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Chuck’s Commentary - Texas Primary Result Is Bad News For Republicans + Top 5 All-Time Texas Elections · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: com slash chuck. Hello, They're happy Wednesday, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: another episode of the Chuck Podcast. So, boy, did we
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: have quite the tuesday. If you uh dipped into our
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: livestream coverage of the first midterm twenty twenty six election
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: night with my friend Chris Eliza, Jeffrey Scaling and this
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and the team from Decision Desk HQ, you know that
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: we went all the way close to midnight and did
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  Speaker 1: not yet have a call in the Texas Democratic primary.
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  Speaker 1: And of course the only thing that we don't know
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: is whether Tallarico's number will end up below fifty percent,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: therefore triggering a runoff on that side of the aisle.
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  Speaker 1: We do know that Ken Paxson and John Cornyn are
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: going to be facing off in a day after Memorial
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Day run off there in late May. It promises to
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: be an epic, probably among the nastiest runoff interra primary
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: runoffs we have probably witnessed in the twenty first century.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this is going to be nasty, this is
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: going to be negative. And the question, you know, the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: million dollar question or the fifty first Senate seat question
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  Speaker 1: could very well be what does Donald Trump do? Does
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  Speaker 1: he get involved? Does he try to bail John Cornyan?
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  Speaker 2: Out? Right?
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  Speaker 1: We know John Thune, Senate Republicans, major donors, They all
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: believe the safest way to hold the Senate is to
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: help Cornyn get the nomination. That Cornyn has a better
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  Speaker 1: shot at holding that Texas senden see than the very
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: scandal plague ethically and morally challenged Ken Paxton. The one
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: could argue it seems like no matter what you throw
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: at him, he just sort of keeps on going and
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: keeps on surviving. Kind of reminds you of a certain
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: leader of a certain party that Ken Paxton is a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: member of. But here we are. The votes came in
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: a little slower on election day. We had a massive
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: early vote turnout. It does appear as if Democrats narrowly
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: outpolled overall Republicans, and talking to one Republican polster, it
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: is important to note, you know, where do these voters
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: come from? These are mostly Democratic voters who just don't
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: normally vote in primaries. They vote in general elections. Well,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: this primary certainly got their interest, and it looks like
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: that the Democrats got just you know, maybe one hundred thousand,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more than the Republicans. It's a
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  Speaker 1: big deal for Democrats. The question is did they just
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: max out all their voters or is this the sign
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: of something happening in the state of Texas. I think
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  Speaker 1: the most interesting aspect of the James Taller Rico likely
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  Speaker 1: victory in this primary. And I say likely. Look, I
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: don't think Jasmine Crockett. You know, she made it clear
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: when she decided she wasn't going to stay up and
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: wait for the results.
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  Speaker 2: She went to bed.
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  Speaker 1: She made the decision to wait until this morning and
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  Speaker 1: more votes come in to see what the status is.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think she's.
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  Speaker 1: Going to concede until it is she is one hundred
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  Speaker 1: percent certain there is no shot at making a runoff. Look,
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  Speaker 1: if this narrow lead for tallar Rico holds, and there's
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  Speaker 1: every indication it's probably gonna hold unless she just the
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  Speaker 1: Dallas County numbers come in some in some big ways
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  Speaker 1: for Crockett. I think a few things are fair to
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: look at when it comes to explaining how did tall
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Rico win number one? You can't you can't talk about
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: tal Rico's victory without talking about Stephen Colbert in that moment.
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  Speaker 1: The moment was a pivotal moment. It was the beginning
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  Speaker 1: of early voting, and it was at a time when
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: tall Rico was struggling and Crockett was on the rise.
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  Speaker 1: She was pulling strongly. Tall Rico was still having to
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: explain what he apparently said about Colin Allred. That moment
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: seemed to galvanize Colin Allred to support Jasmine Crockett. I
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: think ideologically was not necessarily ready to go there. I
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: think he was ready to be, but he you know,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and in fact, he felt kind of pushed out of
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  Speaker 1: the race, I think by Crockett, not by tall Rico.
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  Speaker 1: But he sort of rallied around her, she rallied around him.
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  Speaker 1: He's now, of course running for a congressional seat. That's
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: that's also going to end up in around This is
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: going to be an extraordinarily busy runoff ballot in Texas.
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  Speaker 1: It's not just one or two races that are in
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: a runoff. We've got races up and down the ballot
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  Speaker 1: that are in a runoff. We're going to have multiple
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: congressional primaries end up in runoff, including the Member versus
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Member that features Al Green. He trails, but he's going
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: to at least have a shot.
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  Speaker 2: And a run off.
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  Speaker 1: Looks like Colin all Right and Julie Johnson. He's running
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: basically for much of his old seat in the Dallas suburbs.
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  Speaker 1: There that's likely to go to a runoff. We've got
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: the age races on both sides are going to end
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  Speaker 1: up in runoffs, including Chip Roy who finished a fairly
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: distant second, but he's going to be strong enough to
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: end up in a runoff on that front. So it
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: has been a very To say it's been a competitive
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: and lively primary season in Texas as an understatement and
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the fact that there's so many of these races ended
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  Speaker 1: up in a second round. That's just the happiest. Campers
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: are those that make money off of political advertising. Whether
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: you're the digital side of things or the legacy television
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: side of things. This extended season in one of the
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: largest states that we have with so many media markets
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: is show we say manna from heaven for some of
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: those local businesses. But to break down tall Rico, the
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  Speaker 1: big difference for him is and the big question mark
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: was what we were Latino voters going to do in
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  Speaker 1: the Democratic primary? Right, we saw in these voters, Tall
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Rico was strong with independence that lean left and progressive whites.
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  Speaker 1: Jasmine Crockett was strongest with older voters and African American
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  Speaker 1: voters and those that are self described Democrats. Now, Texas,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: you could pick a ballot, right, you could decide in
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: each side. It's sort of one of those types of primaries.
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  Speaker 1: So it's possible Tall Rico, right, had, you know, was
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: perhaps trying to appeal to some of the same voters
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  Speaker 1: that John Cornet was trying to appeal to. It's just
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: worth noting there. But let's stick to this Democratic primary
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: here a minute. When you looked at all the polling,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and it was a bit erradic, but one thing that
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: was pretty consistent is that Latino voters, it was a
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: fairly high undecided among Latino voters, they were making the decision,
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  Speaker 1: you know, where they're going to go with a candidate
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  Speaker 1: that was projecting herself more as a fighter and Jasmine
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  Speaker 1: Crockett or somebody who was grounded himself a bit more
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  Speaker 1: in religion, James Tallerrico, and I think the assumption was
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  Speaker 1: that tall Rico might have had the inside track that
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  Speaker 1: his the fact that he wears his faith on his
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  Speaker 1: sleeve is something that I think appeals to some Latinos,
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  Speaker 1: And when you look at the dominant performance he had
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  Speaker 1: in the Rio Grande Valley, that I think shows you
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  Speaker 1: that that really was the difference. If you're gonna pick
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: some knits at Jasmine Crockett's campaign, she didn't run a
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: very conventional campaign. She seemed to run as if she
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: wasn't a well funded candidacy. But she did, and she
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: ran it slightly more unconventional, a bit more social media
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  Speaker 1: heavy sort of one could argue, sort of trying to
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  Speaker 1: see if she could win it the new way instead
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: of having to do it some of the old way.
