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Interview Only w/ John Opdycke - Why Closed Partisan Primaries Are Terrible For Democrac · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: three four three nine eight five. Well, in my ongoing
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: focus to figure out what are some of the cures
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  Speaker 1: for political polarization, one that just screams out there to
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  Speaker 1: everybody is what my friend Nick Troiano calls the primary problem,
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  Speaker 1: and the issue is how do we get more voters
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  Speaker 1: participating in primaries. It is no doubt the two major
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  Speaker 1: parties don't want open primaries, They don't want independence voting
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  Speaker 1: in if they do everything they can do stop it,
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  Speaker 1: it is it is. And yet supposedly leaders of the
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  Speaker 1: two parties don't like polarization, but they don't do anything
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  Speaker 1: in their parties to try to stop it. My guest today,
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  Speaker 1: John Updyke has been running an organization called Open Primaries
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  Speaker 1: that literally is just trying to do this. They've spent
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  Speaker 1: years make doing legal arguments, doing petitions. Sometimes it's referendum
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  Speaker 1: that can do it. Sometimes it's a lawsuit. New Mexico
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  Speaker 1: is one that they actually got the legislature involved. And
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  Speaker 1: John is here now, and John I was doing a
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  Speaker 1: little researcher. Is it ten states now that lock independence
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  Speaker 1: out of both primaries? That it's ten states where there's
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  Speaker 1: even zero chance for an independent without physically changing their
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  Speaker 1: voter registration well not election day.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it's. I think it's the number
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  Speaker 2: is between eleven and sixteen, because sometimes states like Arizona
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  Speaker 2: have close primary for presidential but open for state. But
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  Speaker 2: people think so's it's somewhere between eleven and sixteen. So
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  Speaker 2: let's be more precise.
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  Speaker 1: No, it's because every state the definition is slightly different, right,
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  Speaker 1: because some states are like my state in Virginia, where
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  Speaker 1: I'm registered to vote, there's no party registration. You've got
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  Speaker 1: to pick once you stay, you stay for that for
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  Speaker 1: the whole cycle. Now there's we don't have runoffs in Virginia.
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  Speaker 1: I guess Ohio? Does that correct? And so now you
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  Speaker 1: have to correct me if I'm wrong. In Ohio, do
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  Speaker 1: you stay an unregistered voter or do you become identified
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  Speaker 1: with the party you choose to vote? Yeah, they don't
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  Speaker 1: have partisan registration.
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  Speaker 2: So what happens is is you go on a file
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  Speaker 2: sure delivered to the parties, right, and you make it
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  Speaker 2: direct mail. Look, in Virginia, were unregistered?
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  Speaker 1: I vote in all I vote in primaries on both
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  Speaker 1: sides of the aisle, so I get a lot of
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  Speaker 1: direct mail. Missus Todd votes in one set of primaries
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  Speaker 1: and she gets she is a super voter in that
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  Speaker 1: set of primaries, and we get sometimes specific door knocks
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  Speaker 1: and just to like, you know, hey, you haven't voted
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  Speaker 1: in the dog catcher race. You're gonna vote in the
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  Speaker 1: dog catcher RaSE, you know that sort of thing. So
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  Speaker 1: it that is how the parties use it for some
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  Speaker 1: of that voter talk to. So let's talk about this.
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  Speaker 1: Why is this? There's two things that always amuse me
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  Speaker 1: about this issue of registered independence. Who make this decision
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  Speaker 1: not to be a member of either party? I have
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  Speaker 1: a feeling they don't really want to vote in primaries
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  Speaker 1: because if they did, there'd be more anger about this.
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  Speaker 2: Am I being too cynical? No? No, And I think
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  Speaker 2: that the issue. We have to take this on head on.
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  Speaker 2: We can't put our head in the sand and just
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  Speaker 2: focus on changing the law because we'll show up and
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  Speaker 2: vote right. We need to do that, but we need
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  Speaker 2: to be sober about the fact that changing the law
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  Speaker 2: is insufficient. We have to change the culture. We have
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  Speaker 2: to change how people think about primaries. And you're one
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  Speaker 2: hundred percent right, it's not just independence don't vote in primaries.
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  Speaker 2: Most Democrats and Republicans don't vote in primaries. We all
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  Speaker 2: have the attitude of the hardcore people vote in primaries.
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  Speaker 2: I'm a regular American. I vote in November. That's the culture,
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  Speaker 2: and you think it almost it's funny you say it
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  Speaker 2: that way.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think all those people think, oh, I don't
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  Speaker 1: want to be seen as a primary voter, almost like
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  Speaker 1: there's disdain for it. I don't want to be seen
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  Speaker 1: as some partisan hack.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think two things. One is, there's some of that.
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  Speaker 2: But I think if you pay attention to the culture
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  Speaker 2: of campaigning in a primary, particularly in a closed primary,
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  Speaker 2: but also in some of these nonpartisans like Texas and Tennessee,
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  Speaker 2: the culture is all the advertising, all the texting. It's
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  Speaker 2: dog whistle. It's designed to be heard by five percent
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  Speaker 2: over here and five percent over here. It's not designed
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  Speaker 2: to motivate people to go out and vote in the primary. Right, So.
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  Speaker 1: Tell me the history of open primaries, like you guys
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  Speaker 1: got started?
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  Speaker 2: When, and what was the what was the what was
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  Speaker 2: the instigator? You know, it's a So I helped get
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  Speaker 2: Mike Bloomberg elected in New York City two thousand and one,
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  Speaker 2: and I was the.
