Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Decoding Missouri’s Election Map Mess + Remembering The “Voice Of A Century”

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Full Episode - Decoding Missouri’s Election Map Mess + Remembering The “Voice Of A Century” · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: welcome back to the Wednesday edition of the Chuck Toddcast. Yes,
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Speaker 1: now that the fall season is upon us, I am
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Speaker 1: I've been teasing this and teasing this, but it is
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Speaker 1: now live on YouTube right now. And you can see
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Speaker 1: it in this feed as well. It is for my
2:56
Speaker 1: Dynastic Sports History podcast with J.A. Adande. He and I
3:00
Speaker 1: have a tremendous conversation about Alabama football with the man himself,
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Speaker 1: the The only person other than Nick Saban you could
3:10
Speaker 1: call Mr. Alabama football that's living today, and it is
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Speaker 1: Paul Feinbaum. It was a tremendous conversation. You definitely will,
3:17
Speaker 1: if you're a college football fan or a fan or
3:20
Speaker 1: a history of college sports or you just love Alabama football,
3:23
Speaker 1: you're going to love this conversation. Yes, even me, even me,
3:27
Speaker 1: this anti-SEC Miami Hurricane fan, did my best to compartmentalize
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Speaker 1: my own personal venom with how the SEC sometimes wants
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Speaker 1: to velvet rope off college football for themselves. I think
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Speaker 1: we do a good job giving Alabama its due there.
3:48
Speaker 1: But I'm coming in tonight. We're actually taping. It's right
3:51
Speaker 1: after our live stream that we had on the New
3:53
Speaker 1: Hampshire primary. So I want to start with there. And look,
3:55
Speaker 1: most of my Wednesday episodes, at least between now and November,
3:58
Speaker 1: are going to be very campaign heavy. What's happening on
4:02
Speaker 1: the trail? You know, and that is... what I'll be
4:06
Speaker 1: bringing you tonight. I've got a fun sort of, on
4:09
Speaker 1: one hand, kind of an out-of-the-box kind of guest. On
4:12
Speaker 1: the other hand, when you hear the topic that we have, actually,
4:15
Speaker 1: it will make a lot of sense that this interview
4:18
Speaker 1: is in the Chuck Toddcast. We'll talk about that in
4:21
Speaker 1: a little bit. Plus, I have my top five list.
4:25
Speaker 1: The Blue Wave Blue Tsunami Test is what the top
4:28
Speaker 1: five list is about. You'll have to check it out.
4:31
Speaker 1: To get more details there. And of course, I take
4:32
Speaker 1: your question. But let me begin with what, if anything,
4:35
Speaker 1: we learned out of New Hampshire. And I think the
4:39
Speaker 1: big thing is, is that the establishment got its way.
4:43
Speaker 1: And they did so, frankly, rather comfortably. Chris Pappas, who's
4:47
Speaker 1: basically been the Democratic nominee in waiting ever since he
4:50
Speaker 1: announced and the field was relatively cleared. He helped clear it.
4:53
Speaker 1: Other people cleared it for him as well. There was
4:56
Speaker 1: no doubt that Democrats wanted to try to minimize the
5:00
Speaker 1: risk of losing this seat. Republicans, meanwhile, found themselves the
5:04
Speaker 1: best possible candidate they could get in this environment. They
5:06
Speaker 1: got somebody with the last name of Sununu. No, not
5:08
Speaker 1: the governor. But the former senator, John Sununu, and my
5:11
Speaker 1: friend Jeffrey Skelly noted that if John Sununu does win
5:14
Speaker 1: this Senate seat, it will be an 18-year gap, the
5:19
Speaker 1: largest gap really in the modern era between service time
5:22
Speaker 1: in the United States Senate. John E. Sununu served one
5:25
Speaker 1: term in the Senate, 2002, where he was recruited to primary,
5:32
Speaker 1: an incredibly vulnerable incumbent at the time, Bob Smith. The
5:36
Speaker 1: primary worked. Sununu won the primary, and then he goes
5:39
Speaker 1: on to defeat Gene Shaheen, who was the sitting governor
5:43
Speaker 1: at the time, for that Senate seat in 2002. Six
5:47
Speaker 1: years later, there's a The challenger won the rematch. That
5:53
Speaker 1: doesn't always happen. A lot of times in the Senate rematches,
5:57
Speaker 1: the losing candidate not only comes up short, but usually
6:01
Speaker 1: comes up, usually loses by a larger margin than they
6:04
Speaker 1: lost the first time. Paul Wellstone, Rudy Boschwitz is my
6:06
Speaker 1: favorite example of that. If you want to go down
6:09
Speaker 1: into the history of those election results. But Shaheen won
6:13
Speaker 1: the seat back from Johnny Sununu in 2008, and she's
6:19
Speaker 1: served in it ever since. Interestingly, her first reelection was
6:22
Speaker 1: against Scott Brown, who was by then the former senator
6:25
Speaker 1: from Massachusetts. He got the nomination in 2014. It was
6:28
Speaker 1: a fairly competitive race, but Sheen survived in a Republican-leaning year.
6:32
Speaker 1: And then Scott Brown wanted to run again when this
6:34
Speaker 1: seat opened up, and Republicans decided that they did not
6:37
Speaker 1: want to get behind his candidacy. So they went and
6:39
Speaker 1: found themselves a Sununu. And so here we are. And
6:42
Speaker 1: John Sununu won by a bigger margin than Chris Pappas
6:44
Speaker 1: did in his primary. Pappas had a progressive primary challenger
6:47
Speaker 1: who did not have much money. Had no national support.
6:51
Speaker 1: And that's what's that's the most interesting aspect of it's
6:56
Speaker 1: sort of like the dog that didn't bark in New
6:58
Speaker 1: Hampshire and the progressive dog didn't bark. And I think
7:02
Speaker 1: it had a lot to do with presidential candidates not
7:05
Speaker 1: wanting to alienate the Shaheen machine. right? And so the
7:09
Speaker 1: Shaheen machine was basically behind Pappas. The Shaheen machine has
7:14
Speaker 1: a candidate in the first congressional district, the district that
7:17
Speaker 1: Pappas is vacating. And Jean Shaheen's daughter ran in that race.
7:24
Speaker 1: And certainly there was a lot of effort to eke
7:27
Speaker 1: her out into that primary. And so it is interesting
7:31
Speaker 1: that so many outside groups didn't play in this race.
7:35
Speaker 1: And as James Pindell Boston Globe reporter, a longtime New
7:39
Speaker 1: Hampshire reporter. In fact, back when I got to know him,
7:41
Speaker 1: he worked for something called Politics NH, really is sort
7:44
Speaker 1: of the New Hampshire expert. And, you know, he looked
7:47
Speaker 1: at it as if he were assessing the progressive movement,
7:51
Speaker 1: that they really dropped the ball on this one. They
7:53
Speaker 1: had an opportunity. But, you know, this has been it's
7:56
Speaker 1: been interesting. You know, the the progressive progressives have had a,
8:03
Speaker 1: you know, Bernie Sanders has won the New Hampshire primary twice,
8:07
Speaker 1: but the progressive movement has not been able to either
8:10
Speaker 1: use that momentum to build off of it in any way.
8:13
Speaker 1: I mean, the most progressive member of the delegation they've
8:15
Speaker 1: had in sort of this century was Carol Shea Porter,
8:18
Speaker 1: who represented one of the two congressional districts. But the
8:22
Speaker 1: left has been sort of muted, and it's always been
8:25
Speaker 1: kind of muted. And it goes back to the fact
8:27
Speaker 1: that Democrats couldn't win in New Hampshire for an ice age.
8:30
Speaker 1: And then 1996, Gene Shaheen goes from party operative. She
8:34
Speaker 1: cut her teeth helping Gary Hart pull an upset 1984
8:38
Speaker 1: as one of his, the Shaheen machine was born at
8:41
Speaker 1: the 84 New Hampshire primary when she essentially resurrected the
8:45
Speaker 1: Gary Hart campaign from the dead. And the legend was
8:48
Speaker 1: born then. And by 96, she had enough chits to
8:53
Speaker 1: actually win office herself. And she broke a near 100
8:56
Speaker 1: year streak to become a Democratic elected governor there in
8:59
Speaker 1: New Hampshire. So She is the party. She created the
9:03
Speaker 1: modern Democratic Party. And there's always been an allergy inside
9:05
Speaker 1: that party. Don't go too far to the left. That's how,
9:09
Speaker 1: you know, New Hampshire Republicans have successfully elected very conservative
9:14
Speaker 1: statewide office holders in the past. I think they have
9:17
Speaker 1: less luck with that now. The state really is a
9:21
Speaker 1: sort of a center left leaning state. You know, if
9:25
Speaker 1: Democrats go too liberal, that's when a Republican can win.
9:28
Speaker 1: And these days, Republicans can't get too far to the right,
9:32
Speaker 1: or they struggle to carry that state, right? Donald Trump's
9:35
Speaker 1: never carried New Hampshire, yet we still consider New Hampshire
9:38
Speaker 1: as part of the larger, most competitive part of the battleground.
9:42
Speaker 1: So I think the story of New Hampshire really is
9:46
Speaker 1: how the establishment really did work its magic in both
9:51
Speaker 1: sides of the aisle and kept the outsiders out, if
9:55
Speaker 1: you will. Certainly kept them at bay, kept the outsider
9:58
Speaker 1: money from being too involved here the way we've seen
10:03
Speaker 1: outsider money everywhere else. Now, the question is, how competitive
10:06
Speaker 1: is this race? I had a lot of fun with
10:08
Speaker 1: Jessica Taylor during our live stream. She is the guru
10:11
Speaker 1: behind the Senate ratings for the Cook Political Report with
10:14
Speaker 1: my friend Amy Walter. And we were doing, OK, what's
10:17
Speaker 1: closer to toss up? Nobody is saying New Hampshire Senate
10:19
Speaker 1: is a toss up between Pappas and Sununu, but it's
10:22
Speaker 1: going to be a very competitive race. It's going to
10:24
Speaker 1: be a single digit race. Probably decided, I think, in
10:27
Speaker 1: the somewhere in the four to six point range. If
10:31
Speaker 1: it's closer, that means it's probably been a better Republican
10:35
Speaker 1: night nationally. And if it's a little bigger, then we'll
10:38
Speaker 1: know it was a better night nationally for the Democrats.
10:40
Speaker 1: But I think we're looking at a four to six
10:42
Speaker 1: point range. So we did this. OK, what's closer to
10:44
Speaker 1: toss up? New Hampshire Senate? or Kansas Senate. Oh, and
10:48
Speaker 1: then we did New Hampshire Senate or Nebraska Senate. And
10:50
Speaker 1: then we did New Hampshire Senate or Iowa Senate. And
10:53
Speaker 1: so when she did those orders, she had New Hampshire Senate,
10:56
Speaker 1: essentially much closer to, not much closer, closer to toss
11:00
Speaker 1: up than Kansas, closer to toss up than Nebraska, but
11:03
Speaker 1: Iowa is in her toss up category narrowly. But New Hampshire,
11:09
Speaker 1: not there. So that's where she classifies New Hampshire. I'm
11:11
Speaker 1: probably a little more bearish on it, though. I don't
11:15
Speaker 1: want to discount the Sununu name. And I've shared with you,
11:18
Speaker 1: I've known John E. Sununu a long time. He is
11:22
Speaker 1: just a dude. I've gotten to know him. He's a
11:25
Speaker 1: big baseball card collector. And he's way into, for those
11:29
Speaker 1: of you who don't know, he collects all the pre-war,
11:31
Speaker 1: all the pre-1952 stuff. He's a pre-war collector. He loves those.
11:38
Speaker 1: If the set has a T in front of it,
11:41
Speaker 1: he's collecting those. Um, he one time gifted me two
11:44
Speaker 1: tops Venezuelan cards, which are these very thin was printed
11:48
Speaker 1: on extraordinarily thin paper, but, uh, in Spanish and stuff.
11:52
Speaker 1: And just, just a fantastic little collector's item. If you
11:55
Speaker 1: care about these things, um, in many ways, I always thought,
12:01
Speaker 1: you know, Johnson and his politics were probably a little
12:03
Speaker 1: too conservative New Hampshire, but culturally he was sort of
12:06
Speaker 1: the right kind of quirky. And I say that as
12:08
Speaker 1: a compliment. Um, But it's hard to see. Kelly Ayotte
12:14
Speaker 1: is a Republican that has figured out how to win
12:16
Speaker 1: that governor's race. But as we've discussed, it is easier
12:22
Speaker 1: to win a governor's race if you're not from where
12:25
Speaker 1: the state leans than it is a federal race where
12:28
Speaker 1: the jersey color matters a lot. And the thing with
12:30
Speaker 1: Chris Pappas, his sin in the primary was he was
12:33
Speaker 1: not considered a progressive. He very much is, you know,
12:37
Speaker 1: he was getting hit for votes that many Republicans supported
12:42
Speaker 1: in the House of Representatives. So he is ideologically well suited.
12:46
Speaker 1: The question is, is he charismatic enough to hold it
12:50
Speaker 1: or does it matter? Right. Is it going to break through?
12:54
Speaker 1: Is this a race that is going to grab the
12:57
Speaker 1: attention of New Hampshire voters and importantly, the New Hampshire
12:59
Speaker 1: independent voters? I'm a bit skeptical, which is why I
13:03
Speaker 1: think you're going to see. Everybody will acknowledge this is
13:06
Speaker 1: going to be close. It's kind of like, frankly, how
13:09
Speaker 1: I feel about the South Carolina Senate race. I think
13:11
Speaker 1: it's going to be really close. I think you're making
13:12
Speaker 1: a mistake if you totally ignore it. I feel the
13:15
Speaker 1: same way about New Hampshire. You're making a mistake if
13:17
Speaker 1: you totally ignore it. But eight times out of 10,
13:21
Speaker 1: I think I know who's going to win both races.
13:24
Speaker 1: But if you're talking, it is not a crazy result.
13:29
Speaker 1: It is not some total, it's a surprise, but not
13:34
Speaker 1: a shock if Sununu pulled it off. And I'd feel
13:37
Speaker 1: the same way in South Carolina if Annie Andrews upset
13:40
Speaker 1: Darlene Graham. I'd be surprised, but it wouldn't be shocked, right?
13:43
Speaker 1: The ingredients, there's a lot of the ingredients you need
13:47
Speaker 1: to pull an upset is sitting there in South Carolina.
13:50
Speaker 1: So that's kind of, I put New Hampshire more in
13:53
Speaker 1: that category, that sort of, these are competitive races. The
13:58
Speaker 1: party that should win, is favored to win, should win
14:02
Speaker 1: But these are some pretty good challenger candidates, so they
14:05
Speaker 1: shouldn't be ignored. But again, I go back. It is
14:09
Speaker 1: really interesting to me how, and this is what Pindell
14:14
Speaker 1: kept pointing out, which I think was a smart point,
14:17
Speaker 1: which is how people like in that second tier of
14:21
Speaker 1: presidential candidate on the Democratic side, think Ro Khanna, think
14:26
Speaker 1: Chris Van Hollen, think Chris Murphy, didn't essentially go against
14:31
Speaker 1: the grain and go against the establishment. Because here's a
14:33
Speaker 1: dirty little secret. The Shaheen machine's never getting behind a
14:38
Speaker 1: Ro Khanna. The Shaheen machine's never getting behind a Chris
14:41
Speaker 1: Van Hollen candidacy or a Chris Murphy candidacy. So I
14:44
Speaker 1: kind of think it would have been a free opportunity
14:46
Speaker 1: and it would have allowed you to stand out in
14:48
Speaker 1: a way that others didn't stand out. But again, I
14:52
Speaker 1: get it. No Democrat wanted to be on the wrong
14:55
Speaker 1: side of the Shaheen family, which may explain why progressives
15:00
Speaker 1: in general didn't get the support in New Hampshire that
15:04
Speaker 1: I think perhaps that voters might have been intrigued and
15:09
Speaker 1: open for. So there's my quick little thing in New Hampshire.
15:12
Speaker 1: It does not change my overall belief about where the
15:16
Speaker 1: national landscape is. It doesn't change anything I said. I
15:19
Speaker 1: still think the most likely scenario is some sort of
15:22
Speaker 1: fairly significant blue wave. The question is just how big
15:28
Speaker 1: can it get? Can it look closer to being big
15:31
Speaker 1: rather than closer to him being a mirage? Well, that's
15:34
Speaker 1: what we're going to find out in the next eight weeks.
15:37
Speaker 1: And speaking of that, let me unload on a few
15:39
Speaker 1: more items in my notebook, my sort of Wednesday, call
15:44
Speaker 1: it the Wednesday campaign notebook. And I want to start
15:46
Speaker 1: in the state of Missouri because I think we have
15:49
Speaker 1: a real sort of disenfranchising of voter problem now going
15:55
Speaker 1: on in Missouri. Because if you want an example of
15:58
Speaker 1: of how our political system can make something that ought
16:00
Speaker 1: to be fairly simple, like voting, almost incomprehensibly complicated. Do
16:06
Speaker 1: I have one for you? And the story has changed
16:09
Speaker 1: a lot just in the last 24 hours. So right
16:14
Speaker 1: before the polls closed in New Hampshire on Tuesday night,
16:19
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court seemed to put it to rest and
16:21
Speaker 1: we thought we had it to rest. And then another
16:23
Speaker 1: federal court jumped in and put a temporary restraining order
16:28
Speaker 1: what the state Supreme Court said, kind of ignoring what
16:32
Speaker 1: the U.S. Supreme Court said. So let me lay this
16:35
Speaker 1: out there for those of you that haven't been paying
16:38
Speaker 1: attention to what Missouri's been up to. And this, of course,
16:41
Speaker 1: is all about that larger battle that we spent the
16:45
Speaker 1: spring litigating and relitigating all over the country, the sort
16:49
Speaker 1: of mid-decade redistricting. So Missouri Republicans drew, you know, followed
16:55
Speaker 1: the advice of President Trump and drew a new congressional
16:59
Speaker 1: map last year. They wanted to go instead of 6-2,
17:02
Speaker 1: they wanted to at least see if they could get
17:04
Speaker 1: to 7-1 or even 8-0. It was part of that
17:08
Speaker 1: mid-decade redistricting arms race. And the principal target was the
17:14
Speaker 1: fifth congressional district in Kansas City. It is the district
17:17
Speaker 1: that is currently represented by Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver. opponents
17:23
Speaker 1: of that map. And what they did is they basically,
17:25
Speaker 1: they got rid of the fifth, right? They created a
17:27
Speaker 1: hub and spoke and they made a, and essentially they
17:31
Speaker 1: created a situation that there would be just one African-American
17:35
Speaker 1: seat in St. Louis, essentially. And that's it. 7-1 everywhere.
17:41
Speaker 1: They took a 6-2, a map that, you know, in
17:43
Speaker 1: a really good democratic year could get to 5-3. if
17:48
Speaker 1: the Ann Wagner suburban seat ever fell to the Democrats.
17:50
Speaker 1: But realistically, it had been a 6-2 map. They decided
17:54
Speaker 1: they could make a 7-1 map. They couldn't get rid
17:56
Speaker 1: of the St. Louis district, but they thought they could
17:58
Speaker 1: get rid of the Kansas City one. So they come
18:01
Speaker 1: up with this 7-1 map. Opponents of that map went
18:04
Speaker 1: out and collected more than 300,000 signatures to put the
18:09
Speaker 1: legislation basically on a yay or nay, up or down
18:11
Speaker 1: vote on a statewide referendum. Because under Missouri's constitution, A
18:16
Speaker 1: valid referendum petition can suspend a law until the voters
18:22
Speaker 1: decide whether to approve it. The voters can kind of
18:24
Speaker 1: overrule a legislature if enough signatures are gathered to do
18:30
Speaker 1: just that. It's an interesting... Missouri's not the only state
18:33
Speaker 1: that does this, but it's one of the few states
18:35
Speaker 1: that do it. So opponents got the signatures and they
18:40
Speaker 1: had it for a long time. And it looked like
18:42
Speaker 1: we were going to get this referendum... pretty quickly and
18:45
Speaker 1: it would have happened perhaps in the spring or whatever,
18:49
Speaker 1: except the Missouri Secretary of State, Danny Hoskins, decided the
18:53
Speaker 1: referendum provision didn't apply to congressional redistricting. By the way,
19:00
Speaker 1: he had no basis in fact to prove this, he
19:03
Speaker 1: just decided this. So he just kept delaying. Those petitions
19:09
Speaker 1: were submitted in December OK, December of 2025. We are
19:14
Speaker 1: sitting in September of 2026. And when did he did
19:18
Speaker 1: not reject the petition signatures officially until 4 p.m. on
19:22
Speaker 1: August 4th. August 4th happened to be the day of
19:26
Speaker 1: the Missouri primary. In other words, and you see what
19:31
Speaker 1: he was doing here, he was sort of trying to
19:32
Speaker 1: they were trying to jam the courts. They were trying
19:35
Speaker 1: to sort of force a situation where, yeah, you know,
19:38
Speaker 1: but you can't disenfranchise the voters. We've gone too far.
19:41
Speaker 1: It's like Trump. It's the equivalent of knocking down a
19:43
Speaker 1: building before anybody gave you permission to knock down a building.
19:47
Speaker 1: What are you going to do about it now?
19:49
Speaker 2: Right.
19:49
Speaker 1: That's essentially what this Missouri secretary of state tried to do.
19:53
Speaker 1: He tried to screw the voters, screw the state constitution
19:56
Speaker 1: and jam this thing through. So Missouri went ahead on
20:00
Speaker 1: August 4th, held congressional primaries using the new district lines.
20:05
Speaker 1: Even though he knew the legal status as Secretary of State,
20:09
Speaker 1: this person ought to be recalled and kicked out of office.
20:11
Speaker 1: It's the most undemocratic actions that you could make here.
20:15
Speaker 1: I mean, and it's incompetency. Like any first-year lawyer just
20:20
Speaker 1: out of law school would have told him, hey, this
20:22
Speaker 1: is going to get challenged. Anyway, so he goes ahead
20:27
Speaker 1: and allows the election to be held under the new lines,
20:31
Speaker 1: even though he knew the legal status was in question.
20:34
Speaker 1: And so what happened? Last week, the Missouri Supreme Court,
20:38
Speaker 1: the state Supreme Court, unanimously said the Secretary of State's
20:42
Speaker 1: decision to not accept these referendum, accept those signatures and
20:47
Speaker 1: accept the premise of the referendum, that his interpretation that
20:51
Speaker 1: somehow this provision in the Constitution didn't apply to redistricting
20:56
Speaker 1: was BS, man. This was unanimous. Unanimous, they said this.
21:02
Speaker 1: They said the referendum was legal, it was sufficient, and
21:05
Speaker 1: it was timely. And because it was filed on time,
21:08
Speaker 1: the court said the new congressional map never took effect.