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  Speaker 1: Tall Rico had more money and so they could do
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  Speaker 1: some of the more old school ways of blocking and
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  Speaker 1: tackling and getting out the vote and running a more
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  Speaker 1: statewide campaign in a more traditional sense probably was worth
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  Speaker 1: the extra two points that tall Rico needed to avoid
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  Speaker 1: a runoff. And so again I'm gonna be a little
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  Speaker 1: tentative here because I think that this is you know,
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  Speaker 1: I do think that Jasmine Crockett's going to not concede
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  Speaker 1: quickly here, that she's going to exhaust every effort make
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  Speaker 1: sure this question mark about which bat make sure all
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the ballots in Dallas County get counted there with some right. First,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: a judge extended vote times. Then the state Supreme Court
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: came in and said, well, no, some of those votes
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: shouldn't count if people didn't wait in line at seven.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: So there was a bit of a dispute over that.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: So she's going to exhaust every effort here. So I
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if this takes a day or two
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  Speaker 1: for the Democrats to unify. And I think that's going
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to be a bit of a challenge for tall Rico,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: is unifying the party. I assume they get there. I
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: think the fact that what you you know, these days,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: beating Donald Trump and beating Ken Paxton and getting power
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  Speaker 1: usually can pay over these divisions. Now, the question is
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: our democrats, you know? Is that going to be easy
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: to paper over those divisions? We'll see. Like I said,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I think, I think Crockett feels a bit aggrieved and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: has shown her grievance's face a little bit on the
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: campaign trail ever since the Colbert moment, right, which always
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: felt a bit manufactured, a bit over over sold for
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: what it ended up being, for what it was, what
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: it was sold as.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: The FCC never stepped in, there was nothing about it yet.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: It was basically CBS's lawyers versus Colbert's producers. And it's
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: a he said. He said that, I still don't feel
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: like any of us got the full story. But the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: fact of the matter is the moment worked. It really
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: did change the narrative a bit for tall Rico, and
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: it gave him some space, and it gave him some
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: extra money, and it gave gave him some extra juice,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: and it did put Crockett on the defensive. And when
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: you look at a race this close, it's hard not
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: to look at that moment as having been perhaps more decisive.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I wasn't one hundred percent sure of how decisive it was,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: but perhaps more decisive. Now there's another question that I
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: don't know if we've got the answer for tonight. Does
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: this mean that given the choice of a candidate who
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: says he's about love in tall Rico versus Crockett, who says, hey,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I'm meeting the moment, and the moment right now is
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: essentially fight and she thinks she used the phrase raw.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: You know what do voters want?
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Right? Well?
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I think it's clear Democratic primary voters about half of
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: them wanted a fighter and about half of them wanted
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: a unite her And I think in many ways this
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: is the divide in the party. What is the best
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: way to get power back? What's the best way to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: win swing voters. Is it to show yourself as strong
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: to overcome the perception that the Democratic Party has become
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: soft and weak? Or is it better off to be
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: post Trump and to be the polar opposite of Trump?
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Or do you sort of accept the Trump tactics and
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: get as pugilistic on the left as they've been getting
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: on the right. I'm not sure this primary resolves that answer.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: You know, when you basically have a forty seven result, right,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: maybe fifty two forty eight at the end of the day,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: something like that. I don't think you could say that
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that fully resolves things. But I think when people look
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: at Tallarico's messaging and how he has been pitching himself,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I do think you will see more more strategists make
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the case that hey make the case that you can win,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and it Democratic primary voters look, this idea of electability
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: is incredibly subjective. But if you can convince a majority
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: of a primary that you are the more electable candidate,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: you can Trump ideology, you can Trump style, if you
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: are seen as the more likely to win. Clearly, that
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: is not how Republican primary voters behave because if Republican
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: primary voters behave that way, Cornyn wouldn't be in a runoff.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Cornyan would have won without a runoff. And so that's
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: where I think the open question and really what the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: next two months are going to be is Cornyn's going
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: to be begging Trump for the endorsement when all the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: votes are counted. I do think if Cornyn can be
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: one vote ahead of Paxton in the first round of
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: voting rather than even one vote behind, that those superficial
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: things matter to Trump, right he wents tobacco quote winner,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: not a loser, but Paxton in many ways is Trump.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And Paxton has been a warrior for Trump. Right, he
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: filed the original suit that you know, the sort of
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: that basically stalled and created the illusion that the twenty
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: twenty election was was somehow disputed. But he'd been going,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you know, he was. He was an early warrior for Trump.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Trump is not known to be loyal. We know this, right,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and you can get to Trump. Do you want to
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: be seen as a loser? Do you want to back
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: a loser? Do you want to be you want this
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to be on you that one of your acolytes lost
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: control of the Senate and lost the single most important
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: state in Republican party politics over the last thirty five years?
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  Speaker 1: do think that Tallarico being the Democratic nominee instead of
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  Speaker 1: Cricket probably gives, uh, probably gives cornn and John Thune,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: who are going to be making this case to Trump,
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  Speaker 1: a stronger set of variables to say, hey, this tall
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Rico can win, He can beat Paxton. Tall Rico might
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: be able to beat Corny for all we know when
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  Speaker 1: all of a sudden done on this. So that's you know,
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  Speaker 1: that's that's the other part of the fallout from this primary.
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  Speaker 1: It's going to be, you know, can John Cornyn convinced Trump?
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: And if Trump endorses, he's got to do so emphatically.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: And that's the it's hard to imagine he would. He
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: might endorse corn but might not do it emphatically. Say
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: I like Ken Paxton to that Republicans will be great
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: no matter who wins, but all my people tell me
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: that that Cornan has a better shot at winning, and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: we gotta hold the Senate. Right, I'm trying to think
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: of the different ways he could communicate this. I could
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: picture him communicating it that way. I like him both,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: and I plan to you know, and whoever loses is
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: going to work for me in the administration. Right. He
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: could do something like that. So it's going to be
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: interesting to watch the dance that Cornyn Senate Republicans because
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: here's the awkward part for Senate Republicans. If Paxton wins
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the runoff, and look, the history says when an incumbent
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: is dragged into a runoff against somebody who's either you know,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: more liberal or more cons or whatever whatever. If the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary, the more liberal candidate wins runoffs, in a
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Republican primary, the more conservative candidate usually wins the runoffs.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: The only time this has not happened that way was
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: a Mississippi Senate race in twenty fourteen. In that race,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: that Cochrane looked like a sure loser after the you know,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: in the first round of voting to Chris McDaniel, a
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Conservative challenger, and then Cochrane and National Senate Republicans ran
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: a campaign to convince a whole bunch of voters who
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: didn't vote in either primary to show up in a
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: runoff and more. I think the Cochrane McDaniel race actually
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: had more voters in the runoff than the original first
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: round Republican primary.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Well, what did that mean?
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Cochrane somehow changed the electorate and he got in this
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: case a lot of African Americans who hadn't voted in
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: either primary because the Democratic primary wasn't really highly contested.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: They showed up and he voted for Cochrane. The point
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: is it's an outlier. It's an exception. Every other every
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: other time we've had primaries go like this with an
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: incumbent dragged into a runoff by a challenger closer to
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: the political base, the result is just about always been
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the same. It is hard to imagine that there is
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: a that they're going to be able to somehow.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Do this differently.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Right, he needs a higher turnout then you would normally
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: get in a runoff. This is taking place the Tuesday
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: after Memorial Day, so there are a lot of things
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: going against corn In here. But given all, given the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: hand he was dealt in this primary, everything basically happened
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: about the best possible way it could happen for him
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: to possibly find a way to be Paxton right, he
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: needed Tallarico to be the nominee without a runoff, so
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the threat of tallar Ico being seen as the more
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: formidable challenger in a general election, he needed to himself
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: do better than what the polls had shown he would do.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Cornan has done much better than what the polling had
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: shown he was going to do, so we'll see. But
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the bottom line is, with Tallarico's the dem nominee and
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the like possibility right now, I'd say it's probably a
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: sixty to seventy percent chance. Now that Ken Paxton's Republican nominee.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm saying this, but Texas Senate is in.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Play and Paxton may still win.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: But the amount of money Republicans are going to have
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: to spend to bail him out.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: One two.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: The rhetorical gymnastics that the Senate Republicans are going to
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: have to take. I mean, they have all and and
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: it's clear that Cornyan has promised a scorched earth runoff campaign.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine Republicans are not going to walk away
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: from the center race, right, they can't afford to walk
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: away from it. This isn't you know, as much as
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: they don't like Ken Paxton, I don't think they would
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: treat him like David Duke in this situation. It's uh,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a tough road, very tough road.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: And so but they're in for a dime, in for
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: a dollar now, and so there's going to be more
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: money dropped on Ken Paxton. Now here's a few interesting
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: strategic decisions Democrats have to make. Do the Senate Democrats
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: play in the Republican runoff? We were joking on the
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: live stream. Does the you know, we've seen Democrats have
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: done this and especially during the Trump era, have done
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: this a few times to try to help a candidate
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: win a primary or a runoff that they think is
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: more beatable in a general election. So does the Senate
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Does Chuck Schumer Senate pack run an ad that says
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: call Senator Cornyn and thank him for his vote on
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: gun control or do they run ads talking about how
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Ken Paxton is supports Donald Trump too much to support
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: him in the Senate, right support an independent like John
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Cornyn in the Senate. There's all sorts of games, game
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: theory you can do there. Now, look, there's risk to that,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: but one would one could argue it is it is
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: a it is a cheaper way to play in Texas
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: because look, if it's Cornyn tall Rico, tall Rico is