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  Speaker 1: First the first rap in the early when he was
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  Speaker 1: running as a R and New York has fusion, so
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  Speaker 1: he wasn't just running as an R. He ran as
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  Speaker 1: an R and an I and I was the treasurer
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  Speaker 1: of the Independency Independence Party, right yeah, And we caught
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  Speaker 1: a deal with Mike and we said we'll give you
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  Speaker 1: our line.
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  Speaker 2: We were talking to all the mayoral candidates, Democrat and Republican.
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  Speaker 2: We said, we'll give you our line if you come
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  Speaker 2: out for open primaries for New York City. Because there's
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  Speaker 2: at that point four hundred thousand independents that couldn't vote
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  Speaker 2: in the primaries. So Mike said, sure, we'll do this.
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  Speaker 2: We put it on the ballot and we got crushed.
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  Speaker 2: And it wasn't just that we got crushed, it's that
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  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party establishment campaigned against this like it was
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  Speaker 2: an existential threat. Like eighty five percent of cities already
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  Speaker 2: have some form of open, nonpartisan system and you have
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  Speaker 2: the New York City Democratic Party. You'd think we were
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  Speaker 2: trying to restore the klu Klux Klan or something like that,
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  Speaker 2: right when we put this referendum on the ballot. So
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  Speaker 2: I'm made a little mental note. This issue shouldn't be controversial,
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  Speaker 2: and yet it is. It ruffles the feathers of political insiders,
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  Speaker 2: so kind of kept my and you know, looking at this,
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  Speaker 2: and then started the Open Primaries as an organization in
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  Speaker 2: two thousand and nine. People looked at me then like
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  Speaker 2: I was forming a UFO research organization, you know, like Okay,
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  Speaker 2: he's gone off his rocker a little bit, because it
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  Speaker 2: was really it was illegitimate. I mean, there was these
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  Speaker 2: there were these efforts in New York City. We you know,
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  Speaker 2: I formed the organization and literally the New York City
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  Speaker 2: later Democratics, Democrats and repot. It's still a closed primary system. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: No independents are allowed to vote, which locked up. By
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  Speaker 2: the way, that is a reminder of perhaps why the
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  Speaker 2: Democratic Socialists have had so much more success in New
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  Speaker 2: York City other places around the world, because they're dealing
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  Speaker 2: with a much smaller pool of voters in a much
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  Speaker 2: more liberal space. Yes, and it's not just that. As
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  Speaker 2: someone who spent years in retail politics in New York City,
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  Speaker 2: it's hard to describe the cumulative effects of thirty years
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  Speaker 2: of closed primaries. The electorate has gotten so minuscule, it's
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  Speaker 2: so small, and these candidates are competing over the votes
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  Speaker 2: of literally several thousand people. In a district of eight
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  Speaker 2: hundred thousand people. It's terrible. So the issue has really
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  Speaker 2: gone through ups and downs. You know, we've taken a
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  Speaker 2: lot of lumps. But I think with the kind of
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  Speaker 2: weaponization of gerrymandering, there's a lot more interest in if
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  Speaker 2: the primary is the only election where there's any uncertainty.
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  Speaker 2: We got to pay attention to this.
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  Speaker 1: If you could waive your wand to sort of how
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  Speaker 1: would you get this more front and center and folks,
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  Speaker 1: you know, is it to get more independence angry that
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  Speaker 1: they're being disenfranchised because I feel like independent voters don't
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  Speaker 1: realize they know they're being the parties disenfranchised them, But
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if they think that the system is disenfranchising.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's a mixed bag. I think in general,
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  Speaker 2: you're right, and I think that's even broader than independence.
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  Speaker 2: I think the average Democrat and Republican they just you know,
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  Speaker 2: they might vote in a presidential primary every four years,
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  Speaker 2: but they don't see primary voting. So it's widespread. But
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  Speaker 2: I'll tell you independent voters, I've been organizing independence for
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  Speaker 2: a long time, right, and for years, the dominant experience
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  Speaker 2: was that independence were like a rubber band. They were
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  Speaker 2: moving away from the partisan scrum, like I just can't
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  Speaker 2: hang out. It's allergic. Yeah, I'm allergic. Perfect. What's starting
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  Speaker 2: to happen in very modest ways. I don't want to
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  Speaker 2: overstate it, but you're getting independence saying I can't wipe
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  Speaker 2: my hands of this. Our countries at stake. I've got
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  Speaker 2: to find a way as an independent. I'm not going
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  Speaker 2: to go join Team Blue or Team Ran. I've got
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  Speaker 2: to make my voice her. I've got to engage with candidates.
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  Speaker 2: I have to support things. So we're you know, we've
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  Speaker 2: got these open primaries bills in places like Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania.
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  Speaker 2: Independence are flocking to these state capitals to come testify
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  Speaker 2: in favor of these bills. We're not writing their talking points,
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  Speaker 2: we're not, you know, paying for them to take off
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  Speaker 2: from work. It's not one of those phony, you know,
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  Speaker 2: astroturfy things. Independents are saying, I got to stand up
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  Speaker 2: and do something about this because this has gotten too far.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm of I have I'll admit to a couple
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  Speaker 2: of intellectual sort of contradictions that I that I'm struggling
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  Speaker 2: with on this issue because I'm look I think the
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  Speaker 2: two parties are destroying the republic right now, so hard stop.
