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Matt's Take On The Candidates · Newsradio WGAN

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I'm actually going to put on hold for me reacting to the
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content of the interview for a minute to talk about the
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politics of the race and after hearing them.
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All right, you've heard four of the five.
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And I think everybody knows Troy Jackson well enough.
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You know, I doubt he's going to come on the show, but if he
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does, he's certainly welcome. You know, I think we we've heard
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enough that you can make an assessment about the politics of
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all this. And that's what I'd like to do
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right now. So on Tuesday when I talked to
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Angus King, the third, the positive, the positive reaction
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in the audience to his appearance was interesting to
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me. And it made me say that he is,
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you know, one of the probably the best one in that in that
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race that the Democrats could nominate if they wanted to have
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a have a broad appeal to the electorate in the general
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election. And it's always a tricky thing
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to for partisans to believe because many times over the
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years, and the Republicans lived through this for a while, you
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know, a party will nominate a reasonable moderate, squishy,
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centrist collaborative, you know, good, good guy, good guy,
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decent person, right? And the theory is people will
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like them, people will accept them, and they won't be scared.
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They won't be scared off, right? You, you, you, you have a
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firebrand, somebody that's pounding the table and saying
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we've got to blow it all up. We got to blow it all up.
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Then people are like, whoa, hey, man, chill a little bit.
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And they get a little freaked out and they don't want to
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support that person. So the argument is give me John
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McCain. The argument is, give me Mitt
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Romney. They'll be broadly acceptable to
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everyone, and so we can have a better, better chance of
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winning. So a lot of times partisans
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don't believe that that argument is right because those people
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fail so often. They end up being so milk toast
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or so rudderless or so without conviction or ideology or
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whatever that they not only don't scare people, but they
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also don't inspire people either.
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Like, nobody cares about them. Nobody really wants them to be
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there. You know?
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They're not. They don't hate it.
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I mean, they, if you ended up with it, sure, Hey, why not?
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Why not? If that guy ended up being
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president, it's fine. You know you wouldn't be broken
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up about it. But are you sitting there just
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beyond excited to go vote for the person?
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Are you, are you ensuring? Are you voting 30 days early
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because you want to make sure you can?
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Are you crawling over broken glass to get to the polls on
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Election Day? Are you, are you dedicated to
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ensuring that your vote is counted and all this other
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stuff? No, you aren't.
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You aren't. Thing is though, thing is, and
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no one really likes to admit this, is that those candidates
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also often win. Susan Collins is in a race this
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year. Her career in Maine is a
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testament to that. You cannot deny it is just a
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fact that she has won in this state, often times in very
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difficult environments. She's frequently in races in bad
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years, in years that are bad for her. 2020, not a great year.
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2020 not a great year. Trump underperformed in Maine
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and nationwide. And obviously they know the, you
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know, race ultimately going to Biden and the Democrats, you
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know, taking Congress and all that stuff was not a great
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result for the Republican Party. She beat Sarah Gideon by 9
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points. You go back to the the election
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before that, 2014, that is a good year for Republicans.
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So you can't really draw too much of A conclusion from it.
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But what was the one before that?
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She ran an O 8, she ran an O8 when everyone was a Democrat,
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when Obama mania was sweeping the country, and the guy got 365
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electoral votes and he won handily against the
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aforementioned John McCain. And she did it too.
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By the way, I think O 8 was the Tom Allen year, wasn't it, if
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I'm not mistaken, against a sitting congressman who, you
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know, was he's made his entire mission, you know, like anti
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Bush stuff. It was like, you know, I've been
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fighting the Bush administration.
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Does this sound familiar? By the way?
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I've been fighting the Bush administration my whole my whole
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life. And it's it's what I care about
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and it's what I've done. And I, you know, send me to
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Washington and I'll keep doing that and I'll be a partner with
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Barack Obama and all that got completely obliterated by Susan
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Collins. Why?
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How? If John McCain and Mitt Romney
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were so milk toast that no one wanted to really do much to help
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support them and help them win, then how and why does someone
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like Susan Collins end up winning?
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Perhaps because of her milk toastness?
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Is that a word? It's not the milk toastness,
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though. I mean, it's the actual genuine
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belief that someone is independent of mind, beholden to
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no one, and is willing to step out on a limb for
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reasonableness. See, here's the problem that I
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think a lot of people, they misunderstand decisions made by
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voters as being about ideology. A moderate candidate fails, a
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conservative candidate succeeds, or a conservative candidate
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fails and a moderate succeeds, right?
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That must mean that conservative candidates fill in the blank or
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moderate candidates fill in the blank because someone who
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happens to be kind of thought of like that wins or loses.
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But it never, ever, ever, ever, let me say it again, ever is
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about ideology. It isn't.
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I wish it was. It's not.