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: probably going to be on his own. I don't think
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the National Party comes in and helps them. They do some,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: but I don't think they go all in it's Paxton.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I think they're going to be tempted to go all in. Right,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: And it's and if you look at the Senate map,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: it's really not that expensive of a Senate map for Democrats. Right,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: you have North Carolina where your candidate is ahead, your
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: candidate's out raising everybody, You're in good shape.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Arguably roy if there hadn't if Democrats had won more
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: than one Senate race this century in the state of
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, I think most handicappers would already have labeled
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: this race as lean Democrat instead of toss up. But
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: because Democrats have only won one Senate race this this
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: century in North Carolina. It was in two thousand and eight.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: So you know, John Edwards got elected in ninety eight
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: in case you're wondering about that about him. So I
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: think it's the only reason why it's seen as a
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: toss up. But it's a race that they should you know,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: they're going to have. You know, it's a presidential swing state.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: You don't ever screw around. But they're in pretty good
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: shape there. Main's going to be super expensive and they're
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: probably going to have to spend even more money because
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a messy primary and the eventual
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Democratic nominee is probably going to be starved for resources
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: come the end of that primary campaign. So they're going
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to have to come in and they're going to go
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: in big there. So then the question is you've got Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Texas,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe Nebraska if you expect the National Party
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: to go in for an independent like Dan Osborne. Right,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: maybe at Kansas if that other independent candidate takes fire.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: But ultimately you're looking at those aren't super expensive states, right,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Iowa's not super expensive, Alaska's not super expensive. Ohio and
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Texas are and Ohio is about half the cost of Texas.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: But you know, well, yes, Georgia and Michigan are expensive defenses.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: I think Minnesota is an underrated expense for the Democrats
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: there in that Senate race in New Hampshire. It's the
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Boston market. So it's not a cheap state either to defend.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: So you know, now they're not defending a huge place
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: like Illinois, and they're not going to be defending in
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: a California, and they're not going to be defending in
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: a Pennsylvania, and they're not going to be defending in
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a Florida or something like that.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: So you could.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Argue that compared to previous cycles, the Democrats should have
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: the budget to also target Texas if they so choose,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: But it is super expensive and they've never really done
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: it before. Right, They've always kind of been half in,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: half out. But the Republicans they are, they're going to
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: be in no matter what they have to be, right,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Democrats can get to a setup majority without Texas in
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: their minds, right North Carolin on A, Maine, Ohio, Iowa, Alaska.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: They just win four of those five. We haven't even
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: gotten to Texas. That assumes they hold Michigan, then they
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: hold Georgia, and they hold Minnesota, and they hold New Hampshire.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Of those four, I think Michigan's the most precarious. I
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: think I've said that to you before. It's why it's
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: the one Republican seat in my top five most likely
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: to flip. But Texas is a nice to have for
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Democrats Republicans. It's a half to half right and and
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: it's bigger than just losing a Senate seat if they
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: somehow right, if the Democrats crack open Texas. I just
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: went you're going to later in this Later in this podcast,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: you're going to hear my top five all time races
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: in Texas, because I think there's a chance this Senate race,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: if it's particularly if it's Paxton v. Tall Rico, may
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: end up in the all time in an all time
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: list when all is said and done. But one of
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: the five races in all time list is the first
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: time a Republican wins statewide in Texas, and happened in
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one with John Tower, and it was literally
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: a foot in the door. And once they won a
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: special election in a state wide contest and sort of
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: broke the streak. They hadn't won a statewide race in reconstruction.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Then money came in and funded the state party. Then
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the state party was able to fund county parties and
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: so on and so on, and you know, John Tower,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: you know, it took them another seventeen years before they
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: were able to win a governor's race, but they won
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: that in seventy eight, and then essentially, by nineteen ninety
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it is a it is an evenly divided state, and
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: then by ninety four it becomes a solid Republican state.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: And nineteen ninety four is the last time a Democrat
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: won any state wide race on any level in the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: state of Texas.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: So the point.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Is is denying Texas any Democrats any win is a
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: big deal for Republicans. You let, It's sort of like
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: you let, you let you open the door, and all
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: of a sudden money starts pouring in. They win one,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: then there's belief they can win two, they can win three,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: et cetera. So pop your popcorn. It's going to be
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: fascinating this Republican primary. John Cornyn has promised that, you know,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: he hasn't even that that. Ken Paxton hasn't seen what's
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: about to become, and I think he've referred to a
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Judgment Day. It sounded like a trailer for a Jerry
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Bruckheimer movie. Judgment Day is coming to Ken Paxton. In
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: a world where Ken Paxton thinks he's going to be
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: a United States Center incomes John Cornyn. It's going to
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: be something else. I'm happy that I'm going to be
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: in the state of Texas a couple of times between
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: now and the runoff, and I look forward to uh
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: dipping my toe in that race. Some other things down
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: the ballot that are worth worth noting. My favorite result
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: of the night is the two vote margin for the
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: state Senate president in I think he trails by two
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: votes in the state Senate president in North Carolina. It's
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: to a political rival that goes back thirty years. Kind
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: of love an old fashioned grudge match, right, But this
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: is a big deal for Republican Party operations in the
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: entire state. In the legislature of the Republican legislature is
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: extraordinarily influential in North Carolina. And here's the state Senate
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: president who is going to need a recount at best
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: to survive a primary, and who knows, but I think
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: you're going to see a lot of litigation in that state,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: and that's going to be a dominant story among political
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: types in North Carolina for a few weeks. Incumbents, boy
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: it is. You know, the tight incumbent races we expected,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: a few are going to end up a runoffs. I
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: think Al Green's in a runoff. Crenshaw does not look
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: like he's going to get a runoff. The only Republican
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: incumbent member of Congress to seek reelection and not have
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's endorsement was Dan Crenshaw. I think Donald Trump
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: will love making note of that. That the that you know,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: if you don't have his endorsement, you can't win. That
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: still matters in Republican Party politics, that's for sure. But overall,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: I think that if you're John Cornyn, you probably got
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: the best possible result you could hope for it. It still
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: may not be good enough. If you're National Democrats and
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: you you know, tall Rico appears to be probably the
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: more the candidate that can win. It has a higher ceiling.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: I'm not as I'm not as convinced Crockett couldn't win
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: for what it's worth, but I you know, tallar Rico
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: certainly has a his strength with self described independence that's
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: going to be key this In so many of these elections,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: you're seeing independence look more like Democrats across the board.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: And then I would argue the news of the day
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: nationally was not very helpful if you're a Republican on
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: the ballot, whether it's Christynome doubling down and calling those
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: folks in Minneapolis domestic terrorists, to suddenly Americans waking up
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: to finding out that we've launched military strikes, and yet
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: another country, this time it's Ecuador going after Narco so
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: called Narco Terras. You have a president flailing to sort
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: of explain the rationale for Iran. Now it appears we
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: didn't do enough before the attacks to get Americans out
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: of the region, and there seems didn't seem as if
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: the president felt like he felt bad about that. So
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: he's not showing himself to be a very stable wartime
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: leader at this moment. The Iran you know, I go
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: back to something I said earlier. The best news he
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: can hope out of this Iran campaign has already happened,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: and that's the death of Kamani. Every other headline so
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: far out of this war feels like it is it
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: is only stoking voter skepticism about this decision and about
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the timing of this decision. This doesn't seem to be
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: wearing well. I mean, I've never seen an initial military
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: and this is you've arguably been a was a successful start,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: right when you when you kill the bad guy, and
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: you know, the supposed bad guy in the first twenty
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: four hours, it's a pretty good start to your military intervention.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: And yet voters are starting in a negative position. And again,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: what turns this around. There's no obvious way this turns
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: around right away. And if anything, it looks like and
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: you know, now there's reports or we're going to try
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: to help the Kurds become an insurgent force inside of Iran.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, that looks like you're opening up a can
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: of worms. And we know that the Kurds, well, they're
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: a lethal fighting force. Suddenly that creates issues with the Turks,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: it can create issues in Syria.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: It's just.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: A lot of folks had warned that, you know, if
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: you start open hostilities with Iran, you don't know how
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: this there. You know, it's in the cliche. It's easy
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: to start a war, it's hard to end one. And
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: it feels like more countries are finding themselves involved all
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: of a sudden.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Not less.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: There's more uncertainty, not less. So I would say that
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: when you look at this, you look at the what
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: happened in these primaries tonight, and then you look at
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the larger, sort of bigger news picture that is impacting
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: the larger political conversation. This is about the worst start
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: to a midterm election cycle that an incumbent party could have.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: At the moment, their single most important state is suddenly
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: potentially a swing state, or at least for this election
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: cycle it is. And you've just started a war in
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: the Middle East that is starting out very unpopular and
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine how it gets more popular. And oh,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: by the way, the stock market, which was once a
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: barometer that Donald Trump cared a lot about, is not
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: something he wants to be pointing people to now. So
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: you've now got a disrupted economy due to this war
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: in Iran, a disrupted national security space in general, and
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: all of this overlays what was already an election cycle
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: that looked like it was just going to be an
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: old fashioned referendum on the Party in Power. This episode
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• 39:43
  Speaker 3: out of bed, get a workout in, have a great
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  Speaker 2: So there you go.
