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Tarheels and fish fans · Politix

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SPEAKER_00: maine is is the alaska of the east i think that's right off in the corner
0:04
SPEAKER_00: of america being weird yeah got a little too weird
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SPEAKER_01: with this particular candidate selection too much salt in the air i think
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SPEAKER_00: hi you're listening to a free preview of the politics podcast today
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SPEAKER_00: as brian boitler continues to be on vacation i'm joined
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SPEAKER_00: by caitlin lagaki who's going to tell us all about north carolina and
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SPEAKER_00: the senate race happening there and then after the jump uh we're going to dive
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SPEAKER_00: into some of the developments in other races in michigan maine also around
0:34
SPEAKER_00: the country that have been happening since last week
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SPEAKER_00: so please you know check it out uh consider upgrading and subscribing
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SPEAKER_00: and we'll uh see you later
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SPEAKER_00: hi welcome to politics i'm matthew iglesias brian bointler continues to be
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SPEAKER_00: on vacation uh so my guest today is my friend caitlin lagaki she is
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SPEAKER_00: a democratic strategist she is a fellow at third way uh a veteran
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SPEAKER_00: of many different um
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SPEAKER_00: and campaign's over the years um is joining me today in the in the first instance
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SPEAKER_00: because i have done
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SPEAKER_00: the take many many times that we should be paying more attention to roy cooper senate race
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SPEAKER_00: schoen
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SPEAKER_00: from a news perspective that when you have an uncontested primary and just like
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SPEAKER_00: a huge lead over your opponent it's not as quote -unquote interesting as some
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SPEAKER_00: of these other races but beating your opponent by a large margin is an impressive
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SPEAKER_01: i'm thrilled to be here arguing with you in real life
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SPEAKER_01: but we probably won't argue we'll just have
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SPEAKER_00: a nice conversation i think broadly agreeable but also you can just tell me things
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SPEAKER_00: that i don't know great i've i've been to north carolina yeah but only like to
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SPEAKER_00: the outer banks like four times 10 to 15 years ago
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SPEAKER_00: so that's nothing i've got no i've got no insights you uh you work for kay hagan yep
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SPEAKER_00: you are you're deep in the oh there we go um there's kay hagan me
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SPEAKER_00: and dolly parton right behind me so she she was the last democrat
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SPEAKER_00: to represent north carolina in the senate um but democrats have done well
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SPEAKER_00: in state office in north carolina since then so i don't know tell tell
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SPEAKER_00: who is roy cooper what's happening here
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SPEAKER_01: yeah so um roy cooper is most north carolinians second favorite roy
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SPEAKER_01: after roy williams um but they are you know they're pretty interchangeable in
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SPEAKER_01: the sense that um
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SPEAKER_01: roy cooper is from north carolina he grew up in nash county uh which is
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SPEAKER_01: where rocky mount is it's a eastern north carolina relatively rural
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SPEAKER_01: but i think very informative when you look at like
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SPEAKER_01: who is roy cooper what motivates him what drives him
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SPEAKER_01: because um you know it's right off of i-95 but
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SPEAKER_01: the thing i love every time i'm driving through north carolina and i see it is like
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SPEAKER_01: the county slogan is where business meets opportunity
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SPEAKER_01: and i think that that kind of shapes everything
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SPEAKER_01: about roy cooper's brand um he obviously was
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SPEAKER_01: a long time attorney general i think something like 20 years yeah just never wanted
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SPEAKER_01: a promotion he never asked for a promotion he just focused on doing the job um and
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SPEAKER_01: then was a successful two-term governor where i think he was really first
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SPEAKER_01: of all he was constrained by a republican supermajority in the legislature
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SPEAKER_01: so every veto got overturned he got steamrolled all the time um but it it caused him
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SPEAKER_01: to really focus on the things that he could do and the things
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SPEAKER_01: that he could find consensus on in a way that um has allowed him to build
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SPEAKER_01: a very successful pragmatic brand at a time when democrats in
