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how sustainable that is for a Republican party.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think we saw it really fucking breakdown in Virginia in 2025.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: The way that the Republican Party in Virginia performed in 2025 is malpractice and heads rolled on the Republican side.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's absolutely embarrassing what the Republicans did to themselves here in Virginia.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's because they had no plan other than Trumpism and Trumpism is not popular.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like I think the only reason Donald Trump won in 2024 is because he had been out of office for four years and people had sort of forgotten what the horrible um miss of Trump was.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think if January 6th happened, you know, two months prior to election day on Trump's watch, Trump would have lost in 2024.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, all of that is to say I don't know how sustainable it is for Republicans to just have a Republican Party that is Trump and have literally no other different thoughts.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, for the frat bros, I think it worked in 24.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: I bet if Democrats are willing to engage, which they absolutely should be, with frat bros and just people who are not normally a part of the process, Democrats will win.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think that Republicans, you're you're right.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um in 2020, their uh the RNC uh platform that was passed was literally we are with whatever Trump said.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was the extent of their policy platform, which is just absurd.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: But um, oh man, I forgot my I lost my train of thought.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: ADHD kicked in there for a second.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, you're right.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: I yeah, yeah, frat bros.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that uh that anyone outside of Trump has like has the personality because it is a cult of personality.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: JD Vance definitely is not it.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm not saying that the guy had sex with a couch, but if you get a rumor started about you that, you know, you had sexual relations with a love seat, yeah, and people are like, you know, like this may check out there is something wrong with you, fundamentally something wrong with you, no one else.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: I agree with you.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: I um I will say I really underestimated JD Vance in 2024.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had a very long conversation with someone about how I just thought JD Vance was gonna completely drag down Trump, and I um really underestimated J.D.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Vance.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um J.D.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Vance does not have um the cult of personality of Donald Trump, and he never will.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: But JD Vance is really smart in a sinister evil way, in like a very sinister evil way, and very disciplined in a sinister evil way.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, those are not really sexy things to campaign on, and you have to be pretty sophisticated to care about those things, which I think a lot of low propensity voters do not care about those things.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if they'll help him, but I will say I JD Mance very much scares me in some ways, much more than Donald Trump because of because of those things operationally.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how you campaign on those things well, but I have previously underestimated him.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I'm not gonna make that mistake again.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I have underestimated Donald Trump from the beginning.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like in in 2016, I remember, I think it was like right around maybe uh one of the presidential debates when the uh Access Hollywood tape came out.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: And my sister texted me, like, so what does this mean?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, essentially, Donald Trump just threw a pick six with two seconds left in the game, and it is a guarantee that Hillary is going to win.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that that was over for him.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: I used to think that people would care that he doesn't pay his taxes, but I think it actually helped him get more votes, honestly.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I I think the other thing is like I've underestimated those people, and perhaps I have overestimated Democrats.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think something that's going on, you know, it's not it's not that normal.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually not normal at all to see what we've seen at the presidential level of flip-flopping, right?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's pretty normal to have an incumbent win, do two terms, and then move on, but it's not normal to have it change every cycle.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: I actually don't think it's good for the country.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: But the reason why I think we're seeing so much flip-flopping and why I'm pretty confident we'll see it flip again in 28 back to a Democrat is because I think Republicans are not doing a good job whatsoever, to put it incredibly kindly and politely.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I also don't think Democrats are doing that great of a job.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: Democrats in office are not doing it.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're greatly criticized.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: I criticize them.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: I've been a lifelong Democrat, very proud Democrat.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much more we could be doing.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: We need new people in office who want to do those things.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think the reason why we're seeing the flip-flopping back to my earlier point is because no one is satisfied with anyone.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: So they will just every election be like, well, I'm not fucking satisfied after the last four years.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: So let's try something new.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's just a really striking fact of our of our current reality that no one is doing a good job.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I have underestimated, you know, Zadie Vance, for example, and I'll see how that pans out in 2020.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I have also overestimated Democrats previously, and that is why I'm particularly comfortable with calling out my own party to make it stronger and better, because I think that there's a hell of a lot more that we need to be doing, mainly connecting with people in ways that are not boring and professorial and patronizing.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I with uh with Republicans and their uh whatever Donald Trump says is what our views are, they have left just a wide open door for Democrats to embrace like values and kind of philosophies that were traditionally considered to be Republican, but are actually Democratic, if you you know, if you think about it.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Especially like being the party of opportunity.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Democrats can really run on that and run with like having like universal health care and um and uh you know, like universal living wage.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do things like that and call it call it the call it the opportunities because that's what it is.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Democrats used to be the party of the working class, right?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the labor movement, and now that's somehow in part sort of become the Republican Party, even though Republicans don't really be see, don't really have policy on it.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, something that I find really interesting, and this is because I just had a child recently, is I hear a lot of the time um the Magaverse sort of talk about how important it is for Americans to have kids.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's all fine and good, but there is a lot of policies that we're missing in this country that should help people have kids, right?