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• 40:23
  Speaker 1: is a Wednesday, which means I have a top five
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: list and I'm going to do a twist on it.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: And it's something I told you.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I was going to be working on pretty soon. And
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: this will continue to evolve, but that is sort of
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: campaign history, and I have those of you that those
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: that know me have known me a long time, know
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: that I've got a file boxes filled with research of
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: unwritten books, whether it's on crazy stories from the presidential
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: campaign trail that my late mentor Doug Bailey was working
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: on and I inherited all of that scholarship, or what
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I worked on on what I called tales from the Trail,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: sort of the crazy. Every state has had a crazy campaign,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: at least one, if not more. Once you sit back
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and wait, don't I tell.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: You a story.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: But this is the beauty of this format, right is
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: you have an opportunity to test out some of your
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: theories of the case and some of your storytelling. So
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: this episode, obviously it's huge Texas Senate. We kicked off
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the midterm election coverage at the start of this podcast. Obviously,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: everything that happened Texas has a chance. The Texas twenty
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: twenty six Senate race, with these messy primaries and everything
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: that has happened inside both parties a we have Obviously
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: we're still sorting ourselves out with the runoff situation, but
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: it has a chance to become an all timer in
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Texas history. And it got me thinking, what are the
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: all time great Texas statewide campaigns and it's just governor
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: and Senate that qualify for this. And I've done I've
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: worked on this for all fifty states, and I've got
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: sort of different lists that I've put together over the
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: years of this and different ways that I've wanted to
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: publish content about it. But I thought today I would
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: at least make my top five lists my top This
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: is my top five all time statewide campaigns and Texas history.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: To top five topp.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: We've had a few minutes here give you a little
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: little background in each of my top five. Inning will
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: also note some races that get honorable mentioned but didn't
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: quite crack my top five. I would love for my
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Texas listeners, my Texas and my political science and political
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: junkies if you don't agree with my ranking, reranked the
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: five to it in a minute or what did I
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: leave out? What did you what were you surprised by?
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Etc?
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Because look, Texas, you know, as we did with my
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: podcast Time Machine earlier this week, it has an incredible history,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: right being an independent country for a small period of time,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: there's a lot that has happened. Texas has produced multiple presidents,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: political legends, and frankly, some of the strangest campaigns in
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: American history. Not all these races that I'm going to
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: put in the top five were actually close races, but
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: in some cases they were extraordinarily consequential for the result
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: that happened. But these races changed something, something bigger. Some
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: of these races launched careers, some of them ended eras.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Some of them featured something so unusual you just couldn't
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: make it up.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Look, I get it.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: All time lists are subjective. The point is to spark debate,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: get people thinking about political history and how it matters
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: to today's politics. And again, if you disagree with my choices,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: please send me your feedback, your pushback, your own nominees.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Ashchuck atdchucktodcast dot com. So I got five races for
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: you today. And if the Texas the twenty twenty six
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Texas Senate race turns into the humdinger that some people
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: expected to be by November, it may earn its own
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: place on this list someday. But hey, I'll let you decide.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: The question is which one of these five would you
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: bump from this list? So this is my top five.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Number five is actually one race in the twenty first century.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: And there's only one race on my list that I
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: include from the twenty first century, and it's two thousand
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: and six. Texas Governor Rick Perry wins this race with
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: thirty nine percent. The Democratic nominee Chris Bell gets thirty percent,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Carol Keaton Strayhorn gets eighteen percent running as an independent Republican,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and the late Kinky Friedman, who once had a hit
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: song called they Don't Make Jews like Jesus Anymore, got
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: twelve percent. So here's what you need to know about
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: this campaign. Rick Perry's running for a second full term
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: as governor, a term he inherited, right, he inherited the
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: term when Bush became president. Wins in two fairly easily.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Six is his attempt at a second full term. His
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: approval ratings are not great, right, two thousand and six
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: not a good year for Republicans in general. Right across
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: the board nationally and Poles had consistently showed that roughly
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: six and ten Texans said they'd vote for someone other
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: than Perry, and the final results showed that six and
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: ten Texans voted for someone else other than Perry. So
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: why wasn't Why didn't this end up a real race. Well,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: those six and ten Texans were split up between three
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: other candidates. So yet Chris bout he was an accidental
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: member of Congress, ended up Member of Congress in the
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Tom Delay seat for a brief term. He ends up
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee because no one else really wanted the job.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: The most interesting candidate and the chief rival to Rick
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Perry for this was Carol Keaton Straehorn. She was the
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: sitting Comptroller of Texas. She decided to skip the Republican
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: primary because she didn't think she could win a primary,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: but she thought she could run as an independent. She
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: branded herself as one tough grandma and really was a
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: big chunk of her funding came from traalers, came from
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the same communities that normally back in the nine eighties
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: and nineties.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Used to support Democrats.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: She was trying to run a sort of hybrid, trying
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: to get sort of the oppositional funding, you know, to
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: try to sort of you could call it moderate Republican,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Republican light whatever you want to call it, but that
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: was the theory of her case. But she needed the
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Democrats not to essentially run a series campaign, and in
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: theory Chris Bell really was an incredibly underfunded campaign, didn't
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: really run anything. And of course Kinky Friedman, was it
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: a publicity stunt? Was it a frustration? Well, at that
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: time iMOS was if you remember the late great Don Imas,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Kinky Friedman was sort of a regular fixture of IMIS.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: So he had his own sort of he had his
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: own sort of persona, and as he used to he
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: had a campaign slogan that simply was how hard could
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: it be? There was a libertarian on two now what's
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: interesting about But it was Strayhorn that was the chief challenger. Now,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: over the course of her political career she used several
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: last names, McLellan, Rylander, Strayhorn, and eventually back to Keaton.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: She actually wanted to get Grandma officially added to her
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: ballot name, but the Perry appointed Secretary of State denied
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: that request. Was what added to the drama of this
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Republican inner fighting, was it? One of her sons, Scott McClellan,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: was the press secretary for George W. Bush, So he
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: had the president's press secretary's mother running as independent against
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: the Republican governor of Texas who succeeded George W.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Bush.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Right, That was quite the story. And of course you
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: had this, you know, to understand this race. The money
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: was really only with Perry at twenty four million, Strayhorn
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: at thirteen million, Kinky Friedman raised about three and a
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: half million, and Chris Bell, the Democratic nominee, only raised
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: two million dollars. And in fact, at one point Strayhorn
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: had more than eight million cash on hand. Bell had
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: less than one hundred thousand. Bell was not at all
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: a serious candidate, and y had. He finished second with
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: thirty percent of the vote. And it to me, the
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: reason I find this fascinating is because it was a
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: reminder that the major party line, there is a habit
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: that a chunk of voters in both parties just always
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: pull the lever for whoever has the D or the
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: R next to their name. We know what the baseline
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: number of that is. In Texas, it's thirty percent, because
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: that's what Chris Bell got.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: He got thirty percent.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: My guess is the baseline for just an R is
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: somewhere in that same range, right thirty to thirty five percent,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: probably on the Republican side too, no matter the state
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, unless it's a you know state,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: of Vermont. But you know, there is a voter that
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: always pulls a lever. You know, had there had she
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: you know, worked harder to win over some Democrats, and
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: also there were all sorts of ways. But it's why
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: third party candidacies only succeed when one one of the
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: two parties has to basically give up on a race,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: has to completely walk away, because just simply having their
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: presence on the ballot will eat into that. And it
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: really it's why I include this race because I think
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: it's one of the great lessons of to independent those
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: trying to break up the two parties?
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: How do you do it?