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  Speaker 1: That said, I think those two private organizations have a
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  Speaker 1: right to decide who should be representing them on a ballot.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: At the same time, I don't think my tax dollars
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  Speaker 1: should be used to help this private organization decide who
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  Speaker 1: their nominee is. So that's where I struggle. Where I
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  Speaker 1: understand the argument that a political party leader will say, hey,
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  Speaker 1: you know, look, we're a private organization. We should be
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  Speaker 1: able to decide who we want as our representative. And
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, that's fine, but you have created a system
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  Speaker 1: where I can't even have representation as an independent voter.
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  Speaker 1: There's no party that will speak to me. Now, I
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: could argue, at least New York State makes it easy
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  Speaker 1: to start parties and you could actually have a ballot line.
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  Speaker 1: And so if you're going to close your primary, you
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: better make it easy for me to get on the ballot.
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  Speaker 1: In another way, you better make it easy for me
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  Speaker 1: as a voter to be able to have some choice here.
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  Speaker 1: So I guess that's the you know, that's sort of
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  Speaker 1: the philosophical issue I struggle with, in that I have empathy.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I think a private organization should decide who their standard parents.
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  Speaker 2: I do too. I don't see what you're saying as
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  Speaker 2: a contradiction. In some ways, I think that you know,
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  Speaker 2: and sometimes people they get angry with me for this
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  Speaker 2: because I fundamentally see the value of open primaries not
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: as a specific policy that gets enacted, but more as
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  Speaker 2: a provocation to have that conversation what is the proper
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  Speaker 2: role of the political parties right now? They are both
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: the umpires and the players. They are the gatekeepers and
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: the competitors. And I think that we've got to have
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  Speaker 2: a national conversation about that because it doesn't work. It
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  Speaker 2: just doesn't work. So I don't think that's a contradiction.
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  Speaker 2: And in fact, if the only value of open primaries
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  Speaker 2: is saying, maybe these party primaries, if they want to
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  Speaker 2: keep them members only, which is their right, I agree
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: with you on that they should just do it on
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: their own, done on their own, Like.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: This is my issue, And I think I'm trying to
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: figure out and we've discussed this before, and I assume
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: you're waiting. I know there are legal arguments, speak Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I don't see how this isn't an easy equal protection
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  Speaker 1: argument when it comes to close primary. Yeah, we'll make
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: you that taxpayer money. Yeah, we're making the equal protection
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: argument in Pennsylvania. We're making the right to vote argument
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: in Maryland.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a clause in the Constitution of Maryland
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: which says all citizens of Maryland have the right to
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: vote in every election. That's pretty cut and dry, and
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: it's funny.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: You know, our constitution, the federal constitution does not have
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a right to vote.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: No, but how many states do? Yeah, I may state constitutions.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: I think it's about it. I think it's about a
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: third of them. And also there's a there's a clause
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: in many Western states called the anti donation clause, which
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: came during when when they were using public funds to
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: build p the railroads and basically says you can't use
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: taxpayer funding for purely private purposes. And so we're looking
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: at we're probing legally at all these vulnerabilities taxpayer funding
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: for private elections, use of taxpayer funding, equal protection, right
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: to vote, and we'll see what we break through.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: It's interesting because it's an argument that I think can
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: get your Neil Gore such is so the world, Like,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I think this isn't just a left wing argument. I
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: think there's some libertarian conservative arguments about this that a
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: gorse such would be there. It is notable to me
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: that there are more democratic parties that are open to
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: open primaries than state Republican parties. And what's funny about
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: that is I remember when the movement was exactly reversed
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: in the nineties, where in the nineties it was state
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Republican parties wanting to open up. They weren't at that time.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: They thought, hey, we need to expand our voting roles
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: we need and now it's Democrats in more states, at
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: least in red states. They're suddenly going no, no, no, no,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: we want open primaries. Now you only get support when
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: a party's in trouble.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Yep. No, it's very it's very confusing to people because
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: you're right, I mean the Democratic Party of Utah, South DAKOTAHOLMA.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: And what I always say is it's not much of
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: a bargain to be able to vote in the primary
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: of that has no consequences at all. It's like you
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: get to choose which person loses to the Republican you know.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: And also, the Democrats are some of our fiercest opponents
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: in places like Florida. In New Jersey and New York,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: you know, and they're strong. Why are they fighting in Florida?
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, the Florida Democratic Party is easily the
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: worst run state party organization of all the fifty states
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: and has been for some time. When you look at
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: you did it as a I always say, if you
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: did it as baseball statistics sort of the political the
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: amount of vote a generic Democrat gets versus the effectiveness
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: or effectiveness of their party. The Florida Democratic Party would
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: like be head and shoulders the worst performer of all
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: of them. I can't believe they fight this well, you know,
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  Speaker 2: it's one of those things, Chuck, that you see this
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: in state after state where if you have a U
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: because Florida is one of those states that for decades
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: had actual competitive general elections, right, it went back and forth,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: and as things start to go red or go blue. Right, logically,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: you'd think the losing party would say, let's connect with
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: the independence to get back at least to where we were.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: And there's a lot of logic to that, and they
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: end up they always do the exact opposite. They what
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: they end up doing is saying we're on the way down.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: We have to hold on even stronger to the fiefs
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: that we have left right, and that's unfortunate because there
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: are I mean, the Democratic Party of Florida. I have
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of contacts down there, and they're just saying
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: the shell of itself, it's it's it's, it's just been,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: it's there's a lot of issues.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: They basically, you know, if they don't get a Mike
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg check, they are not they're irrelevant. They don't get
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: a John Morgan check, they're irrelevant. And if that's their
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: entire party budget is based on begging Michael Bloomberg or
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: begging John Morgan, you're just like, I think you've got
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a I think I think you've got a bigger problem
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: than that you were saying. You've been involved in the
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: independent voter movement for some time. The Independence Party of
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: New York, if I'm not mistaken, was sort of an
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: offshoot of Perro's Reform Party.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Is that right? Yeah? Yeah, I know many of them
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: are still active around them. I don't think any I mean,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: I think the Independence Party of Oregon has a different
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: origin story, but might have been connected to Perro. I
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: think there are a couple of reform parties, like in
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: South Carolina. H actually the Reform Party of South Carolina
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: just merged with the Forward Party. But pretty much the
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Reform party infrastructure has been either we either we did
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: ourselves in or we were done in, and it was
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: usually some combination of our own stupidity and external forces
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: as well that kind of knocked us out.