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, child care, for example, health care, for example.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: If we actually have policies that support parents and families, there's a fly buzzing around me.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: If we have policies that support people and families, maybe people will be more likely to have more kids.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: And any party can take the mantle on that.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Republicans can take the mantle on that if they want.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Democrats should take the mantle on it more.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Democrats talk about it a lot, but they don't actually produce enough results.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, there's, I think, a lot of a lot of examples of that where Republicans say something, but they don't actually back it up with policy, and Democrats could own it for themselves, to your point.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but there's still that disconnect disconnect of actually bringing it to life.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: There is a cynical part of me that like I I hope this isn't right, but part of me thinks like, well, once you solve the problem, you don't have anything to campaign on.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't not gonna be able to fundraise off this anymore since you know we've uh we we fixed this.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you kind of see that?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or is that a I mean it's definitely an interesting theory.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: It sort of aligns with the theory that people have that there is a cure for cancer, but no one wants to release it because um healthcare won't make any money.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: But um I um I don't know.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I don't personally think so.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think what we la I think our politics writ large is so focused on iteration rather than like fundamental visionary change.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like we have not had serious education reform in this country in decades.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's should be a nonpartisan issue.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: We have not had um serious immigration reform in years.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we have is like patchwork fixes by both parties.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we just have a lot of very small policy changes that are very iterative.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that I think is because of a filibuster.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's because of polarization, it's because of partisanship.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is just so impossible for um the both houses of Congress to sort of push policy forward that I think it's kind of more boring than what you're saying.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: What you're saying is kind of salacious and sexy and secretive.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a hell of a lot more boring than that.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think we have a lack of vision amongst some politicians, certainly not all.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think we have a lot of gridlock of people who cannot get things done and just really pass tiny, tiny movements one way or another, um, and don't take the time to take a step back and be like, nope, we need to figure out the healthcare system finally.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: We need to figure out immigration finally, we need to figure out how to give parents paid leave finally.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: That I think is is the real problem.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: And from my perspective, at least.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: Two of the biggest issues that kind of like I see overall, especially with Congress, are um how the folks are elected, uh take uh gerrymandering into account, um, you know, as well as the primary system as well.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and how that's set up and also the money in politics.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: If we could kind of get like money out as much as possible or reduce its power, and if we were able to have basically where it was all uh congressional lines were drawn independently and we have uh maybe like ranked choice voting, something you know a little more fair than what we had.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: If we could have those things, then we would be able to get kind of more of the uh like bigger visionary things accomplished in Congress.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you kind of agree with that or is that just wishful thinking?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, I agree with that.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think we should abolish the filibuster.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that would help us get things done in Congress.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: That would just be something that the Senate would do, right?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like there doesn't need to be a law passed or anything like that.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: That is just purely parliamentary.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they can do it themselves.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, of course, they have no incentive to do that, but they could do it themselves internally.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, why we would not need to vote on that as a nation.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I think abolishing the filibuster could help there.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I absolutely believe in getting different kinds of candidates elected to Congress.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of what we're seeing right now within the Republican Party and certainly within the Democratic Party are just folks who are politicians from an old playbook.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: I really think that our political system has changed so rapidly and fundamentally in the last decade that a lot of these folks who have been in Congress for forever or who may be new to getting elected, but sort of are in that old school thinking, are just not ready for the moment.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think getting new people into office, and I think that requires changing the role of money in politics.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: I also think it requires voters to understand that in a lot of these races, including the race that I was running in, you're, if even if you have a primary, the candidate is chosen for you.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: Voters are not really choosing candidates.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of these races have hand-picked candidates by people who work in Washington, D.C.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that that is the reality.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it is incredibly unfortunate.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we need to change it.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think the way to change it is to de-emphasize the role of money in politics through actual policy changes.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that is a real fact because then we keep electing the same kind of person to Congress and seeing absolutely no change in our policies and being really pissed off and confused.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, how does that play out, like in uh in practice, where uh we you have the DC consultant class handpicking uh candidates?