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: You know, you're just you know, don't assume that just
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: because one of the two major parties only fields a
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: guidefly candidate that's underfunded, that there isn't going to be
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: a strong poll by voters there. So that's why that
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: makes my top five number four on the list. Nineteen
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: ninety four, Texas Governor George W. Bush wins with fifty
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: three and a half percent of the vote and Richards
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: gets forty six percent of the vote. She's the incumbent governor.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: She's incredibly popular, she's witty, nationally known, you know, she
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: delivered the keynote at the eighty eight Democratic Convention, and
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: is poor George he was born with a silver spoon
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: in his mouth. Was sort of the punchline, and it
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: just went from there. And she actually had a pretty
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: good story to tell. The Texas economy was doing well,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: crime was down by most normal political standards. She'd have
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: been in good shape for reelection, but she faced an
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: opponent with an incredibly famous name, George W. Bush, son
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: of the former president, part owner of the Texas Rangers,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: and he was pretty untested politically. Richards kind of dismissed
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: the candidacy at first, said, ah, some jerk is what
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: she called him at first, and a lot of Democrats
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: dismissed it, thinking, oh, he George H. W. Bush just
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: got walloped in nineteen ninety two. There's Bush fatigue. That's
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: not gonna work now. Ironically, this was a race going
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: into election day. Both candidates had their favorable ratings over
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: sixty percent. Both were well liked. Richards wasn't unpopular, Bush
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: wasn't unknown. There wasn't a scandal election or a bad
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: economy election. The initial polling of this race, one poll
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: had a forty seven forty in late nineteen ninety three,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: and it is basically, you know, that's when you get
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: to start that way before you're spending any dollars there
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: you go. The real issue is the race unfolded in
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: the middle of the nineteen ninety four Republican Revolution. Democrats
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: lost fifty four House seats nationally and in governor's races.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Bush was one of four Republicans that year to defeat
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: a sitting incumbent governor, a sitting incumbent Democratic governor. I've
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: told you it's one of the hardest things to do.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: In ninety four, A lot of incumbent governors lost, including
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Anne Richards, and she basically lost because of this. It
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: was the shift, if you will. Carl Rove understood it.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: He saw the key dynamic clearly, the rise of the
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Republican suburbs in Texas, in and around the major cities,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: and the success in those suburbs is why Bush won.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: And this race is important because it marks the beginning
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: of something a storic Texas. Republicans have held every single
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: statewide office ever since that election. No Democrat has won
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: statewide in Texas since November eighth, nineteen ninety four. One Guy,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: a land commissioner, Gary Morrow won a race that year
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: in ninety four, and then and then that was it.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: So no Democrat has held state wide office since that.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Landmark Bush victory over Richards Bush goes on to win
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: re election ninety eight was sixty nine percent of the vote.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Two years later, he runs for president. You can trace
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: a direct line from a governor's race in Texas in
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four to the Iraq War, Bush tax cuts
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: and a generation of Supreme Court appointments. Right, butterfly flaps
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: his wing. Number three on my list, you have to
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: go back nineteen twenty four. Texas Governor Miriam ma Ferguson
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: defeats the clan backed candidate, Felix Robertson in the Democratic primary.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Then she goes on to become the first woman governor
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: of Texas and actually technically the second woman governor in
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: American history, because a woman in Wyoming took the oath
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: a few days before Ma Ferguson did. But here's the story.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: To understand nineteen twenty four, you have to go back
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: to nineteen seventeen. A man named James pah Ferguson. Man
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: pah Ferguson was the governor of Texas. He was a
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: populist politician known as Farmer Jim, and he was also
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: deeply corrupt. The charges against him read like a corruption
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: checklist that would look familiar today. Misuse of state funds,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: co mingling his personal bank accounts with state money, a
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: mysterious personal loan of one hundred and fifty six thousand
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: dollars that he refused to explain, which, of course, would
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: be like nearly a million dollars in today's money. It
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: was later found to have come from San Antonio Beer Brewers,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: which was particularly damaging given the prohibition politics of that era.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: And then, most infamously, he tried to purge professors at
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: the University of Texas who he personally disliked, and when
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: the ut president refused to fire them, Ferguson actually tried
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: to defund the university entirely.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: So the legislature.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: Impeached him on ten of twenty one charges and barred
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: him from holding state office ever again. But guess what,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Pap Ferguson refused to leave politics, He found another way back.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: By the early nineteen twenties, the ku Klux Klan had
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: become a major political force in the state of Texas
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: wasn't a fringe movement. It was a pretty mainstream. One
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Clan day at the Texas State Fair, for instance, in
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: October nineteen twenty three, drew massive crowds. The klan had
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: elected sheriffs, judges, legislatures, district attorneys all across the state.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: They voted as a block and used violence and intimidation
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: to enforce their political will. Their candidate for governor in
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four was a gentleman by the name of
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: Felix Robertson, so Pah Ferguson saw an opening. He couldn't
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: run himself, so he put his wife on the ballot,
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Miriam Ma Ferguson. Mariam Ferguson had spent most of her
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: life as a private citizen, a homemaker who had no
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: political career of her own, and in fact, her initials
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: were MA, and it was a reporter that combined the
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: initials to give her the nickname Ma. And then of
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: course Pa ran the campaign behind the scenes, and then
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: they actually used the campaign slogan two governors for the
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: price of one. So Ma wins the Democratic primary over
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: the clan backed Robertson. Effectively the election in a one
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: party Texas back at that time, there really was no
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: Republican party back then. She then defeated the Republican George
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Butte in the general election, and in January nineteen twenty five,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: she was inaugurated, as I said, the second woman governor
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: in American history, because she took her fifteen days after
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Wyoming's Nelly Taylo Ross.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: One of her early campaign promises targeted the Klan directly.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: She supported an anti mask law aimed at preventing masked
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: Clan demonstrations in public. The courts actually would later strike
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: down the law is unconstitutional, but the political damage that
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: she did to the Klan was real and lasting. Clan
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: membership in Texas once you couldn't use those face masks
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: collapse from roughly ninety seven thousand at its nineteen twenty
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: four peak to about eighteen thousand two years later, and
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: by nineteen twenty seven, the governor declared the Clan in
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Texas effectively dead. Anti mask ordinance anyway, there's number three
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: on the list. Number two on the list. The nineteen
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: sixty one Texas Senate special election, John Tower becomes the
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: first Republican to win statewide in Texas since reconstruction. He
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: defeats William Blakelee by roughly ten thousand votes out of
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: a million cast, and he has Liberal Democrats to thank
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: for it. So let me give you this setup. LBJ
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: becomes Vice president January sixty one, obviously vacates a senatecy.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: The city governor is Price Daniel. He appoints a conservative
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Dallas oilman by the name of William Blakeley as the
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: temporary replacement for LBJ until the special election could be held,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: and they hold the special election pretty quickly there. And
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: here's the rules of that special were fairly unusual. There
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: were no party primaries, so instead there were seventy one candidates,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: including future Speaker of the House Jim Wright was on
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: this list, by the way. But there were seventy one
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: candidates that appeared on this single ballot, Republicans, Democrats, and
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Independence all at once. And the idea was the top
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: two finishers would advance to a runoff regardless of party.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Quite the ballot right seventy one candidates. So how did
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Tower break through? Well? John Tower was a political science
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: professor at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls. Genuinely was obscure,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: not a political figure anyone had expected to matter, but
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: he was the Republican nominee against LBJ in nineteen sixty
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: and here LBJ on the ticket with Kennedy. He was
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: on the ballot twice, both as vice president for the electors,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: and then of course he was running for reelection to
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: the Senate. Tower gets a surprisingly strong forty one percent
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: of the vote against the sitting senator. That gave him
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: some name recognition. So in a special election he ended
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: up leading the seventy one candidate field with about thirty
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: one percent of the vote, and he advanced to the
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: runoff against the leading Democrat, which ended up being the
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: appointed Senator Blakely. But here's where the liberal Democrats get involved.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: You know how today's Texas Republican Party is divided into
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: and it's the dominant party, right, Well, back then it
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: was the Texas Democratic Party that was the dominant party
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: and they were divided into So here's where things got
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: a bit interesting, and how John Tower has Democrats to
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: thank for becoming the first Republican senator. Texas Democratic partly
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: was very very divided between the liberals and the conservatives,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: and the liberals had been losing their own primary for years.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: The Conservatives were well backed. Blakely represented everything that they
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: hated about the so called conservative establishment. He opposed Third
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Good Marshal's appointment to a federal jug ship. He was
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: hostile to organized labor. He was, in the view of
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: Texas liberals, a conservative masquerading as a Democrat. But this
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: was Southern conservatives back then would end up being Republican
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: by the nineteen eighties. Now, some of the liberal strategists
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: made a cold calculation in the sixty one special better
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: to let a conservative Democrat lose to a Republican than
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: keep propping up the conservative wing of the Democratic Party.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: The theory was that if the conservative Democrats kept losing
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: general elections, they'd eventually just migrate to the Republican Party,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: where they belonged ideologically, and they'd leave the Texas Democratic
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Party to its liberal wing. Well, congrats, Texas Democrats, you
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: pulled it off eventually. How did that work out?