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It's not. It's about faith and trust in a
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person actually fighting for something with conviction that
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they believe in the problem. Romney and I think McCain McCain
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was doomed from the outset because you're talking about 8
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years of Bush. He was in the 30s for popularity
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of the Republican Party's national brand was trash.
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You know could he have won in any other year Yeah probably.
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Ultimately O 8 was just an absolute unmitigated disaster.
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So I'm not even sure you can draw any conclusion about his
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ideology or his anything from that race.
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But if if there is anything about him, he did vacillate, he
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has flip-flopped on a lot of things over the years.
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And Mitt Romney was the king of that.
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Mitt Romney looked like he was conviction less that he would
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say or do anything in order to actually win a race.
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And I don't think that's fair. You know, he made a lot of
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mistakes and he did go back on a lot of things and he, you know,
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rhetorically there was a lot of issues with Romney.
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I still think it's a little unfair.
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But I mean, it's obvious that that's how people thought of
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him. So if you're going to ask people
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to vote for you and you look like a snake, a fake snake,
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somebody who's just saying what I want to hear or whatever, and
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you don't really believe in anything, then it doesn't matter
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if you're a squishy moderate, it doesn't matter if you're a
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whatever, because that's not the the basis on which I'm voting.
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Collins, on the other hand, is very obviously willing to risk
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things to, you know, go out on a limb and oppose her party.
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She did that throughout the Bush administration repeatedly.
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She did that, you know, she, you know, agreed often times with
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the Obama administration and ultimately voted in favor of his
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Supreme Court nominees, for instance, got absolutely shell
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act for it by the political right.
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And they she they always threatened to primary her as a
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result. But she's willing to be because
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her moderation is not an act. She's not flipping and flopping.
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She's just in the middle, and she's willing to stand up on
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being the middle. And so if you are a regular
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person who isn't a psychopath and you are looking at who to
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vote for, that kind of thing is appealing to you.
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That thing, that kind of thing is appealing to you.
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So this is a very long way of coming back to the Angus King.
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The third statement I was making about him being potentially
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dangerous. I don't think he would be Mitt
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Romney milquetoast. In other words, so bland and so
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inoffensive that no one cares about him.
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I think it would be someone that was actually broadly appealing.
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And I think his father proved that with his campaigns.
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And he has many of the same, I think, general communication
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skills and gifts. Shaw, who we just talked to
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earlier in this program, is a similarly dangerous candidate
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for the Republicans to face, and I think he is the most likely to
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come out of that primary at this point.
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He's been leading the the polls that we've seen.
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You don't trust those polls. You don't believe those polls.
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I get it, You shouldn't because they're really not reliable.
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But the ones that we've seen have given us an indication that
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that guy's got a decent base of support and he may be leading.
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In fact, he's probably leading. If that's the case, then the
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Democrats are theoretically going to nominate someone who I
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think has read Dale Carnegie and is quite good at it.
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I mean, when when he joined us just a minute ago, he began by
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first of all, you know, thanking me for having a mother program,
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obviously, but then saying very nice things about our
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conversations in the past. And he's not wrong.
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They were often times contentious and whatnot, and I
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tried to keep them respectful, and so did he.
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And I thought they were productive, which is why I kept
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having him on the show. And he was right about that.
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But that was clearly meant to make me like him more so that
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the interview went positive, even though it would have been
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positive anyway. Then he continues to use my name
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frequently. And you know, Danny, when people
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use your name, Danny, you know, that's a very, that's a Dale
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Carnegie thing, right? Use people's name and you feels,
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you feel connection, you feel ownership.
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Sometimes these things are instinctual and you're not
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actually just reading the book and doing it.
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And I think that he actually has some of those instincts.
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Sometimes it is actually premeditated and people are
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doing it as a strategy. Whatever the purpose of it,
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though, it works and it's effective.
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Mike in the car texted me, said that guy's your next governor.
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I don't think Mike was saying I'm voting for him, but I think
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that he recognizes that, you know, the rhetorical skills and
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the ability to make a case there.
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And also, too, unlike either Pingree or Bellows, he clearly
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understood who he was talking to.
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And I'm not just talking about me, I'm talking about you.
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Who's listening out there? Who am I talking to right now?
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What's my message for them since every audience is a little
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different? Well, do you think that the
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typical Democratic Party, Trump, is the source of all the world's
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faults and everything is the the administration's fault?
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And all that stuff that is so OFT repeated in Democratic
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primary debates, commercials, etcetera, is something that
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would be smart to do here if you join me?
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No. Did you hear Donald Trump's name
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once when he was just joining me?
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No, not once. I'm, I'm not going to bring it
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up because I don't want to talk about it.
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Sick of it. So I wasn't going to bring it
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up. He didn't bring it up.