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SPEAKER_01: the south were getting wiped out and so i think when you know
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SPEAKER_01: the other important thing about north carolina is that it is
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SPEAKER_01: a much bigger state than people realize it goes all the way from the east coast
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SPEAKER_01: where you have the outer banks to you know the great smoky mountains in the west
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SPEAKER_01: which a lot of people don't realize is further west than detroit michigan and
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SPEAKER_01: so it's a gigantic state it has 13 media markets it's hard for any politician
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SPEAKER_01: to run there to win there to build a brand there and
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SPEAKER_01: so i actually think roy cooper's secret weapon
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SPEAKER_01: was this low and slow approach over the last 30 40 years of just doing
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SPEAKER_01: the work being a constant presence so all north carolinians know who he is what he's
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SPEAKER_01: about what he's done in a way that is otherwise impossible
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SPEAKER_01: for any north carolina politician to break through right so you know what one aspect
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SPEAKER_00: of this which everybody right just like well you know you can't just find
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SPEAKER_00: a former two-term governor who before that was a five-term attorney general
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SPEAKER_00: yeah you know if you if you could have a senate candidate like that um
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SPEAKER_00: in every state you know of course you would although that was also i think some of
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SPEAKER_00: the logic behind janet mills which yeah not everyone was as enthusiastic about um
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SPEAKER_00: and so like that's fair obviously it's a little bit of a of a unique snowflake um
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SPEAKER_00: but also there's a question of like how did he win
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SPEAKER_00: all of those other elections right i mean it's you know you you build politics to
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SPEAKER_00: an extent from the ground up um you know he has a democratic successor as governor
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SPEAKER_00: who was attorney general after him so that's like building a brand building a bench
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SPEAKER_00: um and i thought your point about the legislature is interesting uh i mean one read
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SPEAKER_00: of
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SPEAKER_00: that you could say like well does this just show like actually people didn't like
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SPEAKER_00: him that much and so he didn't have any support down ballot
6:21
SPEAKER_00: or like what's what's going on in the north carolina state legislature yeah it's
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SPEAKER_01: a mess i gotta be real honest um you know i think after 2010 north carolina was
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SPEAKER_01: the real poster child for
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SPEAKER_01: gerrymandering and when you look at all of
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SPEAKER_01: the you know mid-cycle redistricting that's happening now in other states going back
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SPEAKER_01: to some of those really severe gerrymanders that started in 2010 with North Carolina
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SPEAKER_01: when you know we just we got totally wiped out and you know that was right around
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SPEAKER_01: the time I was working for Kay Hagan North Carolina was we we don't need to go all
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SPEAKER_01: the way back but like North Carolina was hit harder than most by the Great Recession
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SPEAKER_00: and so you know at one point i remember i was having to write press releases
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SPEAKER_01: for every stimulus grant but like the unemployment rate was consistently
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SPEAKER_01: at 13 percent or above yeah and um so deb purdue was
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SPEAKER_01: the democratic governor democrats had held the state legislature
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SPEAKER_01: for i think 100 years at that point
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SPEAKER_00: yeah so it was like an old reconstruction legislature it was
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SPEAKER_01: an old reconstruction legislature and when you know the the tea party hit and
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SPEAKER_01: the anti-obama backlash hit it just wiped everyone out it was like a tsunami
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SPEAKER_01: in north carolina and i think republicans there very wisely recognized
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SPEAKER_01: that this was their one shot and since then you know democrats
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SPEAKER_01: in north carolina have been chipping away at the legislature they've been working on
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SPEAKER_01: the supreme court they've been like doing all the things they need to do um but because of
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SPEAKER_01: state's demographics because of that gerrymander in 2010 it's just been really really hard
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SPEAKER_01: to fight their way back to parity even when if you look at the statewide vote totals
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SPEAKER_01: like north carolina is decidedly a purple state like this is not and so for example right
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SPEAKER_00: in 2018 uh north carolina house democrats win