21:13
Speaker 1: So as far as the state Supreme Court is concerned,
21:15
Speaker 1: there is no 7-1 map that the Republicans created late
21:20
Speaker 1: in 2025. There was only the 2022 map, which was
21:21
Speaker 1: that 6-2 map. So- The Missouri Supreme Court is saying
21:29
Speaker 1: the map didn't become illegal last week. The map never existed.
21:34
Speaker 1: It never took effect. But voters voted, right? Hey, you
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Speaker 1: dot com slash chucked. So the old 2022 districts remain,
23:48
Speaker 1: as far as the state Supreme Court is concerned, the
23:51
Speaker 1: only legal congressional districts that Missouri has had the entire time.
23:56
Speaker 1: So the court specifically blamed the practical mess we're now
24:00
Speaker 1: in on the Secretary of State's delay and incorrect interpretation
24:04
Speaker 1: of law. This is why this person, he literally... has
24:09
Speaker 1: disenfranchised over a million voters with his partisan decision just
24:15
Speaker 1: because he was afraid of following his own state's constitution.
24:19
Speaker 1: I believe he took an oath, but apparently he already
24:21
Speaker 1: violated his oath. So look, they didn't like what the
24:24
Speaker 1: state Supreme Court did. So Missouri appealed to the United
24:27
Speaker 1: States Supreme Court to intervene. And again, just before polls
24:31
Speaker 1: closed in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, Justice Brett
24:34
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh declined to intervene. He didn't give an explanation. But
24:38
Speaker 1: I can tell you why he didn't intervene. This is
24:40
Speaker 1: a state issue. The U.S. Supreme Court rarely is just
24:45
Speaker 1: not going to get involved in the interpretation of a
24:48
Speaker 1: state constitution by a state Supreme Court. That's why he
24:53
Speaker 1: didn't intervene. And if you go look at the history
24:56
Speaker 1: of U.S. Supreme Courts, when you see states, I mean,
25:00
Speaker 1: we saw a similar thing happen with Virginia. Virginia Democrats
25:04
Speaker 1: wanted the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and they wouldn't
25:06
Speaker 1: do it. They're not going to get involved when the
25:08
Speaker 1: state Supreme Court is interpreting the state constitution. So one
25:15
Speaker 1: would have assumed that would have settled it. Old map
25:18
Speaker 1: is going to be in November. Now, there was a
25:20
Speaker 1: lot of problems with that, except minutes after the Kavanaugh
25:25
Speaker 1: decision where he said the U.S. Supreme Court was not
25:27
Speaker 1: going to intervene in this, a federal district judge in
25:31
Speaker 1: Missouri said, a gentleman named Stephen Clark issued a temporary
25:35
Speaker 1: restraining order saying Missouri cannot use the old map, even
25:40
Speaker 1: though the state Supreme Court said there is only one map.
25:42
Speaker 1: There is no new map because it was never legal.
25:46
Speaker 1: So here we are. The Missouri Supreme Court says there
25:48
Speaker 1: is no new map. You cannot use it. It's not
25:51
Speaker 1: a legal map. And a federal judge says, yeah, but
25:54
Speaker 1: you can't use the old map now. It's too late.
25:56
Speaker 1: Election day is eight weeks away. So here we are, Missouri.
25:59
Speaker 1: So what's going to happen? So here's what Judge Clark's
26:01
Speaker 1: order says. does. It only lasts 14 days, this temporary
26:04
Speaker 1: restraining order. And the opponents of the new map have
26:07
Speaker 1: already appealed this decision. But it is important to hear
26:11
Speaker 1: Clark's reasoning here because this was the point I had
26:14
Speaker 1: actually prepared to talk about until we had even more
26:17
Speaker 1: changes here. He has now put his finger on the
26:21
Speaker 1: same problem I was trying to understand since the Missouri
26:23
Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruling came down. He says switching maps between
26:27
Speaker 1: the primary and the general election would, quote, wreak havoc
26:30
Speaker 1: on the fairness and orderliness of Missouri's congressional elections. And
26:36
Speaker 1: he's right about the underlying practical problem, because Missouri already
26:39
Speaker 1: held this primary. About 1.2 million Missourians participated in said primary.
26:44
Speaker 1: Candidates won nominations. Those results were certified, all under a
26:48
Speaker 1: map that does not exist, according to the state Supreme Court,
26:51
Speaker 1: by the way. But because those primaries were conducted using
26:56
Speaker 1: the new districts. So now what do you do, right?
27:01
Speaker 1: The Missouri Supreme Court says those districts never should have
27:05
Speaker 1: been used because they had not been enacted into law yet.
27:10
Speaker 1: So imagine you're a voter in Missouri. You showed up
27:12
Speaker 1: in August. The state told you, here's your new congressional district.
27:16
Speaker 1: Here are the candidates seeking to represent you. You get
27:19
Speaker 1: to pick one. And so you did. Your vote was counted.
27:23
Speaker 1: And now the state may have to come back and say, well,
27:27
Speaker 1: We now, you're now in a different district. So the
27:29
Speaker 1: person you voted in the primary is not the nominee
27:31
Speaker 1: you get to decide between. That's in, you're now in
27:35
Speaker 1: a different district. Well, what the hell, right? Right, so
27:40
Speaker 1: somebody else won a primary to represent your actual district,
27:43
Speaker 1: except you never got to vote in that primary. So we're,
27:48
Speaker 1: this is not a hypothetical. This is what is being
27:50
Speaker 1: contemplated right now by the state of Missouri. Now, if
27:54
Speaker 1: you want to get into the details here, six of
27:57
Speaker 1: Missouri's eight congressional districts were changed by the new map.
28:01
Speaker 1: And the fifth district was the one changed the most.
28:04
Speaker 1: So basically, you've got three quarters of voters were impacted
28:07
Speaker 1: by this in Missouri. So I don't know how you
28:10
Speaker 1: can even if you're I don't know how Congress can
28:12
Speaker 1: seat the winners of this if they hold if they
28:14
Speaker 1: somehow change maps here anyway. So. So now are they
28:23
Speaker 1: going to revert to the old map? And then if
28:26
Speaker 1: you're the Republican nominee, a guy named Rick Bratton thought
28:28
Speaker 1: he was going to be essentially the shoo-in to win
28:31
Speaker 1: the congressional seat of the new fifth district. Now he's
28:35
Speaker 1: going to be the Republican nominee against Emanuel Cleaver in
28:38
Speaker 1: Emanuel Cleaver's old district, and he's going to get trounced.
28:42
Speaker 1: And the Republican voters who nominated the Republican who were
28:45
Speaker 1: voting in a fundamentally different district. So what do you do? Well,
28:51
Speaker 1: what Judge Clark's answer is, essentially, is that changing now
28:54
Speaker 1: creates such enormous disruption that the fairer course is to
28:57
Speaker 1: finish the election under the map used for the primary.
29:02
Speaker 1: But there's one enormous problem with the solution. The Missouri
29:04
Speaker 1: Supreme Court has unanimously said that the map never took
29:08
Speaker 1: effect under Missouri law. So now you've got two courts
29:13
Speaker 1: protecting two different principles. The state court is saying you
29:16
Speaker 1: cannot simply ignore the Missouri Constitution because following it has
29:19
Speaker 1: become inconvenient. which is what the secretary of state essentially did.
29:23
Speaker 1: And he intentionally delayed his decision to try to jam,
29:26
Speaker 1: to try to create this fiasco situation we're in. Again,
29:30
Speaker 1: I just, you know, I hate dumbasses. This guy, I
29:34
Speaker 1: don't know, just get out of politics. Don't ever get
29:38
Speaker 1: near public services. again. You weren't interested in working on
29:41
Speaker 1: public service. You were just interested in implementing some partisan hackery.
29:45
Speaker 1: You ran for secretary of state. That's it. That in
29:48
Speaker 1: theory is supposed to be a job. That's a bit
29:51
Speaker 1: more operational, a lot less partisan. And, and it's just,
29:55
Speaker 1: it stinks to high heaven. Um, So we're in this
30:00
Speaker 1: situation because of a bad acting by a bad actor.
30:06
Speaker 1: But now we've got the two courts, and I get it.
30:09
Speaker 1: This is not a very easy thing to reconcile. So
30:13
Speaker 1: now we're in this situation where you have a map
30:17
Speaker 1: that the state Supreme Court says did not follow the
30:20
Speaker 1: state's constitution. You've held a primary election, an illegal primary election,
30:26
Speaker 1: as it turns out. But you don't want to disenfranchise
30:30
Speaker 1: all of these voters, right? That's what the federal judge
30:32
Speaker 1: is saying. So what do you do? Well, why does
30:36
Speaker 1: the solution have to be pretending that one of these
30:38
Speaker 1: problems doesn't exist? Because there is a precedent for another
30:42
Speaker 1: way to get out of this box, and it's Texas 1996.
30:45
Speaker 1: This is where the Missouri story, I think, is likely headed.
30:49
Speaker 1: Texas had a similar situation. They had already held their
30:52
Speaker 1: congressional primaries in 1996. Then after those primaries, a federal
30:56
Speaker 1: court had to redraw a bunch of congressional districts because
30:59
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court had upheld a ruling finding that several
31:03
Speaker 1: of the districts, not all of them, but several of
31:05
Speaker 1: them were unconstitutional. So while it was a different underlying
31:10
Speaker 1: legal issue, we had the same practical election problem. You've
31:14
Speaker 1: already held the primaries. Now you've got different districts. So
31:17
Speaker 1: what did the federal court do? It voided the primary
31:21
Speaker 1: results in the 13 affected congressional districts. and then did
31:26
Speaker 1: something remarkably simple. On the regular November election day in 96,
31:31
Speaker 1: everybody ran on one ballot, Democrats, Republicans, and anybody else
31:34
Speaker 1: who qualified, all on the same ballot. If somebody got
31:37
Speaker 1: a majority, congratulations, you're going to Congress on the traditional
31:45
Speaker 1: election day. If nobody got 50%, the top two came
31:48
Speaker 1: back for a runoff on December 10th. Four districts ended
31:51
Speaker 1: up requiring those runoffs. This is not some theoretical law
31:56
Speaker 1: school remedy. This is what was actually done not that
32:00
Speaker 1: long ago. And the reason I bring this up isn't
32:05
Speaker 1: because I'm telling Missouri what a court should do. I'm
32:08
Speaker 1: just telling you what's, I think, going to be the likely,
32:12
Speaker 1: the simplest solution to not an easy, to certainly not
32:18
Speaker 1: an easy problem. There are important legal differences between Texas
32:22
Speaker 1: in 96 and Missouri in 26, right? Missouri law itself
32:25
Speaker 1: does not ordinarily provide for this kind of congressional election.
32:29
Speaker 1: A court would have to find the legal authority to
32:32
Speaker 1: impose this extraordinary remedy. And I think that's something a
32:36
Speaker 1: federal court could do. The clock, by the way, is
32:39
Speaker 1: ticking here. Federal law generally requires military and overseas ballots
32:42
Speaker 1: to go out 45 days before a federal election. For
32:46
Speaker 1: November 3rd, That would put the deadline at September 19th,
32:50
Speaker 1: 11 days, right? We're less than two weeks away. But
32:55
Speaker 1: if the courts ultimately conclude that Missouri has to use
32:58
Speaker 1: the old districts, somebody's going to have to answer this
33:00
Speaker 1: fundamental question. Who nominated the candidates? Because District 5 is
33:04
Speaker 1: not just a number on a piece of paper. A
33:06
Speaker 1: congressional district is filled with people. Change the people and
33:09
Speaker 1: you've changed the electorate. And if you've changed the electorate,
33:12
Speaker 1: how do you simply declare the nominee chosen by one
33:14
Speaker 1: group of voters is also the nominee chosen by another
33:16
Speaker 1: group of voters who never got to participate, right? So
33:20
Speaker 1: that's why I keep coming back to the Texas solution.
33:22
Speaker 1: It's the most obvious answer here. And it's the simplest
33:25
Speaker 1: way to not create more problems because more problems could
33:28
Speaker 1: create it if you don't do this. You know, November
33:31
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be the general election. November becomes the
33:33
Speaker 1: primary and the general. It's what Louisiana used to do
33:36
Speaker 1: for years for what it's worth, right? You know, you get, frankly,
33:41
Speaker 1: it's the type of primary election I would prefer as
33:43
Speaker 1: a voter, you know, not having to pick a party,
33:46
Speaker 1: but you just, everybody's on the same ballot. I don't
33:50
Speaker 1: know that this is what the courts will do, but
33:52
Speaker 1: precedent always matters here. And this is a fairly, it's
33:57
Speaker 1: the fairest way to resolve this problem, right? Of all
34:02
Speaker 1: the available choices, at least this one is the virtue
34:04
Speaker 1: of letting people who actually live in the district choose
34:08
Speaker 1: who represents them. And this ought to be the priority, right?
34:11
Speaker 1: That's the constituency whose interests seem to have gotten lost
34:14
Speaker 1: in this entire fight, the actual fricking voters. Republicans wanted
34:18
Speaker 1: another congressional seat. Opponents wanted a referendum. The Secretary of
34:22
Speaker 1: State decided the referendum wasn't valid because it went against
34:24
Speaker 1: his own politics. The Missouri Supreme Court decided that it was.
34:28
Speaker 1: The The state was hoping the U.S. Supreme Court would intervene.
34:31
Speaker 1: They wouldn't. Now we're in this intervention, temporary restraining order,
34:35
Speaker 1: which sort of screws everything up. The Eighth Circuit is
34:38
Speaker 1: going to get involved. And that's where I think they're
34:40
Speaker 1: going to come up with this remedy. There is just
34:43
Speaker 1: there is no other way. Again, unless everybody has their
34:49
Speaker 1: head up their partisan ass, right, the only remedy here
34:54
Speaker 1: is to provide the voters an opportunity to pick their
34:57
Speaker 1: own representatives and in the districts that actually exist. If
35:04
Speaker 1: they don't do this, there's all sorts of issues here.
35:09
Speaker 1: I could see a Congress not seating anybody from these eight.
35:14
Speaker 1: We could see an entirely new special election have to
35:17
Speaker 1: take place. By the way, this referendum is now gonna
35:20
Speaker 1: be on the November ballot to decide whether or not,
35:23
Speaker 1: yay or nay on this. And who knows, we've seen
35:26
Speaker 1: voters Voters don't like a political party, whether it was
35:30
Speaker 1: voters in a blue state like Virginia, didn't like the
35:33
Speaker 1: idea of trying to jerry-rig that referendum. And I think
35:37
Speaker 1: you're going to see, you know, voters didn't love it.
35:41
Speaker 1: It passed, but they didn't love it in Virginia. And
35:43
Speaker 1: then the courts intervened. So we'll see. Missouri is certainly
35:48
Speaker 1: a red state. But again, no matter how partisan you are,
35:55
Speaker 1: you don't like to feel like you don't get a
35:57
Speaker 1: say in these things. And we've seen Missouri referendum ideologically
36:03
Speaker 1: will go in a variety of different places. It may
36:06
Speaker 1: be a red state, but it's not always ideologically as
36:09
Speaker 1: red of a state as its reputation. But either way,
36:13
Speaker 1: it's kind of, and if the margin is really close
36:16
Speaker 1: in the house, I'm not going to go down these
36:18
Speaker 1: rabbit holes. I have a conversation that I'm going to
36:20
Speaker 1: get to in about a week that you'll enjoy on that.
36:23
Speaker 1: But Imagine if we have an entire congressional delegation where
36:26
Speaker 1: we can't seat them on January 3rd for the new Congress.
36:30
Speaker 1: And imagine if somehow those eight congressional districts, what happens
36:37
Speaker 1: in them would decide control if the margin is that
36:40
Speaker 1: tight between the two parties, which of course, in my
36:43
Speaker 1: blue mirage scenario, is quite possible. All right, let me
36:46
Speaker 1: whip up a few other things from the campaign trail.
36:49
Speaker 1: We are less than eight weeks away. And like I said,
36:53
Speaker 1: especially on Wednesdays, I'm going to do my best to
36:54
Speaker 1: highlight just some interesting developments on the trail. Not every poll.
36:59
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do every ad or manufactured outrage.
37:02
Speaker 1: But there are some things that pop that I think
37:04
Speaker 1: are worth a quick hot take about or two. And
37:09
Speaker 1: here are three that caught my eye over the last
37:11
Speaker 1: few days. And strangely enough, all three are kind of
37:14
Speaker 1: the same version of the same question, which is what
37:17
Speaker 1: candidates say versus what candidates do. And I'm going to
37:19
Speaker 1: start in Nebraska. Because the independent Senate candidate there, Dan Osborne,
37:23
Speaker 1: has given us one of the more revealing explanations of
37:26
Speaker 1: campaigning that I've heard in a while. Osborne, if you recall,
37:30
Speaker 1: came surprisingly close in 2024 of pulling an upset against
37:35
Speaker 1: Deb Fischer. Well, he's obviously he's running again, and this
37:38
Speaker 1: time he's running against Pete Ricketts. And he's trying to
37:42
Speaker 1: perform an incredibly difficult political balancing act, right? He's trying
37:45
Speaker 1: to stick to being an independent, promising he's not going
37:48
Speaker 1: to caucus with either party if he wins a Senate seat.
37:50
Speaker 1: And yet he can't win if Democrats don't rally around him.
37:54
Speaker 1: And he can't win if he doesn't win a majority
37:56
Speaker 1: of independents. And he's going to need some Trump voters.
37:59
Speaker 1: This is Nebraska, right? In 2024, Osborne ran an ad
38:04
Speaker 1: that began this way. Social Security deal with illegals? Who
38:07
Speaker 1: would be for that? And then he went on to
38:09
Speaker 1: say he was with Trump on issues like corruption, China,
38:12
Speaker 1: and the border. And then he adds, if Trump needs
38:15
Speaker 1: help building a wall, well, I'm pretty handy, right? You know,
38:19
Speaker 1: he's the working class guy. He's the mechanic. And he
38:21
Speaker 1: was trying to show that off, right? It's a nice line,
38:25
Speaker 1: except Osborne had also talked publicly about undocumented immigrants who
38:28
Speaker 1: had been in this country for decades, being able to
38:31
Speaker 1: get legal status and participate in Social Security. And then
38:34
Speaker 1: this summer at a private meeting with Black and Latino Democrats,
38:38
Speaker 1: he was challenged about that wall rhetoric and that wall
38:41
Speaker 1: ad from 2024. And here's what Osborne said. He explained
38:45
Speaker 1: that campaigning and governing were essentially two separate pots of things,
38:51
Speaker 1: if you will. He said, there's the campaigning side when
38:54
Speaker 1: you're trying to get elected. And then there's what you
38:56
Speaker 1: do once you're in office. This is true, right? Every
39:01
Speaker 1: politician runs into this. Every politician tailors a message. Every
39:05
Speaker 1: politician emphasizes one issue in one room and another issue
39:08
Speaker 1: in another room. That's called politics. But there's something else.
39:13
Speaker 1: There's something different about actually articulating the theory You've got
39:18
Speaker 1: to walk a fine line here, especially with a guy
39:20
Speaker 1: like Osborne. His best asset is he's not a traditional politician,
39:27
Speaker 1: except now he's behaving like a traditional politician. politician. Campaigning
39:32
Speaker 1: over here, governing over there. What makes it particularly interesting
39:38
Speaker 1: coming from Osborne is because of his independent political identity.
39:44
Speaker 1: His pitch is that he isn't one of these people.
39:46
Speaker 1: He's not a normal politician. He's not beholden to the parties.
39:50
Speaker 1: except apparently the distinction between the campaign version and the
39:52
Speaker 1: governing version applies to independence too, huh? And it's, look, he,
40:02
Speaker 1: I give him points for being honest that, hey, he's
40:04
Speaker 1: going to say certain things on the trail and he's
40:09
Speaker 1: going to govern a different way. You know, what is it?
40:12
Speaker 1: There was a famous Mario quote, you know, you campaign
40:15
Speaker 1: in poetry and govern in prose. But I think it really–
40:21
Speaker 1: certain campaigns can get hit harder when you're caught sort
40:25
Speaker 1: of behaving like somebody you've been running against. And that's
40:29
Speaker 1: why I think this is potentially one that could sting
40:32
Speaker 1: for Osborne a little bit. But it takes me to
40:34
Speaker 1: a campaign in Ohio because this is a House race.
40:38
Speaker 1: But there's sort of a similar issue here. So I
40:39
Speaker 1: want to share the story with you. The Democrat is
40:43
Speaker 1: a guy named Don Leonard. He supplied us with another
40:46
Speaker 1: version of the same sort of Osborne story here. Leonard
40:49
Speaker 1: is running against a Republican congressman named Mike Kerry. And
40:53
Speaker 1: earlier this year, Leonard was talking about accusations that he's
40:56
Speaker 1: a Democratic socialist. And Leonard is on tape saying the following.
40:59
Speaker 1: I'm not a Democratic socialist, OK? But then he added this.
41:03
Speaker 1: Even if I were, I'd lie to people. I'd lie
41:06
Speaker 1: to the people of my district in order to get
41:08
Speaker 1: their votes. And then he laughed. Well, guess what? Mike Kerry,
41:14
Speaker 1: the congressman, has turned that little excerpt into an ad.
41:18
Speaker 1: Because why wouldn't you? There is nothing in this day
41:21
Speaker 1: and age of everything being AI'd up, the only thing
41:23
Speaker 1: that might be credible with voters, and I say might,
41:26
Speaker 1: I don't know if any ads are going to matter
41:28
Speaker 1: anymore if everybody thinks they're all just made up AI
41:31
Speaker 1: slop fest. And Trump is with the AI slop fest
41:34
Speaker 1: that he does all the time. It's really doing this.
41:36
Speaker 1: But anyway, if you can get candidates in there, if
41:39
Speaker 1: you can get your opponent in their own words, it
41:41
Speaker 1: always has the ability to land harder than if you're
41:47
Speaker 1: just repeating the words or showing them on screen. So look,
41:51
Speaker 1: if your opponent hands you audio saying, I'd lie to
41:53
Speaker 1: voters to get their votes, you don't need to be
41:57
Speaker 1: a political genius to say, hey, I think I'm going
42:00
Speaker 1: to use that in a political ad. Now, Leonard has
42:06
Speaker 1: an actual recording record of being sort of left-wing political
42:09
Speaker 1: views that gives Kerry plenty of material with which to
42:13
Speaker 1: surround the quote. But let's forget the ideological argument here
42:18
Speaker 1: for a moment. I'm fascinated by the assumption contained in
42:22
Speaker 1: the joke. Osborne gets asked about saying different things to
42:25
Speaker 1: different audiences and explains, well, hey, there's sort of two
42:29
Speaker 1: different lanes you got to do here. You got to
42:31
Speaker 1: say certain things as a candidate, then you'll do certain
42:32
Speaker 1: things when you're governing. The candidate in the Ohio House
42:36
Speaker 1: race jokes that if he held an unpopular belief, obviously
42:40
Speaker 1: he'd lie about it. And you're like, great. Thanks for,
42:44
Speaker 1: you know, puncturing whatever hope voters might have had that
42:49
Speaker 1: somebody with integrity might actually run for office here. Different candidates,
42:52
Speaker 1: different states, there's different politics, but it's the same underlying assumption, right?
