Latest / The SEANC View / Decoding the Ballot: Post-Election Insights and the Future

Transcript

Decoding the Ballot: Post-Election Insights and the Future · The SEANC View

0:00
Music.
0:09
Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
0:12
This is Jonathan Owens, the communications director here at Scenic.
0:16
Joined this week by executive director Artis Watkins. I did pause there,
0:20
just because I saw you laughing a little bit.
0:24
And government relations director Suzanne Beasley. Thanks, John.
0:28
And digital communications specialist Sam Klein. There's a little pause there, too.
0:33
At slash podcast producer. With us today for this fine post-election episode
0:39
of the Scenic View podcast is Impact Statewide Chairman Mark Dierman,
0:44
at least for a few more months, right, Mark?
0:46
Yeah, until January 1st. Well, we're glad to be here.
0:50
Glad to have you today to talk through all this big night we had last night.
0:54
So let's just dive right in, I guess.
0:56
What were your initial thoughts on the night?
1:00
Anyone? Is everyone still asleep? No. Okay, so number one, Mark,
1:06
and Impact, congratulations to Impact, because y'all did really well last night
1:10
in terms of success rate.
1:12
Yeah, we had 94% of our endorsed candidates were elected.
1:18
That's the highest rate we've ever had, and it's the most candidates we've endorsed.
1:23
We endorsed a total of 130 candidates, so really crowded that,
1:26
although there were some disappointments in the night, too, that we'll talk about in a little bit.
1:30
Yeah, but I mean, one of the things that I tell people when I tell them about
1:34
our PAC is not only is it popular because it's nonpartisan and members make
1:39
those decisions and members base them on the people one by one.
1:43
And I mean, they are rigorous about going over it.
1:45
But at the end of the day, the reason y'all are so successful in terms of outcome
1:50
is because the members from all over the state are so representative of the citizens.
1:56
And so for a politician, if I were a politician, I would absolutely pay attention
2:00
to IMPAC's endorsements and to wanting IMPAC to be on my side.
2:05
You have your finger on the pulse. There's no question. Well, we certainly try to.
2:09
And I want to take a minute just to give a shout out to all the sitting members
2:13
that went out and worked the early budding sites, passing out the palm cards.
2:16
He rose. It makes a big difference in this. And we passed out about 10,000 palm cards this year.
2:23
It's fantastic. Okay, so I want to tell you. I'm sorry, John.
2:26
I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I got real excited because yesterday at
2:30
the polls, it was like every year in terms of the fact that we were the only
2:34
people out there, I think.
2:35
Saying, hey, well, we've got nonpartisan endorsements from state employees.
2:40
Everybody else is out there for either a candidate or a party.
2:43
And so people always like to take our palm cards. We talk about that.
2:47
But I think this year I noticed it was there seemed to be an even bigger hunger
2:51
for something from a group that just wasn't partisan. A neutral side. Yeah.
2:56
And one of the things we found this year also is that students at our universities
3:01
love those palm cards because they were not as well-versed on anything below the president.
3:07
So you give them this nonpartisan palm card, and they see the governor,
3:11
the treasurer, and all these things on there.
3:14
It helps them make some decisions, because our folks will talk to them as they
3:19
come up and kind of talk about the various candidates if they want to talk about them.
3:22
So that's something we did a lot of this year, and I think it paid some dividends.
3:26
Didn't you guys also mail those out too, right?
3:30
Yeah, we did a mailing to all of our members, over 42,000 members,
3:34
a postcard with the endorsed candidates for their particular area.
3:38
It's the first time we've ever done that.
3:40
And almost any time we do something, we get some complaints.
3:43
We got no complaints about this.
3:45
And I have so many people, so many members say how much they love those palm cards.
3:49
They're going to take them to the polls. And some people are actually at the
3:52
polls showing them to other people.
3:53
So that was something we'll continue to do in the future.
3:56
Great feedback. Great feedback on that.
3:59
Well, some legislators called, Joe. Even legislators. We've had quite a few
4:03
legislators call, you know, grateful for Impact's help, obviously.
4:07
But, yeah, we're really excited about the postcard in the mail that made a difference.
4:11
Yeah, my wife was not as versed in candidates, period, she said.
4:14
So she was asking me who to vote for, and so I gave her our card.
4:18
Good for you. So I think we got some votes there. Yeah.