• 19:15
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• 21:02
  Speaker 1: because you know it does. Look, we've we've seen each
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: other at some of these uh sort of I don't
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: know what to call them, gatherings of sort of reformers,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: you know, people that are that are I don't want
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: to call them nonpartisan because some people are partisan in there,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: but sort of, but basically the political reformer set, some
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: media people like myself, some some folks who have been
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: in the independent side of the movement for a long time,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: and frankly some wayward Dems and Republicans now who feel
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: as if, hey, this this uh, this this extremism that's
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: taking place, there needs to be a check here. Never
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: has there been a opportunity that I think exists right
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: now for this sort of moment for an independent or
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: a third party. And yet the deeper you dive into
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: this group of voters who refuse to register with either party,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: it is hard to get them excited about some of
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: these reform efforts that, frankly, we have to be implemented
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: before we can give them, before they get the the
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the influence that they deserve. Yeah, and I think that
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: we have to look in the mirror.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: I think there is a mistake that is pretty ingrained
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: in the as you describe it, the reform movement is
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: not really still neat and clean. It's kind of a no.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Because look, you and I know people that are just look,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: it's campaign finance that's the problem.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's a problem. I agree with.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: It's no, it's the primary system that's the problem. Yeah, right, No,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: you're right about that. It's the you know, it's sort
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of And I think that's always another issue is that
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: every everybody in that room, and I'm one of them,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: we all have our own theory of the case, and
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: everybody wants their theory of the case to be the center, right,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: And I.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Think that and again I'm of this movement. I'm not
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: trying to distance myself, but I think there's two things
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: that we haven't grappled with. One is there is this default,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: lazy way of understanding independent voters as in the middle
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: and moderate, and I think it's it's dead wrong. But
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: it's not just I'm not saying our taxonomy has to
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: be better. I'm saying there's huge implications if you relate
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: to an emerging constituency, as as as if it's driving
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: force is ideology, it's not moderates these people, independents are
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: all over the place. What they're reacting to, in my opinion,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: is dog whistle politics. They want complexity, they want diversity,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: they want temperament.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: They're not necessarily but everybody mistakens it for ideology.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: It's exactly. It's it's a you know, I get mad
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: when people call me a centrist, to say, I'm not
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: a centrist. I'm an incrementalist.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I just I just know my country's history enough to
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: know that big change has to come with baby You
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: have to do big change in baby steps, right, And
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: it's what the founders intended. It's how the system and
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: you know that gets it the whole. You know, I
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: think the longer I'm I'm in this, you know, in
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: this world, the more I've decided we've just got a
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: basic civics education problem. You know that people don't understand
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the rights that they actually do have in the Constitution.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: They don't quite understand, like and I don't mean it
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: understand and that they don't. You know, it's that we're
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: just not We're teaching it as if it's some relic,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: not if it's it's the active users manual for how
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: to behave and how to get things done in this republic.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Also something I I think there hasn't
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: been adequate research and study and discussion about is that
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: one feature, not the only feature, but one feature of
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: the early nineties was how the American people did things
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: that no one expected them to do. They put term
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: limits on the ballot with no money and no organization.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: They got behind Ross Perot. Remember Paro didn't say I'm
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: running for president. He said to Larry King, if you
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: put me on the ballot, I will run for president.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: He had half a million volunteers in twenty four hours.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: And I think one thing, it's not the only way,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: but one way to look at what you know politics
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: from Clinton and gingrich On, it's been an effort to
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: make sure the independence never do that again. I mean
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: the restrictions, the jerrymandering, the control, the culture, the algorithms,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: all designed to keep independence, you know, not coming together
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: in some ways that shake things up.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Well, look, you know, you talk to Jesse Ventura and
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: his argument will be about this, about this movement for
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a third and independent or a third party. And he
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: believes and obviously his own experience sort of reinforces this belief,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: which is you have to have a charismatic leader and
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: that without a singular carot. And that's what Ross Perot
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: presented Jesse Ventura was that you could argue anytime you've
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: had independence breakthrough, they've had their own sort of state
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: based right, you know, sort of hold on the electorate
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: or something like this. Right, you think that's part of
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the problem. Is this this reform movement lacks a face.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, we lack a lot Chuck Money, I agree
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: with Jesse. I mean you need you need that kind
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: of galvanizing figure. You need, you know, a little flare,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: you need a little and we frankly need a better
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: way to make this mundane matter right, Like you know,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: that's what frustrates me.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: It's like, yes, you know, you know this is you
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: think it's a reform issue. It's more than that. Are
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: do you do?