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: But I digress.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: So enough liberal Democrats crossed over and voted for Tower.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: Tower wins the runoff by about ten thousand votes, and
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: he becomes the first Republican Senator from Texas since reconstruction.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Of course, it is worth noting the Conservatives didn't just
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: leave the Democratic Party. They took Texas with them to
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: the Republicans, and Tower was the first domino in a
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: realignment that ended with Democrats shut out of statewide office
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: for now thirty two years in county. Anyway, towers victory
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: cracked the Democratic slid south in Texas for the first time.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: The state Republican Party immediately got to double its budget,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: hired an actual staff, moved its headquarters to Austin. They
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: realized that they could actually become a competitive second political party.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: Tower would serve twenty four years in the Senate, ended
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: up Chair of Armed Services, mentored a generation of Texas
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: Republican operatives, became a major figure in Cold War defense policy,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: ended up essentially being humiliated out of politics in a
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: very when he was nominated to be Defense Secretary by
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush, his drinking became a big story.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: He withdraws, he ends up not getting actually he did.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: The Senate rejected him. It was so unusually. He actually
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: went for a voke becaus he was a sitting senator.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Senate rejected him and Dick Cheney would be the backup
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: plan for Defense Secretary Tower himself would die two years
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: after being rejected.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: By the Senate.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: But the most important thing to know about this race
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: is the sixty one victory modern Texas, the modern Republican
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Texas Republican Party was born with that sixty one special
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: election victory.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: And the number one race.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: On my list of all timers is the nineteen forty
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: eight Texas Democratic Senate primary. LBJ beats Coke Stevenson by
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: eighty seven votes, eighty seven votes out of nearly one
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: million casts. If those eighty seven votes go the other way,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson probably never becomes president. So you could argue
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: it's the most consequential eighty seven votes in American political history.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Does the Civil Rights Act pass, let alone get signed
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: by LBJ. So let me give you a little backstory.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: By nineteen forty eight eight, LBJ had served eleven years
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: in the House of Representatives. He was a protege of FDR.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: He was a new dealer, fierce operator in the new
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: deal in the FDR machine. But he'd figure something. House
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: in the House, you climb the seniority ladder, but you
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: have to wait. The Senate was where he thought the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: real power in Congress lived and he didn't have to
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: wait for seniority. And Johnson didn't have patience for waiting.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: He'd already run for the Senate once in nineteen forty one,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: and he lost a race that was itself probably stolen
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: from him. So he decided he wasn't going to wait
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: any longer. So who was Coke Stevenson? This is important
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: context because Stevenson wasn't some unknown challenger. He was one
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: of the most formidable politicians in Texas history. As Robert
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Carrow in the Incredible biographical series on Johnson, he notes
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: that Stevenson had run for public office twelve times, county judge,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: state legislator, Speaker of the House, lieutenant governor, governor. He
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: never lost, not once. When Texas legislator summed it up simply,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Coke Stevenson was just like Coca cola. He was quiet,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: deeply conservative, personally incorruptible. He projected an image of a
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: man who didn't need to seek power. Power just came
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: to him. He'd spent all of nineteen forty seven on
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: his ranch, and friends had talked him in to run it.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: Johnson ran one of the first modern campaigns in American history.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: He was the first candidate in Texas to campaign by helicopter.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: He swooped into small towns from the air, drawing crowds,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: working them with his volcanic energy, moving on before the
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: next stop. He broadcasts statewide radio nearly every day. Right
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: being connected to that fledgling radio industry was a huge
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: So he run a modern media campaign and a barnstorming campaign,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: and the contrast in styles was itself.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: Part of the campaign.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: One man was the future, one man was the past.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: So the fight between Johnson and Stevenson wasn't just personal,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: It reflected a genuine ideological divide inside the Texas Democratic Party.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Stevenson was aligned with the anti Truman faction, the Texas Regulars,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: as they were called Conservative Democrats, who opposed both FDR
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: and Truman's New Deal liberalism and were sympathetic to the
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: emerging Dixiecrat movement. Johnson was aligned with the pro Truman
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Texas Loyalists. They were labor backed, they were the New
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Deal wing of the party. So Truman understood what was
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: at stake. He his entire national operation back Johnson, and
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: in late September eighteen forty eight, right in the middle
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: of the contested post election period, Truman brought his famous
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: whistlestop campaign through Texas. Johnson and Truman were photographed together
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: on the back of that train in Austin. The image mattered.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: The liberal wing of the National Democratic Party had a
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: stake in Johnson winning Stevenson. A Stevenson victory would have
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: been a signal that the Dixie krat faction was ascended
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: in Texas. Johnson also weaponized the Cold War. This was
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: a nineteen forty eight Soviet Union had just blockaded Berlin.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: China was on the verge of falling to the Communists.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: The Alger Hiss spy case was in the news. Americans
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: were genuinely frightened. Johnson hammered Stevenson as an isolationist. The
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: kind of thinking that he said invited aggression leads to appeasement.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: He explicitly invoked Neville, Chamberlain and Hitler. When you don't
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: confront evil early, you end up fighting it at home.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: So for Texas audiences in nineteen forty eight, obviously that
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: framing landed. It was also the exact argument Truman needed
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: Johnson to be making.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: In the South.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Of course, the first primary between these Gentlemen was in July,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: and it produced no majority. Johnson and Stevenson went on
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: to have a runoff on August twenty eighth. On election night,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Coke Stevenson appeared to have won, his lead held as
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: returns came in, and then six days after the polls closed,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: officials in jim Wells County reported finding additional ballots Precinct
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: thirteen or Box thirteen in the small South Texas town
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: of Alice, two hundred and three additional votes two hundred
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: for Johnson, three for Stevenson. The names were all written
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: in the same handwriting in the same ink in alphabetical order.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: Some of the voters listed were not in town on
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: election day, some others were dead. The man behind it
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: was a political boss of South Texas named George Parr.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: He was known as the Duke of Duval. Parr controlled
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: the machine that ran elections in that part of the state,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: and he decided his allegiance lay with Johnson. The election
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: judge who actually created the fraudulent ballots was a man
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: named Luis Sallas. He stayed quiet for nearly three decades,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: and then in nineteen seventy seven, after so many people
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: had died, LBJ was no longer alive. He sat down
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: with an AP reporter named James Mangan and confessed it
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: all on tape. Salas said that on Parr's order, he
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: had fabricated the last two utter and two votes from
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Precinct thirteen. Those taped interviews have since been donated to
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: the LG LBJ Presidential Library. You can go listen to
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: him yourself anyway. Johnson wins by eighty seven votes, landslide lended.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Stevenson challenged the result all the way to federal court.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: He even hired Frank Hamer, the Texas ranger who had
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: killed Bonnie and Clyde, to investigate. Johnson's attorney was Abe Fortace,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: successfully argued that federal courts had no jurisdiction over a
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: state party primary. Fordison should be noted later was rewarded
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: with a Supreme Court seat by Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: certified the winner the general election in November was against
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: a Republican named Jack Porter. Never in doubt, and let's
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: just say, without those eighty seven votes, real or manufactured,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson goes, perhaps goes back to the House of
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: Representatives or who knows no Senate career means no Senate
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: majority leader Johnson, the most powerful Senate leader of the
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: twentieth century. No majority leader means no vice presidential nomination
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty. No vice president means no President Johnson
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: after Dallas. It's amazing. Robert Carroll spent decades documenting this race.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: His conclusion essentially was the eighty seven vote margin. And
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: a South Texas precinct is one of those moments where
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: a tiny contingent event cades and does something that reshapes
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: the world. A butterfly flaps its wings, perhaps illegally, and
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: history has changed.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: So there you go.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: You see why I love campaign history. There's so many
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: incredible stories. So those are my top five. I'll go
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: back and do them again real fast. Number five the
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: two thousand and two governor's race, Rick Perry winning only
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: governor yet to win under win reelection with less than
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: forty percent of the vote. Number four Bush versus Anne Richards,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: the birth of a President. Number three Ma Ferguson's win
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty four over Klansmen. Number two John Tower,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: the first Republican to break the mold in Texas. And
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: number one, of course, the LBJ and the magical eighty
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: seven votes that he wins by a few races that
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: didn't make the list that you guys might push back on.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't put in nineteen ninety, which was Anne Richards
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: victory over Clayton Williams, who basically threw the race away
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: when he compared rape to back weather and he said,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: just sit back and enjoy it. Let's just say Republican
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: women abandon him in Moss and Texas elected its second
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: woman governor after Ma Ferguson nineteen seventy eight, Bill Clements
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: defeats John Hilly becomes the first Republican governor of Texas
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: since reconstruction. Bill Clements would famously be involved with the
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: scandal that would take down the SMU football program, and
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: it actually messed with its eighty six he wins reelection,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: and he wins election in eighty six. He actually went
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: back and forth with Mark White there. But the scandal
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: that took down SMU football also eventually would end the
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: political career of Bill Clements. And then I could argue
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy Senate race where George H. W. Bush loses
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: to Lloyd Benson. Here's some fun family lore for the
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: bushes Bush's victory. The Bush victory in ninety four launches
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: George W. Bush's candidacy for the presidency. Teen seventy, George
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: HW loses a Senate race to Lloyd Benson. Nixon consoles
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: him after being recruited by Nixon to challenge at the
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: time a sitting Democratic senator who everybody thought was pretty
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: weak named Ralph Yalborough. Well, of course Lloyd Benson thought
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: he was weak too, and he beats him in a primary,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: and then Benson beats Bush in the general. But Nixon
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: felt bad that his recruited candidate loud, so he gave
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: him a succession of appointments you an ambassador, R and
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: C chair, CIA director, all of those that if he
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: wins the Senate race, he never serves in any of
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: those three capacities, and maybe he never has the resume
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: to even be thought of as a viable running mate
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: for then Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty. Anyway, there's there's
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: my top five for this week, little Texas history campaign
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: history to me the five most fascinating and consequential camp
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: statewide campaigns in tech history.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: What's your top five?