42:56
Speaker 1: The campaign is the thing you do to get elected,
42:59
Speaker 1: and then there's what you actually believe. And I just say,
43:03
Speaker 1: when you're running an outsider campaign and you're an outsider,
43:07
Speaker 1: the second your opponent gets to prove that you're no
43:11
Speaker 1: different than they are, doesn't hurt the opponent as much
43:16
Speaker 1: as it's going to hurt, you know, the outsider candidate, right?
43:19
Speaker 1: Nothing in a weird way. It hits harder, you know,
43:23
Speaker 1: even if the sin is, is relatively small, right? It's
43:27
Speaker 1: who you're trying to portray yourself as versus who you
43:32
Speaker 1: might actually be. And I think, look, this is, you know,
43:36
Speaker 1: for all of these independent candidates, Osborne, Brian bangs, uh,
43:41
Speaker 1: Todd Achilles, um, Seth Bodnar, right? The Republican campaign against
43:47
Speaker 1: them is, oh, they're Democrats in independent clothing. And Osborne
43:52
Speaker 1: just saying what he did makes that easier to execute that,
43:58
Speaker 1: essentially to prosecute that case. Perhaps the jury of voters
44:04
Speaker 1: might say, yeah, we hear you, but man, we're done
44:07
Speaker 1: with these incumbents and we're going with the outsider anyway.
44:10
Speaker 1: And that might very well be the case in Nebraska.
44:13
Speaker 1: But I think this is– I think this is suddenly–
44:18
Speaker 1: it's a story that says, oh, he's just another politician.
44:22
Speaker 1: And if you're trying to break this– if you're trying
44:25
Speaker 1: to break into this system, you don't ever want somebody
44:28
Speaker 1: to conclude you're just another politician. All right. I want
44:32
Speaker 1: to stop in Kansas here and the Roger Marshall story.
44:37
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a few things going on in Kansas.
44:39
Speaker 1: One is Donald Trump is doing everything he can. to
44:43
Speaker 1: screw up the Kansas economy, right? He's done it with beef,
44:45
Speaker 1: and now he's doing it with these Canadian tariffs. In particular, Bombardier,
44:50
Speaker 1: a Canadian-owned airplane manufacturer that has factories in Kansas. It's
44:57
Speaker 1: been a staple in Kansas for decades. And let's just
45:01
Speaker 1: say every Republican elected official, except really for Roger Marshall,
45:05
Speaker 1: he hasn't really come out, has come out in support
45:07
Speaker 1: of Bombardier, though it's funny how they keep talking. Some people,
45:13
Speaker 1: they put out statements. Nobody wants to name check Trump
45:18
Speaker 1: and say, you know, he's wrong about this. They just
45:20
Speaker 1: simply want to show that they're supportive of Bombardier. But
45:23
Speaker 1: it is yet more proof that Trump might be just
45:26
Speaker 1: a secret plan at of the Democrats to just see
45:29
Speaker 1: if he can totally implode the Republican Party before the midterms.
45:32
Speaker 1: But that's not the story I wanted to touch on
45:34
Speaker 1: in Kansas. I wanted to touch on the story in
45:37
Speaker 1: the New York Times that's making the rounds. And it's
45:39
Speaker 1: one of these stories that there's nothing illegal that was found,
45:46
Speaker 1: but it's a character story. So let me tell you
45:49
Speaker 1: about it. Roger Marshall, of course, Republican Senator up for reelection.
45:52
Speaker 1: Democratic opponent is the Methodist pastor, Adam Hamilton. Now, Marshall,
45:57
Speaker 1: before he ran for his political career, was a doctor.
46:04
Speaker 1: In fact, he built a substantial part of his political
46:07
Speaker 1: identity around being Doc Marshall, an OBGYN, rural doctor, a
46:12
Speaker 1: guy who delivered thousands of babies. Well, the New York
46:15
Speaker 1: Times has gone through court records from his years of
46:18
Speaker 1: practicing medicine, and what they found was somewhat remarkable. More
46:24
Speaker 1: than 700 patients of Marshall, have been sued for unpaid
46:29
Speaker 1: medical bills. 81 arrests following missed court appearances. He is
46:36
Speaker 1: asked for wage garnishments, bank accounts, interest. He's charged interest
46:42
Speaker 1: on this debt. And some of the debt has been
46:44
Speaker 1: astonishingly small. One was $ 101. One was $ 129. Now, I
46:49
Speaker 1: want to be careful here. Roger Marshall did not personally
46:53
Speaker 1: order police officers to arrest patients who missed court dates.
46:56
Speaker 1: Judges issue warrants when people fail to appear in court,
47:00
Speaker 1: not the person who is suing. His attorney says Marshall
47:04
Speaker 1: was not personally making those decisions and that his medical
47:07
Speaker 1: practice was using the same collection procedures available to other creditors. Okay,
47:14
Speaker 1: totally true. But there's also this. If you're suing somebody
47:18
Speaker 1: over a $ 129 medical bill, this is no longer an
47:22
Speaker 1: abstract argument about the financial survival of rural medicine, right?
47:27
Speaker 1: There's one more wrinkle. In 2025, Senator Marshall introduced legislation
47:31
Speaker 1: restricting hospitals' ability to sue certain patients when hospitals had
47:36
Speaker 1: failed to comply with federal price transparency requirements. Now, that's
47:41
Speaker 1: very interesting to me now, after reading this story about Marshall.
47:45
Speaker 1: Does Marshall, did he change his mind about medical debt collection?
47:50
Speaker 1: Does he think what his own practice did was wrong?
47:54
Speaker 1: Or does he believe there's an important distinction between what
47:57
Speaker 1: a hospital does to collect medical debt and what a
48:00
Speaker 1: doctor's office does? Point is, I think we'd all want
48:02
Speaker 1: to hear the answer from him. But there's also a
48:05
Speaker 1: campaign media story here too. Marshall's allies want to know
48:09
Speaker 1: why this story appears now, right? Why didn't the New
48:12
Speaker 1: York Times do this story a year ago, two years ago,
48:14
Speaker 1: three years ago, six years ago, et cetera? Why did
48:17
Speaker 1: they choose to run this story less than two months
48:19
Speaker 1: before an election? A fair question, right? There's no doubt.
48:24
Speaker 1: It's possible that somebody to show a reporter, hey, did
48:28
Speaker 1: you see what we found? There might be more to this.
48:30
Speaker 1: You might want to look into it. Guess what? Welcome
48:34
Speaker 1: to campaign vetting, right? Welcome to campaign reporting. Now, I've
48:38
Speaker 1: covered enough campaigns to know that damaging information doesn't usually
48:41
Speaker 1: materialize spontaneously on a reporter's desk. But here's a distinction
48:46
Speaker 1: that I think matters. The motive of the source doesn't
48:49
Speaker 1: determine whether the information is true. If a campaign hands
48:54
Speaker 1: a report or a court record, the journalist's job isn't
48:56
Speaker 1: to say, oh, this came from the opposition, therefore it
48:59
Speaker 1: doesn't count. The job is to go get your own
49:02
Speaker 1: version of the court record, verify it, do the reporting,
49:05
Speaker 1: find out what's going on behind it, give the candidate
49:09
Speaker 1: in question an opportunity to respond, then perhaps let voters
49:12
Speaker 1: decide whether this is a story or not. There's also campaigning, right?
49:16
Speaker 1: What candidates say, what candidates do, and what the other
49:19
Speaker 1: side can prove they did. So it's one of those
49:26
Speaker 1: things that I understand the crankiness of the Marshall campaign.
49:34
Speaker 1: But I do think this becomes a character question, right?
49:38
Speaker 1: Which is, You know, the story also noted Marshall decided
49:44
Speaker 1: what the interest rate should be on uncollected debt, and
49:47
Speaker 1: he chose 18%, right? Like credit card debt, 18%, not 3%,
49:53
Speaker 1: not 4%, not 5%. And there were the inevitable stories
49:57
Speaker 1: from people on explaining why the ones who'd gotten arrested
50:00
Speaker 1: for missing a court appearance, some said they didn't know
50:03
Speaker 1: there was a court appearance and they didn't know that
50:06
Speaker 1: missing it meant they could get arrested. And look, I
50:09
Speaker 1: think I think we all know you have to have
50:11
Speaker 1: some rules. And if you have no rules, then nothing
50:13
Speaker 1: gets enforced. But what this really gets at, right, is
50:17
Speaker 1: the empathy question. You're a doctor. How empathetic are you?
50:22
Speaker 2: Right.
50:23
Speaker 1: The Democratic nominee is a pretty famous pastor.
50:27
Speaker 2: Right.
50:27
Speaker 1: Pastors are, you know, and empathy go hand in hand.
50:32
Speaker 1: It is it. And, you know, Marshall already kind of
50:36
Speaker 1: has this. Marshall is not a real. I'll put it
50:41
Speaker 1: in medical terms. He doesn't have the greatest bedside manner.
50:45
Speaker 1: In fact, in some ways, I'm surprised. You know, I
50:48
Speaker 1: look at a guy like the other doctor and one
50:50
Speaker 1: of the other doctors in the Senate, Bill Cassidy. That
50:53
Speaker 1: dude's got a good bedside manner, whatever you think of
50:55
Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy. Some of you may love him. Some of
50:56
Speaker 1: you may hate him, be angry with him over the
50:58
Speaker 1: Kennedy thing. And, you know, I think there are good
51:01
Speaker 1: friends of his that are angry with him over the
51:08
Speaker 1: but I get it. Like as a doctor, you're like, yeah,
51:10
Speaker 1: he would make me feel better. He would, you know,
51:12
Speaker 1: the information I got out of him, he, he there,
51:16
Speaker 1: he's got, he's got, he's got the ability to tell
51:19
Speaker 1: it like it is and not feel like you're getting
51:22
Speaker 1: something jammed up here.
51:23
Speaker 2: You know what.
51:25
Speaker 1: Marshall is. I don't know if he's just a little
51:28
Speaker 1: still Washington shy. I don't know how else to put it,
51:31
Speaker 1: but there's just a little, and this story sort of
51:34
Speaker 1: paints a very just cold picture. Look, There's nothing untoward
51:39
Speaker 1: that he did. And, you know, he's running a business
51:42
Speaker 1: and they've got to collect the debt. But it certainly
51:48
Speaker 1: appears there wasn't a lot of empathy behind the decision making.
51:52
Speaker 1: And ultimately, right, politics is very personal for people, especially, again,
51:58
Speaker 1: the contrast with Pastor Hamilton is quite striking here. Never
52:05
Speaker 1: mind that it brings up the larger question of, you know,
52:08
Speaker 1: You know, how much of health care should be a
52:09
Speaker 1: for profit enterprise and how much of it should be
52:11
Speaker 1: a right? And, you know, what what what should you know,
52:16
Speaker 1: there was this just gut wrenching story with one of
52:18
Speaker 1: the people who got arrested, who she was. She started
52:22
Speaker 1: to fill out the paperwork. She thought she might qualify
52:25
Speaker 1: for Medicaid. And then she went into labor before she
52:27
Speaker 1: finished the paperwork and then got the big bill and
52:29
Speaker 1: et cetera. And it went on.
52:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
52:33
Speaker 1: Let's not pretend we make this easy for people that
52:36
Speaker 1: are at or near the poverty line when it comes
52:38
Speaker 1: to getting Medicaid coverage, qualifying for Medicaid coverage, going through
52:43
Speaker 1: the hoops, different states have different rules, all of those things.
52:48
Speaker 1: And it is, again, I get why the Marshall people
52:53
Speaker 1: are upset with the timing, but this is no ordinary
52:58
Speaker 1: place for an oppo hit like this to land. It
53:00
Speaker 1: lands in the New York Times. That's, you know, That's
53:03
Speaker 1: going to be a boon for Hamilton as far as attention.
53:07
Speaker 1: It's going to be a boon for Hamilton when it
53:08
Speaker 1: comes to some fundraising. The question is, is it, you know,
53:13
Speaker 1: and you can see how this gets turned into what
53:16
Speaker 1: the Obama people turned Romney into, the cold, hard-ass corporate
53:23
Speaker 1: executive who just was trying to lay people off as
53:25
Speaker 1: fast as they can. You could picture that that's the
53:29
Speaker 1: picture that they want to paint with Marshall. And that's
53:31
Speaker 1: the question that I have about Marshall is how How
53:34
Speaker 1: well established is his identity? He's an incumbent, but this
53:37
Speaker 1: is his first reelection as senator. How well established is
53:40
Speaker 1: he with Kansas voters? How embedded is he? Jerry Moran's
53:43
Speaker 1: been around a long time. I think he's embedded himself.
53:47
Speaker 1: One story wouldn't puncture the reputation of Moran. I'm not
53:52
Speaker 1: as convinced on Marshall. So it's quite the look. This
53:55
Speaker 1: was quite the hit on Marshall. And look, here's the thing.
54:08
Speaker 1: If we don't vet these candidates during campaign season, when
54:10
Speaker 1: is there ever going to be vetting of these candidates?
54:14
Speaker 1: So I'd rather have the information.
54:18
Speaker 2: Yes.
54:18
Speaker 1: Is it all motivated by the election? Of course it is.
54:21
Speaker 1: But ultimately, when are voters paying attention to decide on
54:25
Speaker 1: the character and the qualifications of whether these people deserve
54:28
Speaker 1: to be in public service? It's in campaign season. So
54:31
Speaker 1: I'd rather see all of these stories about everybody in
54:34
Speaker 1: the vetting. And we're going to get, I promise there's
54:36
Speaker 1: going to be a deep dive into how Hamilton has
54:38
Speaker 1: managed his congregation and how he's managed. And there already
54:42
Speaker 1: have been stories like that. There'll be plenty of that.
54:47
Speaker 1: But I think this one, you know, I've had Kansas
54:50
Speaker 1: on my radar a little bit longer than most people.
54:53
Speaker 1: And I think you now see that Kansas is just
54:56
Speaker 1: inching ever so closer to the battleground. Not quite one
55:00
Speaker 1: of our top six races yet, but it may be
55:03
Speaker 1: getting closer than either Nebraska or my friends in New Hampshire.
55:09
Speaker 1: All right. So with that, I'm going to sneak in
55:14
Speaker 1: a break, but coming up, my conversation with Anthony Tomasini.
55:18
Speaker 1: And this is one where some of you know I'm
55:21
Speaker 1: a sports nut. Some of you know I'm a political nut.
55:24
Speaker 1: And some of you know that I was a a
55:27
Speaker 1: music major for a brief period of time while in college.
55:29
Speaker 1: I played the French horn. Well, Anthony Tomasini is somebody
55:33
Speaker 1: I've been reading for a long time. He's the longtime
55:36
Speaker 1: chief classical music critic for the New York Times. But
55:40
Speaker 1: he's got a new book out about the extraordinary life
55:43
Speaker 1: of Marian Anderson. Marian Anderson may not be a name
55:46
Speaker 1: you know, but you are probably familiar with one of
55:49
Speaker 1: the iconic photos and stories from her 1939 concert at
55:55
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Memorial after she was barred from performing at
55:58
Speaker 1: Constitution Hall because she was Black. And Tomasini has written
56:05
Speaker 1: a biography of her, but he argues that remembering Anderson
56:08
Speaker 1: simply as a civil rights icon actually obscures something important
56:13
Speaker 1: about her. She's one of the great American artists of
56:16
Speaker 1: the 20th century. So we talk about her music, her life,
56:22
Speaker 1: and why we've never quite known how to remember her. Anyway,
56:26
Speaker 1: she's both a civil rights icon and one of the
56:30
Speaker 1: greatest voices of the 20th century. Anyway, it's a little bit,
56:33
Speaker 1: you know, for some of you, this might be a
56:35
Speaker 1: little bit of a not a left turn or a
56:38
Speaker 1: right turn, but maybe a U-turn of sorts. But I
56:42
Speaker 1: think it's a good story. And I think you'll enjoy
56:44
Speaker 1: the conversation. And Anthony is just terrific. By the way,
56:48
Speaker 1: Skip Gates is directing this series of sort of forgotten stories.
56:54
Speaker 1: icons of the civil rights era in the 20th century.
56:56
Speaker 1: And he sort of inspired and reached out to Anthony
57:00
Speaker 1: to do this. He tells the story a little bit.
57:01
Speaker 1: So let's sneak in the break. And then when we
57:05
Speaker 1: come back, my conversation with Anthony. Hey, this episode of
57:13
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Speaker 1: rating was as of August of 2026. Well, I'm going
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Speaker 1: to do a bit of a turn with my guest today.
58:54
Speaker 1: We have a canon of barrier breaking in this country.
58:57
Speaker 1: Jackie Robinson taking the field in Brooklyn, Rosa Parks staying
59:00
Speaker 1: in her seat, the nine kids walking into Central High School.
59:04
Speaker 1: And we teach those stories and we know the dates.
59:07
Speaker 1: Marian Anderson belongs on that list. And I bet most
59:10
Speaker 1: Americans couldn't tell you much more about her than one photograph.
59:14
Speaker 1: Easter Sunday, 1939, the Lincoln Memorial, 75,000 people right here
59:20
Speaker 1: in Washington, D.C. outside after the Daughters of American Revolution
59:24
Speaker 1: refused to let her sing in Constitution Hall. And that's
59:29
Speaker 1: the whole life for most of us. One afternoon, one photograph.
59:32
Speaker 1: What I didn't know and what I found a little
59:35
Speaker 1: embarrassing for me not to know is that the concert
59:38
Speaker 1: was the least of it. She was already by then
59:41
Speaker 1: one of the great singers of the world. She'd been
59:44
Speaker 1: famous in Europe for years before America caught up, and
59:47
Speaker 1: she spent the next two decades performing in cities that
59:51
Speaker 1: applauded her at night and wouldn't rent a room afterwards.
59:55
Speaker 1: In 1955, at 57, she became the first black singer
59:59
Speaker 1: to appear at the Met in New York City. There's
1:00:02
Speaker 1: a second reason, though, I wanted to do this. Some
1:00:04
Speaker 1: of you know I spent a good chunk of my
1:00:06
Speaker 1: life with a French horn in my hands. And I
1:00:09
Speaker 1: often lament that I don't have it in my hands
1:00:11
Speaker 1: as often. And Anthony Tomasini was the chief classical musical
1:00:15
Speaker 1: critic at the New York Times for the last 20
1:00:19
Speaker 1: plus years. So this is a book. about the civil
1:00:21
Speaker 1: rights story most of us half know, written by a
1:00:24
Speaker 1: critic who can tell you what was actually happening inside
1:00:27
Speaker 1: that voice. His new book is called Voice of a Century,
1:00:31
Speaker 1: The Life and Artistry of Marian Anderson. It's actually part
1:00:34
Speaker 1: of an interesting series being edited by our friend Skip Gates,
1:00:39
Speaker 1: which I think Tony will tell us a little bit about. So, Tony,
1:00:41
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast.
1:00:43
Speaker 2: I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for your interest.
1:00:46
Speaker 1: Well, let's start with how you came about to do
1:00:50
Speaker 1: this biography. Was this something you've been working on? Was
1:00:54
Speaker 1: it something people reached out to you, Skip Gates, things
1:00:56
Speaker 1: like that? I know that this is part of a
1:00:57
Speaker 1: series that he's involved with. So tell me some of
1:01:01
Speaker 1: the origin story.
1:01:02
Speaker 2: This seldom happens to an author. I was asked to
1:01:06
Speaker 2: write the book. I had gone to know Skip, and
1:01:09
Speaker 2: in fall of 2021— Sony Classical issued this big deluxe
1:01:14
Speaker 2: set of all of Anderson's RCA recordings. And I wrote
1:01:18
Speaker 2: a Sunday Times piece about it. And for people who
1:01:20
Speaker 2: didn't know about her, I talked about the Lincoln Memorial
1:01:24
Speaker 2: and her childhood in Philadelphia and stuff. But I focused
1:01:27
Speaker 2: a lot on the recordings. And I said, some of
1:01:30
Speaker 2: these recordings are just forgotten. you know, kindertotenlieder Mahler with
1:01:35
Speaker 2: the San Francisco Symphony of Piedmont, Scandinavian songs in the
1:01:39
Speaker 2: original languages. And so Skip really liked it. And he
1:01:44
Speaker 2: emailed and told me so. Two months later, he asked
1:01:47
Speaker 2: me to write this book. Would I write a book
1:01:49
Speaker 2: for him? And why me? I mean, I did think
1:01:52
Speaker 2: about that. I mean, all the subjects are major black figures.
1:01:57
Speaker 2: And one thing he said in interviews about this series
1:02:01
Speaker 2: is that There is an underappreciation, it's a remnant of prejudice,
1:02:07
Speaker 2: of black intellectualism, and I think he's right. And in
1:02:11
Speaker 2: a way, in this article, I was saying Anderson for
1:02:15
Speaker 2: all her fame and her, you know, position that you
1:02:19
Speaker 2: were talking about as the civil rights pioneer or however reluctant,
1:02:23
Speaker 2: you know, she was for, uh, how people she's in
1:02:28
Speaker 2: a way intellectual, the equivalent to music of intellectually underrated. She,
1:02:34
Speaker 2: she was a probing interpretive artist. She was a major musician.
1:02:39
Speaker 2: And that's sometimes that happens in a lot of fields
1:02:42
Speaker 2: to pioneers. They wind up being remembered mostly for breaking
1:02:48
Speaker 2: the path. And well, how did they... You mentioned Jackie Robinson. Well,
1:02:55
Speaker 2: of course, the biggest... pathbreaker in baseball history. What was he,
1:02:59
Speaker 2: if you were writing a book about him, was he
1:03:01
Speaker 2: also one of the great, great players? Yes, actually he was,
1:03:05
Speaker 2: but we forget that, all we remember. And in a
1:03:07
Speaker 2: way that's happened to her. So I think he knew
1:03:10
Speaker 2: I would tell the story well and be sensitive to it.
1:03:14
Speaker 2: But in a way he wanted the Times critic to say, well,
1:03:18
Speaker 2: Make a case for her, you know, artistically. I mean,
1:03:21
Speaker 2: so that's why the book, the subtitle, The Life and Artistry,
1:03:24
Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time writing about her recordings,
1:03:28
Speaker 2: her voice, her approach, how she, when she was rejected
1:03:32
Speaker 2: from music school, she learned this stuff on her own.
1:03:34
Speaker 2: But she was a major, major artist.
1:03:40
Speaker 1: So what, it is interesting, you know, her life story
1:03:45
Speaker 1: growing up. in Philadelphia and not having these opportunities. And
1:03:48
Speaker 1: it's such a reminder. I mean, I'll be honest. I've
1:03:52
Speaker 1: always said one of the reasons why I'm not a
1:03:53
Speaker 1: professional French horn player is I remember the first time
1:03:56
Speaker 1: I heard somebody not as good as I was technically
1:03:59
Speaker 1: make a better sound. And there is something called a gift.