4:21
Well, congratulations to everybody who won last night.
4:25
Super big congratulations to Governor-elect Josh Stein. I guess that's where we can start, right?
4:30
It's a big night for Josh. I wanted to start by talking about a tweet I saw
4:35
kind of mid, not midnight, but mid the hubbub last night from Will Dorn, our friend at WRAL.
4:43
He said, it's a weird election night in North Carolina. Trump won.
4:46
I guess, spoiler alert, Trump won, as did the Republican judges.
4:51
But at the same time, the Democrats won every major executive branch race,
4:56
governor, AG, and superintendent of schools, which I don't know about every—I
5:00
mean, that's not all of them, right?
5:02
No. That's not—but I guess maybe he's talking about the competitive one.
5:06
The only competitive U.S. House race—I guess he's talking about Don Davis' race—and
5:11
even broke the GOP supermajority in the legislature.
5:14
So just a weird night all around, I guess. Yeah.
5:18
The only Republicans that won Council of State races were Mike Causey,
5:21
Steve Troxler, Brad Breiner, and Dave Bullock.
5:25
And of course, Mike Causey and Steve Troxler were impact endorsed.
5:28
That's absolutely correct. And we're glad to have them back.
5:31
Speaking of the governor's race, I was really surprised, and it was kind of
5:36
funny how fast they called the Josh Stein race.
5:39
I mean, it was like 7.07 when he came out.
5:42
It wasn't quite that early because I went to Josh Stein's wash party down at
5:46
the Marriott, and all of a sudden, a little after 7.30, after the polls closed—
5:51
There was a roar in the room. I left them with disgrace, and they were calling
5:54
Josh Stein as the winning of the governor's right. So that was a happy start of the evening.
5:59
Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, no. We keep doing that. We're in sync today,
6:02
John. We keep speaking. Is that what it is?
6:04
I wore my pink shirt yesterday in support of- We're so, we're in sync.
6:08
And you go first this time. No, you go first because I forgot what I was going to say.
6:11
You're such a gentleman. No, I was texting with some relatives from Texas.
6:16
And they said, do y'all have any big races that you're watching tonight? talk about scenic.
6:22
And as I'm writing back, I hit send. And then I'm like, hey,
6:26
nevermind. One of those is already.
6:27
We're not watching it anymore. And they were like, are you being serious?
6:31
And I'm like, no, it's over.
6:33
It's done. What I was going to say, I have an old habit as a reporter from a
6:38
small town newspaper, have an
6:40
old habit of watching the board of elections like tallies as they come in.
6:46
And from the first, like first batch of, I guess, maybe early votes,
6:50
You could tell there was a big, big difference between Trump's votes and Robinson's votes.
6:56
And so I guess that's how they called it. They knew he was never going to catch up, I guess.
7:01
So, I mean. It was an early call.
7:04
Yeah. Yeah. What do we take from his huge win? Is there anything we can glean from a 15-point win?
7:11
I mean, I think it is the unique situation because Robinson's campaign had difficulties.
7:16
But it is still a decisive victory, I think. with that kind of decisive victory,
7:21
I think you do come into the governorship with a little more sway.
7:26
And then in addition to that, the legislature last night really changed.
7:30
There's no longer a supermajority. So his veto is meaningful should he veto anything.
7:36
It's a really different experience for him in his first two years than Governor Cooper has had.
7:42
And his acceptance speech last night at the Victory Party was very on point
7:46
with a lot of our issues, you know, better pay, schools are important,
7:50
you know, the future, and, you know, working with the working class folks and things like that.
7:55
So there was a lot of good things that he said in his acceptance speech that,
7:59
you know, I think line up with us very, very well.
8:01
So we're looking forward to working with Josh Stein, our governor,
8:04
Josh Stein now, or soon to be. Governor-elect. Yeah.
8:07
So, yeah, I mean, I think he does come in, John, with a full head of steam,
8:11
and we'll see what he does with that. So obviously our another race that's very
8:16
important to us is the state treasurer's race. So we'll just go straight to that one.
8:21
Brad Browner did defeat Representative Wesley Harris, who we had endorsed.
8:26
I saw that Briner put out a statement last night, and in it,
8:31
he did mention state employees and retirees and a willingness to work with us.
8:34
So we'll see how that pans out. But what were your thoughts on that race?