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SPEAKER_00: fifty one percent of the vote yeah um republicans get forty eight percent of
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SPEAKER_00: the vote and republicans get a sixty five fifty five majority exactly as a result of
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SPEAKER_00: that you know um twenty twenty democrats don't do
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SPEAKER_00: as well um republicans get fifty percent democrats get forty nine percent as
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SPEAKER_01: a result republicans get a super majority
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SPEAKER_00: yeah um so this is this is
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SPEAKER_00: a tough one um slow boring i mean i i don't even you know again i don't know
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SPEAKER_00: anything about north carolina so i don't even remember these people's names uh
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SPEAKER_00: but we've we've raised money for supreme court candidates in north carolina
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SPEAKER_00: because you know we're trying to unlock a supreme court majority because it's a it's
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SPEAKER_00: a closely divided red leaning but not that red state
9:07
SPEAKER_00: yeah get a supreme court majority we could get
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SPEAKER_00: the state legislative gerrymandering change we could get
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SPEAKER_00: the house maps change i mean you could unlock a lot here yeah potentially but
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SPEAKER_00: so i also think you know there's a pattern we see that governors
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SPEAKER_00: who face opposition legislatures
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SPEAKER_00: that this him it's andy beshear it's laura kelly it's also phil scott on
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SPEAKER_00: the republican side
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SPEAKER_00: these people tend to be quite popular right like there's a there's a view
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SPEAKER_00: that like voters are really angry which clearly they sometimes are and
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SPEAKER_00: that therefore they're demanding like sweeping change yeah
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SPEAKER_00: but you know it seems like governor cooper did a good job
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SPEAKER_00: but like he didn't deliver sweeping change because he in part because he couldn't
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SPEAKER_00: and people like that fine like he tried to stop
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SPEAKER_00: the worst things that the republicans in the legislature would do and he like tried
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SPEAKER_01: to do a good job of being governor he did but and i think one thing that's
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SPEAKER_01: so important and you have talked about this on slow boring is
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SPEAKER_01: roy cooper looked at
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SPEAKER_01: the table and he said what are the things that i need the legislature support
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SPEAKER_01: on expanding medicaid right he was yeah he's he's been working for like 10 years
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SPEAKER_01: to expand medicaid
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SPEAKER_01: republicans in north carolina don't want to do it which like frankly i think is
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SPEAKER_01: a gift to him that they keep standing in the way of that and like
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SPEAKER_01: if they were smart they would just take that issue off the table yeah um
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SPEAKER_01: but they kept pushing back on it they kept fighting it because they were fighting
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SPEAKER_01: the old obamacare fights um
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SPEAKER_01: but then the other thing roy did is he was like all right i what are
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SPEAKER_01: the other things i can do i can go out and attract business and grow
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SPEAKER_01: the economy here in north carolina so even if
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SPEAKER_01: the state legislature is constraining how much of the state budget we allocate
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SPEAKER_01: towards education or how much we use for medical services or welfare
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SPEAKER_01: have forgotten how to do i also think that when you look
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SPEAKER_01: at those opposition governors like laura kelly andy basheer that's
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SPEAKER_01: where they focus their energy which is like how do we just build
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SPEAKER_01: a more prosperous state that doesn't require the legislature
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SPEAKER_01: and it's you know i think one of the shortcomings and the short-sightedness
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SPEAKER_01: of democrats anti-corporate holy war is that
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SPEAKER_01: those are the employees you want moving to red states those are
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SPEAKER_01: the employees you want who are gonna vote for democrats um but also when you create
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SPEAKER_01: a bigger tax base and a bigger revenue base you're able to do more things
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SPEAKER_01: whereas you know when you drive out corporations
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SPEAKER_01: or you tell them you're not welcome here you're constraining what you can actually
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SPEAKER_01: do from a budgetary standpoint that makes it so much harder to deliver on all
