Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - What To Watch For On Election Night + Democrats’ Dirty Trick In Alaska

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Chuck’s Commentary - What To Watch For On Election Night + Democrats’ Dirty Trick In Alaska · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
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Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. Hello there and
2:18
Speaker 1: welcome to the Thursday episode of the Chuck Todd cast.
2:20
Speaker 1: This is the one that's going to live for the weekend.
2:22
Speaker 1: It's my second to last one before the big day,
2:26
Speaker 1: before election day. And I've got a good consider this
2:30
Speaker 1: your election primer episode. Let me give you a quick
2:32
Speaker 1: little rundown of what I've got. I am about to
2:36
Speaker 1: give you sort of what I would call my viewing
2:38
Speaker 1: night preview is sort of how to watch early returns
2:42
Speaker 1: to look for clues about what the national climate is
2:47
Speaker 1: going to look like and all of that. So this
2:49
Speaker 1: is what I mean when I feel like, look, we'll
2:51
Speaker 1: have it all here, the various scenarios, the various ways.
2:55
Speaker 1: I'll do a little bit more of it. My Monday
2:57
Speaker 1: episode will be just sort of, you know, everything that's
3:00
Speaker 1: out there from the weekend, cleaning things up, things that
3:04
Speaker 1: I don't think you should miss going forward. We'll also
3:07
Speaker 1: have a few, I'm going to take some questions. And
3:09
Speaker 1: of course, I'll give you my college football preview. And
3:12
Speaker 1: I got one more thing to say about the whole
3:14
Speaker 1: Pat McAfee situation, because I will confess that it's gotten
3:19
Speaker 1: under my skin how he's behaving here, because I've actually
3:24
Speaker 1: experienced what he's claiming to experience. And it's just like, man,
3:29
Speaker 1: you know, get your head out of your ass, buddy.
3:32
Speaker 1: I don't know how else to put it. And the
3:34
Speaker 1: thing is, is that I thought he was bigger than this,
3:38
Speaker 1: and I thought he was better than this. But I'll
3:40
Speaker 1: get to that. Later, it's football talk. Very scary. Very scary.
3:49
Speaker 1: When you realize that college football Saturday falls on Halloween, right?
3:54
Speaker 1: All the easy metaphors, the dad puns for upsets, etc.
3:58
Speaker 1: But we've had two straight weekends of massive, a bunch
4:03
Speaker 1: of supposedly ranked teams losing. I say supposedly because, you know,
4:08
Speaker 1: one of my favorite debates is if you beat a
4:12
Speaker 1: top five team, but they're not a top five team
4:14
Speaker 1: by the end of the year, did you beat a
4:15
Speaker 1: top five team? Right? UCLA gets credit for beating a top,
4:22
Speaker 1: I think it was a top 10 team at the
4:24
Speaker 1: time in Oregon. Are they? Miami doesn't get credit for
4:27
Speaker 1: beating a top 15 team in Wake Forest because Wake
4:29
Speaker 1: wasn't ranked at the time. They may end up being
4:33
Speaker 1: a top 10 team when the season is over. And
4:35
Speaker 1: suddenly that Miami victory that we got dinged for, It's
4:39
Speaker 1: actually more impressive anyway. So, yes, I'll be whining a
4:42
Speaker 1: little bit about the treatment, as usual, of the University
4:45
Speaker 1: of Miami. But I will save that for the end
4:48
Speaker 1: of the podcast. I do want to kick off, though.
4:51
Speaker 1: The big news of the last 24 hours is the
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Speaker 1: story in The New York Times about the Alaska Senate
4:54
Speaker 1: race and the the reporting that indicates that, you know,
5:00
Speaker 1: this is one of those you're Cue the Casablanca quotes.
5:04
Speaker 1: I'm shocked that there's gambling going on here. The Times
5:08
Speaker 1: found some receipts. It was pretty clear the second Dan
5:15
Speaker 1: Sullivan didn't come out of nowhere. And for those of
5:18
Speaker 1: you that have not paid attention to this, there is
5:21
Speaker 1: a second Dan Sullivan that was recruited to run. He
5:25
Speaker 1: ran as an independent. He ended up in the top four.
5:30
Speaker 1: The way that ranked choice voting system works in Alaska.
5:33
Speaker 1: I say the way it works, it could change in
5:35
Speaker 1: two years because the idea of ranked choice voting is
5:38
Speaker 1: on the ballot one more time. And the way this
5:40
Speaker 1: story went and the way the governor's race went, there's
5:43
Speaker 1: every indication that Alaskans are going to dump this system
5:46
Speaker 1: after this year. But the basic story is, you know,
5:51
Speaker 1: somehow somebody recruited a second Dan Sullivan, a different middle initial.
5:58
Speaker 1: And you sit there and you're like, yeah, this looks
6:00
Speaker 1: like election shenanigans. Who's behind it? Was the Paltolo campaign
6:03
Speaker 1: behind it? And there was a court fight over this.
6:06
Speaker 1: He claimed he decided to run on his own. Now
6:09
Speaker 1: the Times seems to have some evidence that there were
6:11
Speaker 1: some people associated with Paltolo's campaign. Mary Paltolo, the leading
6:15
Speaker 1: Democrat in the race, was involved in this effort. And
6:20
Speaker 1: here we are. It is this story hit on October 28th. So, yes,
6:24
Speaker 1: I think it officially qualifies as a so-called October surprise. Look,
6:29
Speaker 1: this is something that that Republicans had assumed Democratic operatives
6:33
Speaker 1: were behind. And there's a reason for this. This is
6:37
Speaker 1: not a unique tactic. Right. Political parties have been doing this,
6:42
Speaker 1: recruiting third party candidates, you know, boosting up. You know,
6:47
Speaker 1: we've seen it just in this primary cycle, right? You've
6:50
Speaker 1: seen Republicans going out of their way to boost progressive
6:53
Speaker 1: candidates to see if they could get progressive nominees, just
6:56
Speaker 1: like we saw in 2022 quite a bit. Democrats spending
6:59
Speaker 1: money to help MAGA candidates. And certainly, I think there
7:03
Speaker 1: was some evidence in a few places that it happened
7:05
Speaker 1: this cycle. So both parties engage in these type of tactics,
7:10
Speaker 1: trying to Help the other party nominate a less electable candidate.
7:15
Speaker 1: Try to create confusion on the ballot. The question is,
7:19
Speaker 1: what is fair and what is out of bounds? Right.
7:23
Speaker 1: And and, you know, I think it all goes to
7:27
Speaker 1: your to your perception of this. I'll give you a
7:31
Speaker 1: quick few top line immediate reactions I had to this
7:34
Speaker 1: story when it hit one. Alaska is a small state.
7:38
Speaker 1: And this matters because a story like this, you're asking yourself,
7:41
Speaker 1: dropping this late, how much is it going to penetrate
7:45
Speaker 1: the electorate? Well, Alaska is a small state. It's a
7:47
Speaker 1: small town state. Everybody knows everybody. My guess is most
7:51
Speaker 1: people already assumed this was a political dirty trick, probably
7:56
Speaker 1: even assumed Paltello was around it, at least in the
7:59
Speaker 1: political intelligentsia. I say this because I happen to be
8:02
Speaker 1: connected to some folks in the political intelligentsia of Alaska politics.
8:06
Speaker 1: And so they're, Nobody is surprised that there is now
8:11
Speaker 1: some evidence that links people associated with the Democrats or
8:15
Speaker 1: with Patel. That's one. Two, right now, Trump's Republican Party
8:25
Speaker 1: does a lot of dirty tricks. There's an expectation that
8:28
Speaker 1: they don't play by the rules. There's an expectation that
8:30
Speaker 1: they're always looking for a way to cheat. What does
8:33
Speaker 1: that mean? It means I think Democrats, I think voters
8:36
Speaker 1: end up holding Democrats to a higher standard because you're
8:39
Speaker 1: the party, because the Democrats are the party that asked
8:42
Speaker 1: to be held to a higher standard that point to
8:44
Speaker 1: the other side and say, hey, they're low standard. They're
8:47
Speaker 1: a low standard party. And when you do that, it
8:51
Speaker 1: means when you fight fire with fire as a political party,
8:56
Speaker 1: don't be surprised if voters end up punishing you for
9:00
Speaker 1: something that they might not punish the other side for because, hey,
9:03
Speaker 1: They expect Donald Trump to behave like a jerk. They
9:08
Speaker 1: expect Donald Trump to want to cheat. They expect Donald
9:11
Speaker 1: Trump to break the rules. You may think, well, that's
9:16
Speaker 1: not fair. Well, life ain't fair, right? These things aren't
9:22
Speaker 1: necessarily fair. But especially if you project yourself as being
9:28
Speaker 1: above this, as they're the dirty tricksters, we're not the
9:32
Speaker 1: dirty tricksters. They're the ones that cheat. We don't cheat.
9:35
Speaker 1: So when you do that, don't be surprised that the
9:39
Speaker 1: voter ends up holding the person that only cheats once harsher.
9:44
Speaker 1: That might be harsher to it than the entity that
9:47
Speaker 1: may be cheating all the time. I say this, for instance,
9:50
Speaker 1: you know. It is the Republican Party that most recently.
9:55
Speaker 1: You know, was was. right in a court of law
10:01
Speaker 1: was proven to play this game. Let me remind you,
10:04
Speaker 1: this happened in 2020 and the Florida Republican Party. And
10:10
Speaker 1: it was, you know, now proven that it changed an
10:15
Speaker 1: outcome in a state Senate race, a Republican former state
10:17
Speaker 1: senator named Frank Artilles. offered a gentleman named Alex Rodriguez
10:22
Speaker 1: $ 50, 000 to run as an independent in a Miami-Dade County
10:25
Speaker 1: race against a Democrat whose name was Jose Javier Rodriguez.
10:31
Speaker 1: And so what happened was the Republican candidate, Ileana Garcia,
10:35
Speaker 1: won by 32 votes, while the namesake Rodriguez, the third-party
10:40
Speaker 1: candidate that took $ 50, 000 from a Republican operative to run,
10:44
Speaker 1: received 6,000 votes. And then this sham candidate, Alex Rodriguez,
10:49
Speaker 1: admitted under oath that he was paid $ 50, 000. And the
10:54
Speaker 1: political consultant, Frank Artilles, was convicted on three counts. And
10:57
Speaker 1: it turned out the scheme also had a dark money
11:00
Speaker 1: component to it. It enabled consultants working for the state's
11:04
Speaker 1: power company, Florida Power and Light, to do that. But
11:08
Speaker 1: here's the thing. running the ghost candidate wasn't illegal. The
11:14
Speaker 1: Republican operative was not, Frank Artilles was not convicted for
11:19
Speaker 1: running the ghost candidate. That isn't illegal in the state
11:22
Speaker 1: of Florida. Artilles was convicted over the payments, right? Not
11:28
Speaker 1: the ploy itself. I say that because this is a,
11:33
Speaker 1: in some ways, this is standard. You talk to any
11:35
Speaker 1: political consultant and this is sort of like, Yeah, there's
11:37
Speaker 1: always some sort of shenanigan here. Maybe it's a libertarian candidate,
11:40
Speaker 1: a green candidate, a socialist candidate, a nationalist candidate, right?
11:45
Speaker 1: We've all seen those things. So I throw all that
11:50
Speaker 1: out there to say this. I don't know how much
11:53
Speaker 1: of an impact this is gonna have. I think it's
11:57
Speaker 1: fair to say if Dan Sullivan wins, we're gonna say
11:59
Speaker 1: it had a lot of, that the confirmation that Potello's
12:02
Speaker 1: campaign was involved or Democrats were involved had enough of
12:07
Speaker 1: an impact. If Paltello wins, we'll say, yeah, voters are
12:12
Speaker 1: pretty cynical. They assume everybody's dirty, everybody's corrupt. So they
12:16
Speaker 1: made a choice based on which party that they wanted
12:20
Speaker 1: in charge of the Senate. So I don't want to
12:25
Speaker 1: assume this has zero impact and I don't want to
12:28
Speaker 1: assume this changes everything in this race, but I don't
12:32
Speaker 1: think it's insignificant. You know, And I think that there
12:37
Speaker 1: is a, you know, the Democrats want to portray themselves
12:41
Speaker 1: as the party of good government, as the party of
12:44
Speaker 1: playing by the rules. And I think whenever they get
12:47
Speaker 1: caught not playing by the rules, and this is something
12:51
Speaker 1: I'm going to get on my hobby horse here, that
12:53
Speaker 1: one of my great fears of the second election of
12:55
Speaker 1: Trump was that it was perhaps going to change the
12:58
Speaker 1: Democratic Party more than it would change the Republican Party.
13:02
Speaker 1: And that there was going to be, if you can't
13:03
Speaker 1: beat them, join them, whatever it takes to win. not
13:05
Speaker 1: what it takes, the great book by the late Richard
13:09
Speaker 1: Ben Kramer, but whatever it takes. We live in a
13:12
Speaker 1: whatever it takes mentality right now. We live in a
13:15
Speaker 1: whatever it takes society. And if that's the mindset of
13:18
Speaker 1: most Americans these days, then this story is meaningless, right?
13:22
Speaker 1: It'll be as meaningful as Elon Musk writing $ 500 million
13:26
Speaker 1: checks to prop up one candidate, right? You think in
13:29
Speaker 1: theory that should be an outrage to people, but there
13:32
Speaker 1: is such a cynicism and a expectation that the wealthy
13:36
Speaker 1: in this country think they can buy whatever they want,
13:39
Speaker 1: and that politics is that corrupt and dirty, and that's
13:42
Speaker 1: just what it is. But I wouldn't dismiss this story
13:49
Speaker 1: as not having an impact at all, because I go
13:51
Speaker 1: back to the small state aspect. Look, small state politics
13:57
Speaker 1: are cutthroat. In some ways, it can be more cutthroat
14:00
Speaker 1: than big state politics, because In a big state, there's
14:03
Speaker 1: more observers, i.e. journalists watching everything. And small states are
14:08
Speaker 1: sometimes fewer and it can be nastier and dirtier and
14:13
Speaker 1: more personal and all of those things. So look, you
14:21
Speaker 1: see the glee with which so many Republican operatives are
14:26
Speaker 1: sharing the story because they're just looking for anything to
14:29
Speaker 1: change the narrative at the moment. And it is the
14:32
Speaker 1: the reaction and almost the enthusiasm of the right-wing influencers
14:37
Speaker 1: and the White House operatives that tells me, boy, they'll
14:42
Speaker 1: take anything at this point, right? Anything that might give
14:48
Speaker 1: some independent voter pause about making this election basically an
14:53
Speaker 1: election about Donald Trump. And that's ultimately what it is, right?
14:56
Speaker 1: Is our Alaska voters, is this a referendum on Mary
14:59
Speaker 1: Patello and Dan Sullivan, or is this a referendum on
15:01
Speaker 1: Donald Trump? Now, if this is really a campaign that's
15:05
Speaker 1: a referendum on Donald Trump, then this story is a
15:07
Speaker 1: blip and this story is small. By the way, there's
15:10
Speaker 1: one other aspect to this, because I do think in theory,
15:18
Speaker 1: in the ranked choice voting world, that this story actually
15:20
Speaker 1: has less potential impact or harm Dan Sullivan than if
15:24
Speaker 1: this were just like what the Florida Republicans did with
15:28
Speaker 1: the ghost candidate in the state Senate race that siphoned
15:31
Speaker 1: away votes and There isn't a second chance at that
15:33
Speaker 1: vote in theory. Right. Now, maybe I'm curious if the
15:38
Speaker 1: Sullivan campaign is messaging this. Hey, you know, don't forget rank,
15:43
Speaker 1: you know, and maybe they don't want to do this,
15:45
Speaker 1: but rank Dan Sullivan twice. Right. Vote, vote for both
15:48
Speaker 1: Dan Sullivan's. I wonder if they're having any sort of
15:55
Speaker 1: messaging like that, because it is a way to sort
15:57
Speaker 1: of neutralize this. But of course, Sullivan's name being just
16:00
Speaker 1: on the ballot the first time guaranteed that he took
16:03
Speaker 1: a slot of the top four, which may have always
16:05
Speaker 1: been the point of the dirty trick as it is. Look,
16:14
Speaker 1: it's funny about dirty tricks, right? We know both parties
16:16
Speaker 1: do it. We know everybody engages in it. It's when
16:20
Speaker 1: you get caught, how you get caught, and sort of
16:24
Speaker 1: what voters expected of you. How out of character is it?