8:38
Well, I mean, I wish our endorsed candidate had won that race.
8:42
I think Wesley Harris would have made a great treasurer.
8:44
But what I just told a scenic committee that's meeting here is,
8:47
look, the people of this state have spoken and they have chosen Brad Briner as their treasurer.
8:51
And so, like all elected officials, what we do at this point is we move forward
8:56
and we do as we do with all elected officials. We do our best to work with treasurer like Breiner.
9:02
And hopefully, I mean, I think that like all groups, there's a lot that we can
9:06
offer and share in terms of insight of people who actually are in those plans
9:11
that he's going to administer because they're huge.
9:13
The state, it's not the only things the treasurer does, but the retirement system
9:16
and the health plan are massive. and they're critical not just to our members
9:21
and other state employees and retirees, but they're critical to the economy of the state.
9:25
And when we interviewed him back in January, we interviewed he and Wesley and
9:29
all the other candidates, and he expressed a willingness to work with the state
9:32
employees and retirees.
9:33
So we're hoping he's still in that move when we reach out to him down the road.
9:37
I mean, there are plenty of cases where we've not endorsed a candidate in the
9:41
legislature and then wound up having a good...
9:43
And still have to... Yeah, well, I mean, we still got work to do.
9:45
So regardless of our endorsements, whoever wins and take those offices,
9:50
we've got to go talk to them. We've got to build a relationship there.
9:54
Mike Causey, the first time Mike Causey won, we endorsed his opponent,
9:58
who was the incumbent, who had a good working relationship with Scenic.
10:03
And we endorsed Wayne Goodwin, who was the incumbent.
10:06
Mike Causey didn't love that, but he worked with us and actually built such
10:13
a relationship with our members that they were absolutely, it was a resounding
10:17
endorsement for Mike Causey.
10:18
So, you know, endorsements are important.
10:21
Yeah. But in our world, that's not. You got to move on. Yeah, you got to move on.
10:26
Josh Dobson, same situation there, right? We butted heads with him a few times
10:31
and now he's. When he was in the legislature, yeah. Yeah.
10:33
So looking at the other races in the Council of State, I guess the other big
10:38
ones were Jeff Jackson winning the Attorney General's race over Dan Bishop,
10:44
which we endorsed Jeff Jackson.
10:46
Yes, we did. And Mo Green winning state superintendent.
10:51
Yeah, both those are two really big wins for us.
10:54
Those two endorsements, they were really big. Really excited about both of them,
10:58
but Mo Green decided to have him because it was scary what he was running against,
11:03
someone who calls public schools indoctrination centers and has never had a
11:10
child in a public school.
11:12
And Mo Green ran the second or third largest public school, Guilford County
11:16
Public Schools, and did a stellar job and raised their ratings and everything
11:20
like that. So I'm really excited about having him in the superintendent's position.
11:26
And the same thing with Jeff Jackson. Jeff Jackson is just a great guy.
11:30
He's going to make a great attorney general. He's not a political person.
11:34
He's looking to follow the Constitution and enforce the law.
11:37
And you heard him. If you saw any of his commercials, he talked about it during
11:40
his commercials, too. So really excited to have Jeff on the raceway.
11:43
That was a hard-fought race. It was.
11:45
Jeff Jackson, Dan Bishop. It ended with lawsuits. Your attorney's comment from
11:49
last week. The attorneys were the winners.
11:52
But yeah, that was a hard-fought and very expensive race. But that wasn't too surprising.
11:57
Those guys were both pretty heavy hitters coming out of Congress.
12:01
One race I thought was interesting was the lieutenant governor's race.
12:05
Rachel Hunt defeated Hal Weatherman. And just because I've seen so much more
12:09
of Hal Weatherman than I've seen of anything from Rachel Hunt.
12:12
I think the only thing I really saw was the video of her cleaning out the office, that whole thing.
12:18
Right. But she still pulled it out. It's like she won by about 90,000 votes.
12:23
Yeah, and he ran a very grassroots campaign. He was apparently driving around
12:27
the state in an RV and talking to folks, an old-style campaign.
12:31
Yeah, obviously, Rachel Hunt was the scenic endorsed candidate.
12:34
I have to admit, yes, Hal Weatherman, who was not the scenic endorsed candidate,
12:39
it was an impressive thing to watch in terms of a grassroots effort.