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SPEAKER_01: the things you want
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you wrote a great op-ed about this in the Wall Street Journal last fall
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SPEAKER_00: about sort of Democrats and business.
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SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I mean, like, clearly there is some political appeal in populism, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Like, nobody wants to be like,
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SPEAKER_00: I'm running for office to do favors for corporate lobbyists, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Like, clearly.
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SPEAKER_00: But something executive office holders in particular find is that, like,
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SPEAKER_00: if a company moves to town that's a good story for you if somebody expands
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SPEAKER_00: the factory that's a good story for you if they're adding employees that's
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SPEAKER_00: a good story for you if the opposite happens it's not so good no that's
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SPEAKER_01: a bad story right like and it's you know there's something about um New York City
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SPEAKER_00: and Northern California
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SPEAKER_00: are so blessed with corporate decision makers who really want to live there
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SPEAKER_00: and will put up with a lot of shit for the sake of those kind of unique environments
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SPEAKER_00: although New York has lost finance jobs to North Carolina and to Texas
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SPEAKER_00: but like in the whole rest of the country whether it's
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SPEAKER_00: a pretty liberal place like detroit you know or a red or set
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SPEAKER_00: but you know you have like blue cities
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SPEAKER_00: and red states whatever it is like they like people people want jobs
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SPEAKER_00: and economic growth even as they don't want politicians
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SPEAKER_00: to be like i don't know like whores for corporate america or something and
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SPEAKER_00: so what was it you said the slogan uh what we'd like
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SPEAKER_00: was like
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SPEAKER_00: where business meets opportunity yeah yeah that's nash county north carolina
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SPEAKER_01: where business meets opportunity and i think that is exactly like
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SPEAKER_01: the roy cooper like model is that like he understands that if you have
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SPEAKER_01: a thriving economy that opens every other door for what you want to achieve
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SPEAKER_01: whether it's social programs whether it's education
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SPEAKER_01: whether it's you know you know medical care
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SPEAKER_01: without that tax base without that revenue base and without people wanting
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SPEAKER_01: to be there you know we've seen this in in the rust belt
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SPEAKER_01: where like communities wither and die because there's this mass exodus
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SPEAKER_01: because there's no opportunity there's no business and it becomes a vicious cycle
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SPEAKER_01: and i think you know one of the things that
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SPEAKER_01: that roy cooper especially understands is that growth begets growth and
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SPEAKER_01: you know seeing
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SPEAKER_01: where north carolina was around 2010 2011 it was bad luckily you know north carolina
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SPEAKER_01: had already started the transition from like manufacturing and textiles
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SPEAKER_01: that was you know on its way out because of nafta north carolina is
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SPEAKER_01: a major financial center and was hit especially hard in the great recession because
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SPEAKER_01: of that but they were already diversifying
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SPEAKER_01: with biotech with advanced manufacturing with research at the universities in a way
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SPEAKER_01: that the state became a magnet for these you know high tech high paying jobs
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SPEAKER_01: that tend to attract workers that are pretty like moderate or liberal frankly yeah
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SPEAKER_01: so well this is
15:43
SPEAKER_00: a classic like southern yeah like post civil rights movement southern democrats
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SPEAKER_00: formula right is that in contrast to republicans you will care about like education
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SPEAKER_00: and universities and research and other things that matter to white collar employers
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SPEAKER_00: but that this is a growth model it's not just a um
16:12
SPEAKER_00: you know it's not just like you're supporting the service providers right but
16:16
SPEAKER_00: then you like mean it with a straight face as a pitch like you should come
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SPEAKER_00: to north carolina because yes it's cheaper to do business here than in new york
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SPEAKER_00: or new jersey but
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SPEAKER_00: but like also in contradiction to alabama