1:04:03
Speaker 1: We all know it. And you have it or you don't.
1:04:06
Speaker 1: And the way you describe her voice is terrific because
1:04:12
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people can sing. but can
1:04:18
Speaker 1: you amplify on your own? And she was doing it
1:04:22
Speaker 1: without all the modern help that everybody has today to
1:04:26
Speaker 1: boost sound or to boost different decibels within your sound.
1:04:31
Speaker 1: So describe her sound a little bit, because I think
1:04:34
Speaker 1: that must be what really jumped out at you when
1:04:37
Speaker 1: you heard those recordings.
1:04:38
Speaker 2: And I think also what jumps out at all people
1:04:41
Speaker 2: who hear those recordings and heard her in her church,
1:04:46
Speaker 2: One thing I learned, which is that from Mahalia Jackson
1:04:51
Speaker 2: to Marian Anderson to, you know, Beyonce today to Dionne
1:04:57
Speaker 2: Warwick to Leon Price, growing up in the black church
1:05:00
Speaker 2: was everything, everything, everything in their lives. And for her,
1:05:04
Speaker 2: that was true, too. She was conscripted into the junior
1:05:08
Speaker 2: choir at six years old, you know, and before long,
1:05:11
Speaker 2: everybody was bragging about the baby contralto. So already this
1:05:17
Speaker 2: child had a kind of low set voice. But Anderson,
1:05:21
Speaker 2: both as a young woman and throughout her career, also
1:05:25
Speaker 2: had this wonderful middle and upper range too. She could get,
1:05:30
Speaker 2: but it was a haunting, beautiful thing about her voice
1:05:33
Speaker 2: that once she got into soprano terrain, it was beautiful
1:05:38
Speaker 2: and radiant, but it sounded like it was emanating from
1:05:41
Speaker 2: that awesome low voice.
1:05:43
Speaker 1: Well, you can go high. and low, and you're using
1:05:47
Speaker 1: your low, you're using your diaphragm to support it. I mean,
1:05:50
Speaker 1: you can hear thin versus full.
1:05:53
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
1:05:54
Speaker 1: You would never describe her high range as thin.
1:05:57
Speaker 2: No, no, no. It just emanated from, everything was supported.
1:06:02
Speaker 1: And so that's the gift, isn't it? This isn't some
1:06:04
Speaker 1: like training mechanism. I mean, you know, I went through
1:06:06
Speaker 1: diaphragm breathing exercises back in the day and all of
1:06:10
Speaker 1: those things. And, you know, I'm sure she did learn
1:06:13
Speaker 1: those things over time, but This was just a gift
1:06:16
Speaker 1: that she had, wasn't it?
1:06:17
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's a gift. Also, her younger sisters
1:06:23
Speaker 2: both have very good voices. They actually thought about maybe
1:06:28
Speaker 2: could they have a career.
1:06:28
Speaker 1: Well, mom and dad must have had some good voices
1:06:30
Speaker 1: as well.
1:06:30
Speaker 2: Well, her mother, not her father so much, but her
1:06:32
Speaker 2: mother did. But yeah, I mean, so yes, the voice,
1:06:38
Speaker 2: that's a gift. Musicality. Just having instincts for music, that's
1:06:44
Speaker 2: a gift. You either have it or you don't. The intellectual,
1:06:47
Speaker 2: analytic part of music, that you can learn. That you
1:06:51
Speaker 2: learn by going to school, by studying harmony, by working
1:06:54
Speaker 2: with composers, by working with coaches. And that's what she
1:06:58
Speaker 2: had to find her way around. I mean, I tell
1:07:00
Speaker 2: the story in the book that she was taking private
1:07:05
Speaker 2: lessons and finally at around 17, she says, okay, I
1:07:09
Speaker 2: have to get serious. And she takes herself off to
1:07:11
Speaker 2: the Philadelphia Musical Academy, which no longer exists. And she
1:07:16
Speaker 2: tries to get an application. And this kind of snippy, young,
1:07:21
Speaker 2: pretty blonde receptionist says, oh, we don't take colored. And
1:07:26
Speaker 2: Anderson Wright talked with her journalist friend, Emily Kimbrough, 50
1:07:30
Speaker 2: years later about it. It's still hurt. She said, I
1:07:33
Speaker 2: finally came face to face with what it means to
1:07:36
Speaker 2: be a Negro in this country. And the shock. you know,
1:07:40
Speaker 2: was like something physical. You would think she knew that already,
1:07:43
Speaker 2: but somehow having that happened to her. So even then
1:07:47
Speaker 2: she wasn't going to go to music school. She had
1:07:50
Speaker 2: to keep learning from expert coaches and teachers, which is
1:07:54
Speaker 2: why she eventually made herself just found a way to
1:07:57
Speaker 2: get to Europe.
1:07:58
Speaker 1: Well, I was just going to say, I mean, this is,
1:08:00
Speaker 1: there's a lot of our 20th century, um, Black music
1:08:04
Speaker 1: history had to be popularized in Europe and respected in Europe.
1:08:08
Speaker 1: The musicians got more respect in Europe before they ever
1:08:11
Speaker 1: got back here. This has been true of multiple genres
1:08:14
Speaker 1: of music. So how did she get there?
1:08:16
Speaker 2: Well, it was 1927. She had just turned 30. She
1:08:22
Speaker 2: had saved money. The church raised money for her, and
1:08:28
Speaker 2: she finally took herself off to London, and she stayed
1:08:31
Speaker 2: there for a year. And by the end, she sang
1:08:35
Speaker 2: at a London proms concert, believe it or not. I mean,
1:08:37
Speaker 2: that was a big deal. So it was kind of
1:08:39
Speaker 2: a big success. Then she came back home. And then
1:08:43
Speaker 2: the second time she went to Europe, that was in 1930.
1:08:46
Speaker 2: And she applied for a Rosenwald Fund scholarship. And she
1:08:51
Speaker 2: wrote the most poignant letter where she said she wants
1:08:54
Speaker 2: to be a fine artist who will be accredited to
1:08:58
Speaker 2: her people. And she got a fellowship to go study
1:09:01
Speaker 2: in Germany. This was 1930 in Germany, 1931 in Germany.
1:09:04
Speaker 2: Can we say that again? Early 1930s Germany. Here's this
1:09:08
Speaker 2: black woman.
1:09:08
Speaker 1: Black woman. And it's really interesting. There's a scholar and.
1:09:19
Speaker 2: Historian Kira Thurman has written a lot about this, about
1:09:22
Speaker 2: trying to parse the reception she got. And like German
1:09:27
Speaker 2: leader were so central to the identity of German culture
1:09:32
Speaker 2: and German people and stuff that it confounded them that
1:09:36
Speaker 2: how could this black American woman sing our music so beautifully,
1:09:42
Speaker 2: you know? And she got reviews, rave reviews, but sometimes
1:09:46
Speaker 2: along the lines of, It's horrible to say it, but
1:09:49
Speaker 2: they essentially were saying, she sings Schubert so well, you
1:09:53
Speaker 2: wouldn't know she was black. So they had to kind
1:09:58
Speaker 2: of bleach out her color and just sort of... But
1:10:02
Speaker 2: then she wound up going... to Scandinavia, and she had
1:10:07
Speaker 2: a promoter there, and she found an accompanist there, a
1:10:10
Speaker 2: Finnish man, Kosti Vahanen. And before long, Marian Fever gripped Scandinavia.
1:10:17
Speaker 2: It was a big success.
1:10:18
Speaker 1: How many different languages did she speak? Was she able
1:10:21
Speaker 1: to sing it?
1:10:22
Speaker 2: This is someone who barely finished high school, and she
1:10:25
Speaker 2: became fluent in German. It's hard to know. She was
1:10:29
Speaker 2: pretty comfortable in French. And the Scandinavian language is a
1:10:34
Speaker 2: little bit because she had a Finnish accompanist and she
1:10:38
Speaker 2: immersed herself in the songs and the stuff. But at
1:10:41
Speaker 2: least three, I'd say, you know, English and German and French.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: And those are the three that she's recorded in. There's recordings.
1:10:50
Speaker 2: She also recorded Italian arias, but the opera sort of
1:10:57
Speaker 2: brings up a whole nother topic.
1:10:59
Speaker 1: That's more of a phonetic. or what?
1:11:01
Speaker 2: No, no. It's, it's more that she, no, it's a
1:11:05
Speaker 2: beautiful language for singing. It's that she, from the start,
1:11:09
Speaker 2: didn't see the point of studying too much Italian opera
1:11:15
Speaker 2: because she wasn't going to get into opera companies in
1:11:18
Speaker 2: the United States.
1:11:19
Speaker 1: Oh, interesting.
1:11:20
Speaker 2: So she just, yeah.
1:11:21
Speaker 1: So a whole genre that she might've been, We may
1:11:25
Speaker 1: have missed out on a whole subsection of canon had
1:11:32
Speaker 1: she felt like she could have broken into.
1:11:35
Speaker 2: An opera company. In 1925, she won a competition for
1:11:41
Speaker 2: the New York Philharmonic to make her debut at Lewiston Stadium.
1:11:46
Speaker 2: And she won against several hundred other applicants. And the
1:11:49
Speaker 2: big aria that she sang was a Donizetti aria, O
1:11:52
Speaker 2: Mio Fernando. It knocked everybody out. At the London Proms concert,
1:11:56
Speaker 2: she also sang that aria. So it was exactly what
1:12:00
Speaker 2: you said. It was a hint of what she could
1:12:02
Speaker 2: have done. I mean, you mentioned her debut at the
1:12:05
Speaker 2: Met in 1955. First of all, that is not that
1:12:10
Speaker 2: long ago that the Metropolitan did not have black singers
1:12:15
Speaker 2: on its stage. But she had already sung in Carnegie Hall,
1:12:19
Speaker 2: in major halls in the 30s and 40s, Why not?
1:12:24
Speaker 2: What was wrong? The difference was on the Carnegie Hall stage,
1:12:28
Speaker 2: a black woman was sort of just a voice. On
1:12:32
Speaker 2: stage at the Met, you are a character. You could
1:12:35
Speaker 2: be somebody's lover or somebody's mother or somebody's brother or,
1:12:39
Speaker 2: I mean, sister. And the other singer would inevitably be white.
1:12:45
Speaker 2: And we couldn't have that. You know, you couldn't mix
1:12:49
Speaker 2: races on stage. There was still this issue of um
1:12:54
Speaker 2: uh you know casting again uh a casting that's still
1:12:58
Speaker 2: in a way troubles all the arts but but um
1:13:01
Speaker 2: i we've made huge progress over that i think you make.
1:13:05
Speaker 1: Pretty clear yeah go ahead finish.
1:13:07
Speaker 2: That no that that was the inhibition that huh and
1:13:12
Speaker 2: but anyway she she did it and she had had
1:13:15
Speaker 2: no experience in opera whatsoever and it was a but
1:13:19
Speaker 2: she only sang in that one production of very Zimbalo
1:13:22
Speaker 2: and Mascara, a supporting but important role of El Rica.
1:13:27
Speaker 2: And it was a big triumph. And sitting in the
1:13:31
Speaker 2: audience that night, that was 1955, was a young soprano
1:13:34
Speaker 2: named Leontine Price. Oh, wow. Who said, she later told me,
1:13:40
Speaker 2: she anointed me that night. And she said, maybe someday
1:13:45
Speaker 2: I can sing on that stage. And she went, how
1:13:49
Speaker 2: did she... get to that stage, exactly what you said.
1:13:53
Speaker 2: She went off to Europe and she performed, Price performed
1:13:57
Speaker 2: in European companies. Then eventually in 1961, she had a
1:14:00
Speaker 2: triumphant Met debut.
1:14:02
Speaker 1: What, what, if she had been born 30 years later,
1:14:11
Speaker 1: What genre of music do you think she would be singing?
1:14:14
Speaker 2: She would have, she, she loved songs. She especially loved
1:14:18
Speaker 2: German leader. And we can talk more about what drew
1:14:21
Speaker 2: her to that if you want, but she would have
1:14:24
Speaker 2: sung opera. And in 1960, she did a long interview
1:14:29
Speaker 2: for ladies home journal, but the very good journalist, Emily Kimbrough,
1:14:32
Speaker 2: who was a friend of hers and tried to get
1:14:35
Speaker 2: her to really talk openly about as the article was called, um,
1:14:41
Speaker 2: you know, being black in a white America. And Emily
1:14:46
Speaker 2: said to her, well, you know, I know it was
1:14:49
Speaker 2: so tough, but you look at everything you've done, there's
1:14:52
Speaker 2: nothing you haven't accomplished. And Marion turned on her and said, Nothing.
1:14:57
Speaker 2: What about opera? I wanted opera. But they didn't. I
1:15:01
Speaker 2: wish I could have offered. I could offer, you know,
1:15:03
Speaker 2: now what I could have offered then. But they didn't
1:15:06
Speaker 2: want it. They didn't want me. But she said, but
1:15:09
Speaker 2: at least I've broken this barrier for singers who will
1:15:12
Speaker 2: follow me, which she absolutely did. So I think she
1:15:16
Speaker 2: would have had an opera career.
1:15:18
Speaker 1: It's interesting that she said it then, because the portrait
1:15:21
Speaker 1: you paint of her early is not someone.
1:15:24
Speaker 2: Who was.
1:15:27
Speaker 1: she was not focused on being a trailblazer. She was
1:15:30
Speaker 1: focused on being a music singer. And at times, look,
1:15:36
Speaker 1: I don't wanna say you wrote critically about that, but
1:15:38
Speaker 1: it was almost like you wrote with a bit of
1:15:41
Speaker 1: disappointment that she didn't fight harder.
1:15:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, except I think that's interesting that that came through
1:15:48
Speaker 2: that way too. I do present that side of her,
1:15:52
Speaker 2: but on balance, I'm on her side.
1:16:03
Speaker 1: I don't want to make it seem like you weren't,
1:16:07
Speaker 1: but it was sort of like– and this is always
1:16:09
Speaker 1: to me the difficulty of writing about anything in history.
1:16:13
Speaker 1: Is that how much of today's morals and today's ethics
1:16:17
Speaker 1: do you– and it is impossible if we're writing about
1:16:23
Speaker 1: something we did not experience. If we're writing about a
1:16:25
Speaker 1: time we did not live in. You know, what was
1:16:28
Speaker 1: the norm is the best we can come up with
1:16:31
Speaker 1: is what other people tell us what the norm was, right?
1:16:33
Speaker 1: So I get this challenge, but I could feel a
1:16:38
Speaker 1: little bit of that tension that you had of like, wow,
1:16:42
Speaker 1: in hindsight, it's easy. You could have fought, you could
1:16:45
Speaker 1: have done this, or you could have stood this, but
1:16:47
Speaker 1: you didn't. But in some ways, she was playing a
1:16:50
Speaker 1: long game. It's the other side of that.
1:16:52
Speaker 2: And also, if I can tell you one story I
1:16:54
Speaker 2: tell in the book, She's singing in church. She's the
1:16:57
Speaker 2: star singer of the choir. She's having voice lessons. She's
1:17:02
Speaker 2: about 14 years old. And the great tenor, black tenor,
1:17:06
Speaker 2: Roland Hayes, who was about 10 years her senior, comes
1:17:09
Speaker 2: to her church and sings. And among the things he
1:17:13
Speaker 2: sings are German songs, Schubert in German. And the congregation
1:17:16
Speaker 2: thought his voice was beautiful. Nobody knew what he was
1:17:19
Speaker 2: singing about. Marian didn't know what he was singing about.
1:17:22
Speaker 2: She didn't care. She was haunted, she was hooked. She
1:17:28
Speaker 2: made up what the songs were in her mind. But
1:17:30
Speaker 2: what Roland Hayes, she had this epiphany. This is something
1:17:35
Speaker 2: hard to define. This was an artist. This went beyond
1:17:39
Speaker 2: the components of his voice, his technique. There was something
1:17:43
Speaker 2: about getting to the essence of music that just got
1:17:47
Speaker 2: to her. And from that moment forward, she wanted to
1:17:50
Speaker 2: be a fine artist. That was her driving thing. That
1:17:57
Speaker 2: even applied to the Lincoln Memorial Concert that you described well.
1:18:02
Speaker 2: The night before that concert, she was on the phone
1:18:06
Speaker 2: to her manager trying to get out of it. Because
1:18:10
Speaker 2: she thought the whole thing had morphed into some kind
1:18:12
Speaker 2: of civil rights demonstration. And if she sang, she didn't
1:18:17
Speaker 2: need to sing at Constitution Hall. You know, like she
1:18:19
Speaker 2: didn't need to. She had sung everywhere. But if she
1:18:22
Speaker 2: was going to sing there, she was going to do
1:18:25
Speaker 2: it because she was a great artist. And that's what
1:18:27
Speaker 2: they want. You know, that's what they wanted. And she
1:18:30
Speaker 2: was afraid. And Sol Yurok, her manager, had to say, no, Marion,
1:18:33
Speaker 2: that's not what it's going to be like. People are people.
1:18:36
Speaker 2: They're not going to be banners. People are going to come.
1:18:39
Speaker 2: and express their support for you by savoring every moment
1:18:42
Speaker 2: of your artistry. And that's what happened. And that's why
1:18:45
Speaker 2: she was deeply moved by it. But it was, it
1:18:48
Speaker 2: was being an artist that drove her. You know, why
1:18:56
Speaker 2: didn't she speak out more? In 1937, she has her
1:19:02
Speaker 2: first concert at Princeton. She hasn't sung there before. She
1:19:05
Speaker 2: thinks she has a room at the Nassau Inn. Until
1:19:08
Speaker 2: she finds out, uh-uh, she can't stay there. She's there.
1:19:12
Speaker 2: What is she supposed to do? Word gets to a
1:19:15
Speaker 2: famous faculty member, a refugee from Nazi Germany, who had
1:19:19
Speaker 2: heard her at Carnegie Hall and come backstage meekly to
1:19:21
Speaker 2: meet her. Big fan, Albert Einstein. Wow. And he says,
1:19:27
Speaker 2: you must, you will come. His wife had just died.
1:19:30
Speaker 2: He said, you will come and stay with my stepdaughter
1:19:33
Speaker 2: and me and my personal secretary at my house on
1:19:35
Speaker 2: Mercer Street. So she did. And they took wonderful care
1:19:39
Speaker 2: of her, and he went to the concert, and they
1:19:41
Speaker 2: stayed up late. And he was ashamed of his adopted
1:19:45
Speaker 2: hometown that this magnificent woman honors your hotel by staying
1:19:51
Speaker 2: in it. And are you kidding? And they became fast friends,
1:19:56
Speaker 2: and there was one point of disagreement. He thought, why
1:20:01
Speaker 2: don't you speak out more? You have this platform. You're marrying,
1:20:06
Speaker 2: you know, and she was said, I can't know how
1:20:10
Speaker 2: she put it to him, but she probably said, well, basically,
1:20:13
Speaker 2: it's easy for you. You're Einstein. You know, you can
1:20:16
Speaker 2: go out and say whatever you want.
1:20:17
Speaker 1: Well, that's kind of what he was saying. It should
1:20:19
Speaker 1: be easy for you.
1:20:20
Speaker 2: But it wasn't. She was still trying to get through
1:20:22
Speaker 2: the door of an opera house in this company, in
1:20:25
Speaker 2: this country, you know. She was trying. There were still things,
1:20:29
Speaker 2: so many things closed to her. And she had to
1:20:32
Speaker 2: do it through the merits of her singing. through her artistry. So, yeah,
1:20:41
Speaker 2: I just think it was partly her nature. Maybe she
1:20:44
Speaker 2: wasn't bold enough. Paul Robeson spoke out all the time,
1:20:49
Speaker 2: but career-wise, as a singer, he paid a price for it.
1:20:53
Speaker 2: He lost a lot of opportunities. So, yeah, she could
1:20:58
Speaker 2: have been more outspoken, but she prevailed through her artistry,
1:21:02
Speaker 2: through her Great, you know, great voice.
1:21:05
Speaker 1: So let's, you know, did she, you know, sometimes you
1:21:10
Speaker 1: have some artists, they go to Europe and they never
1:21:12
Speaker 1: want to come back.
1:21:13
Speaker 2: Right.
1:21:13
Speaker 1: Because they're so, they were so frustrated with how poorly
1:21:17
Speaker 1: they were treated here, they stay there. I mean, and
1:21:21
Speaker 1: there's plenty of generations of artists have done that.
1:21:24
Speaker 2: Especially early in the 20th century, jazz musicians.
1:21:28
Speaker 1: A lot of black artists just basically left America because
1:21:31
Speaker 1: they felt like they were, frankly, safer.
1:21:33
Speaker 2: Right.
1:21:33
Speaker 1: In Europe. Why did she come back?
1:21:37
Speaker 2: She was an American and she was proud to be
1:21:41
Speaker 2: an American. And she was comfortable in this country. And also,
1:21:46
Speaker 2: if she was not outspoken in a way that we
1:21:51
Speaker 2: would maybe admire even more today, she spoke all the
1:21:55
Speaker 2: time of my people. I want to be a credit
1:21:59
Speaker 2: to my people. She thought she.
1:22:03
Speaker 2: But she thought the way to do that was to
1:22:06
Speaker 2: be an example of excellence and possibility. Give us a chance.
1:22:13
Speaker 2: Look what we can do. And she wanted to prove
1:22:16
Speaker 2: herself that way in America. I think that's why she
1:22:19
Speaker 2: came back. But she kept going back to Europe. She
1:22:24
Speaker 2: would turn around and go have tours there and come back.
1:22:27
Speaker 2: She traveled a lot. But sure, she based herself here and...
1:22:32
Speaker 2: And eventually all the doors did open for her, but
1:22:37
Speaker 2: she pried them open.
1:22:42
Speaker 1: You say that if the genre that obviously she missed
1:22:45
Speaker 1: the most with opera, what did she make of the rise? Because,
1:22:49
Speaker 1: you know, as she's becoming more well-known, that's also the
1:22:53
Speaker 1: rise of jazz. It's the early days of the crooners.
1:22:58
Speaker 1: Then we move from that to, you know, popular music
1:23:02
Speaker 1: and it goes from there what did she make of
1:23:05
Speaker 1: that genre and it at all interest her.
1:23:07
Speaker 2: Yes she was friends with duke ellington and she respected
1:23:11
Speaker 2: all that music tremendously i don't think she had great
1:23:14
Speaker 2: feeling for it or deep interest in it but she
1:23:17
Speaker 2: was very curious and respectful um i kind of rescue
1:23:22
Speaker 2: her in a chapter um where from interviews she gave
1:23:27
Speaker 2: where she would talk about uh high, upper, higher music.
1:23:37
Speaker 2: It used to be that people favored popular things more
1:23:41
Speaker 2: than the songs she sang, the art songs she sang.
1:23:44
Speaker 2: But during the war, singing for the troops and going
1:23:47
Speaker 2: to hospitals, it's amazing how often people asked for Schubert
1:23:51
Speaker 2: and Brahms. And she acted like the higher forms of
1:23:55
Speaker 2: music She used that word, unfortunately, you know, like.