16:30
Speaker 1: And I think at the end of the day, that's
16:33
Speaker 1: the open question I have. I'm not going to sit
16:36
Speaker 1: here and presume I know how the Alaska electorate is
16:40
Speaker 1: going to absorb this story. But one thing I do
16:42
Speaker 1: know is true, that in small states, a story, even
16:45
Speaker 1: if it drops this late, is definitely going to make
16:48
Speaker 1: its way. So this idea that maybe people won't know
16:51
Speaker 1: about it in time, I don't think that's true at all.
16:54
Speaker 1: I think in that case, it's true. Hey, one more
16:55
Speaker 1: additional piece of news on Alaska, and that was Before
17:00
Speaker 1: we learned this story that broke in The New York Times,
17:02
Speaker 1: the biggest news out of Alaska was coming from Lisa Murkowski,
17:05
Speaker 1: who decided to endorse the Democrat in the Alaska governor's race.
17:09
Speaker 1: And the language she used seemed to say, hey, she
17:13
Speaker 1: was sending a message more on just the governor's race.
17:15
Speaker 1: She said, be sure to vote for those that have
17:17
Speaker 1: Alaska's interests first. Of course, Mary Patola is a native
17:20
Speaker 1: Alaskan and all of that. All of this comes after
17:25
Speaker 1: Donald Trump just went and attacked her and eviscerated her
17:28
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. So it's interesting. Look, on one hand,
17:35
Speaker 1: it's possible that the dirty trick aspect of this turned
17:40
Speaker 1: some voters off. It's also possible some of those same
17:43
Speaker 1: voters are going to be looking to what Lisa Murkowski
17:47
Speaker 1: has to say. And it will matter, actually, what she
17:50
Speaker 1: says about this story as well. uh, and whether, and
17:56
Speaker 1: it'll be an interesting tell. Does she, does she choose
17:58
Speaker 1: not to comment? Does she say anything or does she
18:01
Speaker 1: not say anything? There's no reason for her to be
18:03
Speaker 1: on the trail. It's not necessarily. So, uh, if she
18:06
Speaker 1: decides to react to the story and to the new,
18:09
Speaker 1: the new time story, uh, it will be a choice. Um,
18:13
Speaker 1: just like it was choice that she decided to endorse
18:15
Speaker 1: the Democrat in the Alaska governor's race. So look, um,
18:22
Speaker 1: Everything Lisa Murkowski is doing at the moment is a
18:26
Speaker 1: reminder of why it's possible Democrats only need three Senate seats,
18:29
Speaker 1: not four. So keep that in mind. This episode of
18:37
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20:55
Speaker 1: another $ 25 instantly. And of course, please remember, trade responsibly.
21:03
Speaker 1: There was one other development that happened in another story
21:06
Speaker 1: that I've been following. Obviously, one I've been following very closely,
21:09
Speaker 1: which is that the Ramaswamy exploitation ad on the trauma
21:15
Speaker 1: that Amy Acton in the Ohio governor's race happened to
21:18
Speaker 1: her when her stepfather was credibly accused of raping her,
21:24
Speaker 1: and then he skipped the state on bond, is that
21:27
Speaker 1: they tracked down, the Daily Mail tracked down Amy Acton's rapist,
21:35
Speaker 1: the stepfather that she said raped her. And they tracked
21:39
Speaker 1: down one of his biological daughters who basically has been re-traumatized.
21:45
Speaker 1: And she just talked about how much that this whole
21:47
Speaker 1: story has re-traumatized her. She talked about how her father
21:52
Speaker 1: raped her sister when she was underage. Her sister's no
21:58
Speaker 1: longer living. She died in her 60s. And it's just,
22:03
Speaker 1: you know, I saw the story and it just got
22:05
Speaker 1: me all upset all over again. Right. That we've that
22:09
Speaker 1: that somebody made this choice. You know, Ramaswami is, I think,
22:16
Speaker 1: going to pay a steep price for this. It's not
22:18
Speaker 1: just the price of losing an election, but I think
22:20
Speaker 1: he's going to be ostracized from mainstream politics, and he
22:26
Speaker 1: should be. You choose to, not without a lot of
22:29
Speaker 1: remorse and a lot of apologies and a lot of regret,
22:31
Speaker 1: and he's yet to do any of it. But somebody
22:38
Speaker 1: tracked this woman down. Ramaswamy didn't. Ramaswamy paid somebody to
22:41
Speaker 1: do it, and somebody chose to do it. Somebody realized
22:44
Speaker 1: that this mother, there's a really gut-wrenching piece to read
22:50
Speaker 1: out of the independent news organization Ceteo. I encourage you
22:55
Speaker 1: to read it. They did a pretty deep dive, sort
22:59
Speaker 1: of like, how did this come to be? How did
23:00
Speaker 1: they find her? Who was the, and got some, you know,
23:05
Speaker 1: all of this is anonymous and understandably because nobody wants
23:08
Speaker 1: to put their name on it, but apparently there were
23:10
Speaker 1: some Republican operatives who were pushing back saying they shouldn't
23:12
Speaker 1: do this, that the biological mother of Amy Acton was
23:17
Speaker 1: not all there. was clearly something wrong this woman was
23:20
Speaker 1: living in her car she didn't even really live in
23:22
Speaker 1: a real location and they chose to do this anyway
23:26
Speaker 1: but what really upset me is the fact that like
23:28
Speaker 1: anybody that has been traumatized by this man this this
23:33
Speaker 1: this uh this man who um amy acton like i
23:39
Speaker 1: said the law enforcement i mean there was a warrant
23:41
Speaker 1: there was a you know for him did this to
23:44
Speaker 1: him and then Anybody else he abused, it turned out
23:48
Speaker 1: he abused others, have been re-traumatized by it. And just
23:53
Speaker 1: the lack of, did you not care? I want to
23:58
Speaker 1: go to the operatives that went down this. Did you
24:02
Speaker 1: not see what you were doing? I mean, I'm glad
24:05
Speaker 1: to know there were a few that spoke up and said, hey,
24:07
Speaker 1: we shouldn't do this. This is wrong. I can't, you know,
24:11
Speaker 1: and that's why it's even grosser to me that the
24:12
Speaker 1: president and the vice president have stuck by this. It's
24:16
Speaker 1: intriguing to me. I do get the sense that Vance
24:19
Speaker 1: realizes this is he's stuck with it. Right. He's stuck
24:24
Speaker 1: with it because he's decided to be a MAGA disciple.
24:27
Speaker 1: And if you're in MAGA world, you know, never back down. Right.
24:30
Speaker 1: That's the never apologize. Never back down. That's the Trump way.
24:34
Speaker 1: That's the MAGA way. You know, it's it's funny. It's
24:38
Speaker 1: like watching Rubio go to the rallies with Trump. He
24:43
Speaker 1: knows the sitting secretary of state shouldn't be doing it.
24:45
Speaker 1: He knows he shouldn't be doing it. So he goes
24:47
Speaker 1: up there and says, like, you know, one sentence, you know,
24:50
Speaker 1: there's a there's a one of the times I met
24:54
Speaker 1: privately with President Trump in his first term. They insisted
24:58
Speaker 1: on a photo. And the photo is like, I didn't
25:02
Speaker 1: really want to take a photo with him. I didn't,
25:04
Speaker 1: you know, need him broadcasting a photo of this. You know,
25:08
Speaker 1: I was doing my job as a journalist. And it's
25:11
Speaker 1: like I physically look like I'm trying to get out
25:14
Speaker 1: of the photo. I didn't realize I was doing it.
25:17
Speaker 1: My wife pointed this out to me once. And it's
25:19
Speaker 1: like that's the feeling I get with both Vance in
25:22
Speaker 1: how he realizes this is what what does he become
25:26
Speaker 1: a part of or a Rubio? What is he becoming
25:28
Speaker 1: a part of and how easily this happens? And I
25:31
Speaker 1: guess you could say actually all three of these stories, right?
25:34
Speaker 1: The Democratic operatives who have who who have decided to
25:38
Speaker 1: fight fire with fire. And it's like if if Trump
25:40
Speaker 1: can cheat, why shouldn't we try to do these things? Or,
25:44
Speaker 1: you know, the never back down mentality that Vance has
25:48
Speaker 1: adopted or, you know, Rubio knowing it's wrong what he's doing,
25:51
Speaker 1: but he's going with it anyway because he'd rather stay
25:54
Speaker 1: in the good graces of the leader of the Republican
25:56
Speaker 1: Party than do what he thinks is right. You know,
26:02
Speaker 1: this is the virus in our politics. Okay. This is
26:07
Speaker 1: the larger virus that's in our politics. It's why I'm,
26:13
Speaker 1: you know, such a skeptic about both parties at the moment.
26:16
Speaker 1: It's why I think we need a disruptive moment against
26:19
Speaker 1: both parties. Both of them need, yes, the moral depravity
26:26
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump is like a thousand times worse. I
26:31
Speaker 1: know some of you don't both sides this, but the
26:34
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is it's more powerful when you
26:38
Speaker 1: win the right way than when you win the wrong way.
26:42
Speaker 1: And for the most part, Democrats are likely to have
26:44
Speaker 1: a pretty good night on Tuesday by simply meeting voters
26:49
Speaker 1: where they are and reminding voters that Donald Trump broke
26:52
Speaker 1: all of his promises. That is politics conducted the right way.
26:57
Speaker 1: That is normal, everyday politics. And, you know, whatever, you know,
27:04
Speaker 1: there's lines you go up against and then there's lines
27:08
Speaker 1: You get tempted to cross and then you do it
27:10
Speaker 1: and then you get caught and then you kind of
27:12
Speaker 1: have regrets. Just think about those moments. To anybody who's
27:16
Speaker 1: an operative listening here, think about these things. One of
27:23
Speaker 1: my closest friends sort of got caught up in political
27:33
Speaker 1: controversy themselves. And it's one of those where it's very hard.
27:38
Speaker 1: I get it. It's very hard to step out and
27:43
Speaker 1: think about the big picture sometimes in a moment that
27:46
Speaker 1: you're in. And sometimes you don't quite see what, you
27:49
Speaker 1: don't really realize that you're in a moment until it's
27:51
Speaker 1: too late. I know most people get involved with politics
27:58
Speaker 1: for the right reasons, not the wrong reasons. But when
28:03
Speaker 1: you get to the point of mercenary, when it's just
28:06
Speaker 1: whatever it takes to win There's this thing, if you're
28:10
Speaker 1: saying the phrase, whatever it takes, check yourself, ask yourself
28:14
Speaker 1: that this should be. Some of you may say, oh,
28:16
Speaker 1: you're being naive. I know politics ain't being bad. And look,
28:24
Speaker 1: I sort of loathe the way we are, but I'd
28:29
Speaker 1: like to think that we're just not gonna continue to
28:31
Speaker 1: define decency down. Like I saw Roger Marshall accused Adam
28:36
Speaker 1: Hamilton of grooming. He just said it matter of factly.
28:39
Speaker 1: I mean, just, just at a, you know, that he
28:42
Speaker 1: was grooming people at his church. That's a, that's a
28:47
Speaker 1: loaded statement. There's like no, you know, just throwing it
28:52
Speaker 1: out there. Like that's, there was a time that if
28:55
Speaker 1: a sitting Senator accused his opponent of grooming people, that
28:59
Speaker 1: might actually be considered like, look, What evidence do you have?
29:03
Speaker 1: That's a stunning charge. Why are you saying this? It
29:05
Speaker 1: would be considered beyond the pale. But, you know, obviously
29:09
Speaker 1: we're so far, Donald Trump has taken us so far
29:12
Speaker 1: past the decency, whatever the decency line that we've sort
29:18
Speaker 1: of lost our mores. But I would say to some
29:23
Speaker 1: of my Republican friends who are outraged or pretending to
29:28
Speaker 1: be outraged about the tactic in Alaska, Number one, did
29:34
Speaker 1: you speak out about what Ramaswamy did? If you did,
29:38
Speaker 1: then you have a little more credibility for me. If
29:39
Speaker 1: you didn't, suck it. All right. You don't, you know,
29:44
Speaker 1: you can sit this one out. And if you've participated
29:49
Speaker 1: in the, you know, the mindset of, well, I don't
29:53
Speaker 1: know if it's true, make them deny it mindset. You
29:56
Speaker 1: do realize every time you go down that road, You
30:01
Speaker 1: just sort of erode the credibility of all politicians and
30:04
Speaker 1: you erode the credibility of the democracy. So, yeah, I know.
30:11
Speaker 1: I've turned this story a little bit into a bit
30:14
Speaker 1: of a moral and ethical tirade. But if you want
30:21
Speaker 1: a better politics, you have to practice it. You can't
30:24
Speaker 1: just keep saying you want a better politics and then
30:27
Speaker 1: not practice it. All right. I want to go through
30:34
Speaker 1: a little bit of how different ways to absorb election night.
30:39
Speaker 1: If you already don't know, Chris Silliza, myself, Jeffrey Skelly,
30:46
Speaker 1: and the Decision Desk HQ crew in a live stream
30:50
Speaker 1: brought to you by CalShe and Newsphere, the terrific news
30:56
Speaker 1: organization that I'm also a part of. We are bringing
30:59
Speaker 1: you election night coverage. Like nobody else can bring it
31:04
Speaker 1: to you. We're going to have a live stream. There'll
31:05
Speaker 1: be an actually an in-person event for invitees in D.C.
31:09
Speaker 1: Those of you that know me and would really like
31:11
Speaker 1: to be be there, you know, you know how to
31:13
Speaker 1: find me. And so please do. I would love to
31:16
Speaker 1: see some of you come down. But we're going to
31:18
Speaker 1: be the essentially the the official election night. broadcast for
31:25
Speaker 1: Decision Desk HQ results. Those of you that are paying
31:30
Speaker 1: them to get results, you're not going to be getting
31:32
Speaker 1: them after us. We'll be doing it at the same time,
31:35
Speaker 1: but you'll be able to see the calls and you'll
31:37
Speaker 1: be able to understand why they haven't made calls in
31:39
Speaker 1: real time. We will be sharing that in some ways
31:42
Speaker 1: you will get insight on the boiler room of the
31:46
Speaker 1: Decision Desk DDHQ team in a unique way that no
31:50
Speaker 1: other broadcast can bring you, nobody else. And there are
31:54
Speaker 1: As you've come to know, they're the best at this
31:58
Speaker 1: and they only get better with every election that we hold.
32:01
Speaker 1: And I don't say every cycle. I mean, every individual election,
32:05
Speaker 1: they get better at finding it, getting it faster and
32:08
Speaker 1: counting and counting the vote faster and doing the best
32:12
Speaker 1: that they can there. So please do that. But I
32:18
Speaker 1: put together, and I'm going to give you a little
32:19
Speaker 1: bit of highlight. I wrote a more extensive piece on
32:22
Speaker 1: both my sub stack and my column that appears on Newsphere,
32:25
Speaker 1: sort of my viewer's guide. So let's say you didn't
32:29
Speaker 1: want to have to stay up till three in the
32:31
Speaker 1: morning to find out what happened. Although if you're listening
32:35
Speaker 1: to my podcast, my guess is you will be up
32:37
Speaker 1: till three, four, five. You may wait until we call
32:40
Speaker 1: Alaska the Alaska at-large house seat, not just the Alaska
32:44
Speaker 1: center race. Dirty little secret because of ranked choice voting.