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SPEAKER_00: or whatever like we have you know like your parents want to send your kids
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SPEAKER_00: to school here and you know something that that i've written
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SPEAKER_00: about right is you know you've seen this real improvement in
16:42
SPEAKER_00: the basic reading scores in mississippi alabama tennessee louisiana in louisiana
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SPEAKER_00: that was under another democratic governor john bell edwards
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SPEAKER_00: but it's been yeah modern republicans and in other places
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SPEAKER_00: and you know that's cooper is a
16:58
SPEAKER_00: he's like an interesting bridge figure you know because he's almost like dating back
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SPEAKER_00: as an attorney general to john edwards bill clinton that whole cohort
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SPEAKER_00: of you know late 20th century southern democrats um and it's almost like a like
17:14
SPEAKER_00: a concept that's like gone out of the party's yeah head at this point
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SPEAKER_00: that like not just like social services is charity but it's like part of
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SPEAKER_01: the growth model well and i you know i
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SPEAKER_01: was thinking before we hopped on about like the first candidate i ever worked
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SPEAKER_01: for was governor tony knolls in alaska when he was running for u.s senate and he
17:37
SPEAKER_01: and roy cooper are cut from
17:38
SPEAKER_01: the same cloth it's red state governor you're constrained
17:43
SPEAKER_01: by your legislature you can push your electorate and your constituents
17:48
SPEAKER_01: to think differently on some issues you know like tony knolls was very progressive
17:54
SPEAKER_01: on gay marriage before that was even like on anyone's radar
17:58
SPEAKER_01: um but he also understood that the way to to push that is not to impose your beliefs
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SPEAKER_01: on other people in a like an aggressive way and so when you look
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SPEAKER_01: at how cooper approached like the bathroom bill like north carolina was at
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SPEAKER_01: the forefront of trans rights he very strategically um and i think smartly took
18:21
SPEAKER_01: a stand that was like first of all like i don't think we should be bullying people
18:26
SPEAKER_01: but then second he partnered with the large corporations in the state to make
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SPEAKER_01: an economic argument that this kind of regressive thinking was bad for
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SPEAKER_01: the economy it made it harder for us to attract people it made it harder for us
18:41
SPEAKER_01: to get businesses to recruit in a way that like i think took things out
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SPEAKER_01: of this moral lens i'm good you're bad
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SPEAKER_01: and said like look we can all have our own opinions
18:55
SPEAKER_01: but like we're not going to be mean and we're not going to hurt the state
18:59
SPEAKER_01: and i think that that is the kind of southern democrat thinking
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SPEAKER_01: that has been lost especially as you know um i think it's
19:11
SPEAKER_01: a relatively recent phenomenon how much senate campaigns and to
19:15
SPEAKER_01: a lesser extent governors campaigns have become national campaigns with the advent
19:20
SPEAKER_01: of online fundraising with the advent of twitter these
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SPEAKER_01: races that used to be very locally focused and used to be very based
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SPEAKER_01: on relationships and and what's actually going on in
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SPEAKER_01: the state have now become national campaigns and i think roy cooper as just
19:41
SPEAKER_01: a function of who he is and like how he got his start is still running
19:45
SPEAKER_01: a very local campaign he's not hosting rallies in chapel hill he's going
19:51
SPEAKER_01: to barbecue joints in goldsboro
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SPEAKER_01: and like sitting at a table with five community leaders shaking their hands
19:58
SPEAKER_01: and like talking about what's going on in goldsboro and i think it's a real callback
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SPEAKER_01: or throwback to like a previous era of campaigning but because of
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SPEAKER_01: who he is he's able to raise the money and he's able to do it that way in a way
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SPEAKER_01: that like has positioned him to clean whatley's clock i mean there's something
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: everybody is going to understand what that means yeah people who like
20:47
SPEAKER_00: that idea people who hate that idea right like it's legible if somebody wants
20:52
SPEAKER_00: to say you know i'm going to be the roy cooper of south carolina i love tennessee
21:00
SPEAKER_00: or whatever but i love it that's a good pitch like to me
21:05
SPEAKER_00: because I'm like in the top .001% of obsessively following politics
21:11
SPEAKER_00: but I mean I wish we could get you know Andy Beshear and Laura Kelly
21:17
SPEAKER_00: and like bring back John Bel Edwards and like all do a
21:22
SPEAKER_00: road tour together and campaign for rob sand and i who's much younger
21:28
SPEAKER_00: than those people but i think it's like a figure in the spirit of them
21:32
SPEAKER_00: and like i mean i'm a journalist so you know of course i'm in love with like trends
21:35
SPEAKER_00: and narratives and yeah remakes a trend and so on and so forth but it's like it's
21:40
SPEAKER_00: so we do have like a nationalized media environment i know i mean this is part
21:44
SPEAKER_00: of what you what you work on a third way yeah but it's like we need to find a way
21:49
SPEAKER_00: to tell
21:50
SPEAKER_00: a story to people about the democrats who are able to win tough races where
21:57
SPEAKER_00: the story isn't just okay each one of these people is like
22:01
SPEAKER_00: a beautiful unique snowflake who really understands
22:04