12:43
I think that old school politics can be very effective.
12:47
I'm not sure what all happened. You know, how much of that, we won't ever know
12:51
how much of this is the Mark Robinson drag.
12:55
True. Dragging them down. Good point.
12:57
Yeah, a lot of pundits were saying that Mark Robinson effect would have a huge
13:01
impact all the way down the ballot. Yeah.
13:04
Looking at two Republicans who did win seats, though, Mike Causey,
13:07
which we've already mentioned, and our old friend Steve Troxler,
13:11
in fact, endorsed Commissioner of Agriculture.
13:14
Looks like he stole Dale Falwell's title of most votes. No, no.
13:18
Commissioner Troxler got the most. Oh, did he get like 20?
13:22
Oh, okay. Oh, yes. Far more than anyone.
13:25
Oh, he's a friendly pop. Commissioner Troxler is the goat of Council of State
13:30
Politics. Honestly, he pulls more votes than anyone, and he continued that.
13:35
Why doesn't he aspire to other offices, or is he just like— I think he's loved—
13:39
I think he's found his niche. Happy where he's at.
13:42
And he's good at it, and I'm thankful for him.
13:46
So those two won. And then our old friend and longtime Scenic member,
13:50
Elaine Marshall, she won by about 100,000 votes in the Secretary of State's race.
13:56
Thought that race was going to be pretty close, and I guess that is still pretty
13:59
close. Well, it was even closer earlier.
14:01
Some of the early boats came in, and he was leading. Yeah. I didn't think anybody
14:05
could beat Elaine Marshall, but she had a little scare last night. He ran a race. Yep.
14:11
My dad always says, that's the lady who beat Richard Petty. Oh, yeah.
14:16
And I don't know if you remember, the slugging that worked was a serious candidate for serious office.
14:22
There you go. So she's been in that long then, I guess, right?
14:25
I don't know that that slugging would work in the stand time.
14:27
Yeah, you have a good memory.
14:29
I do. And then our final Council of State endorsement was for Jessica Holmes,
14:34
and she lost to Dave Bullock. Any thoughts on that?
14:38
Well, I'm sure his family's happy that he's going to be the auditor because
14:41
they ran commercials saying they wanted him to be the auditor so that he could
14:44
get out of the house. But I hate to see Jessica lose.
14:47
Well, I mean, one of the interesting things about Dave Bullock and Brad Briner
14:52
is that they were both endorsed by the Newsdom server, and they won. Yeah.
14:57
And what I find really interesting about that is that normally whatever the
15:01
News and Observer does can be bristly to many of the Republicans in charge in Raleigh.
15:09
In this case, I honestly think that was a huge factor.
15:13
And it's not just the News and Observer now. It's the Charlotte Observer and
15:16
the Durham paper. So that's three times.
15:19
And that's a statewide race. So that has impact. Maybe Charlotte Observer has
15:23
a better track record with endorsements. Yeah, but they all came out the exact same way.
15:28
Yeah. I'll have to admit I was disappointed they didn't run my letter for the
15:31
editor commenting on that race. Yeah.
15:34
Yeah, you had a good letter. Yeah, maybe that's a story for a different time,
15:38
but that was an interesting decision. Yeah, it was. It was.
15:41
Paper not take criticism on their endorsements.
15:45
So much for freedom of speech, right? It's an interesting world these days.
15:48
But I do think it was a big factor, to be honest. I think it was,
15:53
too. And the race we did not endorse in, Luke Farley defeated Braxton Winston
15:58
II in the Commissioner of Labor race.
16:02
So I just mentioned that just so everyone knows that we also knew that.
16:06
Any thoughts on that race? We just set that one out. What was the margin on
16:10
that? I don't even remember.
16:11
It looks like it was about, it was pretty big. It was 310,000 votes.
16:16
Okay. So moving on to the legislature, what's it going to mean to have one,
16:22
I guess, house that is not in the supermajority now?
16:25
So it gives you a chance to swing a vote, you know, to make some good policy
16:30
without it just automatically getting...
16:32
Vetoed, and then the governor not being able to do anything about it.
16:35
So governor-elect Josh Stein will have some extra power behind what he can do.
16:41
And in the legislature, not having a super majority in the legislature is awesome
16:47
because you can go around and talk to everyone, swing some votes,
16:50
pass some good legislation, do some good policy work when there's a super majority.