32:48
Speaker 1: The Alaska Senate race might not get called until the weekend. Okay. But,
32:53
Speaker 1: and if we're waiting on Alaska to decide control of
32:56
Speaker 1: the Senate, I think that tells you a little bit
32:58
Speaker 1: something different about the night. That's for sure. But let
33:02
Speaker 1: me give you sort of how I will early on,
33:05
Speaker 1: and you'll see it in our coverage, but early on
33:09
Speaker 1: some of the early races, early house seats in particular, um,
33:13
Speaker 1: that will be the clues that I'll be looking at,
33:16
Speaker 1: the tea leaves, if you will, that I'll be reading
33:19
Speaker 1: to try to figure out, is this a blue wave?
33:22
Speaker 1: If so, how big is it? First, I will give
33:26
Speaker 1: you one of my, it's a bit morbid, but it's
33:29
Speaker 1: an exercise I enjoy doing that is, I think, worth it.
33:33
Speaker 1: If I went into a coma and woke up the
33:38
Speaker 1: Wednesday after the election, and I was told I could
33:40
Speaker 1: only get the results in one state, which state would
33:43
Speaker 1: it be? Well, for me, it's an easy, it's a
33:45
Speaker 1: no-brainer call. It's the state of Iowa. Iowa, I've been
33:50
Speaker 1: saying this probably for a year now, ever since it
33:54
Speaker 1: was officially an open seat race in the Senate. And
33:59
Speaker 1: that is, you know, you have three House seats that
34:02
Speaker 1: are up for grabs, three swing House seats. You've got
34:04
Speaker 1: an open governor's seat. You've got an open Senate seat.
34:08
Speaker 1: In fact, we haven't had both seats open at the
34:11
Speaker 1: same time in Iowa in the same election cycle, both
34:15
Speaker 1: the Senate and the Gov seat this way, I think
34:18
Speaker 1: since the 60s. So this was a unique, it's a
34:22
Speaker 1: unique moment in Iowa political history. But if I only
34:26
Speaker 1: had the results of one state, I think I could
34:27
Speaker 1: know everything that happened, right? If Democrats win two or
34:31
Speaker 1: three of the competitive House seats, there's two open seats
34:35
Speaker 1: and there's one open seat, the Ashley Hinson seat, and
34:37
Speaker 1: two incumbents, Zach Nunn and Marianne Miller Meeks. one, the
34:41
Speaker 1: districts are one, two and three. The fourth district is
34:43
Speaker 1: also open. That's the Randy Feenstra seat. He left that.
34:47
Speaker 1: He's the congressman that's leaving, ran for governor, lost in
34:50
Speaker 1: the primary. But it's the very it's the conservative seat.
34:53
Speaker 1: It's the northwest Iowa seat. That seat is not in play.
34:57
Speaker 1: All the other three seats are right. The third is
34:59
Speaker 1: the Des Moines seat. And then the first and the
35:01
Speaker 1: second are the eastern. Basically, the eastern half of the
35:04
Speaker 1: state divided in half. One's got Iowa City. One doesn't.
35:08
Speaker 1: That's the basic difference between the two. And if Democrats
35:14
Speaker 1: win two or three, you know, win two or three
35:16
Speaker 1: of those House seats, either all three or two of them,
35:20
Speaker 1: then you know the Democrats have won control of the House.
35:23
Speaker 1: I mean, you could arguably say if they win all three,
35:25
Speaker 1: then they actually mathematically would have enough to actually do this.
35:29
Speaker 1: If you told me they won only the Gov seat,
35:31
Speaker 1: but not the Senate seat, then I would be like, oh,
35:34
Speaker 1: did Democrats come up short in the Senate? That would
35:37
Speaker 1: be my first reaction. But if they won all five,
35:40
Speaker 1: I'd be like, whoa. How big did the wave get?
35:42
Speaker 1: I will assume if they went all three House seats,
35:45
Speaker 1: I assume we're looking at 235 to 240 House seats overall.
35:50
Speaker 1: And if they win the Senate seat, then I know
35:51
Speaker 1: they've won the Senate. I know that, you know, obviously
35:55
Speaker 1: they need four seats, so they need more than just Iowa.
35:57
Speaker 1: But if they've won Iowa, then it means they've won Ohio.
36:00
Speaker 1: It means they've won North Carolina. It means they probably
36:04
Speaker 1: held Michigan. And then at that point, they just need
36:07
Speaker 1: one more to come in somewhere. Is it Maine? Is
36:10
Speaker 1: it Texas? Right. Is it Alaska? We'll see if if
36:17
Speaker 1: Alaska has shifted back into the Republicans direction after the
36:21
Speaker 1: after the October surprise from The New York Times hit.
36:27
Speaker 1: But you see, you see my point there. You know,
36:29
Speaker 1: the Iowa victory pretty much guarantees that. So if you're
36:33
Speaker 1: wanting one state and I think that, you know, if
36:35
Speaker 1: there if if Democrats sweep it and they might. That's
36:40
Speaker 1: not out of the question. They might. They sweep it.
36:44
Speaker 1: Iowa becomes the poster child of the wave. And it
36:47
Speaker 1: was sort of like, you know, that will be where
36:49
Speaker 1: all the after action reports are and everybody will go there.
36:53
Speaker 1: And remember, Iowa was home to more Obama Trump counties.
36:57
Speaker 1: Then the other 49 states combined, counties that flipped from
37:01
Speaker 1: Obama to Trump, all in the eastern half of the state.
37:03
Speaker 1: In fact, Dave Wasserman, the terrific congressional expert at the
37:09
Speaker 1: Cook Political Report, he tweeted on Wednesday an interesting theory
37:14
Speaker 1: that he has. You know, he said, look, 2018, he
37:17
Speaker 1: called it the Whole Foods election, meaning Democrats made all
37:21
Speaker 1: their gains by winning all the suburbs, basically winning people
37:24
Speaker 1: that were already allergic to Trump. And so they won
37:27
Speaker 1: places that they probably should have already had and acquired.
37:31
Speaker 1: This wave, if it ends up happening, means that Democrats
37:36
Speaker 1: will have, that the areas that were lost to Trump
37:40
Speaker 1: and congressional seats one and two in Iowa are the
37:45
Speaker 1: two canaries in the coal mine here, since they had
37:48
Speaker 1: the most Obama to Trump counties, that this is potentially
37:53
Speaker 1: the full-on rejection of, that the The voters, the Democrats
37:57
Speaker 1: lost to Trump, right? The ones that were never into Hillary.
38:01
Speaker 1: They were Obama people, didn't like Hillary. It's why they
38:04
Speaker 1: voted for Obama against Hillary before. They were likely Bernie people.
38:08
Speaker 1: And then they ended up Trump and then stuck with
38:11
Speaker 1: Trump for a while. Is this the election that Democrats
38:16
Speaker 1: get them back? Well, the only way they're carrying Iowa
38:18
Speaker 1: and Ohio is if that's exactly what happened. And remember,
38:22
Speaker 1: both of those were swing states. In 2012 and ended
38:28
Speaker 1: up not looking like swing states by 2016. So it
38:33
Speaker 1: is I think it's an interesting thesis. And this has
38:36
Speaker 1: been one of mine. Right. Is to say this goes
38:38
Speaker 1: to the whole Charlie Cook red undertow. Is this going
38:40
Speaker 1: to be a wave particularly in the red? in the
38:43
Speaker 1: light red states, right? Like your Texas, your Iowas and
38:46
Speaker 1: your Ohios, and then potentially less impactful in the blue states.
38:50
Speaker 1: But I'm less convinced of that. I'm not saying that's
38:54
Speaker 1: not a possibility that this is one of those, like
39:00
Speaker 1: 18 was a wave in blue and purple areas, but
39:01
Speaker 1: not in the red areas of the country. But I'm
39:05
Speaker 1: not seeing that. I don't feel like the same thing.
39:07
Speaker 1: It's just like what happened in 24, where Kamala was
39:10
Speaker 1: very competitive in the purple areas, which is why Democrats
39:13
Speaker 1: held on to all those Senate seats in states that
39:16
Speaker 1: Trump narrowly won. But in the blue states, Trump overperformed
39:23
Speaker 1: left and right. So the question is, are we going
39:26
Speaker 1: to have some sort of divide like that between the two?
39:30
Speaker 1: And I guess I'm I'm less convinced because all the
39:32
Speaker 1: evidence coming in indicates Democrats are fired up everywhere. They're
39:37
Speaker 1: fired up in blue states like Virginia. They're fired up
39:39
Speaker 1: to vote in Florida. They're fired up to vote in Texas.
39:41
Speaker 1: They're fired up to vote in Iowa. Right. There's there's
39:45
Speaker 1: not been you know, but the only place they're not
39:47
Speaker 1: fired up is Michigan. That's where we're seeing where you
39:52
Speaker 1: are seeing. And so I will say this. This is
39:55
Speaker 1: the week that I have started to become more open
40:01
Speaker 1: to the idea that Rogers can win that Senate seat
40:03
Speaker 1: for what it's worth. But anyway, to go back to
40:05
Speaker 1: my election night focus, Iowa, Iowa, Iowa. Right. It has everything.
40:10
Speaker 1: If I only had one state. Now, the downside to
40:13
Speaker 1: election night is I was we we won't start to
40:16
Speaker 1: see some results in Iowa until the 10 o'clock hour.
40:19
Speaker 1: And that defeats my whole purpose of helping you get
40:21
Speaker 1: to bed by 11 p.m. So but that was my
40:24
Speaker 1: coma testing. And there's one other reason why I find
40:28
Speaker 1: Iowa to be a pure test, because I think the
40:30
Speaker 1: Senate race is the purest test of the political environment.
40:35
Speaker 1: And why do I say that? I think Ashley Hinson
40:38
Speaker 1: has been a better than, you know, an above. I
40:40
Speaker 1: think Ashley Hinson and Josh Turek. collectively, I'm trying to
40:44
Speaker 1: think of another competitive state where I'd say, hey, these
40:46
Speaker 1: are A candidates and A campaigns. You know, sometimes you
40:50
Speaker 1: can get A candidates, but you don't get two A campaigns.
40:53
Speaker 1: I think Turek's been an A candidate. I think Hinson's
40:55
Speaker 1: been an A candidate. I think Turek's ran an A campaign,
40:58
Speaker 1: and I think Hinson, in this political environment, has run
41:01
Speaker 1: an A campaign. She's been more aggressive at trying to
41:04
Speaker 1: distance herself from Trump than anybody else in a similar situation, right?
41:10
Speaker 1: She's avoided Trump where she could. And to me, it's
41:15
Speaker 1: her experience running in a swing district, right? She's vacating
41:19
Speaker 1: one of those swing districts in the eastern part of Iowa.
41:21
Speaker 1: And that is, I think, that experience. She knows the
41:26
Speaker 1: swing voter in Iowa better, I think, than some of
41:30
Speaker 1: the other Republicans that we've seen. So my point being,
41:34
Speaker 1: what makes it... If Abdul Al-Sayed loses, we will say
41:39
Speaker 1: it was a candidate issue, not an environmental issue, right?
41:42
Speaker 1: And if Tallarico wins, but Gina Hinojosa loses, we will say, boy,
41:47
Speaker 1: this was a candidate issue for Republicans with Paxton, not
41:50
Speaker 1: an environment issue. Now, look, if Gina Hinojosa wins in Texas,
41:53
Speaker 1: then we'll say, no, no, no, no, this was bigger
41:56
Speaker 1: than just a bad candidate in Ken Paxton. And I
41:59
Speaker 1: will not accept any analysis that says, oh, Ken Paxton
42:02
Speaker 1: dragged Abbott down. That is not the case. That doesn't happen.
42:08
Speaker 1: And I don't buy that. So to go back to
42:12
Speaker 1: why Iowa is my coma, if I were in a
42:15
Speaker 1: coma state, the only result I'd want, or desert island,
42:19
Speaker 1: you could do that with the whole desert island. If
42:21
Speaker 1: you could only get the results of one state on
42:23
Speaker 1: your desert island, which would it be? That's a little
42:26
Speaker 1: less morbid than my coma test. Is that if Ashley
42:33
Speaker 1: Henson wins that seat, we'll say she was able to overperform.
42:37
Speaker 1: She was able to overperform. She ran a good campaign,
42:40
Speaker 1: was able to overperform the environment. If she loses, we'll
42:44
Speaker 1: say it was the environment. Because she's run a good
42:48
Speaker 1: enough race to survive in some ways. One of the
42:53
Speaker 1: other phrases I've used sometimes, you can win a campaign
42:56
Speaker 1: and lose an election. And sometimes you can lose a
42:59
Speaker 1: campaign and win an election. And in wave years, that
43:01
Speaker 1: happens quite a bit. Take Maine. You know, I don't
43:04
Speaker 1: think Troy Jackson's run a winning campaign. That doesn't mean
43:06
Speaker 1: he won't win the election. And so it is, you know,
43:12
Speaker 1: particularly in wave years, the environment can just overwhelm no
43:15
Speaker 1: matter how good of a campaign, no matter how good
43:19
Speaker 1: of a campaign you want versus like, you know, take,
43:21
Speaker 1: you know, take Georgia 2022 in that Senate race. Warnock
43:24
Speaker 1: ran a good campaign. Walker ran a terrible campaign. The
43:27
Speaker 1: environment favored Republicans, but Walker ran such a bad race.
43:32
Speaker 1: Warnock ran a good race that he was able to
43:35
Speaker 1: eke it out, but it did take a runoff, right?
43:37
Speaker 1: That just shows you, I think it's a reminder, frankly,
43:41
Speaker 1: how impressive it appears what Ossoff is putting together in Georgia. Because,
43:45
Speaker 1: you know, yes, the 22 political environment was slightly to
43:50
Speaker 1: the right of certainly the situation we're in now, and
43:52
Speaker 1: you had a Democratic president, et cetera. But the fact
43:57
Speaker 1: that Ossoff doesn't look like he's even remotely getting a
43:59
Speaker 1: scare here, I think tells you a lot about candidate
44:02
Speaker 1: quality on the Republican side, you know, not an A candidate,
44:07
Speaker 1: but an A campaign being run by Ossoff, that's for sure.
44:16
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Speaker 1: All right, so let me go back to how I'm
46:52
Speaker 1: watching election night. It starts with our Indiana and Kentucky,
46:57
Speaker 1: which has Basically, the polls close at 6 p.m. Indiana
47:03
Speaker 1: has parts of the state that are in Eastern Time,
47:05
Speaker 1: parts of the state that are in Central Time. So
47:07
Speaker 1: there are some areas that are 7 p.m. And the
47:10
Speaker 1: first sort of tea leaves that are going to be
47:13
Speaker 1: worth reading are Kentucky's 6th District, Indiana's 5th District, and
47:19
Speaker 1: Indiana's 1st District. So the Kentucky 6th, this is an
47:22
Speaker 1: open seat. This is Andy Barr, the Republican nominee for Senate.
47:25
Speaker 1: He's about to become the next senator. to replace Mitch
47:28
Speaker 1: McConnell in Kentucky. Well, Andy Barr has been the congressman
47:32
Speaker 1: from the sixth district. And there was a time in
47:33
Speaker 1: the 90s, especially when Ben Chandler held the seat back
47:38
Speaker 1: in the day, a Democrat, great-grandson of Happy Chandler, the
47:43
Speaker 1: baseball commissioner, one great or two, I have to check
47:47
Speaker 1: myself on that. I think it's just one. I think
47:48
Speaker 1: he was just the great-grandson. But it was a swing district.
47:54
Speaker 1: When I was covering politics in the 90s, Kentucky 6
47:56
Speaker 1: was always an exciting, the first, anytime you were looking
48:00
Speaker 1: at midterms, you knew, whoa, Kentucky 6, one of the
48:04
Speaker 1: first ones out there. It's one of the first swing
48:05
Speaker 1: districts we get to go. Well, it hasn't really been
48:07
Speaker 1: a swing district in a good decade or so. And
48:11
Speaker 1: it's kind of a deep, it's a Trump double digit district.