SPEAKER_00: the local barbecue I mean I'm sure they are all beautiful unique snowflakes
22:08
SPEAKER_00: in some way but it's like that doesn't like Cooper's success has been replicated
22:14
SPEAKER_00: by Josh Stein yeah right and they're not the same
22:19
SPEAKER_00: you know they they don't come from the same place and the same affect but like
22:22
SPEAKER_01: and i i can't i i don't know they're both good tar heels both double tar heels i
22:28
SPEAKER_00: assume i assume stein has observed some things yeah versus he ran
22:34
SPEAKER_00: for attorney general after cooper and then ran for governor after cooper right
22:37
SPEAKER_00: and like there's a there's a political tradition that they're operating in
22:42
SPEAKER_00: that other people younger people like can access even
22:47
SPEAKER_00: if they don't have this specific background and some
22:50
SPEAKER_00: of it is like you know he cooper just put out this ad where he's like talking
22:55
SPEAKER_00: about how he locked up criminals yeah he did you know um
22:59
SPEAKER_00: and that's great you know like um yeah it's a great ad but can i can i tell you
23:05
SPEAKER_01: the reason i'm smiling is
23:08
SPEAKER_01: we talk a lot about needing to do politics.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Democrats need to do a better job of doing politics.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: And I think what you're lifting the veil on is the fact that the idea
23:21
SPEAKER_01: that Laura Kelly and Andy Beshear and Gretchen Whitmer aren't actually talking
23:27
SPEAKER_01: to Josh Stein or Rob Sand is the whole point.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: they're they're talking they are sharing tips they are sharing tricks
23:39
SPEAKER_01: but they also understand that in these red places
23:42
SPEAKER_01: in these purple places it is not good politics to nationalize the race and
23:48
SPEAKER_01: so yes part of why
23:50
SPEAKER_01: the like new york you know like philadelphia's mom donnie thing works is
23:54
SPEAKER_01: because like philadelphia is a pretty liberal city if you go
23:58
SPEAKER_01: to you know charlotte like which north carolina's biggest city
24:05
SPEAKER_01: pretty like liberal to moderate but like it is it is the relevant analog if
24:11
SPEAKER_01: if you run a candidate
24:13
SPEAKER_01: as charlotte's mom donnie they're gonna get their cloth cleaned no of course and
24:18
SPEAKER_01: so i think it it speaks to the actual like politics that is happening
24:24
SPEAKER_01: that like we have a viable candidate in rob sand we have josh stein winning
24:29
SPEAKER_01: in north carolina keisha lance bottoms might win in georgia which would be huge um
24:35
SPEAKER_01: but all of that is because those candidates are doing politics in a way that doesn't
24:44
SPEAKER_01: if it feels and is specific to their state because their states are not in a place
24:51
SPEAKER_01: where they want to be nationalized they're not in a place and so i kind
24:56
SPEAKER_01: of love it i kind of love that like we think this is all happening independently
25:00
SPEAKER_01: when really
25:02
SPEAKER_01: it's just a smart strategic effort to let these states be their own states right
25:06
SPEAKER_00: but i but i guess what i mean is you know i'm uh i think i'm a little bit uh older
25:12
SPEAKER_00: than you and probably in the in the waning days
25:16
SPEAKER_01: of i'm only i'm only 25 yeah there you go uh yeah and i just i i was around for the
25:23
SPEAKER_00: the waning days of the dlc and they kind of blew themselves up over iraq
25:30
SPEAKER_00: which was not
25:31
SPEAKER_00: great judgment but institutionally like new democrats back
25:36
SPEAKER_00: then was awake still always candidates in tough races didn't want
25:40
SPEAKER_00: to nationalize right but the republican opponents would try to nationalize
25:46
SPEAKER_00: and they had this party sub brand that was accessible yeah and
25:51
SPEAKER_00: then people understood something about what it meant so that in the circumstances
25:58
SPEAKER_00: where you can't completely avoid nationalization you had something you could say
26:03
SPEAKER_00: right you mentioned keisha lance bottoms and you know she's got
26:06
SPEAKER_00: to run her own race um she's got to make some decisions about how she wants to run
26:11
SPEAKER_00: but it's going to be a tough race yeah the
26:16
SPEAKER_00: obvious republican thing to say is this is just like a big city liberal mayor
26:22
SPEAKER_00: of atlanta it's just the same as if zorhan mandani was running
26:27
SPEAKER_00: for governor like it's no good right and she needs to differentiate herself somewhat
26:34
SPEAKER_00: from that and the most natural thing in the world would be to be like
26:39
SPEAKER_00: no i'm not like this like bad democrat who you're afraid of i'm like john ossoff
26:45
SPEAKER_00: and rafael warnock but specifically like i'm like roy cooper and josh stein who
26:52
SPEAKER_00: have worked sometimes with sometimes against republican legislators very focused
26:58
SPEAKER_00: on medicaid yeah focused on business recruitment i mean i know i i talked to um
27:04
SPEAKER_00: to sand who's running in in iowa and one of the things he said
27:07
SPEAKER_00: to me is you know he sort of like um compulsively mentions that
27:12
SPEAKER_00: when he wins he's going to be working with a republican legislature so
27:16
SPEAKER_00: that just naturally sort of takes off the table
27:20
SPEAKER_00: the risk that i was even go off the rails you know to left and and lets him focus in
27:25
SPEAKER_00: and that's i think a tip that he has picked up from this larger kind of community
27:30
SPEAKER_00: but you know people need to be able to i mean the people like you
27:34
SPEAKER_00: and me i just feel like we've been at risk of like losing this argument yeah
27:40
SPEAKER_00: to people like brian who's on vacation and we can talk shit about him
27:44
SPEAKER_01: behind his back that's right and
27:47
SPEAKER_00: it's because i think like the the work of beating republicans
27:52
SPEAKER_00: in hard races is underappreciated yeah and it gets underappreciated because
27:57
SPEAKER_00: the people who are doing
27:58
SPEAKER_00: that work are like not they don't like put themselves out there yeah you know
28:04
SPEAKER_00: and like we we need we need to know their stories in in a
28:10
SPEAKER_00: otherwise it's like it's going to be hard to raise money for the next iteration
28:14
SPEAKER_00: of people like this for the people who haven't been in office for for
28:17
SPEAKER_01: the whole generation i jokingly but half seriously call it the moderates paradox
28:22
SPEAKER_01: which is that the people who are best positioned to go out and advocate for
28:27
SPEAKER_01: the future of our party inherently live in states and districts