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We didn't talk about it. And that's because he knew who
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he was talking to. If he was doing an interview
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with a left left wing host or something like that with a left
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wing audience, he's going to NPR.
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Guess what? Guess what he's going to say on
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NPR? Donald Trump would be one of the
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first things out of his mouth. So my point here in this
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prolonged little rant of mine is that he is probably the most
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practically dangerous candidate in the Democratic Party Party.
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If you want to nominate somebody who can win in the general
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election, Shanna Bellows is a magnificent risk for you.
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Hannah Pingree is less of a risk than Bellows, but I think
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carries a toxic sludge of of partisanship from her mother
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being in office for as long as she has in southern Maine and
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the reputation that goes along with it.
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Hannah Pingree is a different person, but I think that that
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connotation is just going to be too much.
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And she actually has a little bit of the milquetoast problem.
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She does reek of career politician and does reek of
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establishment. And so I don't think that's
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going to be terribly interesting to either the Democratic Party
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or the general election, which leaves Jackson, King and Shaw.
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Jackson has some skills, but I think his base is too small.
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King isn't going to be able to do, I think what's necessary to
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really get the 2030 plus percent, which leaves Shaw.
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And Shaw is the most dangerous of the of the batch electorally
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in the fall. That's my assessment of
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everything. Start with Evan from Sacco
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because he was on our last segment and his phone just blew
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up in his face. So we're going to get him on the
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phone now. Evan, how are things?
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I'm good, Matt. Yeah, thanks.
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I just wanted to say, you know, you did a good job with Shaw, as
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good of a job you could have done with him.
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But, you know, and I understand you, you only had so much time,
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so you couldn't push him on it. But he made the point of
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something to the effect of how his campaign will be about more
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and about how he just needs to do a little bit more.
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And he was citing how Mississippi, with, like, a
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modest budget increase, could do more.
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But I just want someone to push him on.
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You know, Janet Mills essentially is what doubled the
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state budget in her tenure. How much more do they need to do
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do to get to this utopia? How much more do they need to
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squeeze out? I think we've tried more, Yeah,
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no. Actually, that's what I was
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trying to get to with the education question afterwards,
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because of all the places where that budget has exploded, the,
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the the education portion of it has been the biggest, the
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driving factor. And they've just dumped more and
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more money into the system. And you've seen results crater.
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They've gone down, they've been bad, they've been scaling away.
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And you know, I basically asked him like, OK, so you're dumping
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all this cash in and the results are getting crappier.
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So you really think more is better?
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And his answer was a deft politician's answer, right?
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It was like, well, you know, needs more time, needs more time
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to work. You know, that's always what
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they do. They buy more time for more
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money 'cause it just hasn't done what it's supposed to do yet.
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But I don't accept that answer. You know, I think that's not at
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all accurate. And I, I mean, you guys can draw
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your own conclusions from what you heard there.
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I mean, did you think, Evan, that that answer was something
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that would would satisfy you? Is that something that's going
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to make you vote for him? I don't think it would.
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No, Yeah, yeah. Thanks that.
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Appreciate it, Evan. Appreciate it.
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Let's go to Paul from South Portland.
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Paul, how are you? Hey, doing good Matt.
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I think you're right about he is a dangerous candidate in many
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ways because he is probably good at juggling many conflicting
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things simultaneously. He has the experience with
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complex government issues and and to be successful is never
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about just one thing. Being successful doesn't mean
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being appealing to everybody or or that kind of thing.
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There was a song back in the 90's of by Desiree I think it
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was You got to be. And it lists all the things that
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you have to balance to be successful.
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You got to be good, but you got to be bad.
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You got to be all these different things.
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And how do you balance those? And this guy, he seems to be a
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pretty good tightrope Walker balancer.
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I don't know. What do you think?
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He is. He's certainly messaging wise.
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Certainly my question is management wise, you know, when
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you're when you were doing what he was doing in state
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governments at, you know, during the COVID experience, you know,
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he was certainly managing a large system and he was kind of
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the de facto governor for a pretty significant part of that
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two year window. And you know, he certainly quote
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UN quote managed it. But did he manage it?
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Well, I think that there was a lot of questions that I had
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about how he was marshalling state resources.
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Certainly the transparency thing that I talked about earlier was
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something that I did not find impressive.
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I mean, it was either direct obfuscation in trying to hide
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things and not answer very legal requests for information that
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were provided through the FOE system, or it was mismanagement
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and incompetence because you couldn't have the employees that
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were working for you actually honor it.
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You know, one or the other. And either one of them is kind
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of disturbing to me. So I understand what you're
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saying, and you're probably right to a large degree.
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But I do have some questions lingering in my head about all
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that experience, especially when you go back all the way to
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Illinois. Sadly, I'm out of time.
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If you're on hold, call me tomorrow.