48:16
Speaker 1: But it is one of those that I think Dave
48:18
Speaker 1: Wasserman is describing where Blue-collar Democrats who left, who abandoned
48:24
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party for Trump, if they're coming back or
48:28
Speaker 1: if they're not turning out, right, one or the other, well,
48:32
Speaker 1: we can get an early clue in Kentucky 6. So
48:35
Speaker 1: we will have an early clue. And Kentucky counts its
48:37
Speaker 1: vote pretty quickly, and I think we'll have a good
48:39
Speaker 1: idea of what's happening. A Democratic win in Kentucky 6,
48:43
Speaker 1: and I know all of the handicappers have moved it
48:46
Speaker 1: into the toss-up category or toss-up lean are, but barely.
48:53
Speaker 1: This is a pure environmental type of race. This isn't
48:57
Speaker 1: a case where there's super uniquely weak or whatever, strong
49:02
Speaker 1: candidates one way or the other. This is just purely environment.
49:07
Speaker 1: A Democrat win in here, and I think, you know,
49:11
Speaker 1: you start to say to yourself, well, we know Democrats
49:13
Speaker 1: are going to win the House. The question is, how
49:14
Speaker 1: big is the wave going to be? Then you got
49:16
Speaker 1: Victoria Sparks in Indiana's fifth district. Um, look, she is, uh,
49:23
Speaker 1: what's the right way to describe Victoria Sparks? Well, she's
49:27
Speaker 1: comfortable being a thorn in the side of Republican leadership. She's,
49:31
Speaker 1: I guess she'd call her iconoclastic. I don't know. She's,
49:34
Speaker 1: she marches to the beat of her own drummer. Um,
49:39
Speaker 1: But plenty of, there's been some, there's been a lot
49:42
Speaker 1: of chatter that, you know, she's, you know, she's sort
49:45
Speaker 1: of consistently underperformed as a candidate. She's not a traditional politician.
49:49
Speaker 1: Let's just put it that way. But it's still a
49:52
Speaker 1: pretty Republican district that she represents. If it's flipping, and look,
49:57
Speaker 1: it's not a great year for Republicans in Indiana. Looks
50:01
Speaker 1: like the return of the Bayh family, third generation of Bayhs,
50:05
Speaker 1: Bayh running for secretary of state, likely going to win.
50:09
Speaker 1: There's sort of a three-way race here with the former
50:12
Speaker 1: Republican mayor of Indianapolis as the third candidate in the race.
50:15
Speaker 1: I think it's very likely here that Bobai can win
50:18
Speaker 1: a three-way race. And that's a big deal for Indiana
50:22
Speaker 1: Democrats to try to revitalize themselves to get somebody elected statewide.
50:30
Speaker 1: If we're not calling sparts and that looks like a
50:31
Speaker 1: 50-50 race, another tea leaf that tells me we may
50:36
Speaker 1: be going north of 230 House seats for Democrats and
50:38
Speaker 1: getting inching every closer to 235. Now, how about the counter?
50:43
Speaker 1: What if there is polling error? What if Republicans are
50:46
Speaker 1: more fired up than we all think there is? Well,
50:49
Speaker 1: we actually have an early test in Indiana, Indiana's first district,
50:51
Speaker 1: Frank Mervin. This is a district Republicans have been trying
50:55
Speaker 1: to get forever. And in neutral years or lean Republican years,
51:00
Speaker 1: it's always a top target. It's not been a target
51:03
Speaker 1: this cycle. If this race is super close, and uncallable,
51:09
Speaker 1: and we're having to wait and wait and wait, well,
51:12
Speaker 1: then suddenly you got to say, oh, is something, you know,
51:15
Speaker 1: did we miss something? So it's a, not only does
51:17
Speaker 1: Indiana provide us a clue as to whether there's a
51:21
Speaker 1: wave happening, but it also provides us a clue early
51:25
Speaker 1: in that Northwest Indiana district, whether there's an undercount somewhere.
51:30
Speaker 1: At 7 p.m., my adopted home state of Virginia, I
51:35
Speaker 1: say that because I will always say I'm a Floridian,
51:39
Speaker 1: because I'm not a native Virginian. I am a Virginia resident.
51:43
Speaker 1: I'm a native Floridian. But in my adopted home state,
51:47
Speaker 1: we've got a terrific what I call small, medium and
51:49
Speaker 1: large test when it comes to to Democratic chances and
51:54
Speaker 1: what how big, small, you know, or existent, if you will,
51:59
Speaker 1: a Democratic wave in. There are three congressional races that
52:03
Speaker 1: I think represent different categories of of of how big
52:11
Speaker 1: the eventual House majority could be for Democrats after the midterms.
52:17
Speaker 1: The swingiest of the three is Virginia's second congressional district.
52:20
Speaker 1: This is the Virginia Beach seat. This is a weather
52:26
Speaker 1: vane district. Whichever way the wind is blowing, that party
52:29
Speaker 1: usually carries it. It's a pretty evenly divided district. Every
52:35
Speaker 1: once in a while during remaps, attempts are made depending
52:38
Speaker 1: on which party has control of the legislature to try
52:40
Speaker 1: to add a few more Republicans or add a few
52:42
Speaker 1: more Democrats, however it works. But, um, you know, there, there,
52:47
Speaker 1: there's two ways to look at the results in the
52:49
Speaker 1: second district in Virginia. And again, this is 7 PM.
52:51
Speaker 1: So this is stuff and Virginia is a fast counting state.
52:55
Speaker 1: So we're going to get a quick clue as to
52:58
Speaker 1: where the, and remember Virginia has been incredibly prescient when
53:01
Speaker 1: it comes to, um, directionally where American politics is heading,
53:05
Speaker 1: particularly the year before, right? I mean, we have seen
53:09
Speaker 1: the 1994 Republican tsunami was foreshadowed by the Republican sweep
53:11
Speaker 1: in Virginia in 1993. The 2006 wave in the Democrats'
53:15
Speaker 1: favor was previewed by the 2005 success of the Democrats
53:29
Speaker 1: statewide there. 2018, successful midterm for Democrats. It was the
53:34
Speaker 1: Virginia Democrats swept and had huge turnout in suburbs that
53:41
Speaker 1: powered the Democrats then. And it was sort of, not
53:43
Speaker 1: only did you see a similar result in 18, but
53:47
Speaker 1: even how it was done in some ways was copied
53:51
Speaker 1: around the country. It was a suburban revolt against Donald Trump.
53:54
Speaker 1: And even 2022, the narrow Republican A midterm victory where
53:59
Speaker 1: they got back control of the House in some ways
54:01
Speaker 1: was forecasted by the Glenn Youngkin, the Glenn Youngkin victory
54:06
Speaker 1: in Virginia in 2021. So Virginia is an incredible and
54:10
Speaker 1: we saw Virginia had a huge, big Democratic turnout. And
54:15
Speaker 1: I think that we'll likely see that it probably correctly
54:18
Speaker 1: forecasted the political environment that we're in right now. So
54:22
Speaker 1: but these three House seats, Virginia, too, is the swing.
54:25
Speaker 1: This has also got a significant African-American vote. If this
54:30
Speaker 1: is a blowout, by the way, if Elaine Luria is
54:33
Speaker 1: beating Jen Kagan's pretty handily and it's a quick call,
54:37
Speaker 1: that tells you something about the power of the Democratic turnout,
54:40
Speaker 1: particularly African-American turnout. But even just a victory here will indicate, oh,
54:45
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to win the House. We just don't
54:47
Speaker 1: know by how much. Then there's Virginia's first district. This
54:50
Speaker 1: is Rob Whitman. This is a district that one of
54:52
Speaker 1: the few that during the 2024 election actually shifted in
54:55
Speaker 1: the Democrats direction. So this is a district that was
54:57
Speaker 1: already trending their way. And I sort of attribute the
55:00
Speaker 1: competitiveness of this district to this to the blob that
55:03
Speaker 1: is northern for the blue blob. That is northern Virginia.
55:05
Speaker 1: It feels like northern Virginia is encroaching on. Right. It
55:10
Speaker 1: becomes a bigger and bigger part of the state to
55:12
Speaker 1: the point that the blob has merged with the Richmond
55:15
Speaker 1: suburban blob. And it's almost like Northern Virginia is becoming
55:19
Speaker 1: Northern Virginia. Just everything, at least east of 81. And
55:28
Speaker 1: that would be indicative beating Whitman Democrats beating. And this
55:33
Speaker 1: is a target race. So if this is the two,
55:37
Speaker 1: if if Both the first and the second flip, and
55:41
Speaker 1: it's the only two flips in Virginia. I think we're
55:43
Speaker 1: looking at somewhere between 230 and 235 House seats. Then
55:47
Speaker 1: there's the tsunami one, when I say small, medium, and large.
55:51
Speaker 1: Two indicates a Democratic pickup, but the question is maybe
55:55
Speaker 1: it's a narrow majority. Winning one and two means, oh,
55:58
Speaker 1: this is going to be more like 2006. If Democrats
56:02
Speaker 1: win the fifth, this is the one where former Congressman
56:05
Speaker 1: Tom Perriello is trying to win it back against John McGuire. Look,
56:09
Speaker 1: the fifth has Charlottesville in it, but it's a pretty
56:12
Speaker 1: Republican leaning district. Now, when Perriello won the first time
56:17
Speaker 1: he covered and he represented parts of this district, it's
56:19
Speaker 1: not exactly the same district. He won back in 08
56:22
Speaker 1: with Obama. He kind of came in on Obama's coattails.
56:26
Speaker 1: Obama really overperformed in Virginia and he brought along, it
56:30
Speaker 1: was kind of a one-term wonder on that because the
56:33
Speaker 1: district itself in the rural parts is there. But if
56:36
Speaker 1: Democrats are winning this one, if they sweep in these three,
56:39
Speaker 1: For a Democrat to win the fifth, you need a
56:42
Speaker 1: depressed Republican turnout. You know, you don't, you can't, you
56:45
Speaker 1: need energized Democratic turnout and depressed Republican turnout. So that's
56:49
Speaker 1: why I look at that 7 p.m. hour and just
56:52
Speaker 1: those three races and boom. You know, just those three.
56:56
Speaker 1: It's like I said, small, medium and large. You know, one,
56:59
Speaker 1: if they win the second and that's it, Democrats are
57:02
Speaker 1: going to win the House, but they're probably not winning
57:04
Speaker 1: the Senate. They win the first and the second. Senate's
57:07
Speaker 1: definitely in play, 230 to 235 House seats in play.
57:11
Speaker 1: They win the first, second, and fifth. This is a tsunami.
57:17
Speaker 1: And then it means, hey, let's pay attention to another
57:21
Speaker 1: state whose polls close at 7 p.m., and that is
57:24
Speaker 1: South Carolina Senate. And in fact, in the 7 to
57:27
Speaker 1: 9 p.m. hour, assuming we don't quite yet know what
57:32
Speaker 1: those three, if you're looking for more tea leaves to
57:34
Speaker 1: read to sort of either reinforce what we learned from
57:36
Speaker 1: those three congressional districts in Virginia. This is where Florida,
57:41
Speaker 1: you know, Florida counts quickly. And I think there's sort
57:45
Speaker 1: of two ways to look at the Florida results. One
57:48
Speaker 1: is if we're not calling either the GovRace or the
57:51
Speaker 1: Senate race at the top of the hour at 8 p.m.
57:53
Speaker 1: as soon as the panhandle polls close, because we're going
57:59
Speaker 1: to see raw returns come in starting at seven. And then,
58:02
Speaker 1: but there'll be no call And if they can't call
58:09
Speaker 1: it at the top of the hour, particularly Florida Senate,
58:12
Speaker 1: because I think that's the canary here, right? It's because
58:16
Speaker 1: the more competitive Florida Senate gets, the worse the environment
58:20
Speaker 1: really is, right? Because this is not candidate specific. And look,
58:23
Speaker 1: Angie Nixon's been underfunded. And I would argue she's probably
58:26
Speaker 1: ideologically too far to the left to win in Florida
58:29
Speaker 1: under normal circumstances, right? But if we're not calling that race,
58:34
Speaker 1: then something's happening in Florida. It may mean the GovRace
58:39
Speaker 1: is going to go in a way that right now
58:42
Speaker 1: I think most folks view it as a lean R.
58:45
Speaker 1: I think somebody put it in toss-up. I don't think
58:49
Speaker 1: I've seen a single poll that's had Jolly ahead. I've
58:52
Speaker 1: seen polls that have had Donalds only up by one
58:54
Speaker 1: or two, but I don't think I've seen a single
58:56
Speaker 1: poll where I thought Jolly was ahead, where we've seen
58:58
Speaker 1: Jolly ahead. But at 8 p.m. there, right, we're going
59:03
Speaker 1: to watch the returns come in. So we'll already have
59:05
Speaker 1: a good idea. But at 8 p.m., if we're not calling.
59:10
Speaker 1: that's a sign. That's a signal that something is afoot. And,
59:14
Speaker 1: you know, the longer it goes in some of these
59:16
Speaker 1: red-leaning states where calls aren't being made, you know, remember,
59:20
Speaker 1: Democrats aren't going to win red states by three or
59:23
Speaker 1: four points, which means they're callable races with, say, 50
59:27
Speaker 1: to 60 percent of the of the vote counted for
59:31
Speaker 1: our projection purposes. If Democrats are winning South Carolina, for instance,
59:37
Speaker 1: if Annie Andrews is pulling the upset, as I said,
59:39
Speaker 1: it's like 48.7 to 48.2. And if Adam Hamilton is
59:44
Speaker 1: pulling an upset in Kansas, it's going to be probably
59:47
Speaker 1: by less than a percentage point. So the point is
59:50
Speaker 1: that we may have hours between 8 and 11 where
59:55
Speaker 1: all of these competitive races, nothing's getting called. outside of
59:59
Speaker 1: north carolina uh some people are gonna you know i
1:00:04
Speaker 1: actually would view that as a bad sign for the
1:00:07
Speaker 1: gop right um and then if the calls that we
1:00:11
Speaker 1: are making are all tipping in the blue direction that's
1:00:14
Speaker 1: also indicative of something so for the purposes of viewer
1:00:18
Speaker 1: guide material with florida that 8 p.m hour is everything
1:00:21
Speaker 1: right and ditto with south carolina senate um And I'll
1:00:26
Speaker 1: give you one more. Georgia governor is not a result
1:00:28
Speaker 1: I expect until after midnight. Because remember, some states, it
1:00:32
Speaker 1: doesn't matter that polls close at seven. It's when do
1:00:37
Speaker 1: we get the complete vote count? And as we've all
1:00:40
Speaker 1: learned in Georgia, the biggest counties take the longest time
1:00:44
Speaker 1: to report because they have the most vote to process.
1:00:47
Speaker 1: In the case of these, you know, where the Democrats
1:00:49
Speaker 1: have almost all of their vote concentrated in just a
1:00:52
Speaker 1: handful of counties in and around Fulton in Atlanta, it
1:00:57
Speaker 1: means it's going to be late. So I would imagine,
1:01:01
Speaker 1: you know, the only way those races are called is
1:01:04
Speaker 1: if you see underperformance with Republicans in some areas where,
1:01:07
Speaker 1: you know, where suddenly you're like, oh, well, the numbers
1:01:08
Speaker 1: aren't going to add up here. We know what the
1:01:11
Speaker 1: early vote is. And so I could picture an Ossoff
1:01:13
Speaker 1: call fairly early in that sort of, you know, 730
1:01:17
Speaker 1: to 830 window. I do not expect the Georgia governor call. Now,
1:01:23
Speaker 1: that's another way to find if we are able to
1:01:25
Speaker 1: call it and it's called for the Republican Rick Jackson.
1:01:28
Speaker 1: I think that tells you it's a better night for
1:01:30
Speaker 1: Republicans and people realize. But I suspect that this is
1:01:34
Speaker 1: a race that it's not going to be. And if
1:01:36
Speaker 1: you're calling it for for Keisha Lance Bottoms before, say,
1:01:39
Speaker 1: 11 p.m. It's a bigger night, I think, for Democrats overall.