16:55
I think when it's a simple majority, it gives some members more freedom to be
17:00
independent thinkers, which,
17:02
A, I think is good for them at election time for the most part,
17:05
and B, for a group like us, which is a nonpartisan group, we're not a given for anybody.
17:12
We're not just because you have one of the consonants after your name doesn't mean C-NIC's with you.
17:19
We take each candidate as a person, as what they have done.
17:23
And it's hard. If you're in a supermajority, it's like you kind to get swept
17:28
along with the crowd or else. Her mentality.
17:31
Yeah, and there's, and both parties, honestly, even the minority party has been
17:35
more and more kind of vengeful on their own when they don't stick together on
17:41
votes. And we've seen a lot.
17:44
We've seen days when definitely people were more willing to step out and be themselves.
17:48
Again, I don't think it's the best thing for candidates. I think you might see
17:53
that each party in certain races learn some things.
17:57
Last night? My one concern is that they may try to get someone to flip from
18:03
Democrat to Republican to break the supermajority like they did in 2022.
18:07
That was going to be my controversial question. Is anyone going to pull a Tricia
18:11
Cotham and switch parties?
18:13
It could happen. I mean, it happened two years ago.
18:16
Any specific races you want to talk about? I know that we did endorse Dante
18:20
Pittman, who was kind of the star of the night for his win in his race.
18:25
Any other house It came out at the very last minute, last night when I went
18:28
to bed, he was still behind, got up this morning, and he had won,
18:31
and he's got enough of a margin where I think it'll stick.
18:35
The other one, the real heartbreaker for me is Terrence Everett.
18:38
He was the only senator, Senate candidate that we endorsed.
18:41
He's a former legislator. You're a close friend of Scenic. I've worked with
18:44
his campaign a lot, and he lost.
18:46
When the last precinct came in, he had been hit almost the entire evening.
18:50
When the last precinct came in, he was behind by 38 votes, 38 votes.
18:56
And that was a real heartbreaker because Terrence is as good as they come.
19:00
And there'll be a recount. There may be some other votes that come in.
19:04
Absentees that will come in, but it's, you know, it's tough.
19:07
It's really tough. And I hated it for him.
19:09
Well, Terrence is a longtime friend. Who knows what he's going to do in the
19:12
future? That's the thing about a lot of these candidates.
19:15
No telling who will be back again to do what? Terrence is a young man.
19:19
Jessica Holmes is a young woman. And who knows what they're going to do next?
19:24
And who knows, like Mark Robinson, somebody asked him last night,
19:27
what are you doing next? I don't know what he's going to do.
19:30
Who knows? He didn't say.
19:32
There was a tweet that Mark for Senate 2024 domain had ever been reserved or
19:37
something like that? It was 2026.
19:39
2026, yeah, yeah. There was like someone had sleuthed that out, I guess.
19:44
So speaking of what's next, what about Roy Cooper?
19:47
What's next for him? He was actually seemed pretty happy last night.
19:51
He was at Josh's victory party.
19:53
Introduced Josh, actually. It would have been a happy night, number one.
19:57
You're not going to have to deal with any of this anymore, which is,
20:00
there's got to be a sense of relief to that. But also, he has been a mentor
20:05
to Stein, known him forever.
20:07
That had to be a really special moment to see him actually win the seat to succeed him.
20:13
But going back just one second, I'm wondering, last night, all I could wonder,
20:18
how much buyer's remorse was there?
20:21
You know, how would that race have gone? Just curiosity if it had been Falwell
20:26
and Stein. It would have been really interesting.
20:28
It would have been. We knew that Powell was the better candidate of the Republicans,
20:32
but it didn't work for him.
20:34
Certainly wouldn't have had a lot of the baggage, right? Right.
20:38
I mean, I think Josh Stein's going to make a great governor,
20:41
and we wholeheartedly endorse him and support him.
20:44
But I do think just in terms of a more interesting race, there's no question.
20:49
So when you bring up, is Mark Robinson going to run for Senate,
20:51
it makes me wonder, what would that primary look like now?
20:56
Yeah. I don't think it would end well. I guess maybe that's why I said,
20:59
Roy, is he going to run too for Senate?
21:02
I mean, he's playing his card. Something, right? Who knows? He's playing as far as close to the best.