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: You know why your money is being wasted? It's because
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: of this partisanship.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that sort of thing. Yeah, and look there is
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Again I've been around on this issue for more than
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: twenty years. One of the things that's happened in the
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: last decade is there's been an influx of philanthropic dollars
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: to drive primary reform and other reforms. And that's positive.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: We need funds, we need to be able to do things.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: But one of the I think one of the things
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: we've had to navigate is that philanthropic funders come with
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: an expectation of outcomes. They want certain types of people
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: elected or protected. And I get that this isn't a criticism,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: but if you try to market primary reform as outcome oriented,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: people tune you out.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: No, this is what's happened with the I think with
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: the rank choice voting movement. You know, Look, I think
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: that I think it's there's a few sort of flaws
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: in how it's pitched and how it's understood, But ultimately,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I think the biggest problem with it is that in
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the places that it has that it works it Right now,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party looks like they're on the losing end
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: of this, right Like, that's what they feel is if
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: this has been in some ways targeting them. Now, given
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the rise of the Democratic Socialists on the left, you know,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: I wonder how if some of these attitudes in the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: in the center right change on this issue.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: We'll see. I mean, I think the ranked choice voting
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: movement has made some serious tactical errors in terms of let's.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Talk about that, because you know, you talk to Jared
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Golden and he'll say, first of all, please don't use
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the phrase ranked choice voting.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: He likes incidant runoff, just simply that it's a runoff
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: like it is.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: You know that the minute you tell people rankings, and
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: yet people get it.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: It's not there.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: And if we've been voting this way for two hundred years,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: it probably wouldn't be an issue. But it is new
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: to people and they don't quite fully get it. And
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: me and the news media, we in the news media
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: have not had a there's no easy way to explain,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: you know, to show your work, you know what I mean.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: I always think that election night, you want to be
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: able to show your work. Well, okay, here's the first
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: choice votes. This is our best estimate of the second
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: choice votes. And it's just very hard to do that.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: It is kind of a black box.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's both. There's both the objective reality of
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: it and then there's also the perception of it. And
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: I had this conversation with Rob Ritchie like six or
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: eight years ago. He's one of the tests and Rob,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: for thirty years he's been on this. God love him.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: And you know, I remember how excited he was when Burlington,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Vermont got ranked choice voting and he was like wanting
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: a hotline expose on it, and I teased him about it.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: But the fact is that he has been and they have,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and Tom I told Rob, and he disagreed with me,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: and that's his right. I mean, it's his issue. It's
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: not my issue. I said, if I was in your shoes,
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: I would self consciously not try to enact this in
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: another liberal college town. I would focus on Tulsa, and
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: you know, I would get this and say this is
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: not partisan. Because right now all the advocates for rain
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: choice voting say this is not partisan. But the only
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: places they can point to are liberal college towns plus
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Maine in Alaska, which are barely states. They're kind of outlives, right,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: And I think that that leads into this perception that
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: this is a liberal, progressive reform, which means it can't
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: it doesn't play in three quarters of the country.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Right, No, And well, I mean the fact is what
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: has motivated it's because I think the biggest donors are
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: from the left.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: It's been about quote stopping the far right exactly. Okay,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I get it, but you now have a far left
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: issue like this is exactly you know, and this is
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: so in theory it should be enactual. But you're right,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: they got to go to a conservative community and have it.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: You had the Virginia Republican Party used it, right, but
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: it kept the servative from getting the nomination, which is
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: what conservatives noticed.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: No, exactly, and also I think that I think that again,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: and this is hard, Chuck, I get this, but as
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: a movement, we are very vulnerable to marketing reform as
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: let me tell you the positive outcome that will come
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: from this in a linear fashion, and that is not
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: how political change works. You're so right. You can't sell
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: the outcomes. Nope.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, what you what you're trying to sell is, hey,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: your rights are being violated. And that's the fact, right,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: The rights of a more than a third of the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: country's voters are are not being are not fully available
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: to them because of various rules that either the states
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: or the two parties have created to marginalize.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: This group of Americans.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: And the fight should be about giving them more ability
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: to exercise their civic duty and exercise their right to
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: vote heartstop.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, although I would expand it a little beyond that.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: I agree that the legal exclusion of independent voters is
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: a Jim Crow type exclusion. We need to fight that.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: And it's also a marginalization of Democratic and Republican voters
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: that are more average, They're less fanatical, they're not primary voters,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: they're general election voters. Those people have virtually no say
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: because the country's been divvied up. I mean, just you
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: know this. You look at issue after issue average Americans,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: you get seventy to eighty percent support on a wide
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: range of policies, and yet you can never do anything
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: with those because those voters don't really have much saying.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: So independence, if what is the best move next?