1:01:45
Speaker 1: On that front, nine o'clock hour brings us will bring
1:01:51
Speaker 1: us back to Iowa. But it also, those are the,
1:01:55
Speaker 1: these will be where we, where the tsunami test is put, right?
1:01:59
Speaker 1: I look at three races that I've always said are
1:02:01
Speaker 1: my tsunami test, Kansas Senate, Nebraska Senate, and Texas governor.
1:02:05
Speaker 1: Like I said, Tallarico winning and Hinojosa losing is the
1:02:10
Speaker 1: most likely scenario in Texas. It's the probability, right? Bad
1:02:13
Speaker 1: candidate there, a state that has been slowly trending towards
1:02:17
Speaker 1: the Democrats, but very slowly, you know, each cycle. The
1:02:22
Speaker 1: Democratic floor goes up, which is why I think just
1:02:26
Speaker 1: a four-point scandal penalty for Paxton dooms him. Because Abbott,
1:02:30
Speaker 1: on his best day, isn't going to get north of 52.
1:02:33
Speaker 1: He got 54 in 2022, and that was a good
1:02:35
Speaker 1: Republican year. He's likely to get somewhere at best 52,
1:02:39
Speaker 1: and possibly under that. And therefore, it's neck and neck.
1:02:43
Speaker 1: If in the 9 o'clock hour, we're not close to
1:02:47
Speaker 1: Texas Gov is a knife fight, and we're waiting, and
1:02:50
Speaker 1: it's close. Kansas is not callable. Nebraska is not callable.
1:02:55
Speaker 1: Then you know that the possibility of tsunami is sitting there, right?
1:02:58
Speaker 1: And I look at those three races. If Democrats win
1:03:06
Speaker 1: one of the three, you could probably say it's just
1:03:09
Speaker 1: part of the big wave. They win two of those three.
1:03:13
Speaker 1: Something historic is going on. This is more like 94
1:03:15
Speaker 1: in reverse than it is even in 06. a 2014, right?
1:03:21
Speaker 1: It's more like a 2010 or a 1994. Look, I'm
1:03:27
Speaker 1: not going to sit here. I'm not saying this because
1:03:29
Speaker 1: I think it's probable. I'm saying this because I think
1:03:32
Speaker 1: it's possible. And hopefully, with the advent of prediction markets,
1:03:37
Speaker 1: people are understanding probabilities and possibilities and understanding there's a
1:03:42
Speaker 1: distinction between those two words, right? You know, the probability
1:03:48
Speaker 1: is a Democrat. You know, there's a high probability that
1:03:50
Speaker 1: Democrats win the House. There's a pretty, you know, sort
1:03:53
Speaker 1: of an above 50 percent probability that this is the type.
1:03:57
Speaker 1: Because when you look at the atmospherics, you look at
1:03:59
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's approval rating, the likelihood that Democrats gain at
1:04:04
Speaker 1: least three, if not four or five Senate seats is
1:04:07
Speaker 1: pretty is pretty hot. The probability that they get more
1:04:11
Speaker 1: than that. Now, now we're in the 15, 20 percent range.
1:04:17
Speaker 1: But as I love to say on probabilities, if an
1:04:21
Speaker 1: airplane only had an 80% chance of landing safely, would
1:04:25
Speaker 1: you get on it? If I told you Adam Hamilton
1:04:32
Speaker 1: only has a 20% chance of winning, do you think
1:04:34
Speaker 1: that's a lot or a little? Well, then do my
1:04:37
Speaker 1: airplane test and then you tell me whether that's a
1:04:39
Speaker 1: high probability or a low probability. Anyway. So that's, to me,
1:04:44
Speaker 1: the simple way. Like I said, if your goal is
1:04:47
Speaker 1: to be in bed by 9 p.m. or by 11 p.m.,
1:04:50
Speaker 1: how can you do it and feel fairly confident you
1:04:52
Speaker 1: have an idea of what's going on? Or I'm not
1:04:55
Speaker 1: going to presume. Let's say you're from one side of
1:04:57
Speaker 1: the aisle that doesn't want to watch bad news. Well,
1:05:02
Speaker 1: I've given you, and I'm not going to presume which
1:05:03
Speaker 1: side of the aisle you're coming from, right? If you're
1:05:05
Speaker 1: on Team Red and you see Perriello win in Virginia 5,
1:05:10
Speaker 1: You can turn it all off, go to bed. You know,
1:05:12
Speaker 1: you can just look at the damage report in the morning.
1:05:15
Speaker 1: If you're on team blue and you see that only
1:05:20
Speaker 1: Elaine Luria was and we hadn't called it and you're like, boy,
1:05:23
Speaker 1: that race is really close. Is she going to win
1:05:25
Speaker 1: or not? But Whitman has won and all of that.
1:05:28
Speaker 1: And Republicans held Indiana five and they held Kentucky six.
1:05:33
Speaker 1: And well, then, you know, maybe you want to stay
1:05:36
Speaker 1: up to see what Tallarico does or something like that.
1:05:38
Speaker 1: But you probably can go to bed going, oh, Democrats
1:05:42
Speaker 1: are going to win the House, and that might be it.
1:05:45
Speaker 1: So this is what I thought might be useful for
1:05:49
Speaker 1: some of you. But at a minimum, that is how–
1:05:54
Speaker 1: because we're not going to have exit polls that I'm
1:05:56
Speaker 1: going to find reliable. The networks have gotten completely out
1:06:00
Speaker 1: of the exit poll business. AP does a hybrid of
1:06:03
Speaker 1: an exit poll. It's really just sort of a survey
1:06:07
Speaker 1: of people who say they voted. And look, this is
1:06:11
Speaker 1: no knock on the entities no longer doing exit polls.
1:06:15
Speaker 1: It is now more expensive to do an exit poll
1:06:17
Speaker 1: than ever before. You know, 30 years ago, When everybody
1:06:21
Speaker 1: voted on the same day, you could have people standing
1:06:24
Speaker 1: outside a polling place and survey every 10th person and
1:06:28
Speaker 1: end up with a pretty accurate exit poll finding out
1:06:33
Speaker 1: both who they voted for, how they voted, and why.
1:06:37
Speaker 1: These days, with the variety of ways we have to poll,
1:06:40
Speaker 1: we have to vote, early vote, vote by mail, in-person voting,
1:06:45
Speaker 1: and the fact that... You know, you have we're sort
1:06:50
Speaker 1: of how you choose to vote actually correlates with which
1:06:55
Speaker 1: side of the aisle you usually support. Right. Blue voters
1:06:59
Speaker 1: more likely to vote by mail or vote early. Red
1:07:01
Speaker 1: voters more likely to vote in person. It is you know,
1:07:04
Speaker 1: it's not like you can stand at the at a
1:07:06
Speaker 1: voting precinct and get a and get a fair representation.
1:07:09
Speaker 1: So the point is, it's really expensive to do. It's
1:07:12
Speaker 1: even more expensive than ever to do a good exit poll.
1:07:15
Speaker 1: And so, you know, basically these are just election day
1:07:19
Speaker 1: surveys that AP is doing. That'll be, you know, there'll
1:07:22
Speaker 1: be a lot of interviews. There'll be, you know, I
1:07:24
Speaker 1: think they do 15 or 20,000 interviews. So it's a
1:07:26
Speaker 1: significant survey, but it has to be heavily weighted. And
1:07:31
Speaker 1: I think they're only directionally helpful. I don't think they're
1:07:36
Speaker 1: specifically accurate and we're not going to have really any
1:07:39
Speaker 1: other Do I think there'll be some private exit polls
1:07:41
Speaker 1: that circulate? I do. I think there are going to
1:07:43
Speaker 1: be some people, you know, if you ask me, hey,
1:07:47
Speaker 1: I only have the budget to exit poll one state. Well,
1:07:49
Speaker 1: what state do you think I'm going to tell them
1:07:50
Speaker 1: to exit poll? Iowa, right? Like that. And I wouldn't
1:07:54
Speaker 1: be surprised if some hedge fund who wanted to know
1:07:56
Speaker 1: something before everybody else, you know, I'm not advising any
1:08:02
Speaker 1: hedge funds. But if any of you are listening and
1:08:04
Speaker 1: you want, you know, you think I'd exit poll Iowa.
1:08:08
Speaker 1: Now it's expensive. Good luck. You need to do it
1:08:12
Speaker 1: multiple ways. There's a significant vote, early vote. There's a
1:08:15
Speaker 1: significant vote by mail and there's a significant election day.
1:08:19
Speaker 1: But if you learn what's happening in Iowa, you will
1:08:23
Speaker 1: have a good idea of what's happening in this election.
1:08:35
Speaker 1: All right, now let's do a little Ask Chuck. where
1:08:38
Speaker 1: you guys dictate which tangents and which rabbit holes I
1:08:42
Speaker 1: will go down. All right. This comes from Scott from Milwaukee.
1:08:46
Speaker 1: All right. Hey, as I'm answering this question, the Brewers
1:08:50
Speaker 1: blew it in the 12th. I hesitate to comment too
1:08:55
Speaker 1: much on this because by the time you hear this,
1:08:57
Speaker 1: it's possible the Brewers are already world champs. But if
1:08:59
Speaker 1: they're not I'll know why it happened because the Brewers
1:09:05
Speaker 1: ran out of because the one thing about the Rays
1:09:07
Speaker 1: 12 12 inning victory in game four is that they
1:09:11
Speaker 1: may have at least exhausted the Brewers bullpen for game
1:09:14
Speaker 1: five and if this sucker ends is 3-2 and we're
1:09:17
Speaker 1: going back to Milwaukee When we know where all the
1:09:20
Speaker 1: pressure ends up going on, it ain't on the raise anymore. Look,
1:09:24
Speaker 1: you know what I love about extra innings and what
1:09:27
Speaker 1: I love about non-sweeps? More baseball, right? I don't want
1:09:31
Speaker 1: the season to end, but I do want the Brewers
1:09:34
Speaker 1: to end up winning this World Series for what it's worth.
1:09:36
Speaker 1: But anyway, so I say this because my questioner is
1:09:39
Speaker 1: from Milwaukee and it triggered Scott. He goes, La Chisoree.
1:09:44
Speaker 1: And he said, with our beloved Milwaukee Brewers currently up 3-0. See,
1:09:48
Speaker 1: he wrote this question in before game four. I'm curious
1:09:51
Speaker 1: whether there's any connection between a local sports team's success
1:09:54
Speaker 1: and election results. Does a team's postseason success influence voter
1:09:58
Speaker 1: turnout or even which way people vote? And does the
1:10:02
Speaker 1: sport itself matter given the political leanings of different fan bases?
1:10:05
Speaker 1: Do politicians ever capitalize on that hometown excitement to push
1:10:09
Speaker 1: legislation or advance their agendas? Love the show and go
1:10:12
Speaker 1: Packers and Brewers. All right. The answer to this is
1:10:17
Speaker 1: academics have studied this. So let me tell you about
1:10:21
Speaker 1: this academic study, Scott. It was it was called it
1:10:26
Speaker 1: was by Healy, Malhotra and Moe. You can find it.
1:10:36
Speaker 1: You can wear this in the study was called Irrelevant
1:10:40
Speaker 1: Events Affect Voters Evaluations of Government Performance. And What they
1:10:45
Speaker 1: claim to find was that when a county's local college
1:10:48
Speaker 1: football team won in the 10 days before an election,
1:10:52
Speaker 1: the incumbent party did better in that county by about
1:10:56
Speaker 1: one and a half to two points in Senate, gubernatorial
1:11:00
Speaker 1: and presidential races. The effect was larger for big time
1:11:03
Speaker 1: programs with passionate fan bases and for upset wins. The
1:11:08
Speaker 1: theory is mood spillover. Voters feel good and credit whoever's
1:11:12
Speaker 1: in charge. But it isn't quite clear this is real.
1:11:16
Speaker 1: This study was revisited in 2015. This one was called
1:11:20
Speaker 1: College Football Elections and False Positive Results in Observational Research.
1:11:27
Speaker 1: And they checked predictions that should hold if the mechanism
1:11:29
Speaker 1: were real, such as NFL teams producing the same effect.
1:11:32
Speaker 1: And they didn't find anything. And they concluded that the
1:11:35
Speaker 1: original finding was supposedly a statistical fluke. So look, there
1:11:42
Speaker 1: was one study to claim that in a local, you know,
1:11:45
Speaker 1: that college football, a big win or a big loss
1:11:48
Speaker 1: can affect the mood and it becomes either pro-incumbent or
1:11:52
Speaker 1: anti-incumbent depending on what happens. Two studies, two studies that
1:12:00
Speaker 1: go the opposite direction. Look, my gut is that college football,
1:12:07
Speaker 1: especially in the, you know, now college football, a loss
1:12:10
Speaker 1: doesn't end your season. you know, it wasn't that long
1:12:13
Speaker 1: ago that one loss could enter season. So it had
1:12:16
Speaker 1: a larger mood effect than, um, an NFL team. So I,
1:12:21
Speaker 1: I do think that the mistake that was made was
1:12:25
Speaker 1: that assumption that somehow you don't see the effect with
1:12:28
Speaker 1: NFL teams. You don't. So it's, you might, and I
1:12:34
Speaker 1: think that we need a third try at this and Scott,
1:12:37
Speaker 1: maybe you and I can go fund some academic research
1:12:40
Speaker 1: to do this. Right. Um, Well, where you can try
1:12:47
Speaker 1: to figure to see, because I do think college football,
1:12:51
Speaker 1: and I wonder if it's unfindable now with the 2014 playoff,
1:12:55
Speaker 1: you're going to be able to go nine and three
1:12:57
Speaker 1: in the ACC and get in eight and four in
1:12:58
Speaker 1: the SEC and get in, et cetera. And so maybe
1:13:02
Speaker 1: you won't have the same effect. But like I said,
1:13:05
Speaker 1: there was some attempted academic research on here. And one
1:13:10
Speaker 1: study claimed to have found it, you know, I know
1:13:14
Speaker 1: how I feel. I used to feel after a Miami loss,
1:13:17
Speaker 1: it would take me a week to recover. And I'd
1:13:20
Speaker 1: be in a bad mood. And I do think college
1:13:24
Speaker 1: football affects moods for passionate fans more than the NFL,
1:13:28
Speaker 1: just because you can recover from a loss in the NFL.
1:13:33
Speaker 1: It is harder, especially in the pre-college football playoff era,
1:13:37
Speaker 1: it was much harder. It may be that this is
1:13:40
Speaker 1: an irrelevant attempt to try to figure it. figure out anymore.
1:13:44
Speaker 1: But I think the point is, is that, yes, I
1:13:49
Speaker 1: do think sports can temporarily set a mood within a
1:13:56
Speaker 1: small window, right? And so, like I said, in the
1:14:00
Speaker 1: immediate weekend or week prior to an election, at least
1:14:05
Speaker 1: that's what the one study found. Then another attempted to
1:14:08
Speaker 1: undo it. But the point is that there's been an
1:14:10
Speaker 1: attempt to see whether there's something here I am persuadable
1:14:18
Speaker 1: that there was, and I'm also realistic now that it's
1:14:21
Speaker 1: probably no longer the case. Ted Kaye here from Ohio's
1:14:26
Speaker 1: 1st Congressional District. Ooh, Cincinnati, don't feel bad about your
1:14:30
Speaker 1: Monday Michael McDonald obsession. My wife always knows when What
1:14:34
Speaker 1: a Fool Believes comes on anywhere in our house. If
1:14:36
Speaker 1: Democrats take both the House and Senate... Would there be
1:14:39
Speaker 1: value in bringing the Langford bipartisan border compromise up for
1:14:43
Speaker 1: a vote, especially with so many newly elected Democrats promising
1:14:46
Speaker 1: a different approach and Hispanic voters potentially returning to the
1:14:50
Speaker 1: party without necessarily supporting open borders? Could passing it demonstrate
1:14:54
Speaker 1: the Democrats are serious about border security, put Trump in
1:14:56
Speaker 1: a difficult position politically, and give the party something tangible
1:15:00
Speaker 1: to run on in 2028, even if Jeffries loses some
1:15:03
Speaker 1: support from the left? Ted? You know, I think you
1:15:08
Speaker 1: ought to become an advisor to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.