28:33
SPEAKER_01: where their voters do not want them going out and telling a national story
28:37
SPEAKER_01: yep and so that's why you have Ro Khanna traveling everywhere every weekend you have
28:42
SPEAKER_01: Elizabeth Warren you have you know Bernie Sanders who come
28:46
SPEAKER_01: from these very safe blue seats going out and saying this is the future direction
28:51
SPEAKER_01: of our party getting all sorts of national media attention
28:55
SPEAKER_01: and then you know i i assume from your experience as a journalist like it's
29:00
SPEAKER_01: a lot harder to get moderate governors red state senators to come on
29:05
SPEAKER_01: and actually talk about these big picture ideas because the constraints imposed
29:11
SPEAKER_01: on them by the voters requires them to go home every weekend
29:15
SPEAKER_01: and be visible be present show that they haven't gone dc
29:19
SPEAKER_01: in a way that like these these blue seat um progresses they don't they don't have
29:25
SPEAKER_00: that constraint no no i mean yes i mean a i mean they don't have
29:29
SPEAKER_00: as much time yeah right because they're in tougher battles yeah
29:33
SPEAKER_00: and also yeah i mean they want to emphasize
29:36
SPEAKER_00: to their local constituents their local vote because part
29:39
SPEAKER_00: of what safe seat voters want is like they want their member
29:44
SPEAKER_00: of congress fighting trump
29:47
SPEAKER_00: which in practice means like doing takes on the internet yeah right like yeah
29:52
SPEAKER_00: because it's like you can't do anything as a backbench house member right
29:58
SPEAKER_00: but like barnstorming the country being on television being
30:01
SPEAKER_00: on twitter like those are things that you could do and in
30:06
SPEAKER_00: a seat that's like d plus 15 that's very highly valued in a seat that's r plus three
30:14
SPEAKER_00: that's not valued people want to see that you're working on their behalf yeah
30:19
SPEAKER_00: so you got to be putting out press releases that are like
30:21
SPEAKER_00: about bridge repairs that's right you know or
30:24
SPEAKER_00: about like some bipartisan bill you did about otters um with uh yeah i'm thinking
30:29
SPEAKER_00: of marie goes again bears it's it's porpoises she has she has porpoise bills um you
30:34
SPEAKER_00: know until the end times and you know and like um
30:39
SPEAKER_00: mary peltola is another senate candidate who's doing very well and she's like not
30:46
SPEAKER_00: on pod save america once every three weeks saying like the way forward for
30:52
SPEAKER_00: the democratic party is a because like it's not really in her interest to be seen
30:57
SPEAKER_00: that way and then b because like her takes because i i have to occur
31:01
SPEAKER_00: but like they're very alaska specific
31:04
SPEAKER_00: yeah like a national podcast audience like doesn't really want to hear
31:08
SPEAKER_00: about like salmon i know or like one road that's somewhere right i mean this
31:15
SPEAKER_00: but it's like if you're going to sell yourself to skeptical voters
31:19
SPEAKER_00: in alaska you have to talk about something like alaskan yeah no but if you want
31:25
SPEAKER_00: to like change the party you do have to talk about national politics
31:30
SPEAKER_00: to somebody right
31:31
SPEAKER_01: right it's terrible because they're like the national democratic brand
31:36
SPEAKER_01: for someone like mary peltola or james tallarico to a lesser extent roy cooper like
31:41
SPEAKER_01: that is an albatross in a lot of states like yep and what was so funny to me was
31:47
SPEAKER_01: when um peltola announced she's running for for senate
31:52
SPEAKER_01: and you know her her slogan is like fish family freedom yep
31:56
SPEAKER_01: and everyone thinks it's like a gimmick the fish thing and uh-huh
32:00
SPEAKER_01: i grew up in alaska um so i'm well versed on like the salmon wars of the 1990s
32:07
SPEAKER_01: that was like a huge deal that no one has ever heard of but haltola was talking
32:12
SPEAKER_01: about in her ads and her videos abundance and at the exact same time
32:18
SPEAKER_01: that we had just had this like national media discourse about the book abundance
32:23
SPEAKER_01: and what it means and i i've had to explain repeatedly to
32:28
SPEAKER_01: reporters or or outside observers that when mary peltolla is talking
32:32
SPEAKER_01: about abundance she's talking about the fact that you used to be able to go to
32:36
SPEAKER_01: the kenai river every single june and pull a 60 pound king out of the river
32:42
SPEAKER_01: without even thinking about it
32:44
SPEAKER_01: and now like there are no king's salmon in the kenai river it's like it's shocking
32:50
SPEAKER_00: and it so what what is this about like what because i i have also repeated
32:55
SPEAKER_00: the pro fish pro family whatever slogan yeah
32:57
SPEAKER_00: but i have no idea i i've never fished i've never been
33:00
SPEAKER_00: to alaska like what like what what is
33:02
SPEAKER_00: the issue here like how is she gonna bring people more salmon so it's
33:07
SPEAKER_01: it's about you know like the fact that for i think
33:10
SPEAKER_01: a long time alaska allowed its national resources to be just stripped
33:15
SPEAKER_01: and like overmined overfished and so now there is this um reckoning that's happening
33:24
SPEAKER_01: that it you know like um you see this in any sort of boomtown right where like
33:30
SPEAKER_01: you know the entire city of anchorage is just a case study for urban sprawl
33:34
SPEAKER_01: because all this money flooded in and nobody actually took a step back
33:37
SPEAKER_01: and said like how do we like do this responsibly and so with the fishing it's first
33:43
SPEAKER_01: of all it's cultural like everyone fishes on
33:45
SPEAKER_01: the weekend like everyone has their favorite spot but it's economic and
33:52
SPEAKER_01: if there are no fish that means there's no money it's the second largest industry in
33:55
SPEAKER_01: the state
33:57
SPEAKER_01: um it's a major driver of tourism or it was um and it's a it's a recognition that
34:06
SPEAKER_01: in order for alaskans to maintain their way of life in order for alaskans
34:10
SPEAKER_01: to maintain their economy we have to do things in a way that allows us
34:15
SPEAKER_01: to have this abundance and drives the economy without totally strip mining the ocean
34:21
SPEAKER_01: of fish because once they're gone they don't come back and so i think it's
34:27
SPEAKER_01: it's more of a again it's economic it's cultural but it's it's it's a way
34:34
SPEAKER_01: to say like look i understand that our natural resources are like they're
34:40
SPEAKER_01: the whole kit and caboodle and so how do we how do we use them in
34:45
SPEAKER_01: a way that's responsible
34:46