21:06
He's just going to go to Carolina games for the next 10 years.
21:09
I think he's too young to just go home. He's been in public service forever.
21:15
And he's, you know, if you're in public service long enough,
21:18
it's really hard to get that out of your system.
21:21
So I was looking at the results and it looks like the Democrats have a pretty
21:25
deep bench now for the governor's race for six terms in a row. Right.
21:29
I mean, you have Stein, who has two terms, right? I could be.
21:34
Theoretically. Then Hunt, that's a big name. That would be a formidable candidate.
21:38
And then Jackson coming up behind her. So is that a thing that we should talk about?
21:44
I mean, if you look at modern history for the governorship, it's either the
21:49
lieutenant governor or the AG for the last few decades that has been.
21:53
Become our governor, with the exception of Pat McCrory, coming out of having
21:58
been mayor of Charlotte.
21:59
It very well could have an impact. You also, it's a different world now, though.
22:04
I really think, wouldn't be shocked to see somebody just come absolutely out
22:08
of the woodwork, kind of like Robinson did when he won lieutenant governor.
22:11
And that's eight years away, and I like bluid, so it'll be okay.
22:15
It's 24 years away, if you think about it.
22:18
No, wait, six times four, yeah, 24. The Republicans might differ with you on that. Yeah, they might.
22:23
You know, you got four years from now to deal with. Last point.
22:27
I'm just fascinated by the numbers.
22:28
So Trump got 2.8 million votes in North Carolina.
22:33
Stein got 3 million votes. So there was obviously Trump-Stein voters.
22:38
Oh, yeah. And I think I brought that up earlier that I didn't expect that to be the case.
22:43
Oh, gosh, yes. Yeah. There were a lot, if you think about it,
22:47
because, oh, that's a hard math problem to do there.
22:50
But, yeah. With what happened in Robinson's candidacy, that was no question
22:56
that was going to happen.
22:57
And it's not an unusual thing in North Carolina generally that we go red for
23:04
the presidency, blue for the governor's mansion. But this one,
23:08
I think it was a given for months now.
23:11
I totally agree with that. Speaking of Trump, there was another race on the
23:15
night, the presidential race.
23:17
Trump won North Carolina and he also won presidency. He will be returning to
23:22
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
23:24
Do we want to talk about that at all? Yeah. I mean, well, we took,
23:27
I think you asked us to guess last week. Yeah.
23:31
And I told you I never guessed, but I was going to guess that Kamala Harris
23:35
would win the presidency. And that my reasoning was, I wasn't hearing people
23:39
saying, I just don't like her in the way they said that about Hillary Clinton.
23:45
But at the end of the day, that wasn't, clearly that had nothing to do with it.
23:51
Who knows everybody's armchair quarterback and what it was. Yeah.
23:54
I also said that I thought she would win because she had some momentum.
23:58
And I immediately regretted that decision because I shouldn't make those proclamations.
24:04
No one should ever guess at the presidential election. But, you know, we did.
24:09
Yeah. We were wrong. We were wrong. And the chances of that,
24:13
when you guess at that, are really high.
24:16
But especially in North Carolina, it is—you just don't know.
24:19
Yeah. It's weird to say that, though, because other than Barack Obama in 2008,
24:25
you could probably put your money on red in North Carolina for a presidential
24:29
election and know you're going to win that bet. Yeah.
24:33
But there's something about North Carolina that is always uncertain.
24:37
It always feels like it could be anybody's anybody's ball.
24:41
Yeah, we're a swing tight until we're not. Right. We're just we're very swingy.
24:45
It's just got to be the right. The right dance partner. Yeah. The right.
24:48
Hey, what a metaphor. So I was, yeah, I didn't expect Kamala to win here,
24:53
but thought it may be a little closer than it was. But, I mean, you're right.
24:58
You can, I think you can kind of think, kind of expect North Carolina to be
25:01
red until proven otherwise.
25:03
Any other races we want to talk about? Let's put election 2024 in the books and move towards...
25:10
2025. And speaking of moving on, the legislature comes back to town next week,
25:15
right? Yeah, on the 19th.
25:17
So we won't move on. I know, this is an old one. Yeah, so this is,
25:21
you know, still our current legislature.
25:22
The last two times they've returned to town, it's been specifically to address
25:27
storm relief from Hurricane Helene.