1:15:10
Speaker 1: I think this is a great idea, you know, is is,
1:15:14
Speaker 1: you know, bring up something and has Republican support. This
1:15:18
Speaker 1: gets at to a larger question of and it's the
1:15:22
Speaker 1: I think I've shared this with you before. I certainly
1:15:24
Speaker 1: share it whenever I'm on the speaking circuit and I'm
1:15:26
Speaker 1: asked this question. You know, I'm I'm more confident knowing
1:15:30
Speaker 1: what's happening on Tuesday than I am about how Democrats
1:15:33
Speaker 1: are going to behave if they do have the two majorities.
1:15:36
Speaker 1: Are you going to have Democrats that want to try
1:15:38
Speaker 1: to pass stuff that Trump might sign? Are you going
1:15:41
Speaker 1: to have a Democratic Party that wants to pass stuff
1:15:44
Speaker 1: that they want Trump to veto in order to build
1:15:47
Speaker 1: a platform for 28? Or do you not want to
1:15:50
Speaker 1: work with Donald Trump at all and focus on accountability
1:15:53
Speaker 1: and just do the minimum and ride it out for
1:15:56
Speaker 1: the two years with Trump? And I think that that's–
1:16:00
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it depends on– A, if
1:16:04
Speaker 1: Democrats get both the House and the Senate, and B,
1:16:08
Speaker 1: whether they're larger majorities. Small majorities make it very difficult.
1:16:14
Speaker 1: Larger majorities make it easier to do these things because,
1:16:17
Speaker 1: as you said, Jeffries can lose some folks. But I
1:16:21
Speaker 1: think it's brilliant. It makes a lot of sense. This
1:16:23
Speaker 1: is sitting out there. I don't see– you're basically calling
1:16:32
Speaker 1: the bluff of the handful of Republicans that like this.
1:16:34
Speaker 1: You don't need, you know, all. So, and I do
1:16:38
Speaker 1: think there's a variety of versions of Trump that could
1:16:41
Speaker 1: show up in February of 27. There's the Trump that
1:16:45
Speaker 1: may decide he's going to go it alone on everything.
1:16:48
Speaker 1: And he does, and he just ignores everything Congress does,
1:16:51
Speaker 1: or there's the guy that hangs out, wants to hang
1:16:52
Speaker 1: out with mom, Donnie. Right. And, and suddenly, you know,
1:16:57
Speaker 1: if Democrats want to, make him look good in signing ceremonies,
1:17:02
Speaker 1: then he would love to do signing ceremonies. I think
1:17:05
Speaker 1: I've shared this with you before, but my favorite test
1:17:07
Speaker 1: on how far are you willing to go to get
1:17:10
Speaker 1: what you want, Democrats, if it means giving Donald Trump credit?
1:17:14
Speaker 1: And my test is, I know this would be true.
1:17:18
Speaker 1: If the District of Columbia promised to name the state,
1:17:23
Speaker 1: the 51st state, after Trump, he would support D.C. statehood.
1:17:29
Speaker 1: How badly do you want it? Anyway, something to think about.
1:17:36
Speaker 1: John from the Florida Panhandle here. Hey, John, longtime listener
1:17:38
Speaker 1: since the MTP 1947 podcast days. Very nice. And potentially
1:17:43
Speaker 1: a first time question asker. No more potentially. And hey,
1:17:48
Speaker 1: I'm an adopted panhandler. So it is it is it
1:17:51
Speaker 1: is it is nice to see you, neighbor. With so
1:17:53
Speaker 1: many polls flooding my Twitter feed and the controversy surrounding
1:17:56
Speaker 1: the Wedgwood fake polling, how can the average person distinguish
1:17:59
Speaker 1: a credible poll from a bad one? What should we
1:18:02
Speaker 1: look for in polling methodology, weighting, and likely versus registered
1:18:06
Speaker 1: voter screens, especially when evaluating unfamiliar pollsters alongside established names
1:18:11
Speaker 1: like Fox News, NBC, New York Times, CNN? Thanks a bunch.
1:18:14
Speaker 1: And even though I'm a Gator fan, I'm pulling for
1:18:16
Speaker 1: the Hurricanes to succeed until we meet again, of course. Well,
1:18:19
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I have I have softened on the Gator.
1:18:23
Speaker 1: I certainly want Florida to beat Texas and Alabama and
1:18:29
Speaker 1: Ole Miss these days. So, you know, a little. I
1:18:33
Speaker 1: haven't softened that much. Softened a lot more on Florida
1:18:35
Speaker 1: State for obvious reasons. When you marry a Noel, you
1:18:37
Speaker 1: got to soften up a little bit. Well, like I said,
1:18:44
Speaker 1: I'm sort of a bit old school here. Um, I mean,
1:18:51
Speaker 1: if information is missing, right. You know, the basic information
1:18:54
Speaker 1: you want to know is when was the poll conducted?
1:18:57
Speaker 1: What methodology did they use? And if you can't find
1:19:01
Speaker 1: how they did it, right. Was it, was it, um,
1:19:06
Speaker 1: IVR technology and what's IVR means it's an automated person
1:19:11
Speaker 1: called phones and the respondents pressed one, pressed two, pressed
1:19:15
Speaker 1: three for their different choices, right? It wasn't a live caller.
1:19:19
Speaker 1: Then there's live caller or was it text to web?
1:19:22
Speaker 1: If they're not telling you, and by the way, if
1:19:24
Speaker 1: they're only using one mode to try to get their sample,
1:19:28
Speaker 1: meaning they only did live telephone callers or they only
1:19:32
Speaker 1: did automated telephone callers or they only did text to web,
1:19:36
Speaker 1: Just ignore those polls, right? But if you have a
1:19:39
Speaker 1: hard time even finding how they did the methodology, just
1:19:42
Speaker 1: ignore it. Just throw it away. As I've said with
1:19:46
Speaker 1: the statewide polling, I really only deep dive into New
1:19:50
Speaker 1: York Times-Siena, the Fox News polls. This is on the
1:19:54
Speaker 1: state level polls. The Fox News polls, New York Times-Siena, AARP,
1:20:01
Speaker 1: and the Cook Report. has been doing a handful of polls.
1:20:05
Speaker 1: I know, you know, they're using a bipartisan team. Those
1:20:10
Speaker 1: are extensive multi-mode, modal ways that they try to get
1:20:15
Speaker 1: their sample and they use, because it's, you know, younger people,
1:20:18
Speaker 1: you need text to web. Older people, the telephone is fine.
1:20:22
Speaker 1: Rural folks, you've got to make sure it was, you definitely,
1:20:25
Speaker 1: you know, multiple tries, you know, what was the response rate?
1:20:29
Speaker 1: The more information a pollster will give about the poll,
1:20:33
Speaker 1: the more credible I'll find it. And the harder it
1:20:37
Speaker 1: is to find out when did they conduct it? Was
1:20:39
Speaker 1: it likely voters are registered? If they're not volunteering some
1:20:44
Speaker 1: of the basic information, if you've got to dig around,
1:20:47
Speaker 1: if it's all not there, then it's not worth seeing.
1:20:51
Speaker 1: You know, the handful of brand names. And by the way,
1:20:53
Speaker 1: this is another thing. A lot of people will misrepresent
1:20:57
Speaker 1: a good poll on Twitter. So I'd just be a
1:21:03
Speaker 1: little leery. I'd like to think if you follow me
1:21:07
Speaker 1: and I retreat a poll, it'll be a poll that
1:21:10
Speaker 1: I think is legitimate. Now, look, Marist, Quinnipiac, they're not bad.
1:21:19
Speaker 1: They don't have the financial resources to go out. to
1:21:24
Speaker 1: do a more thorough way, which it's just so costly
1:21:27
Speaker 1: now to do a good poll. It's why there's not
1:21:29
Speaker 1: that many out this week, right? Normally, you know, back
1:21:32
Speaker 1: in my old hotline days, the 10 days, you know,
1:21:37
Speaker 1: the last 10 days, we were probably getting 10 polls
1:21:40
Speaker 1: a day out, but there was only, you just needed
1:21:43
Speaker 1: one method. You just needed landlines. You just needed telephones,
1:21:46
Speaker 1: you know, and then it was just landlines and cell phones.
1:21:48
Speaker 1: And that was still pretty reliable. Now, when you have
1:21:51
Speaker 1: to probably need three or four different modes in order
1:21:53
Speaker 1: to contact people, that just adds to the cost. And
1:21:56
Speaker 1: many of these universities don't have the budget for that.
1:21:58
Speaker 1: Many news organizations won't spend more. Like I said, the
1:22:04
Speaker 1: one NBC national poll costs $ 50, 000 just for a thousand
1:22:11
Speaker 1: person sample that is correct. That's how much a really
1:22:15
Speaker 1: good poll. And I promise you some of these, they're
1:22:18
Speaker 1: spending five grand, six grand, seven grand You know, the
1:22:23
Speaker 1: cheaper the cost of the poll, the less reliable it's
1:22:27
Speaker 1: going to be. So I don't have a hard and
1:22:30
Speaker 1: fast rule, but I'd stick to the brand names that
1:22:34
Speaker 1: I told you about. But if you're still not sure, it's,
1:22:39
Speaker 1: you know, you want to know the dates. Do they
1:22:42
Speaker 1: tell you as registered voters or likely voters? What was
1:22:45
Speaker 1: the mode that they contacted the voters? Do they admit
1:22:48
Speaker 1: that information? And if they're not telling you that information,
1:22:51
Speaker 1: there's a reason. How big is this sample? I don't,
1:22:57
Speaker 1: you know, if it's 400 or, you know, if it's
1:23:00
Speaker 1: under 600, I'm not interested. You know, at a minimum,
1:23:04
Speaker 1: at a mid-size to small state, 600 to 800 total
1:23:08
Speaker 1: respondents is acceptable. A state the size of Texas, minimum 1,000.
1:23:16
Speaker 1: State the size of Ohio, minimum 800. So how many
1:23:24
Speaker 1: respondents were in the poll? But it's the harder it
1:23:29
Speaker 1: is to find, and who paid for it, right? If
1:23:31
Speaker 1: you've never heard of the pollster, who paid for it?
1:23:33
Speaker 1: Why did they do it? Who did they do it for?
1:23:35
Speaker 1: If you can't find that, that should be troubling. And
1:23:41
Speaker 1: that should be a yellow flag. Look, many of these
1:23:46
Speaker 1: polls can direct, like, I'll give you one. And I'm
1:23:51
Speaker 1: highly skeptical of Insider Advantage. Their numbers never look off.
1:23:57
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're almost perfect to the average. I mean, it
1:24:01
Speaker 1: seems like Insider Advantage, tell me what the real clear
1:24:05
Speaker 1: politics average is and somehow Insider Advantage polls will all
1:24:08
Speaker 1: meet it when they have. You know, ask yourself, hmm,
1:24:12
Speaker 1: you have a budget to poll in eight or nine states?
1:24:15
Speaker 1: Who gave you that budget? Look, there's some places where
1:24:19
Speaker 1: there's a good pollster in that state. And if that's
1:24:22
Speaker 1: the only thing they do, I do trust that pollster. Marquette.
1:24:25
Speaker 1: Marquette's Wisconsin poll is terrific. Charles Murray does that poll.
1:24:29
Speaker 1: It's just terrific. Charles Franklin, excuse me. Charles Murray is
1:24:32
Speaker 1: another academic. Charles Franklin. Just a terrific poll, and I
1:24:36
Speaker 1: trust the Marquette poll in Wisconsin, and you should too.
1:24:39
Speaker 1: There are some Michigan-specific pollsters, Epic MRA, Mitchell & Associates.
1:24:44
Speaker 1: They've been doing it a long time, so I'm always curious.
1:24:47
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're spending the money that I
1:24:49
Speaker 1: think is necessary to do a good one, but if
1:24:52
Speaker 1: they're local of the state, Mason Dixon has been conducting
1:24:56
Speaker 1: polls in Florida, South Dakota, Minnesota, for as long as
1:24:59
Speaker 1: I've been doing this professionally. So I trust Mason-Dixon polls
1:25:04
Speaker 1: and my friend Brad Coker over there, particularly in Florida. Guys,
1:25:08
Speaker 1: I wish there were one more poll from you, Brad,
1:25:13
Speaker 1: out of Mason-Dixon. I'd like to see if we're missing
1:25:16
Speaker 1: something here. But he understands the demographics of the state.
1:25:20
Speaker 1: Pollsters that conduct polls in the state that they live
1:25:24
Speaker 1: in usually know how to weight their polls better. So
1:25:29
Speaker 1: those are all the ways. I mean- And like I said,
1:25:32
Speaker 1: I wish I could give you a checklist to say
1:25:34
Speaker 1: this makes a poll good or bad. And I don't
1:25:39
Speaker 1: want to be dismissive of pollsters I've not heard of
1:25:41
Speaker 1: that may be working really hard. But I will say this.
1:25:47
Speaker 1: If you're a pollster listening to this and I didn't
1:25:49
Speaker 1: mention your poll and you really think you've got a
1:25:50
Speaker 1: good methodology, shoot me an email. Chuck at thechuckpodcast.com. That's
1:25:56
Speaker 1: my email. Chuck at thechuckpodcast.com. The email comes to me. Okay.
1:26:01
Speaker 1: Not to some, some ghost machine or anything. It comes
1:26:04
Speaker 1: to me, not to my producer, Naysa, but to me,
1:26:08
Speaker 1: I will see it and make your case. Uh, and,
1:26:11
Speaker 1: and tell me, and I try to do that when
1:26:13
Speaker 1: I see a new pollster show up, that looks like they're,
1:26:16
Speaker 1: I actually try to call them up and find out more.
1:26:18
Speaker 1: Tell me how long you've been doing this, et cetera.
1:26:21
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, it's like Bill, it's like source building. Right. Um,
1:26:28
Speaker 1: And then over time, you notice patterns with certain pollsters. Like,
1:26:31
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like Quinnipiac, you know, I think
1:26:34
Speaker 1: they're always a little bit off on the electorate, but
1:26:37
Speaker 1: it's always in the same direction. Take Mark Penn. He's
1:26:41
Speaker 1: in charge of this Harvard-Harris national poll. It's always an outlier,
1:26:44
Speaker 1: but it's consistently an outlier. So in some ways, it's
1:26:48
Speaker 1: just like Rasmussen, always a right-wing outlier, but consistently one.
1:26:53
Speaker 1: So sometimes if at least you're consistently outlier and consistently
1:26:57
Speaker 1: outlying in the same direction, well, then when you move,
1:27:01
Speaker 1: that becomes interesting. So there are different ways that I'll
1:27:05
Speaker 1: look at a poll and learn something from it, even
1:27:08
Speaker 1: if I don't take that individual poll to the bank,
1:27:10
Speaker 1: if I at least think the pollster is consistent with
1:27:12
Speaker 1: their methodology. And that matters too. It was probably a
1:27:16
Speaker 1: lot more information than you wanted because you're just sitting there, dude,
1:27:19
Speaker 1: I just want to know which polls can I believe
1:27:21
Speaker 1: and which ones shouldn't I believe. Here's one more thing
1:27:24
Speaker 1: to keep in mind. States like Kansas, Texas even, it's
1:27:32
Speaker 1: been a while since there's been a lot of polling
1:27:35
Speaker 1: going on. So sometimes when an electorate is on the
1:27:40
Speaker 1: move and you don't have a good historical sort of
1:27:43
Speaker 1: baseline to wait from, that's a really hard state to poll.
1:27:50
Speaker 1: And I think the fluidity of the Texas electorate is
1:27:56
Speaker 1: upped the ante on the challenge for polling in Texas,
1:28:03
Speaker 1: for what it's worth. All right. Polling lecture over. Appreciate
1:28:08
Speaker 1: the question there, John. Thank you. All right, Nancy comes in.