1:23:58
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny. I mean, it's, look, let's be honest,
1:24:01
Speaker 1: especially if you, you know, I was a music major
1:24:04
Speaker 1: for a while, right? And so there's this mindset that
1:24:07
Speaker 1: real music, the real difficult music is classical music, right?
1:24:11
Speaker 1: And opera is a derivative of that. And popular music
1:24:15
Speaker 1: are for singers who couldn't do opera, right? And I'm
1:24:19
Speaker 1: sitting here being very, obviously, ham-handed here, but that was
1:24:22
Speaker 1: sort of, this mindset. And yet I look at somebody
1:24:25
Speaker 1: like Whitney Houston, it's like, well, if she'd chosen to
1:24:27
Speaker 1: do opera, she might've been a great opera singer.
1:24:29
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:24:31
Speaker 1: Yes.
1:24:32
Speaker 2: I think there's this chapter I'm proud of that was
1:24:36
Speaker 2: called Why Schubert, where I try to explain what drew
1:24:41
Speaker 2: her to this art form. And I compare it to
1:24:44
Speaker 2: myself growing up in a Long Island suburb, but there
1:24:48
Speaker 2: was more music in her household than there was in mine.
1:24:52
Speaker 2: This Grabbed me. I don't know how. I just I
1:24:56
Speaker 2: was listening to Salzburg Festival radio concert on the radio
1:25:00
Speaker 2: by myself when I was a kid. It just hooked me.
1:25:04
Speaker 1: And you don't have that parent or grandparent that said, hey,
1:25:07
Speaker 1: take a listen to this. I mean, no, I didn't
1:25:09
Speaker 1: have that. I had a I had a father who
1:25:11
Speaker 1: had eclectic and stuff. So I. I was hearing it
1:25:15
Speaker 1: in my house a little bit.
1:25:16
Speaker 2: No, I screamed. I wanted a piano. I wanted lessons.
1:25:21
Speaker 2: It was through me. Finally, at eight years old, I
1:25:24
Speaker 2: got one. But it wasn't through my parents. Everyone in
1:25:28
Speaker 2: her family sang. Music and music at their church was
1:25:33
Speaker 2: crucial to her. But what I say is that when
1:25:35
Speaker 2: she heard these songs, like Roland Hayes singing Schubert, It wasn't,
1:25:40
Speaker 2: she may have used the word higher, but she didn't mean,
1:25:43
Speaker 2: she ended every recital she ever gave with spirituals, singing
1:25:48
Speaker 2: Negro spirituals.
1:25:49
Speaker 1: Was that always connected to her first recording contract?
1:25:53
Speaker 2: That was. The first recording she was asked to do
1:25:55
Speaker 2: were spirituals. But soon after, you know, other things. But
1:26:00
Speaker 2: it was her way of saying, these works are every
1:26:04
Speaker 2: bit as profound and great as any song by any
1:26:07
Speaker 2: European composer ever. That I've sung already. But what I
1:26:11
Speaker 2: think did grab her about classical music was, yes, it
1:26:18
Speaker 2: was the subtext of things. It was the multi-layered quality
1:26:22
Speaker 2: of it. Why is it that a Schubert song, singing
1:26:26
Speaker 2: on the surface, seems so cheerful, but yet there's this undertone?
1:26:31
Speaker 2: There's this sadness. There's this longing. What's going on there?
1:26:36
Speaker 2: It's the subtleties and inner workings of it. I think
1:26:40
Speaker 2: that's what hooked her, that she had to figure out
1:26:43
Speaker 2: what is that. She used the word higher, but it
1:26:47
Speaker 2: wasn't higher.
1:26:48
Speaker 1: Was she also a piano player?
1:26:52
Speaker 2: Yes. She took piano lessons. There wasn't a lot of
1:26:56
Speaker 2: money for them, but she learned a lot. on her own.
1:26:59
Speaker 1: And was she a music reader or did she learn
1:27:01
Speaker 1: it by ear?
1:27:01
Speaker 2: No, no, no. She, yeah, she did learn to read. Yeah. And, and, and,
1:27:04
Speaker 2: and all the, and all that stuff, but not being
1:27:07
Speaker 2: able to get into the music academy, what she never
1:27:10
Speaker 2: did was like take a course in harmony or something
1:27:12
Speaker 2: like that, or, you know, or counterpoint or these things
1:27:16
Speaker 2: that all music students do. Right.
1:27:18
Speaker 1: She was not doing like rudimentary composition.
1:27:21
Speaker 2: No, she wasn't, she wasn't doing that. And, So, but again, she,
1:27:25
Speaker 2: she worked with really, really.
1:27:27
Speaker 1: I have scars, by the way, I still have scars
1:27:29
Speaker 1: from my music composition professor who went to Yale, who
1:27:35
Speaker 1: absolutely eviscerated one of my first attempts at a Bach chorale.
1:27:38
Speaker 1: And I'm like still scarred from this. Oh, that's terrible.
1:27:40
Speaker 1: I'm so glad she, I'm so glad she didn't have
1:27:42
Speaker 1: to fear that.
1:27:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. But normal in classical music training that usually by
1:27:48
Speaker 2: studying counterpoint and writing pieces in the style of Bach
1:27:52
Speaker 2: chorales and, And harmony. It's not that you become a
1:27:56
Speaker 2: master of this, but it changes the way you hear.
1:28:00
Speaker 2: You really do. You hear, ah, you're alert to what
1:28:05
Speaker 2: you're listening to, I think. So she did miss that.
1:28:11
Speaker 1: She is somebody, I get the impression that when you
1:28:15
Speaker 1: did your review and Skip Gates reached out to you,
1:28:18
Speaker 1: that in some ways what Skip Gates is concerned about
1:28:21
Speaker 1: is some of these folks getting lost. Because I do think,
1:28:25
Speaker 1: and it goes back to this pioneer and this breaking
1:28:27
Speaker 1: barrier mindset that we have, the pioneers will always have
1:28:32
Speaker 1: their pages in the history books. There's a whole group
1:28:36
Speaker 1: of people who,– she was a pioneer. She didn't choose
1:28:40
Speaker 1: to advertise being a pioneer as we keep– as basically
1:28:43
Speaker 1: we've spent 20 minutes talking about. That doesn't make her
1:28:48
Speaker 1: any less relevant to the music– to the history of
1:28:50
Speaker 1: music in the 20th century. And ultimately, I feel like
1:28:54
Speaker 1: with this book is you can't tell the history of
1:28:56
Speaker 1: American singing– of the 20th century without her.
1:29:01
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. And she, even in the moment of being
1:29:06
Speaker 2: a pioneer, she was going to make the larger points
1:29:12
Speaker 2: about artistry. And for example, the Lincoln Memorial Concert. Okay,
1:29:16
Speaker 2: she agrees to do it. There she is. She opens
1:29:19
Speaker 2: up singing America. She's so flustered to look at 75,000 people,
1:29:24
Speaker 2: black and white.
1:29:25
Speaker 1: Was that the largest audience she'd ever had?
1:29:27
Speaker 2: That was the largest audience that ever been at the
1:29:31
Speaker 2: Lincoln Memorial. And, you know, 24 years later for the
1:29:35
Speaker 2: I Have a Dream speech, it absolutely hearkened back to
1:29:38
Speaker 2: the Anderson concert. You know, like in a way it
1:29:41
Speaker 2: was a reference to that. It was really one of
1:29:46
Speaker 2: the seminal events of the civil rights movement, that concert
1:29:51
Speaker 2: in 1939. So she sings America, she flubs the words
1:29:55
Speaker 2: a little because she's so flustered. It's only a half-hour concert.
1:29:59
Speaker 2: It's going to include a Schubert Ave Maria and three spirituals.
1:30:03
Speaker 2: The second piece she sang was the longest, that Donizetti
1:30:06
Speaker 2: aria I mentioned before. O Mio Fernando, seven minutes before
1:30:12
Speaker 2: an audience. It was then an obscure aria. How many
1:30:17
Speaker 2: people among those 75,000, even radio listeners, would have known
1:30:21
Speaker 2: anything about it? She said, I'm going to show them.
1:30:27
Speaker 2: This is real. Even if this is a civil rights,
1:30:32
Speaker 2: you know, milestone, I'm going to also show them. And
1:30:38
Speaker 2: newspaper reporters surveying the crowd said people were awestruck. They
1:30:43
Speaker 2: didn't know what she was singing about, but just that
1:30:46
Speaker 2: a voice could do this, really. That's what gets forgotten
1:30:49
Speaker 2: about that concert when it's written about. How well did
1:30:53
Speaker 2: she sing? Well, that day she sure did, you know.
1:30:58
Speaker 1: Is there a really good recording.
1:31:00
Speaker 2: Of that concert? Yes, the radio broadcast. There's a radio
1:31:03
Speaker 2: broadcast of it on NBC and it was broadcast. But
1:31:07
Speaker 2: the other thing that people forget about that concert, okay,
1:31:12
Speaker 2: there's a platform of sponsors, Supreme Court justices and senators
1:31:17
Speaker 2: and Catherine Hepburn and people like that and 75,000 people.
1:31:22
Speaker 2: She's greeted. It's a big, of course, her mother and
1:31:25
Speaker 2: her two younger sisters come from Philadelphia for this big day.
1:31:29
Speaker 2: And she's, you know, news around the world. Of course,
1:31:33
Speaker 2: none of the Anderson women in 1939 could stay at
1:31:36
Speaker 2: any hotel in Washington, D.C. So from all this, she
1:31:42
Speaker 2: has to rely on it had been arranged. Gifford Pinchot
1:31:45
Speaker 2: was the former progressive Republican governor, two-term governor of Pennsylvania,
1:31:51
Speaker 2: her home state. His wife was a big supporter of
1:31:55
Speaker 2: women's rights. They had the Anderson women stay with them
1:31:59
Speaker 2: at their home in Washington. I mean, that's the part
1:32:03
Speaker 2: of our history that we keep. It's not only that she,
1:32:07
Speaker 2: as an artist, I think is underrated, but even what
1:32:11
Speaker 2: she did as a civil rights pioneer is forgotten. That
1:32:15
Speaker 2: she had to face the humiliation of not being able
1:32:18
Speaker 2: to stay anyplace in Washington.
1:32:22
Speaker 1: Your source material, you had quite a bit. Obviously, you
1:32:26
Speaker 1: had to go into multiple languages to see how she
1:32:28
Speaker 1: was received in Germany. But I'm curious about her. You
1:32:32
Speaker 1: note in her memoir that she left certain details, including
1:32:36
Speaker 1: about her father and his business, out. Oh, yes.
1:32:38
Speaker 2: He had a side business in selling alcohol.
1:32:42
Speaker 1: Which I guess she didn't– you get a sense of
1:32:46
Speaker 1: why she left that out. And what else did she
1:32:48
Speaker 1: leave out of that memoir?
1:32:50
Speaker 2: And she left out any mention of, well, and throughout
1:32:55
Speaker 2: her whole life, the only romantic relationship she ever owned
1:33:01
Speaker 2: up to was with Orpheus Fisher, the man she eventually married,
1:33:04
Speaker 2: not until 1943. And she, you know, she went to,
1:33:07
Speaker 2: in 1935, she was on a tour. of Europe, and
1:33:12
Speaker 2: she made it to the Soviet Union, if you can imagine,
1:33:16
Speaker 2: in 1935. Two tours. And the Soviet government puts her
1:33:21
Speaker 2: up at a spa for two weeks as a gift
1:33:24
Speaker 2: from the government. And there she has a fling with
1:33:27
Speaker 2: a younger Russian Jewish man who was an actor and reader,
1:33:33
Speaker 2: and who was apparently very passionate. And there are, we
1:33:36
Speaker 2: have his letters, but not hers. And she, of course, never, ever,
1:33:40
Speaker 2: ever mentioned this, you know, So there are things like that.
1:33:45
Speaker 2: And also the other thing I do talk about in
1:33:48
Speaker 2: the book, this is how much– so she worked with
1:33:51
Speaker 2: a ghostwriter, Howard Taubman, who was very, very faithful to
1:33:55
Speaker 2: the recorded tapes, which you can hear at the University
1:33:58
Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania at the library.
1:34:00
Speaker 1: Is that where all of her stuff is?
1:34:01
Speaker 2: That's where all of her stuff is. Yeah. And he,
1:34:06
Speaker 2: by the way, talking about conflict of interest in journalism,
1:34:09
Speaker 2: he had my job. He was the chief classical music
1:34:12
Speaker 2: critic of the New York Times at the time. He wrote,
1:34:16
Speaker 2: he was her ghostwriter. They kept it quiet. His name
1:34:21
Speaker 2: was not given and even mentioned.
1:34:24
Speaker 1: Not even in the acknowledgments or anything like that?
1:34:26
Speaker 2: No, in the acknowledgments, yes, for editorial help, but not
1:34:29
Speaker 2: that he actually wrote, you know. And he was left
1:34:32
Speaker 2: out of all the reviewings. He was sharing money that
1:34:36
Speaker 2: he made from it. It would be like if I had,
1:34:39
Speaker 2: as a critic, was the ghostwriter for Renee Fleming's memoir,
1:34:44
Speaker 2: and we kept it quiet, and we were both making money,
1:34:47
Speaker 2: and I kept reviewing her positively. I mean, that was
1:34:51
Speaker 2: just total different era of journalism. Well, yeah.
1:34:54
Speaker 1: I mean, I always say, be careful when you ask
1:34:56
Speaker 1: about the good old days of journalism. You don't want
1:34:58
Speaker 1: to know what some of the rules used to be.
1:34:59
Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly. But when she finally got the draft of
1:35:02
Speaker 2: the book from Howard Taubman, her first thing was she
1:35:07
Speaker 2: wanted everything about the Lincoln Memorial Concert taken out.
1:35:19
Speaker 1: That's why are we doing the book, right?
1:35:23
Speaker 2: And her lawyer, whom she trusted, and her husband... And
1:35:28
Speaker 2: Taubman had to convince her, no, no, that is quite wrong.
1:35:32
Speaker 2: But she didn't, she wasn't.
1:35:34
Speaker 1: But you don't open with it. You know what I
1:35:35
Speaker 1: almost feel like now listening to that story, that your
1:35:38
Speaker 1: decision not to open with the Washington concert, I feel
1:35:42
Speaker 1: like was an homage to her.
1:35:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also what I, I wanted to make clear how,
1:35:54
Speaker 2: how for Black, for all of us, but especially black people,
1:35:58
Speaker 2: even today, but especially back then, you can overstate how
1:36:04
Speaker 2: important it is to have a model, to see somebody, ah,
1:36:09
Speaker 2: doing that. So I begin with Leontine Price, who's still
1:36:12
Speaker 2: with us at 99. So Anderson comes back from Europe
1:36:19
Speaker 2: and she starts singing here again. And she has a
1:36:22
Speaker 2: concert in Jackson, Mississippi. And one day Leontine Price's Mother
1:36:26
Speaker 2: says to her, well, Marian Anderson is not going to
1:36:29
Speaker 2: be coming to Laurel, Mississippi, but she is singing in
1:36:32
Speaker 2: Jackson and we're going to take the bus and we're
1:36:34
Speaker 2: going to go there and hear her. So they did.
1:36:36
Speaker 2: They went to see her. Now, of course, in this
1:36:38
Speaker 2: big auditorium, they're sitting in the colored section, you know,
1:36:42
Speaker 2: and this woman walks out and elegant, beautiful and starts singing.
1:36:47
Speaker 2: And Price has this epiphany and she looks at her
1:36:52
Speaker 2: and says to herself, I'm going to be her. That's
1:36:58
Speaker 2: my future. At the time, Price was the star of
1:37:02
Speaker 2: her church choir. She was taking piano lessons. She thought,
1:37:05
Speaker 2: maybe I could be a music teacher. Maybe I could
1:37:07
Speaker 2: be a voice singer and do some concerts. Then she thought, ah, that.
1:37:12
Speaker 2: I'm going to do that. And what does she do?
1:37:14
Speaker 2: She goes out and does it. She becomes the most
1:37:17
Speaker 2: famous opera singer in the world.
1:37:20
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful way to open because the whole point
1:37:22
Speaker 1: is that she did break barriers.
1:37:24
Speaker 2: She did, yeah.
1:37:24
Speaker 1: For the next generation.
1:37:26
Speaker 2: And then, so Price is in the audience when Anderson
1:37:30
Speaker 2: makes her debut. When Price makes her debut in 1961,
1:37:36
Speaker 2: who's in the audience? Marian Anderson. I mean, wow, that's
1:37:41
Speaker 2: really moving.
1:37:43
Speaker 1: What, somebody listening right now, one recording, where would you
1:37:48
Speaker 1: tell people to start?
1:37:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm such an advocate of wanting her. Can I
1:37:55
Speaker 2: pick two? I'd say one is Schubert's Ave Maria because
1:38:00
Speaker 2: it's so famous. And I think even to people new
1:38:07
Speaker 2: to this music, the eloquence, the personalness, the authenticity, the
1:38:13
Speaker 2: sensitivity she brings to it is overwhelming. But the other
1:38:17
Speaker 2: one is this spiritual crucifixion. Wow. She recorded it in 1941.
1:38:23
Speaker 2: It wasn't released for years and years. I don't know why,
1:38:27
Speaker 2: because maybe she thought it was too personal. The spiritual
1:38:30
Speaker 2: is amazing. It's profound. The words are, they begin, they
1:38:35
Speaker 2: crucified my Lord. And he never said a mumbling word,
1:38:41
Speaker 2: not a word, not a word, not a word. So
1:38:46
Speaker 2: the spiritual is about jesus's reaction that he never even
1:38:53
Speaker 2: with this punishment nothing never said a word in his
1:38:56
Speaker 2: defense the spiritual it's a profound piece it's meant to
1:39:00
Speaker 2: be sung very slowly anderson sings it at this glacial
1:39:05
Speaker 2: tempo so slow you think the she's taking a risk
1:39:10
Speaker 2: that the music is going to lose any kind of
1:39:13
Speaker 2: rhythmic thread it's just going to go limp but it's
1:39:16
Speaker 2: so intense so um The sound is so tremulous and
1:39:23
Speaker 2: grabs you and so heart-wrenching, you hang on every word.
1:39:29
Speaker 2: It's four and a half minutes, and it's one of
1:39:33
Speaker 2: the most profound vocal music recordings of the whole 20th century.
1:39:39
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you, she sang it in 1935 in Salzburg.
1:39:44
Speaker 2: Of course, she couldn't sing at the Salzburg Festival, a
1:39:46
Speaker 2: black woman. Nazis were overrunning Austria. But the lobby of
1:39:54
Speaker 2: a hotel was rented for her. And it was kind
1:39:57
Speaker 2: of an informal concert for a few hundred people. Two
1:40:00
Speaker 2: people show up, famous conductors, Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini.
1:40:05
Speaker 2: And on the program, she sings some spirituals. And one
1:40:11
Speaker 2: of them is crucifixion. And the reporter... reporting on the
1:40:15
Speaker 2: concert said at the end of crucifixion, no one applauded,
1:40:19
Speaker 2: not a sound, you know, and they were overcome.
1:40:23
Speaker 1: It just sounds haunting the way you, and it, look,
1:40:26
Speaker 1: it's the subject matter itself. If this is your faith,
1:40:30
Speaker 1: this is the moment. And it sounds like she interpreted
1:40:33
Speaker 1: it that deeply.
1:40:34
Speaker 2: Absolutely. This gets to the title of my book, which
1:40:37
Speaker 2: we don't have to go into, but Toscanini goes up
1:40:40
Speaker 2: to her afterwards and congratulates her. Then he says, And
1:40:46
Speaker 2: this is the best quote we have is from her
1:40:49
Speaker 2: accompanist who was standing right next to him. He says,
1:40:52
Speaker 2: what I just heard, one is privileged to hear only
1:40:57
Speaker 2: once in a hundred years. So naturally, her big shot manager,
1:41:04
Speaker 2: Sol Yura, grabs that comment and tweaks it into something
1:41:08
Speaker 2: much catchier and promotional. So all of a sudden her
1:41:11
Speaker 2: posters are plastered with Marian Anderson, quote, the voice of
1:41:14
Speaker 2: the century, Arturo Toscanini. And he never said that. He
1:41:18
Speaker 2: never said that.
1:41:19
Speaker 1: The social media of that day, huh? That would have
1:41:21
Speaker 1: been immediately tweeted out and Instagrammed and all of that, right?
1:41:25
Speaker 2: But the president of Penguin encouraged me to tweak that
1:41:31
Speaker 2: phrase into voice of a century. I didn't want to
1:41:35
Speaker 2: go anywhere because... Because it's ambiguous. I love that. That
1:41:43
Speaker 2: it's not the voice.
1:41:44
Speaker 1: It's voice.
1:41:45
Speaker 2: It's like it almost means she exemplified the century. She
1:41:50
Speaker 2: embodied this. She sang for it. She spoke for it.
1:41:53
Speaker 2: Both the possibilities and the horrible shortcomings of it. It's
1:41:59
Speaker 2: all there. And also, by the way, it implies a little.
1:42:03
Speaker 2: She happened to also have one of the great voices
1:42:04
Speaker 2: of the century. But Toscanini also said what I loved
1:42:10
Speaker 2: about his quote. He didn't say the voice I have
1:42:12
Speaker 2: just heard. He said what I have just heard, meaning everything,
1:42:18
Speaker 2: your artistry, your interpretation, your sensibility, and of course the voice.
1:42:25
Speaker 1: Well, look, it's a tremendous story. Congratulations that you got
1:42:32
Speaker 1: to do this because you get to put your imprint
1:42:35
Speaker 1: on this. Before I let you go, I'm curious of
1:42:38
Speaker 1: your thoughts on the state of classical music. And I
1:42:45
Speaker 1: say this as I watch, you know, my last music
1:42:49
Speaker 1: professor was second chair at the National Symphony, still is,
1:42:53
Speaker 1: still is at the National Symphony. They don't have a home.
1:42:57
Speaker 2: They don't have a home.
1:42:59
Speaker 1: You know, it is, look, one of the things that
1:43:03
Speaker 1: I've always said I talked myself out of trying to
1:43:06
Speaker 1: go into music as a career was, you know, the
1:43:08
Speaker 1: opportunities are fewer and fewer all the time, unless you're
1:43:13
Speaker 1: the best of the best. It is really, you want
1:43:16
Speaker 1: to talk about, it's not 1%, it's the one, you know,
1:43:21
Speaker 1: one-tenth of 1% are able to truly make a living
1:43:24
Speaker 1: in classical music. What's your sense of it as a
1:43:30
Speaker 1: public genre and what's your sense of it you know,
1:43:35
Speaker 1: how do we create a new youth movement?
1:43:38
Speaker 2: That's a huge topic. And we got two minutes.
1:43:42
Speaker 1: No, I'm kidding.