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: And go ahead, quiz me tell me this great stories
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: of your state. I've I've got these in my various archives,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: and I hope to be sharing them with you throughout
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: this campaign. Yere, I think it'll be a lot of fun.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: Ask Chuck, all right, let's get a few questions in here.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try to do Here's I'm doing four
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: because i have four complete questions on my screen, so
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: I'm no scrolling. This is how I'm deciding to do it.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: So first question comes from Mike from Honolulu, and he asks, Hey,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: thanks for the timely past weekend update, real quick on
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: point if mainstream media educates us On CNN for Reid
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: Zacharia did a piece August thirty, first, twenty twenty five
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: that lays out the complex his the US has with Iran.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: Would appreciate your take on Secretary Pete Eggset's briefing on
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: Monday morning. It felt confusing, not sure if he was
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: addressing our armed forces or the public, with a gesture
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: that reminded me of King George the Six Over and
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: over again. We tried to find a peaceful way out,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: but Iran started this. How real are our country's objectives?
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: Thanks for all your work, well, Mike, I think this
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: is It's clear that this is they're searching for a
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: rationale that they think the public will buy. They you know,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: the best reason to do this is not a very
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: strong rationale to do this, which is they're vulnerable at
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: the moment. You're never going to have a time. This
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: might be the weakest they are and if you want
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: to do regime change, this may be the best time
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: to do it. That's not you know, right when you
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: can't tell the truth on your rationale and you start
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: looking for others, Well, they could be this, and they
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: could be that, and they could be this. It starts
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: to look an awful lot like Iraq. And I think
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: that's what they're stumbling into here.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: And you know, they're.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Finding out that all of a sudden, look at how
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: many Middle Look how many countries in the Middle East
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: have already been hit with stray stray fire, intentional arms.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: What we got four or five countries already. This could
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: quickly get out of control in a hurry. And I
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: think that this they're really struggling with the rationale because
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: the rationale is thin. There isn't a lot of you know,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about questioning the intelligence behind the
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: WMD during the run up to the Iraq War. Where's
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: the intelligence that indicates where they were with their nuclear
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: and reconstituting the nuclear programmer where they were in ballistic missiles.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Essentially about the best case. I feel like I've heard
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: from Rubio and Hank Set doesn't have it. I mean,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: he's just not very good at this, and he doesn't
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: have a great grasp of history either, so I think
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: he really struggles here. But if you listen to Rubio,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: you know the essentially it's a preemptive strike against a
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: country that has the ambition to attack us but doesn't
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: have the means yet, and it goes back. I think
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: we all thought we learned a lesson about preemptive wars.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: But I have to tell you this. I'll tell you
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: something that I'm really one of the other rationales that
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: I think, say, terrible rationale. I don't buy it at all.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: But I really hate that they're pushing this one. I'll
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: just be honest with you here personally, because I think
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: it impacts a lot of Jewish Americans, which is Rubio
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: seemed to say, well, Israel was going to do it
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: regardless of what we did, and we were going to
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: get drawn in any way, so we might as well be.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: There at the beginning.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: And you're just sitting there going so you're telling the
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: American people that Israel's making this decision for the United States.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: What are you doing?
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: You want to talk about stoking more of this of
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: this sentiment out here that to me is in some
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: places overdone and overcooked in some places. And the conspiracy
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: theories that it's this, it's Israel that drives our foreign
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: policy and then you go out there and say it's
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: Israel that drove.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: Our policy decision here.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: If that's the case, then don't be surprised if you
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: if you know now you know we're all wondering why
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: is there a rise in anti Semitism, a rise in
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: anti Jewish rhetoric, and how it gets conflated with anti
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: Israel rhetoric. Well, when you now say, use a rationale
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: essentially saying that Israel is going to do this regardless
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: of what we did, so we chose to go with them.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: You know you already have you have critics and the
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: left and the right who are very skeptical of having Israel.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: Israel's national security concerns become America's national security concerns. So
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: that again I think this administration searching for a rationale
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: because the real rationale is very hard to sell, which is, hey,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: they were weak and we thought we can get them
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: in a moment. And oh, by the way, the Saudis
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: thought this was the best idea and the sad So
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: it's not that much better that the Saudis were pushing
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: us either, which you know when you realize that the
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: Saudis are funding the businesses of the President's son and
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: his son in law, Jared Kushner. And oh, by the way,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: Jared Kushner was one of the negotiators with the Iranians
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: on trying to have a diplomatic exit ramp here so
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: that we didn't end up in war. Yet his biggest
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: financial benefactor, the Sovereign Fund of Saudi Arabia, the Crown
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: Prince is lobbying the president to take out Iran. Now
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: this is the moment to strike. That's incredibly disconcerting when
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: you start to follow the money and connecting those dots
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: on that front. So bottom line, I think they're flailing
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: at the moment. And again I go back to something
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: I said to Chris Eliza earlier. The biggest problem Trump
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: has right now is the best, the best news that
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: he could get from this war has already passed, and
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: it's the death of Kamane. There is no other announcement
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: of news that is going to move the public that's
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: more than the death of Kamaane. And so every the
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: longer this goes, it is this is again, it's it's
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: at best, this is a neutral political problem for him.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: But the most likely scenarios that this is a net
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: negative across the board, whether it's in his own party
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: and it starts an intra party debate inside his own
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: party or with the vast middle. And we've seen Independence
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: look like Democrats in their opposition in the in the
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: early polling.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: I've seen on a rock. All right.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from Frank and New Jersey, says regular
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: listener here, first time emailer. Hey, I know Congress is
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: considering a War Powers Act to restrain what the president
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: can do. Of course it won't be signed by the
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: president even if it passes. But why is it that
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: even is that even needed if the power of war
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: is already with Congress for the Constitution, So how would
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: Congress restrain the president? Do they bring it to the courts.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: Can they only act through impeachment, Well, they cannot. I know,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: they've got the power of the purse. So in theory
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: they could withhold appropriations, they could not fund, or they
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: could withhold appropriations the next time Defense comes in because
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: guess what, the Pentagon's going to ask for a supplemental.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: This is an unbudgeted this was an unplanned war, and
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: we're going to have depleted our munitions and you know,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: we're already doing a sort of backdoor sale of arms
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: to Ukraine via name because Trump doesn't look like he's
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: directing directly giving selling weapons to Ukraine, he's doing it
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: through NATO. So there's no doubt that the Defense Department
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: is going to come to Congress with the request for supplemental.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: So in theory, it's it's simply the power of the purse.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: That is where they where they can have the most leverage.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: But you know.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: This this until a president. You know, there's a lot
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: of presidential legal scholar that doesn't accept the premise of
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: the War Powers Act at all anyway, and that it
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: isn't fully tested in the Constitution, and that hasn't been
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: tested in supring court. So it's like, is this a war?