1:28:18
Speaker 1: He goes, I've followed you since the Meets Press days
1:28:20
Speaker 1: and as a Packers fan since 1967. I appreciate your
1:28:24
Speaker 1: football loyalty, although as a proud University of Florida alum, man,
1:28:27
Speaker 1: back-to-back Gators. Jesus. We'll have to disagree on college football.
1:28:31
Speaker 1: I love my Gators as much as you love your Hurricanes,
1:28:32
Speaker 1: but how do you justify Miami's number one ranking when
1:28:35
Speaker 1: they haven't played a ranked opponent all season and nearly
1:28:37
Speaker 1: lost to Florida State while Florida has beaten two? highly
1:28:40
Speaker 1: ranked teams, I know my Gators don't deserve to be
1:28:43
Speaker 1: ranked much higher, but shouldn't strength of schedule count for something?
1:28:46
Speaker 1: Thanks for all the political insight and education over the years.
1:28:49
Speaker 1: Much appreciated, Nancy. Nancy, I can't sit here and tell
1:28:51
Speaker 1: you that Miami's earned the number one ranking yet. Do
1:28:54
Speaker 1: I think Miami's going to be the number one ranked
1:28:55
Speaker 1: team by the end of the season? I do. I
1:28:57
Speaker 1: think when I've when you all said and done. And I,
1:29:01
Speaker 1: you know, the question is how much should I, how
1:29:03
Speaker 1: much should last season matter? Well, it depends on how
1:29:07
Speaker 1: many players you have returning. And Miami has plenty of,
1:29:10
Speaker 1: you know, all their coordinators returning and a decent chunk
1:29:13
Speaker 1: of their defense returning. And certainly Miami, the most important
1:29:16
Speaker 1: offensive player returning in Malachi Toney. And you look at
1:29:20
Speaker 1: sort of how the balance of offense and defense versus
1:29:23
Speaker 1: what we've seen out of Ohio State, what we've seen
1:29:25
Speaker 1: out of Georgia, what we've seen out of Texas, what
1:29:27
Speaker 1: we've seen out of your team, Florida, which I believe
1:29:30
Speaker 1: you guys are still looking for a defense. So I
1:29:35
Speaker 1: do think Miami eventually is going to win. And look,
1:29:37
Speaker 1: you know, last year, nobody wanted to believe that Miami,
1:29:40
Speaker 1: you know, was Miami a playoff team or not. And
1:29:42
Speaker 1: then once we got in and we proved, oh, no,
1:29:44
Speaker 1: we're we're I think we were 3-0 against the SEC
1:29:48
Speaker 1: last season, including, I believe, beating Florida. But we were
1:29:52
Speaker 1: undefeated against the SEC. And we lost one game against
1:29:58
Speaker 1: the Big Ten. And won one game against. We played
1:30:03
Speaker 1: the two best Big Ten teams one-on-one. And we played
1:30:10
Speaker 1: two of the three best SEC teams. We didn't play Georgia.
1:30:14
Speaker 1: And we went 2-0. And then you were our third victory.
1:30:17
Speaker 1: I know you don't want me to remind you of that.
1:30:19
Speaker 1: I know, son but Billy, etc. So I accept the
1:30:24
Speaker 1: premise that we haven't earned the ranking yet. But I
1:30:28
Speaker 1: will go off of something I ranted about earlier, which
1:30:30
Speaker 1: is Miami didn't get any credit for its Wake Forest win.
1:30:34
Speaker 1: In fact, everybody's like, oh, Miami kind of... And it's like, oh,
1:30:37
Speaker 1: it turns out Wake Forest is pretty good. And Wake
1:30:40
Speaker 1: Forest is slightly, they're finally getting ranked to where I
1:30:44
Speaker 1: think they belong, but they've been under-ranked simply because they
1:30:47
Speaker 1: were in the ACC. Six and one Kentucky gets all
1:30:51
Speaker 1: sorts of credit. Six and one Wake Forest didn't get
1:30:53
Speaker 1: any of the credit. So just like we're watching here,
1:30:56
Speaker 1: the Big 12 beating each other up in conference, oh,
1:31:00
Speaker 1: they're only going to get one team in the playoff.
1:31:02
Speaker 1: SEC beating each other up, oh, they're proven they need
1:31:05
Speaker 1: four teams in the playoff. My point is, is that
1:31:08
Speaker 1: perception is driving this, right? And preseason perception and expectations. So,
1:31:14
Speaker 1: and it goes back to, if you've beaten a top
1:31:17
Speaker 1: five team, but they're not in the top five by
1:31:19
Speaker 1: the end of the year, did you beat a top
1:31:20
Speaker 1: five team? And, you know, it goes to UCLA's victory
1:31:27
Speaker 1: over Oregon. How good does that look now? Or I'll
1:31:31
Speaker 1: give you another one. Oklahoma State's victory over Oregon. How
1:31:34
Speaker 1: good does that look now? So, look, we're getting better,
1:31:44
Speaker 1: at least getting to the point where we're going to
1:31:46
Speaker 1: figure this out. And the playoff has helped. I think
1:31:48
Speaker 1: Miami proved itself last year. And so knowing what you know,
1:31:53
Speaker 1: those data points are not absent. I think if Miami
1:31:56
Speaker 1: hadn't performed well in the college football playoff, they would
1:31:58
Speaker 1: not have been elevated to number one after everybody lost
1:32:01
Speaker 1: in front of them. But there's something to be said
1:32:04
Speaker 1: that you hang on even when you play a bad game.
1:32:08
Speaker 1: winning a game you're not supposed to win in some
1:32:11
Speaker 1: ways is usually necessary to win the national title. I'm
1:32:17
Speaker 1: a believer in that. And I also think, look, I
1:32:20
Speaker 1: have this premonition. I think it's going to be Miami
1:32:23
Speaker 1: and LSU in the national title game. Now, I'm not 100%
1:32:27
Speaker 1: sure LSU gets into the playoff, but I know now
1:32:30
Speaker 1: that if they get in the playoff, I think they're
1:32:32
Speaker 1: Miami from last year. I'd like to think we can become,
1:32:36
Speaker 1: we could be the Indiana, you know, and I think
1:32:40
Speaker 1: there's nobody. The most lethal offensive combination in the country
1:32:44
Speaker 1: belongs to Miami. And so I'm certainly bullish on where
1:32:52
Speaker 1: we end up, but I think it's fair. You're not wrong.
1:32:55
Speaker 1: But hey, we haven't asked the bed yet. Let's just
1:32:59
Speaker 1: hope I don't ask the bed. I don't ask the bed.
1:33:02
Speaker 1: and make this answer that I'm giving you look even
1:33:06
Speaker 1: more ridiculous come Saturday night in Chapel Hill. All right,
1:33:11
Speaker 1: last question. This is a little more political. This comes
1:33:13
Speaker 1: from Adam B., West Virginia, 2nd District. Hey, just wondering,
1:33:16
Speaker 1: when the Trump presidency is done, whose tell-all book are
1:33:19
Speaker 1: you most looking forward to reading? My vote is Marco Rubio.
1:33:23
Speaker 1: I would love to know his inner thoughts about working
1:33:26
Speaker 1: in the second Trump cabinet. If you think he will
1:33:28
Speaker 1: even write one, love every one of your episodes. Well, thanks. Well,
1:33:32
Speaker 1: can I make a– I am not interested in reading
1:33:35
Speaker 1: a single Trump tell-all book until Trump passes on. While
1:33:44
Speaker 1: Trump is alive, nobody is going to do the tell-all.
1:33:50
Speaker 1: It is the first book, the comments, what everybody has
1:33:56
Speaker 1: to say after he is no longer– After he ages
1:34:03
Speaker 1: out of voting. And that's when I will believe a
1:34:09
Speaker 1: tell-all book. I don't think Rubio will ever write that book.
1:34:13
Speaker 1: Rubio's still got a career in front of him. My bet?
1:34:22
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the tell-all book I would read. I
1:34:24
Speaker 1: don't know if he'll ever write it. It would be
1:34:27
Speaker 1: Chris LaCivita. So Chris LaCivita has been a Republican operative.
1:34:33
Speaker 1: He became a bit nationally known because he was the
1:34:37
Speaker 1: political consultant behind the Swift Boat ads that were credited
1:34:44
Speaker 1: with sort of hurting John Kerry's candidacy back in 2004.
1:34:49
Speaker 1: That's when he first– I've known Chris a long time.
1:34:53
Speaker 1: I think he's always felt a bit over-demonized for those ads. Um,
1:35:01
Speaker 1: but he never makes apologies for it. He's kind of a, uh,
1:35:04
Speaker 1: he's a ruthless consultant, smart. Uh, you know, I think
1:35:10
Speaker 1: sometimes as a, whatever it takes consultant, um, which is,
1:35:14
Speaker 1: I think a little, you know, but he's a former Marine, uh,
1:35:17
Speaker 1: and he thinks that way. His brother has amazing restaurants,
1:35:21
Speaker 1: by the way, uh, including a couple here. He started
1:35:23
Speaker 1: in Arlington brothers, a terrific chef, but Chris has seen
1:35:28
Speaker 1: some stuff. But it's the tell-all book about American politics
1:35:34
Speaker 1: through his eyes. Going back, you know, from 2000, he
1:35:38
Speaker 1: was the key figure in George Allen's campaigns. Like I said,
1:35:42
Speaker 1: sort of did Swift Boat, was brought in to save
1:35:45
Speaker 1: Pat Roberts back in 2014, right? Was brought in basically
1:35:48
Speaker 1: to rescue Trump in 2021, 2022. So, you know, he's
1:35:55
Speaker 1: the one, put it this way, he's the one I
1:35:57
Speaker 1: want on Truth Serum. I want to just hear it all.
1:35:59
Speaker 1: I want to know everything. Um, after him, it would
1:36:03
Speaker 1: be Susie Wiles, but I want both the Florida, I
1:36:07
Speaker 1: want Florida chapters and I want Trump chapters because I
1:36:10
Speaker 1: want some DeSantis chapters with her as well. Um, I'd
1:36:16
Speaker 1: like Doug Burgum's explanation for what he, why, you know,
1:36:19
Speaker 1: why he told me he's somebody he'd never do business with. And,
1:36:22
Speaker 1: and I want to know the full story. Did, did, um,
1:36:28
Speaker 1: did he offer a hundred million dollars for a super
1:36:30
Speaker 1: PAC to get If he was named running mate, that
1:36:33
Speaker 1: was always one of the rumors out there that there
1:36:36
Speaker 1: was some promise, some amount of money that was necessary
1:36:39
Speaker 1: to at least get the cabinet post that he won.
1:36:42
Speaker 1: I don't think we'd ever hear the truth about any
1:36:44
Speaker 1: of those things until after the former president is aged
1:36:48
Speaker 1: out of voting. So the point is, is that there's
1:36:52
Speaker 1: quite a few people I'm intrigued by, and I just
1:36:54
Speaker 1: don't think any of them will write the book you're
1:36:57
Speaker 1: looking for. Yeah. Until after he's no longer around to
1:37:04
Speaker 1: tweet back. All right. Let's look ahead Saturday. And it's
1:37:10
Speaker 1: to say I'm nervous a little bit about the Chapel
1:37:12
Speaker 1: Hill game, that the fact that ESPN decided they wanted
1:37:14
Speaker 1: to put the number one team in primetime. I get it.
1:37:18
Speaker 1: Let's just say I wish we were. This is a
1:37:20
Speaker 1: case where I wish Miami was the noon game or
1:37:22
Speaker 1: the 3.30 game. Road conference games at night are trap games.
1:37:28
Speaker 1: So I am petrified. of this game against North Carolina.
1:37:34
Speaker 1: They have no business holding Miami's jockstrap in this game,
1:37:37
Speaker 1: and yet it's a road conference game at night, right?
1:37:42
Speaker 1: There's a few nightmare games I remember when Miami first
1:37:48
Speaker 1: joined the ACC with losing stupid games to North Carolina,
1:37:54
Speaker 1: the long field goals out of nowhere and stuff like this.
1:37:58
Speaker 1: There was a time it felt like Miami didn't do so.
1:38:01
Speaker 1: The North Carolina was a little bit of a– the
1:38:05
Speaker 1: way Georgia Tech turned into sort of this– just this–
1:38:09
Speaker 1: one of these blind spot games. BC was that way
1:38:11
Speaker 1: for us for a while in these different rotations. I'm
1:38:14
Speaker 1: hoping that we're sort of out of the North Carolina
1:38:18
Speaker 1: being a– but, you know, this is a– you know,
1:38:21
Speaker 1: this is a great test for the Miami coaching staff, right?
1:38:25
Speaker 1: Do they have– and and sort of the, you know,
1:38:28
Speaker 1: what kind of chip on their shoulders does the team have?
1:38:31
Speaker 1: You know, do they want, do they, do they want
1:38:34
Speaker 1: to know that there's a lot of people like Nancy
1:38:38
Speaker 1: emailing to me, Miami doesn't deserve to be number one.
1:38:41
Speaker 1: You know, do they, do you say that over and over?
1:38:43
Speaker 1: Hopefully I haven't thought about the Notre Dame game yet.
1:38:45
Speaker 1: I don't know how you don't, but you know, it's
1:38:47
Speaker 1: sitting there, it's out there. but of course Notre Dame
1:38:50
Speaker 1: cares more about the Miami game than Miami cares about
1:38:52
Speaker 1: the Notre Dame game this year. And because Notre Dame
1:38:53
Speaker 1: lost to BYU, suddenly the Miami game is their season, right?
1:38:57
Speaker 1: You've got a lot. Um, my, uh, my new friend,
1:39:02
Speaker 1: Tim Murray, who, uh, runs a terrific podcast on the
1:39:05
Speaker 1: Beeson network, a big Notre Dame fan. And he and
1:39:08
Speaker 1: I've been, uh, um, uh, reaching, reaching out to each other,
1:39:13
Speaker 1: chit chatting a little bit. And, um, He's convinced that
1:39:18
Speaker 1: if Notre Dame loses that, that they may not make the–
1:39:20
Speaker 1: even 10-2 Notre Dame with two losses to BYU and Miami,
1:39:25
Speaker 1: that they don't make the college football playoff. Meanwhile, my son,
1:39:28
Speaker 1: the SMU fan, obviously the Wake Forest game is going
1:39:34
Speaker 1: to be for the number– essentially the number two slot
1:39:37
Speaker 1: in the ACC. But SMU goes to Notre Dame two
1:39:40
Speaker 1: weeks later. That to me– so obviously SMU wants Miami.
1:39:47
Speaker 1: I think they want Notre Dame to beat Miami so
1:39:49
Speaker 1: that if they beat Notre Dame, it's a big deal
1:39:52
Speaker 1: on that front. But I do think Notre Dame's mindset
1:39:57
Speaker 1: that losing to BYU made the Miami game a bigger deal. Miami, obviously,
1:40:01
Speaker 1: it's not a conference game. So in theory, it's not.
1:40:04
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Maybe Notre Dame's going to have
1:40:07
Speaker 1: more of a look-ahead issue. They play Navy. They do
1:40:12
Speaker 1: this with some of their rivals. It's technically Navy's home game,
1:40:15
Speaker 1: but it's somewhere in New England. at the Patriots' home field.
1:40:19
Speaker 1: And they do this. They've done this quite a bit
1:40:21
Speaker 1: with the Navy game. Look, Navy makes a little extra money.
1:40:25
Speaker 1: Notre Dame's a big draw. They're going to sell out.
1:40:30
Speaker 1: I'm sure it'd be a lot more fun to have
1:40:32
Speaker 1: Notre Dame in Annapolis. But even when Notre Dame plays
1:40:36
Speaker 1: Navy in the larger DMV, the game's not usually in Annapolis.