1:43:42
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, the Kennedy Center story, the tragedy there is
1:43:48
Speaker 2: that maintaining a symphony orchestra, maintaining an opera company is
1:43:54
Speaker 2: already so challenging. Even if you have the most supportive
1:43:59
Speaker 2: board and staff, of trustees and people and patrons, it's
1:44:04
Speaker 2: still so hard. And so to have politics just take
1:44:09
Speaker 2: over and run the place into the ground is just
1:44:14
Speaker 2: incredibly tragic.
1:44:16
Speaker 1: No, it's a gut punch.
1:44:18
Speaker 2: But, you know, the thing, the great hope I have,
1:44:25
Speaker 2: in a way, AI could maybe Even though we're all
1:44:32
Speaker 2: afraid of it, help this. I know you've said things
1:44:35
Speaker 2: like this on your podcast that it might drive people
1:44:39
Speaker 2: back to the original.
1:44:40
Speaker 1: Oh, I am a believer in this, that the unintended
1:44:45
Speaker 1: consequence of the artificialness of everything is going to make
1:44:49
Speaker 1: us appreciate the original everything.
1:44:54
Speaker 2: And when you were talking to Bob Spitz about the
1:44:56
Speaker 2: book on the Rolling Stones, you were both talking about
1:45:00
Speaker 2: the kind of mystique of live instruments. We've been losing that,
1:45:07
Speaker 2: and even in that field, we have to get it back.
1:45:09
Speaker 2: But my mantra in writing about this field and loving
1:45:13
Speaker 2: this field and promoting it and encouraging people is this
1:45:17
Speaker 2: is one field, art form, you have to hear live.
1:45:23
Speaker 2: You think you don't chamber music? A string quartet?
1:45:26
Speaker 1: What? No, and unfortunately, I think the digitalization of it
1:45:30
Speaker 1: has turned it all into elevator music, and it's not fair.
1:45:33
Speaker 2: If you hear a string quartet playing in a hall
1:45:36
Speaker 2: that seats 300 or 400 people, no amplification, I'm sorry.
1:45:41
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, I knew nothing about opera.
1:45:43
Speaker 2: I got seats at the Met, the old Met, when
1:45:46
Speaker 2: I was really young. I had no idea what these
1:45:50
Speaker 2: operas were about. But the sound of these voices coming
1:45:53
Speaker 2: up and encircling me, no amplification, was enthralling. Every time
1:46:00
Speaker 2: I've brought some neophyte to the Met Opera in New
1:46:02
Speaker 2: York who doesn't, they'll ask 10 times, there's no amplification?
1:46:06
Speaker 2: I said, no, no. You know, a symphony or to
1:46:09
Speaker 2: hear a great orchestra at Carnegie Hall, that sound is...
1:46:16
Speaker 2: You cannot record that. You know, like we all love
1:46:20
Speaker 2: our recordings. Obviously, they're wonderful. It's like Toscanini once said,
1:46:26
Speaker 2: it's like getting a kiss. No, Stravinsky, I'm sorry, once said,
1:46:29
Speaker 2: it's like getting a kiss over the telephone. But yeah,
1:46:34
Speaker 2: but I think if young people could just hear this
1:46:37
Speaker 2: stuff and hear it in the places where it's meant
1:46:40
Speaker 2: to be performed, I mean, it's just enthralling. It captivates you.
1:46:44
Speaker 2: And if the demand, the demand has to be there,
1:46:47
Speaker 2: but it's a very expensive art form. You know, putting
1:46:50
Speaker 2: on opera is very, very labor intensive. But I believe
1:46:57
Speaker 2: in the genre. I believe in the art form. I
1:46:59
Speaker 2: believe in its sustaining power. And it's never going to
1:47:04
Speaker 2: have the big audiences that, of course, pop music has.
1:47:08
Speaker 2: But we can sustain it. We have sustained it.
1:47:11
Speaker 1: Well, I always love to tell some of my friends who,
1:47:14
Speaker 1: who are not really maybe fluent in classical music or
1:47:18
Speaker 1: just sort of, you know, appreciate it when it's in
1:47:20
Speaker 1: a cool movie score, you know, which can, which can is,
1:47:24
Speaker 1: is sort of, and then they go to a rock
1:47:26
Speaker 1: concert that brings on, you know, a brass, at least
1:47:31
Speaker 1: a brass accompaniment, right. Or might have 20 instrumentalists behind them,
1:47:39
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of trumpets, a couple of French horns,
1:47:42
Speaker 1: a couple of violins, And it just fills the stadium
1:47:48
Speaker 1: in a way that no synthesizer could. And no matter
1:47:53
Speaker 1: how many of those speakers you stack up, right, for
1:47:55
Speaker 1: the people that sit on the floor seats.
1:47:57
Speaker 2: Also, in the kind of concert you're describing, but also
1:48:01
Speaker 2: think of the symphony orchestra on a big concert stage.
1:48:04
Speaker 2: There's a spatial element to listening that, you know, bases
1:48:08
Speaker 2: are here and the brasses are here and it's coming
1:48:11
Speaker 2: from different parts, you know, and you have a solo
1:48:14
Speaker 2: oboe sort of standing up against the whole orchestra. And
1:48:18
Speaker 2: there's that kinetic kind of spatial thing is also you
1:48:21
Speaker 2: have to be there to hear it.
1:48:23
Speaker 1: There's really no recording yet. I feel like that has
1:48:26
Speaker 1: truly been able to capture that sort of fullness, no
1:48:29
Speaker 1: matter what kind of, you know, you could have the best.
1:48:32
Speaker 1: And I'm, you know, I was an audiophile until until
1:48:36
Speaker 1: I got kids, right? And then it's just sort of like,
1:48:38
Speaker 1: there's only so much hobbies you could keep up with,
1:48:41
Speaker 1: but you can have the best sort of setup to,
1:48:45
Speaker 1: you know, whether you're playing vinyl or you're playing something that,
1:48:49
Speaker 1: you know, through the best version, digital version you could get,
1:48:53
Speaker 1: and it's never going to fill the room the way
1:48:55
Speaker 1: live fills it up.
1:48:56
Speaker 2: No, you're singing my gospel. No, I agree. Again, as
1:49:02
Speaker 2: someone who loves recordings, and especially historic recordings, all of
1:49:07
Speaker 2: Anderson's recordings. I mean, I never heard her live, and
1:49:10
Speaker 2: so it's all I have. And I cherish them. But no,
1:49:16
Speaker 2: I agree. I would rather hear.
1:49:21
Speaker 2: Than the most highly touted, best engineered, amazingly performed recording of,
1:49:26
Speaker 2: let's say, Beethoven's uh, Eroica symphony, I'd rather hear this
1:49:31
Speaker 2: Juilliard orchestra play it live, you know, or the Manhattan
1:49:34
Speaker 2: school or music orchestra play it live. Uh, because those
1:49:38
Speaker 2: kids have never played it before. Usually they're thrilled. And
1:49:42
Speaker 2: they're also, by the way, very good. They're very talented.
1:49:46
Speaker 2: They're technically incredible.
1:49:47
Speaker 1: Someone who couldn't get into Juilliard. I will tell you that.
1:49:52
Speaker 2: Maybe it all worked out for the best.
1:49:54
Speaker 1: You know, it all, it all, it all works out.
1:49:56
Speaker 1: Let me, uh, If you could pick one, if you
1:50:00
Speaker 1: cannot see classical music live, what is your preferred recording?
1:50:04
Speaker 1: Is it vinyl? Is it a high, high-end digital sort
1:50:10
Speaker 1: of recording? Is it a 78 rather than a 33
1:50:15
Speaker 1: on the vinyl? Do you have a preference?
1:50:20
Speaker 2: In a way, you're asking the wrong person, Beth. I...
1:50:26
Speaker 2: I have found that many musicians, and first and foremost,
1:50:31
Speaker 2: I was a pianist and played a lot of concerts,
1:50:35
Speaker 2: and are not audiophiles. because you can listen through anything.
1:50:40
Speaker 2: I can listen through any old scratchy recording. And so
1:50:44
Speaker 2: when digital came along, for me, just pragmatically, it's clean,
1:50:50
Speaker 2: it's not gonna deteriorate, it's reliable, it's maybe a little
1:50:54
Speaker 2: colder than vinyl sound, you know, an analog sound, but.
1:50:57
Speaker 1: There's a warmth to vinyl that's hard to recreate anywhere else.
1:51:00
Speaker 2: There is, but you have to have really good equipment
1:51:03
Speaker 2: and it's just, you know, it's- And any old CD
1:51:07
Speaker 2: player can really, you know, so it's, it's a convenience
1:51:11
Speaker 2: in a way that, but Anderson made some recordings from
1:51:14
Speaker 2: the early eras, you know, a recording that are full
1:51:18
Speaker 2: of crackles and stuff, but doesn't bother me. I can
1:51:22
Speaker 2: listen right through, you know, to hear what I want
1:51:24
Speaker 2: to hear. Let me get you out of here. Yeah,
1:51:27
Speaker 2: go ahead.
1:51:28
Speaker 1: Finish.
1:51:29
Speaker 2: I'd say go hear something live. Yes.
1:51:32
Speaker 1: That's, I think we can't emphasize that. I mean, You know,
1:51:35
Speaker 1: even if it's something, one of my favorite summer programs
1:51:40
Speaker 1: that we have here in D.C. is the National Symphony
1:51:43
Speaker 1: would do movie night at Wolf Trap.
1:51:44
Speaker 2: Right. Wonderful. Right.
1:51:45
Speaker 1: And you do a movie and then they do the
1:51:47
Speaker 1: score live. And it's just, it's actually a great way
1:51:50
Speaker 1: to get, to bring your kids into something.
1:51:53
Speaker 2: Right, right.
1:51:53
Speaker 1: Right. It's sort of, you know.
1:51:56
Speaker 2: What music do your kids listen to?
1:51:59
Speaker 1: Oh, my daughters. There's Taylor Swift and everybody else, my friend.
1:52:06
Speaker 2: She's awfully good.
1:52:07
Speaker 1: No, and it got my daughter to pick up a guitar.
1:52:10
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I insisted on piano lessons. Let's just
1:52:14
Speaker 1: say it was a chore for them when they were younger. But,
1:52:19
Speaker 1: you know, I believe music is a language that you learn.
1:52:21
Speaker 1: And so even a rudimentary understanding of music is only
1:52:24
Speaker 1: going to help you in life down the road. Let
1:52:27
Speaker 1: me get you out of here on this, because this
1:52:29
Speaker 1: used to be a fun little conversation I would have
1:52:32
Speaker 1: over the years when I was more active. in the,
1:52:35
Speaker 1: in the music world, classical music world, who would you
1:52:38
Speaker 1: say is the, what's, what's the premier symphony to get
1:52:44
Speaker 1: into now? You know, you'd have these little debates. There
1:52:48
Speaker 1: was the Cleveland orchestra, there's New York and there's Philadelphia
1:52:50
Speaker 1: and there's, you know, they all had their strengths, Chicago,
1:52:54
Speaker 1: you know, some would argue Boston, of course, you know, with, with, with, with,
1:53:00
Speaker 1: they had the problem, arguably the most famous conductors for
1:53:03
Speaker 1: a while, you know, who's got the belt right now?
1:53:07
Speaker 1: Who's the number one symphony in the country? Where do
1:53:11
Speaker 1: the musicians going, no matter where they are, they go,
1:53:13
Speaker 1: I want.
1:53:14
Speaker 2: To go there. I guess I have, again, a sort
1:53:17
Speaker 2: of different take on that because it's, it's not just
1:53:21
Speaker 2: like you can calculate the excellence or.
1:53:26
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like it's hard to tell the difference,
1:53:28
Speaker 1: but it, my guess is it's in some ways it
1:53:30
Speaker 1: might be even director specific.
1:53:33
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. I was just going to say, it's, you know,
1:53:36
Speaker 2: for example, the Los Angeles Philharmonic just became, first under
1:53:44
Speaker 2: the composer, conductor, Esa-Pek Salonen, and then Gustavo Dudamel, who's
1:53:47
Speaker 2: now coming this fall to the New York Philharmonic. They
1:53:52
Speaker 2: were so, such adventurous, such an adventurous whole institution, you know,
1:54:00
Speaker 2: There was a real connection between the conductors, those two conductors,
1:54:07
Speaker 2: especially Gustavo and the audience and those players and the programs.
1:54:12
Speaker 2: They really had, they just made every concert seem important,
1:54:19
Speaker 2: you know, and it's, was it, Were they playing greater
1:54:23
Speaker 2: than the Chicago Symphony? It's not that. It's just something
1:54:27
Speaker 2: that was really happening there. You know, like you could
1:54:31
Speaker 2: compare to, we now look back. You can read reviews
1:54:34
Speaker 2: criticizing Bernstein when he was at the New York Forum. Oh, sure.
1:54:38
Speaker 1: Arthur Fiedler at the Boston Pops would get criticized, but
1:54:41
Speaker 1: it was fun.
1:54:41
Speaker 2: We look back at Bernstein now in those years. Are
1:54:44
Speaker 2: you kidding? That was like the golden age ever.
1:54:46
Speaker 1: Everybody wanted to be with him and in New York.
1:54:49
Speaker 2: That was just, those concerts were incredible. So it's really
1:54:55
Speaker 2: the mix that makes an orchestra really great.
1:54:59
Speaker 1: I mean, basically, there's eight to ten great symphonies to
1:55:02
Speaker 1: belong to, and it's really director-specific, really, that sort of
1:55:05
Speaker 1: drives the moment.
1:55:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, but, you know, the Alabama Symphony came to Carnegie
1:55:13
Speaker 2: Hall once, to play a concert. And I, and they did,
1:55:16
Speaker 2: it was a really good concert and they played really well.
1:55:20
Speaker 2: And it was a new piece. And so I said,
1:55:22
Speaker 2: you know, I'm sorry, this sitting there that last night,
1:55:26
Speaker 2: this was as good as any concert I can remember,
1:55:29
Speaker 2: you know? So it doesn't quite work that way, but yeah,
1:55:33
Speaker 2: when you have, let's see what Gustavo does in New York,
1:55:36
Speaker 2: you know, he's got some big plans and it could,
1:55:40
Speaker 2: he could be bringing all, all his, you know, charisma
1:55:44
Speaker 2: and energy and ideas.
1:55:46
Speaker 1: We'll see, you know, well, I, I, um, that's something
1:55:49
Speaker 1: to look forward to. Uh, I'm glad to hear that. Uh, Tony,
1:55:52
Speaker 1: this was great. Um, thanks for, uh, thanks for coming on.
1:55:57
Speaker 1: Thanks for sharing this book. Yeah. And I know it
1:56:00
Speaker 1: comes out in about a week or so.
1:56:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. A little bit, a little longer, September 8th. And, uh, it's, um,
1:56:07
Speaker 2: a couple of few weeks and Yes, thank you. I'm honored.
1:56:11
Speaker 2: I'm very glad that you invited me. Thank you so much.
1:56:27
Speaker 1: All right, let's do a little top five list and
1:56:29
Speaker 1: some questions to wrap up this episode. So here's my
1:56:32
Speaker 1: top five list this week, and it's a It's the
1:56:36
Speaker 1: statewide sweeps. To me, blue wave, blue tsunami, right? I've
1:56:42
Speaker 1: gone through my various stages here for you. You know,
1:56:45
Speaker 1: blue mirage, blue wave, blue tsunami. I'm going to leave
1:56:48
Speaker 1: the blue mirage category aside for this list. Well, actually,
1:56:58
Speaker 1: you could look at it this way, but I think
1:57:00
Speaker 1: there's a pretty good measurement. particularly on the Democratic side,
1:57:04
Speaker 1: measuring this through the prism of the Democrats here, of
1:57:07
Speaker 1: five states where a Democrat hasn't carried that state at
1:57:12
Speaker 1: least since 2012 for president, where both a governor and
1:57:17
Speaker 1: a Senate race is on the ballot. And as you know,
1:57:20
Speaker 1: I went through this about the importance of the top
1:57:22
Speaker 1: of the ticket. It's governor's races in many of these
1:57:24
Speaker 1: states and how important these gubernatorial nominees might be to
1:57:30
Speaker 1: bringing over either you know, flawed candidates or lesser known candidates,
1:57:36
Speaker 1: or maybe the state's a little too red or you
1:57:38
Speaker 1: got to try to drag it over. But I thought
1:57:40
Speaker 1: a pretty good measurement. I wanted to give you the
1:57:42
Speaker 1: five states where I think Democrats at least have a
1:57:44
Speaker 1: 10 percent chance of of the dual sweep of winning
1:57:48
Speaker 1: the governor's race and the competitive Senate race in that state.
1:57:52
Speaker 1: And I think this is the way I would have
1:57:55
Speaker 1: you examine this top five. If somehow all Democrats swept
1:57:59
Speaker 1: all five of these states, I'm about to highlight here.
1:58:02
Speaker 1: that are both featuring both competitive Senate and marginally competitive
1:58:07
Speaker 1: governor's races. I say marginally, because that's eye of the beaker,
1:58:10
Speaker 1: but they're not they're not blowouts. They made the list because,
1:58:13
Speaker 1: you know, it is somewhat competitive. And in one case,
1:58:17
Speaker 1: it's actually a governor's race is more competitive than the
1:58:20
Speaker 1: Senate race. And I'll get to that. But I think
1:58:22
Speaker 1: a good way to see which categories, if somehow Republicans
1:58:25
Speaker 1: swept all five. of these states and the dual statewide, well,
1:58:29
Speaker 1: then that would be blue mirage territory. And then the
1:58:32
Speaker 1: degrees of wave depend on how many of these states
1:58:35
Speaker 1: Democrats sweep, right? If they can get all of them,
1:58:41
Speaker 1: then this is a blue tsunami. I'd argue three of
1:58:44
Speaker 1: the five. If they swept, you would call this either
1:58:49
Speaker 1: a very big wave bordering on blue tsunami, and obviously
1:58:52
Speaker 1: four or five is there. So I know I threw
1:58:54
Speaker 1: a bunch of caveats in there and you're like, what
1:58:56
Speaker 1: the hell are you talking about? Here's the bottom line.
1:58:58
Speaker 1: Here's the five red states, right, where a Democratic presidential
1:59:03
Speaker 1: candidate has not carried that state since at least 2012.
1:59:06
Speaker 1: So it's been more than a decade since that state
1:59:10
Speaker 1: went blue in a presidential race. Here are my top
1:59:13
Speaker 1: five states where Democrats have a realistic chance of the sweep,
1:59:17
Speaker 1: both Senate and Gov. And again, It's like I'm not
1:59:22
Speaker 1: Michigan doesn't make this list because, hey, Joe Biden carried
1:59:25
Speaker 1: Michigan in 2020. And, you know, there's you know, it's
1:59:30
Speaker 1: it's I think Democrats are favored to sweep both races.
1:59:33
Speaker 1: But the Senate race is definitely a coin flip. Ditto
1:59:35
Speaker 1: with a Minnesota or ditto with a that could see,
1:59:38
Speaker 1: you know, Democrats win both the governor's race or that,
1:59:40
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't qualify. This is already sort of
1:59:42
Speaker 1: a blue or purple state or a blue leaning state.
1:59:45
Speaker 1: These are these red states basically that in the Trump
1:59:48
Speaker 1: era have been out of reach for for Democrats, particularly
1:59:54
Speaker 1: in the presidential level and either out of reach, either
1:59:57
Speaker 1: in a Senate race or a Gov race or both.
1:59:59
Speaker 1: So coming in at number five is the state of Florida, okay? Florida,
2:00:05
Speaker 1: this is the most unrealistic. This is probably the hardest
2:00:09
Speaker 1: of the states that were once competitive and haven't been
2:00:12
Speaker 1: in the Trump era, put Florida there. This is probably
2:00:16
Speaker 1: the tallest mountain for Democrats to climb. It's more, you know,
2:00:22
Speaker 1: they could in a blue wave scenario, even, you know,
2:00:26
Speaker 1: they could lose both the governor's race and the Senate
2:00:28
Speaker 1: race and still have a good year politically, you would
2:00:30
Speaker 1: say this. But I'm putting it on the list because
2:00:34
Speaker 1: I do think the governor's race is going to be close.
2:00:36
Speaker 1: And I think if somehow David Jolly pulls it off,
2:00:39
Speaker 1: we will say this was closer to being a big
2:00:41
Speaker 1: blue wave to slash tsunami. And I think Angie Nixon
2:00:44
Speaker 1: may be more competitive than folks realize. She doesn't have
2:00:47
Speaker 1: the resources and the national party is not going to
2:00:49
Speaker 1: put it there. but you may see more party realignment
2:00:52
Speaker 1: here than you realize there. So look, it's sort of,
2:00:56
Speaker 1: it's at the tail end. It is not a, but
2:01:00
Speaker 1: it's sort of, you know, because I say you have
2:01:02
Speaker 1: to have a top five list, Florida's fifth, but there's
2:01:05
Speaker 1: a big gap between four and five on my list.
2:01:09
Speaker 1: Number four on my list is Kansas. So Kansas is
2:01:13
Speaker 1: interesting because now they've never, they haven't elected a Democratic
2:01:16
Speaker 1: senator since the 1930s. And obviously, the current governor is
2:01:24
Speaker 1: term-limited from seeking a third term, Laura Kelly, and it's
2:01:26
Speaker 1: a Democrat. So this is a case where if Democrats
2:01:30
Speaker 1: are able to do something they haven't been able to
2:01:32
Speaker 1: do when they've won these governor's races, which is have
2:01:35
Speaker 1: a new Democrat replace the term-limited Democrat, right? It didn't
2:01:39
Speaker 1: happen with Sebelius. And Kelly is trying to see, has
2:01:43
Speaker 1: she permanently shifted the governing culture of the state? Now,
2:01:46
Speaker 1: we'll see. Her preferred candidate lost in the primaries. The
2:01:50
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee is won in part due to the Kansas
2:01:56
Speaker 1: City Chiefs deal, but she's also been pretty front and
2:01:59
Speaker 1: center on, again, status center expansion and things like that.
2:02:05
Speaker 1: And then, of course, Republicans in Kansas are still having
2:02:07
Speaker 1: to carry the baggage of Sam Brownback and those unpopular
2:02:11
Speaker 1: budget cuts, and that's always something that they got to
2:02:14
Speaker 1: hang on there. But the real sort of blue tsunami
2:02:18
Speaker 1: test here is, Can Democrats actually win a Senate seat here?
2:02:21
Speaker 1: They've got a good candidate in Adam Hamilton. They've been
2:02:24
Speaker 1: competitive before 2014. They had an independent Greg Orman who
2:02:29
Speaker 1: came within single digits of Pat Roberts back in the day,
2:02:32
Speaker 1: or right around single digits. It was right in the
2:02:35
Speaker 1: 9-10 cut line on that. But I promise you, if
2:02:40
Speaker 1: Democrats were able to flip this Senate seat, and I
2:02:42
Speaker 1: think Roger Marshall's uniquely vulnerable here. He's not the most....
2:02:48
Speaker 2: Right.