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Is it third party or is it opening up the
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: ballot all party primaries? Like if you were you know,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: if you were advising the Forward Party, or if you
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: were advising what John Morgan is starting. I think he's
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: calling it the common Grounders down in Florida. You know,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: is it to become a party or is it to
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: sort of weaken the other two parties? Right, I'm a
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: mixed mind of it myself. I mean, if you read
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Madison carefully, what Madison wanted was he figured and the
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: reason to always grow the house, for instance, was Hey,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the only thing worse than two factions is one faction.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Like he was like, let's have fifty factions, and the
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: way our system will work, no one faction is going
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: to dominate the country. And that's ultimately what it is.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: And instead, it's very hard to create a new faction
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: outside of Team Blue and Team right right, And that
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: to me is another potential way to go out. So
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I'm like I said, there's a part of me that
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: says I want either no parties or I want fifty parties, right.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, the way I think about this is that
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: we need an environment of creative experimentation to see where
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: the American people want to go. I think there is
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: a strong evidence that people don't want more parties. I mean,
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: the third parties don't do particularly well in any electorals.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: That's an interesting point, yeah, right, But I think they
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: want parties right now. I think they prefer no parties.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: No parties, I think, But I don't think we need
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: to decide. I think we need to run independent candidates,
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: build third parties, change the rules of the game. Look
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: at political reform see what sticks, see what has an impact,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: and also see what combinations of those things have the
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: most impact, and learn from those things and go forward.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: I've been a voice in the reform movement against premature
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: consolidation around you know, kind of like one or two tactics.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I just don't think you say that, because that is
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: the pushback I've gotten from some people as we've tried
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: to come up with a variety of ways to you know,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: how do we empower this sort of middle you know,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: you look at it. I always say this about swing voters.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Swing voters are so important in October to the two parties,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: and when they govern, they're the last people they ever
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: think about. Right, they don't have anybody representing them. Ultimately,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: it's always the special interest groups the far right of
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the far left, special interest groups that that that are
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: inside the speaker's office, so the centate majority of leader's
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: office and dictating things. So there's there's there's that it
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: is we're in your experience where where where do you
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: think there's you know, what states? Are there some better
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: opportunities in some because it feels like maybe breaking through
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: in a few states in people seeing suddenly it will
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: get then it's like, oh, Minnesota gets to do that,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: how come we don't get to do that, you know,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: that sort of mindset.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think there's some really interesting candidates running
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: as independence this year, people except bodnar Out in Missouri, Montana, Montana, Rallery. Yeah,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: that are I think poised with if they get some
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: breaks and the wind blows in their direction, they might
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: do that. I think that we're seeing.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: It's a bad look though, that the independent candidates in
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: South Dakota, Nebraska, and Montana all need one thing to
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: help them, the Democratic to drop out, which then implies
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: that the independent is non independent, right.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: And that's been a concern of mine. Yeah, No, and
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: that's I mean, look, it's not a level playing field.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: It's like really hard to do this stuff. I think
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: also on the reform front, ironically, we're getting a lot
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: of traction in some of these old machine style states
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: like Delaware and Maryland and New York and New Jersey
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: and Massachusetts that.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: By the whole old as sela corridor to Yeah, it's
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: some of the worst voting like access to voting laws
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: that there are. I mean, we were just enfranchising laws.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I always thought we're gonna We're gonna get
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: those breaks west of the Mississippi, and then we'll come
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: ease and it might be that we got our head
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: handed to us west of the Mississippi. I think Florida
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: is going to come back around. I mean, the public
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: support for this in Florida is through the roof. There is.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: There is no doubt there are hard partisans on both
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: sides of the island Florida, but most people move down
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: there are between the thirty five yard lines. There may
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: be slightly more on the right than on the left
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: right now, but they're always there. They don't, you know,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: they don't love overly partisan stuff. It's going to swing.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: It'll swing. Yeah, it may be another cycle or two,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: but it'll swing.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: I think the legal stuff, you know, we're still looking
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: for the best venues. I think there's opportunities to challenge
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: a whole set of of the thing we were talking
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: about early earlier about the undefined role of political parties.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Are they private organizations of like minded citizens or are
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: they quasi governmental gatekeepers that control the rules of the game.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: That's what we want to wedge at from a legal standpoint.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know where we're going to get our breakthrough
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: on that. But I feel like I really think where
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: we are is we have to be experimenting, experimenting and
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: listening to what people say in response to those experiments.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that you're on the side of maybe you know,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: the voters are telling us they want independence, not a
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: third party, which I think some people see the two
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: is the same, and you don't clearly big difference, big difference.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: What do you think that distinction is?
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: They literally just don't like political parties in general, and
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: they just the two parties have so poisoned the idea
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: of an effectiveness of what a political party does.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's twofold. I think among younger
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: voters political parts these are kind of like blockbuster video membership,
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Like it's just it just seems like outdated. I think
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: among older voters, I think there is kind of a
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: healthy philosophical recognition about the power of self interest taking momentum,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: and so they say, hey, I used to vote Democrat
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: because the Democratic Party stood. Now they just stand for themselves,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: and so I'm not going to get behind a third
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: party because they might have the right ideas, they're going
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: to be just like that in twenty years. Self interest
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: has a way of taking over ideals, and so they're like, look,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: let's just elect good people, have them serve for six years,
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: and then put some other good people in there, and
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: not try to codify it into a bureaucracy because it
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: never works.