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there are three core organizations that make up the Democratic Party at the national level.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: So one is the Democratic National Committee, which is the DNC.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: The DNC is the lightning rod.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody has any idea what the DNC does, but people love to hate the DNC.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: What the DNC actually does is support state parties in organizing.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: The DNC is essentially an organizing arm of all of the parties, and it is the connective tissue between all of the state parties across the nation.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: The DNC, when there is a Democratic president in office, will also be the political arm of the White House.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: And because of that, the DNC sets the primary calendar for the presidential, for um, for presidential democratic primaries.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: That is what the DNC does.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then there are two more organizations called the D TRIP, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the DS and the D TRIP.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: The DS focuses on getting senators elected to be Democrats.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: That means protecting incumbent Democratic senators, or it means flipping seats.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, at the DS level, what we'll see is they get involved in a place like Maine, where we have a Republican senator in um Susan Collins that the DS is trying to flip.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: The DS has selected their candidate in the current governor, who is Janet Mills.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a man running against her, Graham Platinum.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems like the people are really vibing with Graham Platner, but Janet Mills is the selected candidate by the DS.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so what that means is the DS is helping her fundraise.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: The DS is helping her get endorsements, right?
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're not doing anything nefarious, but it is political bullshit of involvement from a group in Washington, D.C.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: in an election totally different state where they maybe have never been before.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: We see the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee do the exact same thing at house level races.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: They did it in my race.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: They, you know, selected their candidate.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: They even went so far as to publicly endorse this candidate in an ongoing primary, which, yes, exactly.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: So they will funnel money, they will host fundraisers, they will help, they'll go so far as to interview campaign managers for these people and send them staff.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's sort of how it works when these groups get involved for certain candidates.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: They are essentially picking the candidate, telling them to run, recruiting them to run, and then supporting them throughout that process, sometimes publicly, sometimes behind a curtain.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: In my case, I literally had DTRIP, you know, come to me and tell me, this is our chosen candidate.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't get out of the way, we'll find a way to get you out of the way.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I mean, not in those words.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: The words are um, you know, in my dropout statement.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: But um that is basically how it happens in really competitive seats.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's not great for the Democratic Party.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of your decision to drop out was uh pretty much kind of like seeing the like writing on the wall sort of thing.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: That that really sucks.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, sure, for me personally, of course, but I really fundamentally believe like that is what is stopping the Democratic Party from actually becoming what people want it to be, because we keep having these folks hand select candidates for, you know, places that they have never been to, and just selecting people who have done business as usual.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we need less business as usual and more, you know, change and movement.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that these groups are um really thinking about it that way.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think that they're pretty risk-averse, frankly.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we don't need risk aversion right now because we are in a psychotic time for a country that needs change.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um we were talking uh about this earlier, and um uh was gonna say something and uh kind of forgot about it.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we were uh with Kamala being like the cool thing and like the coconut field and all that.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I thought one thing that was extremely effective was calling uh Trump and JD Vance weird.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Tim Walls did that totally.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: That got under their skin, like that got under Republican skin.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was really gaining traction, and then all of a sudden it just completely disappeared.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: And like I remember reading stories at the time, but apparently like the consultant class was saying, hey, you need to drop that because it's gonna like move up, like it's gonna like turn off uh you know, like middle of the road voters.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it I've uh kind of long, I was about to say I've long been a uh like I've long disdained the consultant class, but at the same time, consulting class is such a easily demonized.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: Totally agree, totally agree.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, consultants are human beings, obviously.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I have had great consultants.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've worked with really smart consultants.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think here's what I think the problem is consultants are people, and people, everyone has advice, especially when you're running a campaign.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone has advice, whether it's people you pay or whether it's people you meet in the line at the supermarket who have opinions on how you should eventually vote.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone has advice for you.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I promise you that.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: I have advice for everyone to myself.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't blame people, that's just how we think.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: What I think the problem is, is we have a lot of candidates and a lot of electeds who do not spend the time to have their own conviction and to have their own perspective.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you have your own conviction and you have your own perspective, if someone gives you their advice, whether it's solicited or unsolicited, you can choose to let it go in one ear, out the other.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can choose to think about it and reflect on it and then still make your own decision.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: What I see from a lot of candidates who do not have conviction and perspective is they end up being like, okay, well, the polling today says this.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so, because you can you can poll also on messaging, it's not just you can poll on something like the weird thing.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of people um don't have that conviction, don't have that perspective, and then they're very easily swayed by the moment.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, consultants can be a total pain in the ass, and they can sort of uh, you know, convince people to change their positions, but they can only convince people to change their positions when those people do not feel passionately about something.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my hot take there.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I I I have uh some sympathy for for candidates there and they and and kind of what you were uh describing.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: So for me personally, uh podcasting.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I had very much a goal in mind whenever I started and uh knew what I wanted to do, I knew why I was doing it, but then uh you know start seeing uh numbers come in, you know, and uh looking at that metric.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it is very, very hard not to take those numbers as as either validation or you're doing something wrong.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's can kind of like I I do understand that how easy it can be to fall into that mindset of like, oh my god, these numbers are not looking good.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I better change course.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta really know what what you're doing and why you're doing it.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: In order to withstand something like that.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's tough.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's really tough.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, if you but at the end of the day, if you don't stand for anything, that does come across to people.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like it comes across to people.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean, you have to have a steel of spine and you have to withstand that criticism or you have to withstand those like sinking numbers, right?