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: Is this something else? You know, I think every time
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: he calls it a war, he's proving how unconstitutional this
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: action is. It looks more illegal or unconstitutional than than
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: than finding a through line to make this to make
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: this constitutional, and I don't see it. But you know,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: Congress has seeded so much authority to the president when
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: it comes to the use of the military. And then
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: there's you know these well, as long as you inform Congress, Well,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: what is the definition of informing Congress? Is it just
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: informing the leadership or is informing all of Congress? But look,
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: impeachment's the most extreme.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: Measure that they have.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: But they have the power of the purse. And I'll
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: be very curious to see how the supplemental support goes.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's usually unpopular not to pay the troops,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: so ultimately, you know it, you know, there's usually that
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: gets weaponized and makes it a very very tough vote.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: But I that I'm not ruling out that that becomes
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: a very close vote when and it's inevitable they have
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: to they've got there, we're going to we have munitions
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: issues that this is going to put us through four
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: to six weeks. You know the the Department Offense is
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: going to be begging for an appropriation supplement, and that's
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: where Congress, in theory, could have real leverage if they
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: so choose to use it, which, of course we know
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: most Congresses don't. Next question comes from John from Annapolis,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: and he writes, Hey, I'm a big fan of the show.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: Glad to have more options now for how to get
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: your take on what's happening, and what's happened as I
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: work on my taxes and see the amount I pay,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: it adds a certain sting to the news regarding how
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: our tax dollars are being spent on this new war. Yeah,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: I bet it was widely noted that the administration waited
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: until after the stock market closed to launch strikes on Iran,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: signaling at least some thought to the timing.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: My question is do you.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: Think this seemingly optional war would be received better by
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: the American public if it were not launched during tax season?
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: With affordability already a concern in Trump doing nothing to
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: sell the American people on the return on investment of
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: starting a war with Iran, it seems waiting until summer
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: might have been the better option from a messaging standpoint
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: go terms. I don't see how any good with this
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: Arroun deal, whether you waited till the summer, you did
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: it six months ago. I you know, I don't know
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: when a good timing considering where our heads are at
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: as an electorate, right, and how domestic focused I think
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: the voters are at the moment. Certainly we have some
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: theoretical fears about communist China or terrorism, but I think
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: our day to day concern continues to be affordability and
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: continues to be sort of you know, I think it's affordability,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: but it's more than that, right, I think the bigger
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: issue in which is why it's not affordability alone in
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: the economy, I think that that that it's not it's
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: it's you know, it's like, well, people have jobs, weren't
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: they happy? Though there's this uncertainty? You know, how secure
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: is my job in the age of AI? How secure
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: is my job in this in this unstable war, in
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: this unstable world that we're in at the moment, especially
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: one that feels like we've got a president intention making
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: us less stable.
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: And secure, not more stable and secure.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: So, you know, I don't know, if I don't I
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: don't know if I buy that it would be any
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: better or worse for taxing. But you bring up an
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: important point. Republicans that are on the ballot in twenty
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: six are counting on tax season to be this positive,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: to have a to be a positive moment for the
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: average American voter that they realize, oh, I'm getting a
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: bigger refund and all of this, and instead people are
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: going to be looking at it going, yeah, you know,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: my money's getting eaten up by higher energy prices. Now, oh,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: look what happened to my What little bit I had
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: in the stock market is now collapsing, right like, So,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: I just don't know, I just don't know if it
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: you know, yes, I think they've stepped on whatever positive
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: vibe that they wanted to get out of tax season,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: right which they wanted people to feel like, hey, look,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, put more money in your pocket, you can
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: handle this affordability issue, and that that would sort of
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: turn things, turn the perception of this economy, the country's
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: perception about the Republican management of this economy into a
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: positive direction. I do think, you know that the folly
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: of this Iran decision, and I use the word folly
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: because I you know, I think it's great that Commenee
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: has gone. I think the possibilities in Iran could be great.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: I just know that every time we in history tried
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: to orchestrate a regime transition, it just doesn't go well.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: Uh And it usually is one of those feelings that
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: it's one step forward, two steps back. And I think
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: that you know, we're seeing why there were so many
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: people quietly preaching caution to Trump on Iran.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: You know you saw me share an op ed from
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: John Ellis, a Bush cousin, right, part of the Bush
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: Plan political observer, longtime political observer who's terrific substack that
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: you should subscribe too, called news items where he was
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: making the case, hey, don't do Iran. If you're looking
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: for an easy, a legacy moment, that might be somewhat easy,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: go to Cuba.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: But now by.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: The time he gets to Cuba, it's after Iran. He
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: then is going to take away whatever. You know, the
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: potential positives that could have come from Cuba are just
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: simply lessened. They'll be there in South Florida, don't get
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: me wrong, but outside of South Florida, this will you know,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: suddenly it becomes Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba, and that's an
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: entirely different way that the American voter will absorb that
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: than if it had been just simply then as will
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: in Cuba. All right, last question comes from Kira, and
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: she writes, Hey, I love listening to your podcast and
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: occasionally my kids here at playing in the kitchen while
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: I'm cooking nice. How did you handle explaining plex political topics,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: particularly international conflicts, to your own kids when they were younger.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: Of course, each kid in situation is different, but I
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: would love your insights. By the way, my twelve year
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: old is the one who suggested I ask you. So,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: you know, it's funny you sit there and you think,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you just don't bring it up. Sometimes
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: you you know, my kids went to elementary school here
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: in Arlington, Virginia, and let's just say, you know, the
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: fact that their dad was on TV and in Arlington,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: Virginia meet the press is like this. It's like a
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: it's like a bigger deal in the Washington metro area
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: than it might be someone. It's like, you know, other places.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: So you know, they they would certainly get these, you know,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: they would always get questions about, well, who's your dad
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: voting for? And I remember one time a teacher told
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: me that my daughter said in class, I think she
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: was in third grade.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: She said, people.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: Were begging her, we're pounding her as your dad a
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: Democrat or Republican. And my daughter would say, my dad's
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: a Democrat and a Republican because I used to always
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: explain things, always from both perspectives. That was what my
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: dad did with me. He did not he had it
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: and he would say, I believe this, here's the here
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: are the two or three arguments about a story. And
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: I think I'd like to think he presented him pretty honestly.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: That would be my I would try to try to
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: do my best to explain it that way. I think
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: on some of the international stuff, I you know, you just.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: Sort of know.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: But I guess my basic advice is don't water it down,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: don't dumb it down. You know, answer every question. And
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: I had sort of a simple answer, a sort of
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: I'd say, here, well, here's what you might learn in
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: school about this soon. And then there's a there's a
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: more complicated answer that you know that you know would change,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: and so I kind of, you know, it was never.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say I sheltered them from it,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: but I actually tried, you know, it was it was
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: more I didn't want to put my kids in the
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: position of of having to try to answer questions when
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: their friends would say, well, what does your dad think
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: about X. So there was a time period where in
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: some ways they we talked very little about it, but
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: when they asked, I would just tell them, well, look,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: I think this sometimes if if mom and I were
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: on if mom and dad were on different sides of it,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: your mother thinks this, or we would say, you know,
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: hear the difference. But one of the things that I
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: was obsessed with, and my wife was right is right
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: there with me, is always explaining it from a three
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: sixty perspective. I said, well, here's the flashpoint is this,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: and so I think it's this, But here's where other
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: people will argue that it's this. Because I wanted them
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: to understand, and I didn't want them to be superficial
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: and think that just because somebody thought of something differently
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: than I did, that that meant that they were stupid
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: or whatever.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: Right I didn't. I didn't want that.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: So I guess the simplest way to say, answer the
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: question as honestly but simply as you can, and as
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: they get older, you get.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: To add more context. Probably. I hope that helps, and
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate the question.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: And with that, I'm gonna go ahead and put a
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: pin in this episode as you could see campaign season,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: I'd like to think, this is what you want, this
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: is why you subscribe. We're going to have you know
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: my can't the campaign coverage. There will be no other
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: podcast that go as in depth, that does as much
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: both history and context and all of this. I promise
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: you nobody else will do it like we do it here.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: At the Chuck Podcast. So buckle up.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: It's going to be quite and frankly between now and
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: November twenty twenty eight. In some ways we're going to
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: be NonStop when it comes to campaign season, but it
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: is now here we are. And let's just say the
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: Wednesday episodes are going to be humdingers, because if it's Tuesday,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: somebody's going to be voting somewhere, and just like we
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: just had with this Tuesday, a lot of people are
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: going to be voting