2:02:48
Speaker 1: Jerry Moran has been more front and center pushing back
2:02:50
Speaker 1: on Trump. Marshall will never push back on Trump. And
2:02:53
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's a problem for him, if he's
2:02:55
Speaker 1: going to underperform in some of the suburban areas of
2:02:58
Speaker 1: Kansas City, Kansas and things like that. So I think
2:03:01
Speaker 1: the possibilities are there. But boy, you would be in
2:03:05
Speaker 1: blue tsunami territory if Democrats could win both in the
2:03:08
Speaker 1: same cycle, a Senate race and a government race. So
2:03:12
Speaker 1: number four. So I put Florida is is Competitive, but
2:03:16
Speaker 1: very unlikely. Kansas, competitive, mostly unlikely. My next three here
2:03:21
Speaker 1: are the more realistic sort of blue wave seats. And
2:03:26
Speaker 1: I think if two of these three sweeps came in
2:03:29
Speaker 1: for the Democrats in my top three here, you would
2:03:31
Speaker 1: call it a significant blue wave. And if all three
2:03:34
Speaker 1: came in, I think you would need to classify this
2:03:37
Speaker 1: as blue tsunami. And I'm going to start with the
2:03:40
Speaker 1: state of Iowa. I'm putting Iowa number three instead of Texas.
2:03:46
Speaker 1: I debated back and forth. Number one, the minute I
2:03:49
Speaker 1: say it is going to be, you'll see why that
2:03:51
Speaker 1: was sort of the easier call here. But number three
2:03:55
Speaker 1: on my list is Iowa. So what I'm saying is,
2:03:57
Speaker 1: is I think this Senate seats a very, very tough
2:04:02
Speaker 1: hill for Democrats to climb. I told you, I gave
2:04:05
Speaker 1: you all the data behind it last week and a
2:04:08
Speaker 1: couple of monologues there. So I won't go into the
2:04:11
Speaker 1: dirty details there. But All you have to do is
2:04:15
Speaker 1: listen to Rob Sand, the Democratic nominee, and how he
2:04:18
Speaker 1: campaigns and how he speaks about party politics. He talked
2:04:21
Speaker 1: about that if for some reason he was asked the
2:04:24
Speaker 1: question if Senator Grassley couldn't finish his seat, who would
2:04:29
Speaker 1: he appoint? What party would he appoint a Democrat to
2:04:32
Speaker 1: replace Grassley? He said, no, he'd appoint an independent. it
2:04:37
Speaker 1: was important for him to get that out there, right?
2:04:39
Speaker 1: He's trying to send a message to those that are
2:04:41
Speaker 1: not happy with the Democratic brand in Iowa, that he's
2:04:44
Speaker 1: a different type of Democrat, that he's more of an
2:04:46
Speaker 1: independent-minded Democrat. But that's also a reminder of why in Iowa,
2:04:51
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be very much harder for
2:04:53
Speaker 1: a Democrat to win a Senate seat than a Gov seat. Governors,
2:04:56
Speaker 1: individual person, a Senate seat is sort of a party
2:04:59
Speaker 1: caucus vote, right? And it's in some ways voters usually
2:05:05
Speaker 1: you know, are more likely to pick to to prioritize
2:05:09
Speaker 1: Jersey color over an individual than they do in a
2:05:13
Speaker 1: governor's race. Look, Republicans also have a very weak governor
2:05:17
Speaker 1: gubernatorial nominee. I mean, this Zach Lane guy is having
2:05:20
Speaker 1: to make the case that he's an actual Iowan when
2:05:23
Speaker 1: you're less than 60 days from election and you've still
2:05:26
Speaker 1: got to answer serious questions about how much of an
2:05:28
Speaker 1: Iowan you are in a place that is very proud
2:05:31
Speaker 1: of being of living in that state. I just think
2:05:35
Speaker 1: it's a it's I don't want to say it's unwinnable
2:05:37
Speaker 1: because it's a red leaning state. But Zach Lane's as
2:05:41
Speaker 1: close to being an unelectable nominee as you can come
2:05:45
Speaker 1: up with in in in this current in this current situation.
2:05:50
Speaker 1: So a Democratic sweep here of both the gubernatorial and
2:05:53
Speaker 1: the Senate race definitely is indicated indicative of a blue wave,
2:05:56
Speaker 1: in my opinion. And I have a feeling if both
2:06:00
Speaker 1: of those come in, then there's going to be sweeps
2:06:02
Speaker 1: with the next– potentially sweeps with the next two states
2:06:04
Speaker 1: we're talking about here. And I'm going to get to
2:06:06
Speaker 1: the part where the state that I think some people
2:06:09
Speaker 1: are going to feel as if is an impossibility, and
2:06:11
Speaker 1: that's Texas. We already know the Senate race is close
2:06:15
Speaker 1: with Tallarico having a slight advantage. The more remarkable race
2:06:20
Speaker 1: that has fallen under the radar because of Ken Paxton
2:06:23
Speaker 1: and Tallarico is the governor's race. Greg Abbott's trying to
2:06:26
Speaker 1: do something nobody's ever done in Texas, win a fourth
2:06:28
Speaker 1: term for governor, a fourth four-year term for governor. That is,
2:06:32
Speaker 1: you know, you could just look at recent history. Fourth
2:06:37
Speaker 1: terms are very difficult to get, particularly for consecutive terms.
2:06:42
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's a lot easier to do it the way
2:06:43
Speaker 1: Jerry Brown did it or to do it the way
2:06:45
Speaker 1: Terry Branstad did it. You win a couple of times,
2:06:48
Speaker 1: you leave, you come back and win two more times.
2:06:51
Speaker 1: But four straight, right? Mario Cuomo was trying for a
2:06:56
Speaker 1: fourth until it sort of blew up in his face.
2:06:57
Speaker 1: So I just think there's a natural fatigue, right? Throw
2:07:01
Speaker 1: in the fatigue with the national party, throw in the
2:07:06
Speaker 1: disappointment with, you know, you have a divided Republican party
2:07:10
Speaker 1: in the state, right? You have both a rising Democratic
2:07:13
Speaker 1: electorate in the state and a divided Republican party, particularly
2:07:18
Speaker 1: on issues like the way this voucher situation Uh, has
2:07:22
Speaker 1: gone education cuts, very similar to what we see, what
2:07:25
Speaker 1: we saw developing in Kansas, where really a divided Republican
2:07:28
Speaker 1: party gave Democrats an opening. And essentially Democrats moved to
2:07:33
Speaker 1: become the, the, the Republican light party, uh, as far
2:07:37
Speaker 1: as state government is concerned. And it was a lot
2:07:39
Speaker 1: of former Republicans who became Democrats who, uh, who have
2:07:42
Speaker 1: helped fuel this movement as well. I'm not saying you're
2:07:45
Speaker 1: there where you have Republicans switching parties in Texas, but
2:07:49
Speaker 1: you do have this divide that exists. And I think
2:07:52
Speaker 1: that is, I mean, you saw it here. So look,
2:07:55
Speaker 1: I think the data center flip flop by Abbott was
2:07:58
Speaker 1: an acknowledgement that this race is way too close for comfort.
2:08:02
Speaker 1: Would I bet on Abbott losing? No, I would not.
2:08:04
Speaker 2: All right.
2:08:04
Speaker 1: I think that I think there's a pretty hard ceiling
2:08:10
Speaker 1: on this, but it's but I say pretty hard, right?
2:08:14
Speaker 1: I don't think the concrete is completely dry. So maybe,
2:08:18
Speaker 1: maybe you can break through. But certainly, if Democrats swept
2:08:22
Speaker 1: both of these, you would say blue tsunami. And I
2:08:25
Speaker 1: just think the likelihood is greater than we fully appreciate.
2:08:29
Speaker 1: And I, you know, look, do I think either Iowa
2:08:31
Speaker 1: or Texas are likely for Democrats to sweep those two
2:08:33
Speaker 1: top statewide races? I don't. But you're in like the
2:08:37
Speaker 1: 15 to 20% chance range, right? That ain't nothing. And
2:08:42
Speaker 1: when you're in one in six, one in seven possibilities here,
2:08:46
Speaker 1: that can happen. That's realistic. That's where Trump was sitting.
2:08:50
Speaker 1: He had about a one in four, one in five
2:08:51
Speaker 1: chance of becoming president. He became president. So I would
2:08:57
Speaker 1: not dismiss that. But the number one state, and to me, frankly,
2:09:01
Speaker 1: it'll be a test about, you might argue, blue mirage
2:09:05
Speaker 1: or blue wave, will be if somehow Democrats get shut
2:09:08
Speaker 1: out of Ohio or Democrats win one and lose one,
2:09:12
Speaker 1: or Democrats sweep the governor's race and the Senate race.
2:09:18
Speaker 1: If atmospherics are as strong as I think they're developing,
2:09:22
Speaker 1: then I expect the Democrats to sweep in Ohio. I
2:09:25
Speaker 1: think that the unique nature that, you know, big tech
2:09:30
Speaker 1: is very unpopular with the middle of the electorate. Vivek Ramaswamy,
2:09:35
Speaker 1: the Republican leading the ticket, is kind of you know,
2:09:37
Speaker 1: made his, you know, that's what he's known for is
2:09:41
Speaker 1: being a tech entrepreneur, very close with that industry. What
2:09:46
Speaker 1: was a net positive for him in a Republican primary
2:09:49
Speaker 1: when he was running for president might be seen as
2:09:51
Speaker 1: a net negative now with swing voters and independents or
2:09:55
Speaker 1: even some members of MAGA who have grown a little
2:09:58
Speaker 1: bit leery of big tech here. And so I think
2:10:03
Speaker 1: I think Ohio's the best chance Democrats have of pulling
2:10:06
Speaker 1: a sweep in a state that they have not carried
2:10:08
Speaker 1: in a presidential election since 2012. And we're just, you know,
2:10:12
Speaker 1: and it would, I think a sweep would indicate you
2:10:14
Speaker 1: would put this state, by the way, in all five
2:10:17
Speaker 1: of these cases, if Democrats sweep the governor and Senate race,
2:10:20
Speaker 1: I think it puts that state in play in the presidential.
2:10:24
Speaker 1: Because to do both means you fundamentally have adjusted something.
2:10:28
Speaker 1: You've shifted an independent electorate, or at least it's fluid
2:10:31
Speaker 1: enough that it is worth contesting in a presidential year.
2:10:36
Speaker 1: So in another way, the top five red states, the
2:10:40
Speaker 1: Democrats are gonna, another way to look at this, top
2:10:42
Speaker 1: five red states that Democrats are going to learn about
2:10:46
Speaker 1: whether they should target them in 28, I'd put them
2:10:49
Speaker 1: in the same order. They sweep Ohio, Ohio goes into
2:10:52
Speaker 1: the battleground. You sweep Texas, Texas goes into the presidential battleground.
2:10:55
Speaker 1: You sweep Iowa, Iowa's back in the presidential battleground. I
2:10:59
Speaker 1: believe the same thing with Kansas and Florida. So that
2:11:02
Speaker 1: might be, as I'm talking out loud here, the even
2:11:07
Speaker 1: better way. The five red states that, depending on how
2:11:10
Speaker 1: successful Democrats are, could end up in the presidential battleground
2:11:16
Speaker 1: come 2028. And number one on this list for me
2:11:19
Speaker 1: is Ohio. Number two is Texas. And I think if
2:11:22
Speaker 1: you look at it, absolutely, you could see the scenario
2:11:26
Speaker 1: where that possibility becomes more real than we think. After all,
2:11:30
Speaker 1: At this point in time, in 2006, Virginia was still
2:11:33
Speaker 1: seen as a reach by Democrats, not just in a
2:11:36
Speaker 1: Senate race, but even being targeted in a presidential race.
2:11:41
Speaker 1: The Democrats win the Senate race in 06. Suddenly, Democrats decide, hey,
2:11:47
Speaker 1: maybe it's time to put Virginia and Colorado into the battleground.
2:11:51
Speaker 1: Lo and behold, Virginia and Colorado are now semi-reliably blue states.
2:11:56
Speaker 1: So there you go. There's the top five list this week.
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2:14:00
Speaker 1: let's do a little Ask Chuck. Greetings from Hermosa Beach, California.
2:14:07
Speaker 1: In the wake of 9-11, some argued the attacks should
2:14:10
Speaker 1: have been treated as criminal acts rather than acts of war.
2:14:14
Speaker 1: In the spirit of your Ford Nixon retrospective, How might
2:14:17
Speaker 1: history have unfolded differently if we had taken that approach?
2:14:20
Speaker 1: Would we still have invaded Afghanistan? And could it have
2:14:23
Speaker 1: blunted the case for the subsequent invasion of Iraq? I
2:14:26
Speaker 1: know the national desire for vengeance probably made that impossible,
2:14:30
Speaker 1: but it feels worth examining. Keep up your edifying and
2:14:34
Speaker 1: affordable work. Well, I appreciate that, Todd. Hey, great name, obviously.
2:14:41
Speaker 2: So.
2:14:42
Speaker 1: This is actually the subject of the column I'm working
2:14:44
Speaker 1: on this week, sort of a little bit of fallout
2:14:46
Speaker 1: from 9-11. And I'm focusing on sort of our loss
2:14:48
Speaker 1: of privacy and how that sort of happened. The timing,
2:14:53
Speaker 1: the growth of the tech industry and our comfort with
2:14:56
Speaker 1: giving up some privacy in exchange for security ended up
2:15:01
Speaker 1: putting us in a bad relationship with big tech is
2:15:05
Speaker 1: essentially the short form version of the column I'm going
2:15:08
Speaker 1: to write. But it's interesting what you, the idea that
2:15:11
Speaker 1: if we had, treated this as a criminal act rather
2:15:15
Speaker 1: than as an act of war. So one of the
2:15:18
Speaker 1: what-ifs I have done is what if Gore had won
2:15:21
Speaker 1: the 2000 presidential and 9-11 still happens? There were a
2:15:27
Speaker 1: lot of Democrats that were arguing for, hey, let's do
2:15:31
Speaker 1: this in a court of law. Let's do this like
2:15:33
Speaker 1: we did Oklahoma City. Let's do this. So I do
2:15:39
Speaker 1: think that there's a chance that that Gore might've gone
2:15:42
Speaker 1: down that road as president more so than, than Bush
2:15:45
Speaker 1: wanted to. But, you know, I think no matter what
2:15:51
Speaker 1: we'd have ended up in Afghanistan, I mean, for one
2:15:54
Speaker 1: is you're not wrong about, there's the need of, well,
2:15:57
Speaker 1: who do we, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta, we
2:16:01
Speaker 1: gotta get somebody for this, right? We gotta blow something.
2:16:06
Speaker 2: Up.
2:16:07
Speaker 1: So we were going to do something. You're not wrong
2:16:09
Speaker 1: about that. And, An investigation was going to take us
2:16:11
Speaker 1: all the way to Afghanistan. So the question is, would
2:16:19
Speaker 1: we have treated Afghanistan as sort of all special forces, right?
2:16:24
Speaker 1: Not tried to put the Taliban essentially as an enemy
2:16:30
Speaker 1: of our state in order to deal with this. You know, and,
2:16:36
Speaker 1: you know, certainly now that we're have, I guess, sort of,
2:16:42
Speaker 1: you know, this now diplomatic relations with the Taliban. You know,
2:16:47
Speaker 1: it does seem odd now in retrospect, right? Look, the
2:16:59
Speaker 1: bigger point of your question is, had we looked at
2:17:03
Speaker 1: it as just focusing on the act itself, And who
2:17:08
Speaker 1: is behind the act itself? I'm not sure we would
2:17:12
Speaker 1: have kept this as a criminal investigation, but if we
2:17:14
Speaker 1: had just stayed focused on disrupting al-Qaeda wherever we were
2:17:20
Speaker 1: finding them, right? Kind of like the Israelis, you know,
2:17:24
Speaker 1: with Munich and how they dealt with that. I don't
2:17:28
Speaker 1: think it takes us to Iraq, right? Like that seemed
2:17:31
Speaker 1: to be, right, Iraq feel... And it looks worse and worse, right? History,
2:17:37
Speaker 1: you know, makes the decision look worse and worse all
2:17:39
Speaker 1: the time. And there just wasn't a connection, right? And
2:17:42
Speaker 1: the attempts to create a connection of Iraq to al-Qaeda
2:17:46
Speaker 1: might have still been there, right? There still might have
2:17:48
Speaker 1: been forces within the government who wanted to make that case,
2:17:51
Speaker 1: who believed these terrorist organizations were working together more than
2:17:55
Speaker 1: they weren't. But had we just made this about Al-Qaeda,
2:18:01
Speaker 1: you know, is the situation in the Middle East more
2:18:03
Speaker 1: stable today? Yeah. You know, it's funny, if we don't
2:18:09
Speaker 1: invade Iraq, I don't think Saddam is still in power
2:18:12
Speaker 1: or that the Ba'athists are still in power. I think
2:18:14
Speaker 1: the Arab swing would have overthrown Iraq. Now, you might
2:18:18
Speaker 1: say it would probably be a government that would be
2:18:20
Speaker 1: very close to Iran. Oh, wait, that's what we have,
2:18:22
Speaker 1: a government that's very close to Iran. So my point
2:18:25
Speaker 1: being is that I think Iraq was probably not. As
2:18:31
Speaker 1: easy as it was to topple Hussein, I think it
2:18:34
Speaker 1: tells you that he wouldn't have survived the Arab swing.
2:18:38
Speaker 1: um in that brief period had had we not touched
2:18:41
Speaker 1: had we ended up deciding not to invade iraq um
2:18:45
Speaker 1: and that ultimately is still the is still the the
2:18:50
Speaker 1: original sin of this one right like of all the
2:18:53
Speaker 1: mistakes we made after 9-11 and many of them to
2:18:56
Speaker 1: me are very you can you see how it happened
2:19:00
Speaker 1: and it might have happened no matter what right we
2:19:02
Speaker 1: were in a certain period we were country was nervous
2:19:06
Speaker 1: we were willing to give up privacy in exchange for
2:19:08
Speaker 1: security um so many of the things that happen i
2:19:13
Speaker 1: think stay happening um it is interesting that if you've
2:19:19
Speaker 1: noticed we're you know we're back to treating the 9-11
2:19:24
Speaker 1: hijackers as criminals again with a judge and we're still
2:19:28
Speaker 1: trying to we're now now all of the information that's
2:19:31
Speaker 1: been gotten about uh Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has suddenly been
2:19:35
Speaker 1: thrown out by a court, if you've been following that
2:19:37
Speaker 1: at all. So it is, that was the other problem,
2:19:44
Speaker 1: is I don't know with the decision, and I think
2:19:48
Speaker 1: it would have, this would have happened under, no matter
2:19:50
Speaker 1: the administration, we were gonna strengthen the intel community's ability
2:19:54
Speaker 1: to get information. Whether or not it was going to
2:19:58
Speaker 1: be information you could introduce in a court of law,
2:20:03
Speaker 1: was not the priority at the time. So the likelihood
2:20:07
Speaker 1: that we would have gotten coerced information or information you
2:20:10
Speaker 1: never would have been able to use in a trial
2:20:13
Speaker 1: might have also made treating it as a criminal act
2:20:17
Speaker 1: very difficult as well. So anyway, I think it's a
2:20:20
Speaker 1: fair question. This is a good time to have this conversation.
2:20:22
Speaker 1: It's a good time to be thinking about alternative. But ultimately,
2:20:26
Speaker 1: the biggest what if is What if we had just
2:20:30
Speaker 1: stayed focused on dealing with the hijackers and the organization
2:20:35
Speaker 1: that was behind the plot, Al-Qaeda, and just stayed laser
2:20:40
Speaker 1: focused on that? Might Afghanistan be a better country today
2:20:44
Speaker 1: because of it? Might the Middle East be more stable today?
2:20:49
Speaker 2: Maybe.
2:20:53
Speaker 1: But I think in hindsight, creating a global war on
2:20:57
Speaker 1: terror didn't work. And we're certainly now weaker today because
2:21:02
Speaker 1: of it. It's certainly a contributor to the weakness today.
2:21:06
Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't become president without his inability to essentially
2:21:11
Speaker 1: cast an entire faction of the Republican Party into the
2:21:15
Speaker 1: dustbin of history, which is what he did. So all
2:21:18
Speaker 1: of it had to happen for us to get to
2:21:21
Speaker 1: the moment we're in at the time. And if you
2:21:22
Speaker 1: think we're in a bad moment, then we made some
2:21:27
Speaker 1: pretty bad decisions in the first few years after 9-11.
2:21:32
Speaker 2: All right.
2:21:33
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Letitia W. And she writes, hey, Chuck,
2:21:36
Speaker 1: longtime listener, first time caller from Pennsylvania's 10th district. Recent
2:21:41
Speaker 1: coverage of John Fetterman got me wondering, do voters have
2:21:43
Speaker 1: any recourse if they believe an elected official is simply
2:21:46
Speaker 1: refusing to do the job or represent their constituents? Should
2:21:49
Speaker 1: there be some mechanism such as a recall or a
2:21:51
Speaker 1: special election rather than voters having to wait out an
2:21:54
Speaker 1: entire term, especially a six year Senate term? Thanks for
2:21:58
Speaker 1: everything you do. Keep calling them as you see them,
2:22:01
Speaker 1: regardless of the letter after their name. Thanks, Letitia. Well, Letitia,
2:22:06
Speaker 1: the bottom line is there is recall elections for federal
2:22:10
Speaker 1: office holders are just not constitutional. There are a handful
2:22:14
Speaker 1: of states that have tried it. There was a group
2:22:18
Speaker 1: that wanted to recall Bob Menendez during the height of
2:22:21
Speaker 1: his picadillos in New Jersey, and a court threw it out.
2:22:27
Speaker 1: It's the same. It's just like the term limits laws
2:22:31
Speaker 1: that a bunch of states tried to pass in the
2:22:34
Speaker 1: 90s were all deemed unconstitutional for Congress, because if you
2:22:38
Speaker 1: don't put it in the Constitution, it's unconstitutional.
2:22:41
Speaker 2: Right.
2:22:41
Speaker 1: There are no term limits in the Constitution and U.S.
2:22:43
Speaker 1: Senate terms are set for six years. Now, what's interesting
2:22:47
Speaker 1: is in my little research on your question here is that.
2:22:53
Speaker 1: In our previous constitution, the Articles of Confederation, there was
2:22:56
Speaker 1: a recall provision for federal office holders. It got deliberately
2:23:03
Speaker 1: left out when they did the new constitution, the 1789 constitution.
2:23:10
Speaker 1: So it was considered and they decided not to. So
2:23:14
Speaker 1: you don't– on a US senator, there is no recall provision, right?
2:23:18
Speaker 1: Many states have You can do recalls for state or
2:23:22
Speaker 1: even city elected officials, and we see this all the time.
2:23:25
Speaker 1: But you need a constitutional amendment, period. There's nothing else.
2:23:31
Speaker 1: There is no other workaround. There's one other workaround to
2:23:34
Speaker 1: get rid of a U.S.