25:31
So we're going to have to go back in and start, you know, reminding legislators
25:35
that nothing has changed for all state employees and retirees.
25:39
We are still in the same vacancy crisis.
25:42
I mean, there's almost a quarter of your workforce that's vacant.
25:46
You know, pay raises or bonus money, anything extra or just anything in general
25:52
has not been addressed because we got sidetracked by the storm, which is appropriate.
25:55
You know, we had to stop and help people. But we've got to start having those
25:58
conversations again when they return to town.
26:01
But you can't help people if you don't have the people that are supposed to be there to help people.
26:07
And I mean, just we've had these conversations internally about,
26:09
you know, roads out west, things they're trying to do.
26:12
And, you know, here's the bottom line. If you don't have enough engineers with
26:15
DOT to go around and inspect all those roads that whoever, you know,
26:19
got back into some sort of shape, then you don't have a viable road.
26:23
Can you imagine what we're paying contractors to get this done because we don't
26:28
have enough people and compare that to what it would have cost to have enough people?
26:32
Speaking of that, remember last week we talked about the West Virginia boys
26:36
and their road through Bat Cave and Chimney Rock area I think there was a story
26:41
this week that DOT had said that road is, you know,
26:45
we're not condoning that race We're not saying you should travel on that road
26:49
They said it's not safe for vehicular traffic You can take an ATV down it or
26:54
walk down it or something,
26:55
which is good, you need something But A, they put it on private land,
26:58
which DOT cannot do But DOT is actually in that area,
27:04
moving the river back to where it was.
27:08
So the only way DOT, people are very frustrated. They are mad, mad, mad at DOT.
27:14
Part of what we try to do with this podcast, y'all, is get the truth about matters
27:19
related to state employees out there.
27:21
And when that came up last week, it just seemed the first thing that jumped
27:25
to my mind was that that may not be safe. And I think I said that out loud. Yeah.
27:29
And then we see this article this week where DOT comes out and says it's not safe.
27:33
The problem is if some people who are coming and just want to help and establish
27:37
something on somebody's private land, if somebody gets hurt,
27:41
I mean, yeah, there's probably still liability associated with that.
27:44
However, DOT can't take that on in terms of liability and they can't build something
27:48
they know is not safe for vehicular traffic because you can't monitor and make
27:53
sure no vehicles go across it and they don't have control of it because it's
27:56
someone's private property.
27:58
So a lot of this mud people are throwing at state employees is just so it's
28:04
based on misinformation.
28:06
And it's just very easy to say, look what the state wouldn't do.
28:10
But these nice guys from West Virginia came and did it.
28:13
But the company they work for in the story on this on that road,
28:18
it said that the news station, it was a TV station, I think,
28:22
that did this story, contacted that company and the company had no comment.
28:25
Well, I bet they did. because you know they would
28:29
be if somebody got harmed on that path they
28:32
sure would be so that's that's a whole mess and
28:35
it's also important to they don't think about
28:38
the people that were affected state employees that were affected by this some
28:43
of them lost literally everything but went back to work the very next day yeah
28:47
and they're with the universities with dot with the hospitals and and the president
28:51
and everything else and you know that's those are some dedicated folks and they
28:55
deserve a little shout out here too.
28:57
And none of this is to say that the people between Batcave and Chimney Rock
29:01
or anywhere around there should not want people from anywhere to come volunteer and help them.
29:07
My God, if I was them after all this time, anybody that would come build anything
29:11
would be welcomed with open arms.
29:14
I'd put them up in whatever I had left of a home, I'd cook them meals.
29:17
And that's the way it should be.
29:19
It's just that, again, people don't understand why some of these things don't
29:23
happen in the time we want them to.
29:26
But if you're trying to move a river, I can't even imagine that.
29:31
And I think part of, too, when the storm happened and there was so much hullabaloo
29:35
about DOT not getting out there quick enough, about the government not acting
29:39
quick enough. Well, Mark Robinson started a lot of that. Yeah, he did.
29:43
But you have to assess before you get out there and do things.
29:45
You do. There has to be some— You can't just go flying in there with dirt and things like that.
29:50
There has to be some organization about it.
29:53
I mean, you go in there just on your own and you end up on the side of a mountain
29:57
and, you know, you've turned over your ATV.
30:00
Nobody knows you're out there. At that point, you know, you're becoming a hindrance to rescue efforts.