• 39:49
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  Speaker 1: And yes, I too, am a customer. You see this redistricting,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: it sounded like to me. You see the redistricting, the
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: aggressive redistricting that both parties have chosen to now, you know,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: and they will rationalize it by saying, but the other party,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: but the other party, And yes, I will sit here
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: and acknowledge, yes Trump started it, you know, But I
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: am never going to accept the premise that two wrongs
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: make a right, but this could have some undy. I
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: think you sounds like you're hopeful that it weirdly has
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: some unintended consequences, that it only says more time, how
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: much the two parties are just afraid of the actual voters.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm not a big believer in things
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: have to get worse before they can get better, because
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: things things sometimes get worse and then they get really bad.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: I do think. I do think though, there is there
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: is evidence that as you reduce general election competition to
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: the zero level, there's not what you know, the numbers
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: twenty five districts that are up in the air this year.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I know the Democrats are trying to claim they've put
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: there are forty five in play.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Now you're like, okay, that's that's not.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: A Let's say, let's say you accept that that's still
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: barely basically four hundred, just about four hundred, just under
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: four hundred districts not decided.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: So as you as you basically reduce the map, the
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: control of the nominating system is very important because you
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: don't just want to win those districts. You want your
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: faction of the party to win those districts and So
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: we're seeing this in California where the Democratic Party now
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: that they've now I know it's temporary, but they've eliminated
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: any general election competition at the at the local and
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: at not at the state wide level, but at the
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: local level.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: They want to go back to closed primaries. Oh, they
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: want to get rid of the top two. I mean,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: this is I it is right now. The state party
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: wants nothing to do with this. Nope, I want to
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: get rid of the reforms that don't put it yep.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: Texas Democrats, Texas Republican Party, they want to do the
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: same thing. Even though they have some of the lowest
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: turnout already in the country in the primaries, they want
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: to drive it even lower. Same thing in Alabama and
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: South Carolina. So as you get, you redistrict the whole country.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Control of the primary process is something that partisan consultants
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: and activists and agitators are now starting to pay attention to.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: And I think we're going to we're going to be
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: defense over the next couple of years in some big states. Yeah,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: now I think so too.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: So it you know, so it sounds like, look, you're
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: in all of the above, You're like, look, try this reform,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Try this reform, Try this reform. It sounds like to
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: just sort of whatever it takes to sort of break
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: the doopoly that's your mindset.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: Absolutely and build trust. I mean, I think again, I
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: have fights with my fellow reformers all the time. They
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: want to talk about the merits of the policy. Well,
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: if we do this, if we have proportional representation, we'll
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: get a thirteen percent. And I'm like, does anybody trust you?
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: And the answer is no. The American people don't trust
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: the reform movement. And I'm not saying that to be
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: a critic. I'm saying that earning trust in America is hard.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: And if all we're going to do is hide behind
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: our little data points and our facts and figures and
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: our grafts, people are going to relate to us like
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: we're a bunch of academic nerds that really have nothing
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: to do with their lives.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Boy, were You're so right? So what's the movement need
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: in order to go to the next level? What do
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: you think is missing here?
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think this is a silver bullet,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: but something that I think about every day and I
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: literally start my day. Can I raise sufficient funds to
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: do this is I want to build a network of
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: five to ten million independent voters and do nothing to
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: try to consolidate it into a unified thing, but create
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: it as a heterodox platform for independence being able to
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: insert their voice in some new ways. Because here's the
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: thing I think, and I've seen this in action. When
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: you bring voters into the political discourse that are not
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: reading from Team Blue or Team Red talking points, it
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: just changes everything in ways that are cultural and not
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: reducible to left right policy this or that. It's a
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: new form of political life. And the more that we
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: can get this, it's an example. What's your best example
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: of that. We had legislative hearings in Actually, i'll tell
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: you a Florida story. So every twenty years, Florida has
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: a constitutional revision process and they do public hearings throughout
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: the state, and we mobilized independent voters to come to
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: these hearings and speak out. And we've been doing this
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: now in New York and Delaware and Maryland and this
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: and that, and the Commission knew nothing about this issue,
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: and we mobilized about thirty forty independents to come and
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: show up. And we've got this on video. For every
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: person that we brought, five independents got there on their
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: own and stood up and talked so passionately about the
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: experience of going to vote and being told you're not
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: allowed to vote, and it changed the whole commission. These commissioners,
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: none of them went into there. They're all experts in
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: housing and finance and issues, and to hear people say
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: I was turned away from voting because I don't want
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: to join an organization. We almost got on the ballot
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: in Florida. We ended up having to go petition, but
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: we almost got this commission to put it on the ballot.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: And we're seeing that in Maryland, in Delaware and New York.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: It's just when you get an independent voter saying I
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: can't vote, it changes things.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: So I think, you know, it's funny and this gets
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: You're getting it at something that I'm hopeful that we
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: can find some money to do. In the same way
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: that Pugh did a typology report on the entire American election.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Saw that.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: I looked at sort of what I thought were the more,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: the more the least partisan groups. There was one blue
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: leaning group, one red leaning group, and then frankly, the
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: disassociated the ones that have decided to tune out. But
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: if you put them together, it was thirty eight percent.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: What's a big arguably the plurality, okay, compared to the
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: three that leaned blue and the three typologies that leaned
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: are that leaned red. And what I think we're missing
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: in this movement of independence is a better understanding of
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: why people choose to be independent, right, and I have
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: a you know, I think you and I anecdotally know
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: that there is a group of independents who are Bernie
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Sanders people. There's a group of independents who are the
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Ron and Ran Paul people. They do occupy. You know,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: this has always been you know, because by the way
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: both of those entities. You know, before there was Bernie,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: it was Ralph Nader, and before it was Rand Paul,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: it was Ron Paul. You know, I saw it in
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: the Paro movement. The pro movement had pieces of both
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: of the the Natorites and the Paulites. Right, basically your
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: liberal libertarians and your conservative libertarians. I've always said Nator
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: is kind of a libertarian zone. Yes, he believed in
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: more government regulation, but he ultimately was he wanted to