SPEAKER_01: but isn't totally far left saying like fishing is cruel pita says no more fishing
34:52
SPEAKER_00: we're not going to do fishing or
34:55
SPEAKER_01: you know like greenpeace doesn't want us drilling for oil up on
34:58
SPEAKER_01: the north slope mary peltola is going to be like yeah we're going to drill for oil
35:01
SPEAKER_01: on the north slope but like we're going to do it responsibly and
35:04
SPEAKER_01: so i think it strikes this balance that acknowledges the realities of a place
35:10
SPEAKER_01: but also signaling a kind of value about what you stand for and
35:16
SPEAKER_01: that you're still gonna you're gonna fight for people you're gonna fight for a way
35:20
SPEAKER_01: of life
35:21
SPEAKER_01: but you're not going to do it in service of some ideological agenda right
35:26
SPEAKER_00: that makes sense um you know and so i mean i guess like the
35:32
SPEAKER_00: the question here is like i mean as somebody who knows something about both
35:35
SPEAKER_00: of these states right i mean clearly they're quite different
35:38
SPEAKER_00: the underlying economic engines of north carolina
35:41
SPEAKER_00: and alaska are totally different um
35:45
SPEAKER_00: north carolina is a huge african-american population alaska has
35:49
SPEAKER_00: a large alaska native population alaska there was a study in 2015 about
35:57
SPEAKER_01: the most diverse place in america yes anchorage alaska was the most diverse city
36:02
SPEAKER_01: in america based on the number of of different ethnicities and also the spread
36:08
SPEAKER_01: the most equally spread uh
36:11
SPEAKER_01: across those sort of ethnicities so like there is a huge native population
36:16
SPEAKER_01: but there's also huge vietnamese korean samoan alaska is way more diverse
36:22
SPEAKER_00: than people give it credit for no i'll buy it no but i mean it's like it's
36:25
SPEAKER_00: a it's it's like a true diversity yeah right like they're they're it's a small state
36:31
SPEAKER_00: and it has like many different sort of ethnic niches yeah north north carolina not
36:36
SPEAKER_00: to say there's nothing going on there but it's a it's a classic american south
36:40
SPEAKER_00: yeah you know large african-american minority black majority long tangled history
36:45
SPEAKER_00: etc so i just like these are these are different local politics yeah navigate
36:51
SPEAKER_00: but are there like
36:54
SPEAKER_00: It seems to me that, like,
36:56
SPEAKER_00: something that the left has done well, right, is, like,
37:00
SPEAKER_00: you take different people,
37:01
SPEAKER_00: Bernie Sanders,
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Zohar Mandani, Graham Plattner, who we'll talk about, Abdul El-Sayed.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: These guys are all, they're all different people as, like, human beings and where they're from.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: And they're all running in different states.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: But they see something in common in each other.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: what do you see in common between a cooper and a peltola
37:25
SPEAKER_00: or you know uh whoever else you know you you like
37:30
SPEAKER_00: in this field like what what did like your people like what do they know what are
37:36
SPEAKER_01: they doing yeah it's almost a libertarian version of liberalism and it's it's
37:44
SPEAKER_01: a situation where
37:46
SPEAKER_01: we're not gonna impose our values on you we are gonna let you be you
37:50
SPEAKER_01: and i'm gonna be me um and and that's okay i think especially
37:56
SPEAKER_01: since 2018 2019 there has been an increase in democrats who think that their job is
38:03
SPEAKER_01: to police the behavior and beliefs of other people and
38:06
SPEAKER_01: that has backfired spectacularly um but i also think there is a pragmatism
38:15
SPEAKER_01: when it comes to the realities of governing and it comes to the realities of
38:19
SPEAKER_01: the economy that these democrats in red states purple states have if not embraced
38:29
SPEAKER_01: at least accepted which is that if roy cooper as governor had imposed
38:35
SPEAKER_01: a billionaire's tax at the behest of the people in chapel hill and ashville
38:42
SPEAKER_01: he knows and understands that it would have probably led to capital flight
38:46
SPEAKER_01: with businesses leaving his state and going to a different state that doesn't have
38:50
SPEAKER_01: the same tax and he knows the exact size of the hole that that would have put
38:56
SPEAKER_01: in his economy and his tax base and his his ability to do the things he wants
39:02
SPEAKER_01: and he also understood that he has a significant part of his party
39:09
SPEAKER_01: specifically in the mountains and in you know eastern north carolina where there's
39:15
SPEAKER_01: a huge population of you know lower income black farmers who can't afford
39:22
SPEAKER_01: to like roll the dice with some novel economic idea because the alternative
39:31
SPEAKER_01: for them is going to be so much worse and so there's a different level
39:35
SPEAKER_01: of risk taking i think
39:37
SPEAKER_01: that comes from a a better understanding of the states the voters and and what's
39:46
SPEAKER_01: at stake if they get this wrong and so you know it it might be a a lower degree
39:52
SPEAKER_01: of risk aversion um or you know they're they're less willing to take those kinds
39:57
SPEAKER_01: of risks they're less willing to like stake their their legacy on
40:02
SPEAKER_01: an ideological battle that like
40:04
SPEAKER_01: if it pays off you know for the next fdr um but i think
40:09
SPEAKER_01: that that's that's what people want
40:12
SPEAKER_01: in their leaders they don't want necessarily somebody taking these big swings
40:18
SPEAKER_01: to like set a legacy they just want to live every day with plumbing that works
40:23
SPEAKER_01: and lights that turn on and schools that teach kids how to read
40:27
SPEAKER_00: right so i mean you know you said like a libertarian form of liberalism or you know
40:32
SPEAKER_00: for political theory heads might just call it like liberalism as opposed
40:37
SPEAKER_00: to this kind of post-liberal progressive politics right that aims for both sort
40:42
SPEAKER_00: of tolerance in the social sphere right like diversity
40:48
SPEAKER_00: but including maybe you're like diverse right to be like a little old-fashioned um
40:55
SPEAKER_00: and
40:56
SPEAKER_00: you know liberalism on economics that like they care about economic I mean they care
41:02
SPEAKER_00: about the poor but they also care about economic growth and they see those things
41:07
SPEAKER_00: as related rather than opposed take a quick break and come back and talk about some
41:14
SPEAKER_00: of these other races