30:06
Yeah. So if you live in one of those areas, those gorgeous areas that were so
30:11
devastated and you're still so devastated and right and now with the bitter
30:15
cold coming, we've not forgotten you.
30:18
But neither has your state. Your state employees have never,
30:22
ever in this process forgotten you, and don't let anybody try to convince you of that.
30:26
We all care about you, and I promise you, Secretary Hopkins and the rest of
30:32
the secretaries and commissioners of all of those agencies have been,
30:36
they've just been amazing during this thing.
30:38
And I am so sorry it's taking so long to put the pieces back together.
30:43
But it takes us right back where we started. All the pieces are being put back
30:48
together by a team that has 75 percent of what it should.
30:53
It's like getting on the field for the Super Bowl with 75 percent of your team.
30:58
How's that going to go for you?
30:59
You're probably not going to do well. That's actually happened in a lot.
31:03
This year is a lot of injuries in the NFL. But I digress.
31:07
Well, you got somebody else. That's the beauty, though.
31:10
You got somebody else on the bench. Once you've got big rosters,
31:14
no NFL owner is ever going to go in there without plenty of people to get the job done.
31:21
So we just need a bench of state employees ready to fill in when the vacancies
31:24
come up. Or we need to approach state government public services for the public
31:28
the way NFL owners approach games. Make sure you've got enough people.
31:32
And pay them millions of dollars.
31:36
Sounds great. Well, that's all I have for this week. I did want to go to the question of the week.
31:41
And so I cheated this week a little bit. As you've all noticed,
31:45
I've kind of run out of topics.
31:48
So I found this list of 100 questions to ask at your work, I guess.
31:54
Oh, good. So we'll look through here. Are we going to give out 100 of them?
31:57
No, we're going to pick one, and hopefully it'll be good.
32:01
Okay, here it is. John Swacky Weird Question of the Week.
32:04
Music.
32:08
All right, so the question is, what's your theme song when you entered a room?
32:13
Suzanne probably knows immediately what her theme song would be.
32:18
When you enter a room. Like in your mind? What are you hearing in your mind?
32:23
Enter Sandman by Metallica. There you go.
32:27
We run into this at the convention. Every year, artists, we have to pick a song for you to come out to.
32:33
Yeah. It usually is one of the funnest things to do when we're getting ready for a convention.
32:37
But she's country, has always been one for you. Yeah, country music is my thing. But I like to dance.
32:43
So dance music's always in my head. The wobble. She can wobble all the way out
32:48
there. Yeah, it could be the wobble. The aisle.
32:50
Well, my rubber music is what's called, when you go on stage, is power to the people.
32:55
Oh, yeah. Because I'm always fighting for the state employees and retirees in this state.
33:00
So power to the people would be my first choice. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and tell you.
33:03
I can not guess the song, but I can tell you what the artist is for Sammy.
33:09
I still can guess. I can too, actually. Can you? What do you guess?
33:12
It's Taylor Swift. Oh, my gosh.
33:14
I was going to say Sabrina Carpenter. Full of reputation era.
33:22
Is that a song? Reputation is one of her albums, and Ready For It is one of
33:27
the songs that Simone Biles actually includes in her floor routine. See you later.
33:32
Red Aboard, that's a good thing for you, actually. That's like the perfect storm of Sam things.
33:37
It was. It was like, yeah, gymnastics.
33:42
And that was a little pop culture lesson in about 10 seconds.
33:45
I don't know if I have one.
33:47
Come on. Come on, Johnny. I know you do. Something for the drive-by truckers.
33:51
Do you know who that is? Uh-uh. No.
33:53
Okay. I'll have to give you a mixtape to listen to.
33:57
Or Return of the Mac has always been a good one. That's a good one.
34:01
That's a good one. My roommate and I used to sing that at karaoke sometimes in Sanford. Oh, my gosh.
34:09
We'd love to see it. I'm sure there probably are somewhere.
34:12
Well, there's not been a shameless plug for anything on this podcast today,
34:15
so I want to point that out. Yeah. Say good for us.
34:18
Yeah. Yeah, I haven't had any reports from the pottery shop to share this week. And there it is.
34:25
Well, that's all we have this week. I hope we left you with a little cheer this
34:31
week, and we'll see you next time.
34:34
Music.