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: But that's what we need.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we need from people today, especially public servants.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you need a steel of spine and you need conviction, and we don't get enough of that.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: You you just um like made me uh think of a uh a memory in uh high school.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: So in 2004 was the very first presidential election uh I could vote in.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I remember uh writing a speech and uh and you know, like uh and being able to give it.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the lines in that was uh and it was very pro-George W.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: Bush, too, by the way.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it was uh if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything, and John Kerry's gonna fall.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well the quote stands.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: The quote stands, yeah.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: Bless my heart.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: I I didn't know any better at the time.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I believe in evolution, big tent party, whatever.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: However, you come around, come around.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I so like for me, it was very I had only heard one side of a debate.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: I grabbed a very similar way, yeah.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: So like, and I I was pro-life.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and um remember even saying it, and it was like the very first time someone like countered it.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they were like, who are you to say, you know, to a woman, you know, that that she should uh you know that she should be forced to care.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as he said that to me, I was like, holy crap, he's right.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like and just like that, I was pro-choice.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was very simple, uh to you know, just once I heard a different, a different point of view.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: It also shows the power of calling people out for their beliefs.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very much so.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm very thankful they did that.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, it took me a little bit longer to to get there on some other issues, but better late than never.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm a I'm actually like a I I'm a big believer in in allowing people to evolve and change their minds.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, whatever it takes.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think most of us are not born believing the exact things that we believe for the rest of our lives.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: Even though uh you're not uh you know officially running for um you know a seat anymore, that uh doesn't mean that um that you're not gonna be making an impact uh, you know, some way.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: So what what do you want to do uh you know in this um like meantime while you're not running for office to be able to uh to be able to affect some change?
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's a great question.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think when when some people lose or drop out, they like disappear from politics because they're so heartbroken.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_01: I could never I mean politics is like the driving force in in my brain.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I think, you know, currently, um, for the next couple of years, my focus is going to be on making sure that we have interesting candidates running for office.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting means a lot of different things.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: It means working class backgrounds, it means first generation Americans.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really interested in exploring supporting candidates like that and making sure that they are not pushed out of the political arena too early.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's something that's really interesting to me.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then the second thing that I think um is really important that I am spending time on is making sure that the Democratic Party is approachable and not patronizing and cool, frankly, cool.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think the Democratic Party can be stodgy or boring or professorial or patronizing, as I already mentioned.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that Democrats should be trying to attract people that we have never attracted before because our policies are there.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: I really fundamentally believe that Democrats with a capital D have the policies for people that make people's lives better.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel very confident in that.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: I feel less confident that we have great strategies in connecting that reality to people.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I I'm just one person, but I am really focused on even just through social media, making it clear that Democrats are fun and cool and normal people and not just professors.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, that goes a very, very long way.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: In-group, out-group bias are very, very, very strong things.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so once that you can humanize yourself, and all of a sudden it's not like a crazy liberal with purple hair living up in New York that's thinks that she's better than me or whatever.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's that's Lisa.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I remember her.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like she's in uh Central Virginia.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, it's it goes such a long way.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it is absolutely vital for uh you're right, like for everyday people to see that Democrats are not just like the coastal people who are uh hanging out in the uh classrooms.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_00: Lisa, I have had so much fun chatting with you.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like I really appreciate you coming on.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: This was a great way to spend a Friday afternoon.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now you're gonna have to come back on at some point.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is that that's cool?
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: Please have me have me for election day coverage in August or something.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh okay.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh we'll definitely uh definitely do that.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're if uh yeah, I'll chat about it after.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, Lisa, thank you so much.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I appreciate you acting out with me.
• 1:00:55
  unknown: Great.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.