2:23:34
Speaker 2: Senator.
2:23:35
Speaker 1: Two-thirds of the Senate can expel a U.S. senator, right?
2:23:40
Speaker 1: And that was something Bob Packard was going to do,
2:23:42
Speaker 1: was going to happen to him. He likely would have
2:23:44
Speaker 1: been expelled, but I believe he resigned before there would
2:23:47
Speaker 1: be an expulsion vote. So you know, most senators, well,
2:23:52
Speaker 1: so far, you know, most of the time, the threat
2:23:55
Speaker 1: of expulsion and the vote counting on expulsion convinces a
2:23:58
Speaker 1: senator to just go ahead and resign on that front. So, no,
2:24:04
Speaker 1: you're stuck with Fetterman through the end of, now his
2:24:07
Speaker 1: term's up in 28, and we shall see what happens, right?
2:24:12
Speaker 1: But he is, it is a sick, and it was
2:24:15
Speaker 1: designed this way, right? The whole point is, is that
2:24:18
Speaker 1: you didn't want the Senate to be at the whim
2:24:21
Speaker 1: of sort of instant gratification, where mob rule can sort
2:24:30
Speaker 1: of grab hold of things over a six-month period. The
2:24:34
Speaker 1: point of having these longer terms was so they literally
2:24:38
Speaker 1: had the political space to be what the founders intended,
2:24:44
Speaker 1: which was the cooling saucer, which is why you can
2:24:47
Speaker 1: see a senator Get elected under one scenario and one
2:24:51
Speaker 1: type of atmosphere. Six years later, the atmosphere could completely
2:24:55
Speaker 1: change and they may not fit that atmosphere at all. Right.
2:24:59
Speaker 1: You know, Fetterman was was not an ordinary politician. And
2:25:03
Speaker 1: that was a was something that mattered a lot to
2:25:06
Speaker 1: Democrats in. In 2022 and in 2021, especially in the
2:25:09
Speaker 1: wake of Trump getting elected now. He might not– he's
2:25:18
Speaker 1: obviously not going to fit the mood of where the
2:25:20
Speaker 1: Democratic electorate is going to be, but who knows? Maybe
2:25:22
Speaker 1: he fits the mood of where Republicans want to go,
2:25:24
Speaker 1: which is they want to have iconoclastic candidates or who knows.
2:25:27
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to declare the end of Fetterman's
2:25:30
Speaker 1: political career here, but I do get the sense he
2:25:32
Speaker 1: doesn't like being a senator. I think he enjoyed being
2:25:36
Speaker 1: the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania a hell of a lot
2:25:38
Speaker 1: more than he's enjoyed either being lieutenant governor or a U.S. senator.
2:25:43
Speaker 1: But sadly, no recall election. But you could start the
2:25:45
Speaker 1: constitutional amendment for it, Letitia. All right. Happy week one.
2:25:50
Speaker 1: Next question comes from a familiar emailer, Bill S. in Newburgh, Oregon.
2:25:56
Speaker 1: The fighting sixth, as he calls it. Who doesn't want
2:25:59
Speaker 1: their congressional district known as the fighting whatever, right? Isn't
2:26:02
Speaker 1: that what Colbert gave us? Everything was the fighting sixth.
2:26:06
Speaker 1: I'm in the fighting eighth of Virginia. Happy week one.
2:26:10
Speaker 1: My favorite games were UMass over Rutgers and Western Michigan
2:26:13
Speaker 1: almost over Michigan. Certainly better than watching my Mariners lose
2:26:16
Speaker 1: to the A's. You often encourage politicians to speak American,
2:26:20
Speaker 1: so I'm curious. Why do you sometimes seem reluctant to
2:26:22
Speaker 1: plainly use the word racism, whether discussing Vivek Ramaswamy with
2:26:26
Speaker 1: John Kasich or Byron Donalds under performance in North Florida? Thanks.
2:26:28
Speaker 1: And go you, Bill S. It's a fair thing to
2:26:33
Speaker 1: point out. I try to be careful about motive statements. right?
2:26:40
Speaker 1: You know, it looks like racism, looks like lying. If
2:26:44
Speaker 1: I do it, I, I try to put it that
2:26:46
Speaker 1: way because I do think, um, there's certain words that
2:26:52
Speaker 1: when you accuse somebody of it, there's no, you don't
2:26:55
Speaker 1: unring the bell. And, you know, it's, uh, I don't, I'm,
2:27:04
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to get people canceled. Um, And I
2:27:10
Speaker 1: don't want to presume, you know, look, I see the pattern.
2:27:14
Speaker 1: A person of color has a harder time winning over
2:27:19
Speaker 1: a conservative constituency in the South. It looks like a
2:27:26
Speaker 1: candidate of color has a problem winning over a conservative
2:27:28
Speaker 1: constituency in the Midwest, right? In Michigan and possibly in Ohio.
2:27:34
Speaker 1: But if you're talking 5%, of an entire faction of
2:27:43
Speaker 1: an electorate, I don't want to look like I'm painting
2:27:45
Speaker 1: an entire electorate as racist or an entire party as racist.
2:27:51
Speaker 1: So You're fair to pick that up. And you're right.
2:27:55
Speaker 1: I am cautious on certain words, racism, you know, in
2:27:59
Speaker 1: accusing somebody of racism. I think it's easier to say
2:28:02
Speaker 1: something is racist. You're behaving in the way a racist
2:28:08
Speaker 1: would be. I've always thought one of the few positive
2:28:13
Speaker 1: legacies of Andrew Gillum in his gubernatorial campaign in 18
2:28:17
Speaker 1: is in this great retort. when Ron DeSantis took issue
2:28:22
Speaker 1: with being called a racist, he said, I'm not saying
2:28:24
Speaker 1: you're a racist. I'm saying racists think you're a racist.
2:28:31
Speaker 1: I think that's the line I try to walk. And
2:28:34
Speaker 1: I'm sure I have failed. And I understand some people like, well,
2:28:39
Speaker 1: you should soften. You got to tell it like it is. Well,
2:28:41
Speaker 1: I think you tell it like it is, but I
2:28:44
Speaker 1: don't like my motives questioned. You know, some people will assume,
2:28:48
Speaker 1: That I have a certain take on him and they'll say, well,
2:28:52
Speaker 1: it's because your wife's this or it's because your parents
2:28:55
Speaker 1: are that or because your kids are this. And it's like,
2:29:00
Speaker 1: I don't want motive to get in the way of
2:29:01
Speaker 1: the analysis. And, you know, again, when you ring certain bells,
2:29:09
Speaker 1: you imply motive. It's why, you know, I famously didn't
2:29:13
Speaker 1: say liar to Kellyanne Conway. I said falsehoods. Because again,
2:29:19
Speaker 1: it's motive. Maybe they're that delusional and they actually believe
2:29:24
Speaker 1: they didn't commit the murders. Maybe they actually believe that
2:29:30
Speaker 1: they only dreamed of murdering their ex-wife. So it is,
2:29:40
Speaker 1: there's always a 1% chance that there's self-delusion in there
2:29:43
Speaker 1: and it's not motive or whatever. So anyway, you can
2:29:46
Speaker 1: say I'm creating semantics or I'm not. But the minute
2:29:50
Speaker 1: you're that declarative, then there's a whole group of people
2:29:55
Speaker 1: I'm trying to talk to and listen to reason that
2:29:58
Speaker 1: may tune me out. So, look, man, as I always say,
2:30:04
Speaker 1: I'm trying to widen my aperture and I'm trying to
2:30:11
Speaker 1: widen the space here for us to have the conversations
2:30:15
Speaker 1: we need to have to make a better democracy and
2:30:18
Speaker 1: a better America.
2:30:22
Speaker 2: All right.
2:30:24
Speaker 1: Uh, by the way, I have to, uh, add you, you,
2:30:29
Speaker 1: you talked about UMass over Rutgers, which was fantastic in the,
2:30:31
Speaker 1: in the Western Michigan, Michigan game was just not a
2:30:34
Speaker 1: well-played game. I think there's no doubt what the game
2:30:37
Speaker 1: of the weekend was. And it's the Ole Miss Louisville game.
2:30:40
Speaker 1: That was something else. That was, that was two good offenses.
2:30:43
Speaker 1: I think two questionable defenses, I think. Um, SMU-FSU was
2:30:49
Speaker 1: certainly close, but did not have what Louisville and Ole
2:30:53
Speaker 1: Miss had in that. And in many ways, SMU-FSU felt
2:30:57
Speaker 1: like a game where there was a good team making
2:31:00
Speaker 1: a lot of mistakes, SMU, and a mediocre team not
2:31:06
Speaker 1: knowing how to take advantage of opportunities in FSU. But
2:31:12
Speaker 1: I have to say, I think my favorite game of
2:31:14
Speaker 1: the weekend, and in fairness, you may have written this before,
2:31:17
Speaker 1: Louisville Ole Miss game. But I think that was, if
2:31:19
Speaker 1: you're just pure entertainment value, game of the week was,
2:31:23
Speaker 1: I think, Louisville Ole Miss. All right. Greetings from Texas 4.
2:31:28
Speaker 1: If the midterms produce a 50-50 Senate and a Republican
2:31:30
Speaker 1: senator later resigns, becomes incapacitated or otherwise unable to serve,
2:31:35
Speaker 1: what happens to control of the chamber? Would Republicans retain
2:31:37
Speaker 1: control despite having one fewer senator or could control shift
2:31:40
Speaker 1: to Democrats? Love the show and the college football talk.
2:31:43
Speaker 1: Canes looked fantastic. Can only imagine your thoughts on what
2:31:45
Speaker 1: happened in Ann Arbor Saturday night, John. Well, hopefully you
2:31:49
Speaker 1: like what I said on my Monday pod about, I
2:31:52
Speaker 1: do think we've got to, there is something, there is
2:31:54
Speaker 1: a fix we can make to increase, you know, to
2:31:57
Speaker 1: basically increase the credibility of officiating in college football is
2:32:00
Speaker 1: we got to take the conferences out of the, out
2:32:02
Speaker 1: of being in charge of officials and the replay and
2:32:06
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. Just get, conferences out of it.
2:32:09
Speaker 1: Just one less conspiracy rabbit hole for people to go to. Well, look,
2:32:15
Speaker 1: we have provisions and you wait, the governor would replace
2:32:19
Speaker 1: of the state. You got to appoint somebody. Now, let's
2:32:27
Speaker 1: talk about the two places with two fairly old senators,
2:32:33
Speaker 1: one of whom is currently not been able to make
2:32:36
Speaker 1: it to the floor of the Senate in a couple
2:32:38
Speaker 1: of months where there's a Democratic governor. And in Iowa,
2:32:42
Speaker 1: where there is likely to be a Democratic governor. And
2:32:46
Speaker 1: of course, if you just heard my top five list
2:32:50
Speaker 1: with Iowa in there, you heard about the question Rob
2:32:54
Speaker 1: Sand was asked about replacing Chuck Grassley. What would he do?
2:32:57
Speaker 1: And he said, well, I'd appoint an independent, which would
2:33:00
Speaker 1: only like that would be fascinating. Well, look, I mean, it's,
2:33:04
Speaker 1: you know, majority is decided by the party that has
2:33:07
Speaker 1: the most senators with them. So if you're in a
2:33:12
Speaker 1: 50-50 Senate and the scenario you describe happens, the two
2:33:17
Speaker 1: likeliest candidates, right, that would really make this complicated. But
2:33:21
Speaker 1: Kentucky's the most complicated because Kentucky legislature passed a law
2:33:25
Speaker 1: saying that the governor has to replace with the party
2:33:29
Speaker 1: of the deceased senator. But that is– that has never
2:33:33
Speaker 1: been tested in state courts. And I think– and if
2:33:36
Speaker 1: the state constitution simply gives the governor the power of appointment.
2:33:42
Speaker 1: So I'm not so sure. I think that if McConnell somehow–
2:33:50
Speaker 1: and look, McConnell is getting replaced. So it's less of
2:33:56
Speaker 1: an issue going into the next Congress since he's not
2:33:58
Speaker 1: going to be there. But with Grassley. you know, if
2:34:01
Speaker 1: we're going to use that example, uh, he's up in 28,
2:34:05
Speaker 1: but something happens from in 27, we're sitting in the 50,
2:34:07
Speaker 1: 50 Senate. What does Rob Sand do? Right. And what
2:34:10
Speaker 1: does that independent do? Um, you know, I, you, you
2:34:18
Speaker 1: know what the zeitgeist would be on the left. And
2:34:20
Speaker 1: you know what the zeitgeist would be on the right.
2:34:23
Speaker 1: It would, uh, it would put, it would be interesting
2:34:25
Speaker 1: to see the, how sand would handle the pressure of
2:34:28
Speaker 1: that moment. Um, But ultimately, there would be no vacancy.
2:34:33
Speaker 1: The governor of the deceased senator immediately needs to appoint somebody.
2:34:37
Speaker 1: You saw Darlene Graham got appointed within– she was a
2:34:41
Speaker 1: senator I think within 36 hours. They had her already
2:34:46
Speaker 1: sworn in. It was something that quick. So this is–
2:34:51
Speaker 1: that's how absolute the governor's power is to appoint a
2:34:56
Speaker 1: temporary replacement. Now, legislatures could decide, you know, some states
2:35:00
Speaker 1: you have to have a special election within 90 days.
2:35:02
Speaker 1: I think that's what Massachusetts did. Others, it's the next
2:35:05
Speaker 1: federal election. But there would be no vacancy. It would
2:35:11
Speaker 1: be an immediate filling.
2:35:13
Speaker 2: But. Right.
2:35:15
Speaker 1: Party of the governor, party of the person that, you know,
2:35:18
Speaker 1: if that differs, that's when you start to see some
2:35:22
Speaker 1: quite a bit of horse trading.
2:35:24
Speaker 2: All right.
2:35:24
Speaker 1: Last question for the. for this episode. It's Anthony in
2:35:29
Speaker 1: California's 30th congressional district. He says, I'm hoping to become
2:35:34
Speaker 1: a member of the two-timers club here. I really got
2:35:36
Speaker 1: into college football last year in part because of your podcast.
2:35:39
Speaker 1: Right on. Welcome. I want more Californians into college football,
2:35:42
Speaker 1: and I'm glad to see Cal, UCLA, USC, Stanford, all
2:35:45
Speaker 1: starting to invest real dollars into football.
2:35:47
Speaker 2: So kudos.
2:35:51
Speaker 1: And he said, in part because of your podcast, and
2:35:53
Speaker 1: it became something I love talking about with my brother,
2:35:56
Speaker 1: who sadly passed away earlier this summer. I am so
2:35:58
Speaker 1: sorry to hear that. So thank you for continuing to
2:36:02
Speaker 1: be a source for me to learn from and enjoy
2:36:05
Speaker 1: the sport. As a Steelers fan, which quarterback should I
2:36:07
Speaker 1: be keeping an eye on this season if Pittsburgh ends
2:36:09
Speaker 1: up looking for a first-round QB next year? Thanks, Anthony. Well,
2:36:13
Speaker 1: first of all, Anthony, I think you ought to.
2:36:17
Speaker 2: I think.
2:36:18
Speaker 1: I'm weirdly bullish on Drew Aller, who is the backup
2:36:23
Speaker 1: to Rodgers, who I think is going to start three
2:36:25
Speaker 1: games this year, five games this year. What if Drew
2:36:30
Speaker 1: Aller is just the type of sort of Pittsburgh quarterback
2:36:35
Speaker 1: you've gotten used to that knows how to read a defense,
2:36:39
Speaker 1: play action pass, sort of, he's got a little Roethlisberger
2:36:42
Speaker 1: in him. He's just sort of, you know, it's certainly
2:36:45
Speaker 1: more of a 20th century type quarterback, not necessarily a
2:36:48
Speaker 1: 21st century, but I say that, you know, what's the
2:36:51
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh way? You want to have a, When Pittsburgh's good,
2:36:53
Speaker 1: they have a great offensive line, a great running game,
2:36:55
Speaker 1: and a good quarterback. So I would like to see Aller.
2:37:02
Speaker 1: I'd like to see what he can do. But I
2:37:05
Speaker 1: do think he has to have a good offensive line.
2:37:08
Speaker 1: But look, the quarterbacks, you know, here's what's happening. I
2:37:17
Speaker 1: think you now, you know, the quarterback position has always
2:37:21
Speaker 1: been incredibly important. And it's even more so over the
2:37:24
Speaker 1: last 20 years. You are now getting a concentration of
2:37:27
Speaker 1: great athletes who are choosing to be, you know, used
2:37:32
Speaker 1: to be, you didn't always put your best athlete in quarterback.
2:37:34
Speaker 1: You might put in football, you might put your best
2:37:36
Speaker 1: athlete at running back. You might put them at wide receiver.
2:37:39
Speaker 1: And if you put it at quarterback, it's because you
2:37:41
Speaker 1: ran a certain type of offense. Well, now we've mainstreamed
2:37:45
Speaker 1: the idea of dual threat quarterbacks, quarterbacks who could run
2:37:49
Speaker 1: pass on the run and all those things. And so
2:37:51
Speaker 1: I just think college feels like it's never been deeper
2:37:57
Speaker 1: in the quarterback ranks and in quarterback development. And I
2:38:00
Speaker 1: think the idea now that college quarterbacks are going to
2:38:03
Speaker 1: stay in college because they can make good money, frankly,
2:38:07
Speaker 1: better money in college if you're a top quarterback than
2:38:10
Speaker 1: the first couple of years as an NFL pro because
2:38:12
Speaker 1: of the way they've structured their systems. You're going to
2:38:16
Speaker 1: get guys like Bo Nix, who had 60 starts in
2:38:19
Speaker 1: college and certainly knew what the hell he was– the
2:38:23
Speaker 1: learning curve was just– was much shorter for him. And
2:38:28
Speaker 1: within two years, he's guiding them as a contender and
2:38:32
Speaker 1: a playoff guy. So look, I think– obviously, I think
2:38:38
Speaker 1: Miami's quarterback looks like he's got all the tools, just
2:38:42
Speaker 1: incredible touch, super accurate. and this is now his third
2:38:46
Speaker 1: stop where he's impressed. I look at it, it's the
2:38:48
Speaker 1: same reason why I'm so bullish on Cam Ward and
2:38:50
Speaker 1: Beck and now Mensah is that he did this at
2:38:54
Speaker 1: Tulane under one coaching staff. He did it at Duke
2:38:56
Speaker 1: under another coaching staff. He's already doing it at Miami
2:38:58
Speaker 1: in our third. So what does that tell you? He
2:39:00
Speaker 1: processes information quickly, right? Just like Cam Ward, he went
2:39:05
Speaker 1: through three different systems and seemed to succeed and get
2:39:07
Speaker 1: better each year. Carson Beck is now showing that ability
2:39:11
Speaker 1: to do that. I think that in a weird way,
2:39:13
Speaker 1: these quarterbacks that could go from different systems, that's who
2:39:19
Speaker 1: I want in my NFL team, right? That means they're coachable.
2:39:23
Speaker 1: You know the way, how transient NFL coaching is, both
2:39:27
Speaker 1: at the top, but particularly at the coordinator level, you're
2:39:30
Speaker 1: going to go through different systems, right? And if you're
2:39:33
Speaker 1: not easily adaptable to new systems, you're not going to
2:39:37
Speaker 1: be a successful NFL quarterback. So I look at those
2:39:40
Speaker 1: guys and, you know, so Mensah looks like he's got
2:39:44
Speaker 1: an NFL arm at Miami. Dante Moore looks like he's
2:39:48
Speaker 1: got it at Oregon. But I'm not as sold on
2:39:51
Speaker 1: Moore yet as others are. I think he's got all
2:39:52
Speaker 1: the tools, but you can have a lot of tools,
2:39:55
Speaker 1: but it may not all come together. Go watch a
2:39:58
Speaker 1: South Carolina game. And this kid, Lenora Sellers, he's another
2:40:02
Speaker 1: one that's got all this talent. You're just, you know,
2:40:06
Speaker 1: what happens if you had a little bit more talent
2:40:08
Speaker 1: around him? but wow, does he got a lot. I'm
2:40:11
Speaker 1: not sure Levitt is going to translate as well to
2:40:14
Speaker 1: the pros, which is the kid who did great at LSU.
2:40:17
Speaker 1: And I worry about Trinidad Chambliss' size a little bit,
2:40:21
Speaker 1: but boy, his ability to throw on the run is
2:40:23
Speaker 1: really impressive as well. So, you know, if you're, I
2:40:28
Speaker 1: look at it as who would fit the Steelers mindset, right?
2:40:32
Speaker 1: There's also, like, I always think there's just certain fits, right?
2:40:36
Speaker 1: Certain cultural fits, right? I'll tell you, There's something about
2:40:40
Speaker 1: Arch Manning of the Steelers that would feel correct. I
2:40:43
Speaker 1: don't know why I think that, right? He's a big kid, right?
2:40:48
Speaker 1: In that sense, he's got a little Roethlisberger in him
2:40:51
Speaker 1: because he's also mobile the way both Roethlisberger and Bradshaw were. So,
2:40:56
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's Arch that you should be focused on.
2:40:59
Speaker 1: But I'm going to end with where I began. Don't
2:41:04
Speaker 1: give up on Drew Aller. You never know when your
2:41:07
Speaker 1: future is sitting on your own bench.
2:41:09
Speaker 2: Right.
2:41:10
Speaker 1: How many, you know, just ask the Seattle Seahawks. I
2:41:14
Speaker 1: guess that's like ask the San Francisco 49ers and the
2:41:18
Speaker 1: random seventh round quarterback that turned out to be a
2:41:21
Speaker 1: franchise quarterback of Brock Purdy. So it's and there's something
2:41:26
Speaker 1: about Aller, Penn State guy, Steelers.
2:41:29
Speaker 2: I don't know.
2:41:30
Speaker 1: It just maybe I want it to work because it
2:41:33
Speaker 1: just feels like such the right fit for the Pittsburgh
2:41:36
Speaker 1: fan base.
2:41:37
Speaker 2: Right.
2:41:37
Speaker 1: And he's got that. the grittiness that you want for
2:41:39
Speaker 1: a Steelers quarterback. So let's not give up on Drew
2:41:44
Speaker 1: Aller just yet. All right, with that, welcome back to
2:41:49
Speaker 1: the Wednesday podcast. So I'm giving you, we're giving you
2:41:51
Speaker 1: updates every single day of the week. Mondays, Tuesdays, it's
2:41:57
Speaker 1: Super Tuesday with Chris Silliza. Wednesday, another standalone podcast. Thursday,
2:42:02
Speaker 1: another standalone podcast. And of course, on the weekend, you've
2:42:04
Speaker 1: got New Sphere. So plenty of places to get what
2:42:08
Speaker 1: I hope is a little better informed about American politics,
2:42:14
Speaker 1: however it looks on any given day. With that, I
2:42:16
Speaker 1: appreciate you coming here. This podcast is politics for the
2:42:20
Speaker 1: rest of us. I'll see you in 24 hours.