1:40:43
Speaker 1: It's usually either in Baltimore or in FedEx Field. Uh,
1:40:47
Speaker 1: on that front. So, you know, does, does, uh, this
1:40:51
Speaker 1: is not the best Navy team that we've seen. It's
1:40:53
Speaker 1: not as good as the Navy team of the last
1:40:55
Speaker 1: couple of years. So I don't think they're on upset alert,
1:40:59
Speaker 1: but do they, do they shut it down a little
1:41:02
Speaker 1: bit earlier? Right. Do they just, you know, that, you know,
1:41:05
Speaker 1: how much more focused are they on the November 7th
1:41:09
Speaker 1: matchup versus Miami? You know, uh, We've got the target
1:41:16
Speaker 1: on our back, right? And Belichick desperately needs a signature win.
1:41:19
Speaker 1: So I'm a little nervous. We shouldn't be. It's interesting. The, the,
1:41:24
Speaker 1: the Vegas has gone. There's a lot of, there's a,
1:41:29
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of confidence in Miami covering more
1:41:31
Speaker 1: than two touchdowns here, but if in the old on paper,
1:41:35
Speaker 1: they probably are really about three scores better than North Carolina,
1:41:40
Speaker 1: but there's a, there's the road look ahead, exemption and
1:41:43
Speaker 1: this or that. So anyway, I have to say, I
1:41:46
Speaker 1: love Halloween in my neighborhood, but Halloween on a Saturday night,
1:41:51
Speaker 1: I enjoy giving out the candy, seeing what the new
1:41:53
Speaker 1: costumes are, all of that jazz. But I've got a
1:41:56
Speaker 1: college football game to worry about. All I'll say is, hey, trick-or-treaters,
1:42:01
Speaker 1: if you know you live in my neighborhood, please stop
1:42:03
Speaker 1: coming at 7.30. I will start giving out candy at 5.
1:42:07
Speaker 1: I'm all for that. But man, when 7.30 comes, get
1:42:09
Speaker 1: your candy and go. Now, of course, I'll get harassed
1:42:16
Speaker 1: more at the 7.30 hour than any other. Look, to me,
1:42:21
Speaker 1: the other interesting games on the docket, right? Utah goes
1:42:24
Speaker 1: to Cincinnati. Cincinnati just gave Texas Tech its first loss.
1:42:28
Speaker 1: Is Cincinnati going to give Utah its first loss? What
1:42:31
Speaker 1: do you do there? I don't have a lot of
1:42:32
Speaker 1: faith Cincinnati puts back-to-backs like this together. But I'll say this.
1:42:39
Speaker 1: Of the three remaining undefeateds, Miami, Utah– And UCLA, it's interesting.
1:42:45
Speaker 1: Both Miami and Utah are on the road. That's always
1:42:47
Speaker 1: scary as an undefeated team. But UCLA has this game
1:42:51
Speaker 1: against Nevada. And they should win it big, right? Well,
1:42:59
Speaker 1: Nevada's not a bad group of six team. I don't know.
1:43:04
Speaker 1: This one just smells to me. I'd be a little,
1:43:10
Speaker 1: I know if I were a UCLA fan, this game
1:43:13
Speaker 1: would scare me because no one thinks it's going to
1:43:15
Speaker 1: be a problem. And this is not, you know, as
1:43:18
Speaker 1: folks keep pointing out, UCLA got seven turnovers against Oregon
1:43:22
Speaker 1: and could only score 17 points. This is an offense
1:43:25
Speaker 1: that isn't moving the ball very well without Nico. You know,
1:43:29
Speaker 1: it's got a good defense. You trust them to cover
1:43:34
Speaker 1: 23 points? I'm not sure I do. I just said
1:43:37
Speaker 1: that one, if something we're not expecting happens, that one
1:43:40
Speaker 1: is intriguing to me. Like I said, Hey, it's Florida-Georgia.
1:43:43
Speaker 1: It's the cocktail party. It's the big one. I know
1:43:46
Speaker 1: we're not allowed to call it the world's largest cocktail party.
1:43:49
Speaker 1: I'm curious which Florida team shows up. It's the Florida
1:43:53
Speaker 1: team that can run on anybody, has an amazing offense.
1:43:58
Speaker 1: How does Georgia exploit that defense? There's this assumption that
1:44:05
Speaker 1: despite Georgia– remember, Georgia losing to Auburn means they're still
1:44:08
Speaker 1: the number one team in the country– Miami is struggling
1:44:11
Speaker 1: with Wake Forest and people are questioning whether Miami deserves
1:44:13
Speaker 1: the number one ranking. My friend Nancy, who wrote in,
1:44:17
Speaker 1: clearly only thinks the only good football is played in
1:44:19
Speaker 1: the SEC. This is the SEC bias. This is the
1:44:22
Speaker 1: SEC perception. I understand it. If I were in SEC school,
1:44:26
Speaker 1: I would have this mindset too. My in-laws are all
1:44:29
Speaker 1: SEC fans. I am the lone. I've been in this
1:44:33
Speaker 1: debate multiple times. You know, the SEC is a gauntlet.
1:44:37
Speaker 1: No other conference is. How do you know you're not
1:44:39
Speaker 1: in these conferences? But I'll shut up. That doesn't mean
1:44:44
Speaker 1: I don't love the world's largest cocktail party. And the
1:44:46
Speaker 1: Florida-Georgia game is always worth something. Although this hasn't been
1:44:50
Speaker 1: a great game in a long time. We're due for
1:44:52
Speaker 1: a good one. So we'll see. I'm curious what wins out.
1:45:00
Speaker 1: whether this becomes an offensive shootout or whether Georgia is
1:45:04
Speaker 1: able to exert their will and they're able to slow
1:45:06
Speaker 1: down Florida here a little bit. Let's see what else
1:45:12
Speaker 1: to me is grabbing my eye. I have no concerns
1:45:18
Speaker 1: about Indiana hosting Minnesota. In fact, I think this could be,
1:45:23
Speaker 1: you know, I think, you know, Minnesota won their two
1:45:25
Speaker 1: trophy games at home against Michigan and Iowa. I think
1:45:29
Speaker 1: they're riding high. I think this is when, you know,
1:45:32
Speaker 1: Indiana brings the wood. I just have a feeling. It's
1:45:35
Speaker 1: Florida State Clemson week. This is supposed to be a
1:45:37
Speaker 1: big game. This game's on the ACC network. It tells
1:45:39
Speaker 1: you how far down particularly Clemson has fallen. You know,
1:45:43
Speaker 1: Florida State's entertaining. Clemson's not even an entertaining offense. They
1:45:46
Speaker 1: just don't move. So I understand why ESPN threw this
1:45:49
Speaker 1: game on the ACC network. But I'm fascinated to see
1:45:56
Speaker 1: that Clemson lost last week. Is there I'm just on
1:46:00
Speaker 1: quit watch with Clemson. And that's the question I have.
1:46:03
Speaker 1: I'm on quit watch with them. That's the only reason.
1:46:05
Speaker 1: I wouldn't touch any other games because of this. Let's see.
1:46:12
Speaker 1: Nothing else. Like I said, this is the weekend before
1:46:15
Speaker 1: the weekend. Texas Tech-Arizona. Sneaky good game. Arizona's been pretty good.
1:46:21
Speaker 1: Texas Tech can't afford a second loss here. Not at all. So...
1:46:26
Speaker 1: This could be a shockingly competitive game. Just keep an
1:46:30
Speaker 1: eye on it. And then Ohio State, with its backup quarterback,
1:46:32
Speaker 1: travels to USC. This to me is also, I care
1:46:37
Speaker 1: about this game. It's on at the same time as
1:46:39
Speaker 1: Miami Notre Dame, so I'm not going to be able
1:46:40
Speaker 1: to see it. But, excuse me, same time as Miami
1:46:43
Speaker 1: North Carolina. Sorry, not Miami Notre Dame. That's next week.
1:46:46
Speaker 1: Miami North Carolina. I am very curious to see how
1:46:51
Speaker 1: well the backup is able to get the ball to
1:46:52
Speaker 1: Jeremiah Smith. Right. There's it's pretty easy offensive game plan.
1:46:56
Speaker 1: Get the ball to Jeremiah Smith. But how good is
1:46:59
Speaker 1: the backup at doing that? This is a this I
1:47:02
Speaker 1: think this is Lincoln Riley coaching for his job. Right.
1:47:07
Speaker 1: You're hosting Ohio State. You need to prove you can
1:47:10
Speaker 1: win a big game. You're hosting Ohio State without their
1:47:12
Speaker 1: starting quarterback. There's never been a better chance for you
1:47:14
Speaker 1: to have a statement game. Lincoln Riley, this is a
1:47:17
Speaker 1: big one. If not, maybe you ought to apply for
1:47:20
Speaker 1: the Baylor job. That's, I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
1:47:25
Speaker 1: And then I care about Wisconsin, Iowa, because I always
1:47:30
Speaker 1: care about what the Hawkeyes are doing. You know, it's a,
1:47:33
Speaker 1: it's a, I always say, you know, I didn't, I
1:47:35
Speaker 1: never grew up in Iowa, but because my family did,
1:47:37
Speaker 1: I was quote unquote raised Island. So I always care.
1:47:40
Speaker 1: I always care who I was up to. And so
1:47:42
Speaker 1: I want to, you know, it's the lowest over under,
1:47:45
Speaker 1: I think of the weekend at 36 points. So I'd
1:47:47
Speaker 1: love a good, you know, eight to seven, Wisconsin wins
1:47:52
Speaker 1: it with a two-point conversion at the last minute, right,
1:47:58
Speaker 1: would be my assumption there. A quick confession. The whole
1:48:06
Speaker 1: McAfee snowflake stuff, I've taken my share of threats, attacks,
1:48:23
Speaker 1: When you're in the media business, you're going to have
1:48:24
Speaker 1: people that love you and you're going to have people
1:48:26
Speaker 1: that hate you. The longer you do it, the more
1:48:31
Speaker 1: you sort of realize it. And you realize it's just
1:48:33
Speaker 1: welcome to society. Nobody has 100% approval rating. I think, look,
1:48:46
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell somebody else how they should feel.
1:48:50
Speaker 1: But I sort of don't have a lot of respect
1:48:54
Speaker 1: for people who want to be, who go out of
1:48:57
Speaker 1: their way to showcase being a victim. Or who want
1:49:00
Speaker 1: to try to claim victimhood on something that, you know,
1:49:05
Speaker 1: it's one thing when you're a victim of an actual crime.
1:49:08
Speaker 1: I'm not going to, I'm not, I'm not, I don't
1:49:10
Speaker 1: want to minimize, I'm not minimizing that. But when you're like,
1:49:13
Speaker 1: woe is me because somebody said something nasty about me,
1:49:17
Speaker 1: or I took offense to something on social media, woe
1:49:20
Speaker 1: is me. And you sort of, some people are self,
1:49:24
Speaker 1: they kind of self ID themselves, right? They love, I,
1:49:28
Speaker 1: you know, I never understand people that want to showcase
1:49:32
Speaker 1: attack tweets on themselves. Like it's, it's, I get it.
1:49:37
Speaker 1: I guess it's a, a form of coping. I've, you know,
1:49:43
Speaker 1: maybe I've done it once or twice. I don't, you know,
1:49:46
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of it. Because I just
1:49:50
Speaker 1: don't think it's healthy. If you're so consumed with what
1:49:54
Speaker 1: other people think, are you thinking, right? Don't, if, you know,
1:50:02
Speaker 1: if your life is dictated by what your belief of
1:50:06
Speaker 1: what other people think, You're not living a good life.
1:50:11
Speaker 1: Care about you. You know, be the best version of yourself.
1:50:16
Speaker 1: Who gives a shit what other people think? And, you know,
1:50:20
Speaker 1: McAfee strikes me as one of these guys who's highly
1:50:24
Speaker 1: intelligent but plays the goofball, right? It's the shtick. It's
1:50:27
Speaker 1: a little bit of an act. Because you can sort
1:50:30
Speaker 1: of tell he wants to be like the, you know.
1:50:32
Speaker 1: And this is the guy whose own show says, hey,
1:50:34
Speaker 1: don't take anything too seriously, right? You know, he can
1:50:37
Speaker 1: deliver it, but he can't take it. And again, what
1:50:41
Speaker 1: he got offended by from the University of Utah, I mean,
1:50:45
Speaker 1: this is, I didn't even, I didn't know any of
1:50:47
Speaker 1: it was a criticism. So somebody didn't want to see
1:50:49
Speaker 1: him shirtless? He thinks that's a threat? You know, and
1:50:55
Speaker 1: then he like wrapped himself into an actual political violence
1:51:01
Speaker 1: story that had nothing to do with this, but it
1:51:03
Speaker 1: was like almost his way of trying to enhance his
1:51:07
Speaker 1: own victimhood. Anyway, I just, I think I do, I
1:51:12
Speaker 1: can speak to this in the first person. So that's
1:51:15
Speaker 1: why I feel comfortable doing this. It sucks to see
1:51:22
Speaker 1: people criticizing you. You know, the fact of the matter
1:51:26
Speaker 1: is you realize over time, it's, you know, it's a
1:51:29
Speaker 1: handful of cranks. These aren't, you know, think about how
1:51:33
Speaker 1: screwed up somebody's life is that they get pleasure off
1:51:37
Speaker 1: of attacking other people, right? They're the ones, you know,
1:51:41
Speaker 1: if that's, if the, you know, don't get consumed by it.
1:51:47
Speaker 1: And so it's, it's just a bad look. I don't
1:51:51
Speaker 1: know what's going on there. Maybe he's got something else
1:51:53
Speaker 1: happening in his life, but it's look, am I the
1:51:57
Speaker 1: biggest fan of, of some of his antics? I'm not,
1:52:00
Speaker 1: but I'm not, I get it. Um, you know, there's part, I, I,
1:52:05
Speaker 1: there's parts of, you know, I used to, you know,
1:52:08
Speaker 1: there's plenty of the show I used to love. And
1:52:09
Speaker 1: I think that some of the stuff that he's brought
1:52:11
Speaker 1: has been good. I love the kicking thing. I think
1:52:13
Speaker 1: it's cute. I think it's fun. And I know this,
1:52:16
Speaker 1: I know it from my own daughter's experience with game
1:52:18
Speaker 1: day on campus. Game day on campus is so much
1:52:21
Speaker 1: fun for the students, which is why it was such
1:52:22
Speaker 1: a bummer that he had to attack the students. That
1:52:26
Speaker 1: was just a disappointment. And the students were having fun
1:52:30
Speaker 1: and he couldn't have fun with them. So again, Maybe
1:52:33
Speaker 1: he's got something else, and I don't want to presume that.
1:52:35
Speaker 1: Maybe something else has happened in his life, and he's
1:52:36
Speaker 1: just on a short trigger. If that's the case, then
1:52:40
Speaker 1: take a break. But it's interesting watching people and whether
1:52:45
Speaker 1: they can handle the tension, right? And part of this,
1:52:49
Speaker 1: I do sort of lay at the feet of Donald Trump.
1:52:53
Speaker 1: He is just, you know, he is particularly, there's a
1:52:55
Speaker 1: lot of these, and I think I noted it before, right?
1:52:58
Speaker 1: You know, these Pete Hegseth is one of these guys,
1:53:02
Speaker 1: and I'd hate to see McAfee behaving this way. But
1:53:05
Speaker 1: these supposedly tough guys who think, you know, who mock
1:53:08
Speaker 1: others who can't handle a joke, that the slightest dig
1:53:13
Speaker 1: and they lose it, right? Trump is the king of this.
1:53:19
Speaker 1: Don't be a cliche. Don't be a stereotype. Be better.
1:53:27
Speaker 1: All right. With that, Enjoy your college football weekend. Enjoy
1:53:31
Speaker 1: the last weekend. If you haven't voted, go vote. Make
1:53:34
Speaker 1: sure you vote. You have less right to complain if
1:53:38
Speaker 1: you didn't participate in the process. I will tell you this.
1:53:42
Speaker 1: The democracy is always better when more people are participating.
1:53:48
Speaker 1: So get out there. Get that vote done. I'll see
1:53:50
Speaker 1: you on Monday morning. Thanks for listening. And until we
1:53:53
Speaker 1: upload again.