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: provide more freedom and access to stuff to the average person.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: And but I but I don't think we know for
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: sure why everybody chooses, because I'll tell you I have
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: I have lived in four or five different communities. When
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: I lived in d C. I did not want to
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: be a registered Democrat. And you know, I was in journalism.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: I just didn't want I just didn't want that. And
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: but if you didn't register it as a Democrat, you
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: didn't have any choice. Like I remember, I went in
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: to vote and all my choices were like the a
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Mojo party back in the day if they used to
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: have this, you know, and then there was a State's
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Rights I think a statehood party, not states rights Jesus
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: in DC. Can you imagine state hood party? And so
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: if I were in a state, I love living in
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: a state that I get to pick what primary I
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: live in. I feel very powered as a voter in
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: the state of Virginia. But my father, who was a Conservative,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: always was a registered Democrat in Florida because he said,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: I want to have a choice in who I and
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: who the Democratic nominee is. Because in my back then
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: at Miami Dade County, the Democrats, whoever the Democratic nominee was,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: was going to be that. I am curious as to
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: why independent voters choose not to you know, basically default
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: towards the majority party just to have a say, right,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. My point is is that I
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: have a feeling we don't understand who the independents are
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: As with me totally. I mean the lack of curiosity
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: among academics and pundits. And the reason is that is
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: this this polling question. After you say I'm an independent,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: the poster says, do you lean Democrats? You Republicans? Then
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: they don't ask him any more questions.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Right, I want to know why did you choose not
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: to register with the party? You registered with a party before.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: That's interesting to me. You left right? You know, well,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I think it's more. You know, one of the things
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: that I've learned over the last thirty five years is
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: that the party out of power usually loses more people
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: to the independent column than the party in power. Right,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're quote winning, you want to be
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: with the winning team. If you're losing, you know, and
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: so like, I'm not surprised that all of the polling
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: I've seen so far this summer in battleground states, Democrats
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: are doing really well with independence, particularly in your Iowa's,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: your Mains, your Texas. Is now the question is are
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: those real independents or are those Democrats who were embarrassed
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: to be registered Democrats anymore? Right that sort of mindset
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: or you know, and we've had we've seen this phenomenon
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: going the other way. The reason Romney won independence in
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: twenty twelve is that a whole bunch of Republicans left
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: the party after twenty oh eight, you know, and we're
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: sort of so there was a right.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: Lean to the independent. Sure, you know thing.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: But the point is is that I think, boy, there's
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: no you tell me who tracks this, Nobody the sort
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: of the typology of the independent voter.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: No. I mean, we just did a poll in New
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: York City where we asked registered Democrats why did you
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: register Democrat? And found that forty percent of them say, oh, well,
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: I'm not a Democrat. I'm an independent, but I want
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: to be able to vote in the primaries. But that
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: kind of survey and pole, we need to be doing
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: that in every community across the country. We need to
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: be doing serious analysis of why this trend is happening
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: instead of you know, we did here's the data. Ten
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: thousand people a week changed their registration. We need to
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: speak to here.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: You and I both are friendly with mister Kevin Sheiky
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: and Michael Bloomberg, who may or may not have the
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: resource to do this. Hey, mister mayor, we would love
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: to find out who the independents are in this country.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: This is important data. We probably need a think tank
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: of sorts that's kind of a Pew Center. I agore
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: registered Independence that track this stuff. I think, you know,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: and then you know, if the two parties want it,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: you sell it to them for extraordinarily high prices. But
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: these are things that I think we need to know
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: better to understand, you know, frankly, to force the two
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: major parts they knew, they need to understand who the
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: independent voter is totally if they're going to govern better.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: Right, No, it's I mean there is the Independence Center
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: which is starting to do some interesting.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Point it is and we and we you know they've
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: been you know, they I think they need some more money.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: God love you. Right, there's there's the Arizona Arizona State
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: University Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy. They've done
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: some interesting This is Jackie Sale and Tom Riley. They've done,
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: for example, an interesting analysis of the social media habits
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: of independence. But these are just tip of the iceberg.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: There needs to be a flood of polling research analysis.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Christian gross Out of the USC discovered that in closed
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: primary states, general election turnout among independents is twenty percent
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: lower than an open primary states, not in the primary,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: in the general. You're like, well, what's that about. Well,
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: when people are getting the game and then there's no
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: general election, why would you expect them to vote? But
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: we need we need five hundred times the amount of research,
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: scholarship examination of this trend. You're right, all right, what
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: does success look like for you? This year we had
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: we had a back to the goal of what you're
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: trying to do. You have big win in New Mexico's.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Big win in New Mexico and we and we know
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: that sounds small, but my goodness, it was like a
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: ten year fight, right, Yeah, it was a ten yure fight.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: And here's the thing, and I'm really using this to
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: educate our supporters and donors. Getting the law changed was
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: step one we need to be So we ran a
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: campaign in New Mexico to educate voters independents that they
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: now have this right to vote because the Secretary of
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: State wouldn't do it. In fact, we looked at the
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: websites of the thirty two counties. Half of them still
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: said on their website independence can't vote. They wouldn't even
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: change their homepage. So we managed to drive eleven percent
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: turnout the first primary. You could say that's terrible for
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: a first time. That's great, thirty eight thousand people. Now
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: we have to double that in twenty twenty eight. Now
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: we have to double that. In California, you're now have
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: forty percent turnout in primaries. They've had a nonpartisan system
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: for sixteen years. Now, that's what it takes. And we're
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: just scratching the surface of that. So I think what
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: victory looks like is promoting all the work being done
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: to drive turnout in primaries. And it's not just us,
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: it's Chloe Ager's and Best of Tennessee, it's the Builder's
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: Movement in Texas. It's beyond November, which Owen LOFTUS has started.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of looking at this. We just got
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: DC funded, so now we have an open primary in
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: DC that'll happen in twenty twenty eight. We're having so
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: much fun in New York City where Mayor Mount Damie
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: has appointed a Charter revision Commission, and all these independents
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: are coming and saying, hey, I can't vote, and there's
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: now one point two million of us. We've got bills
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania. Our legal work is really we're
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: waiting for a breakthrough. We have a ballot referendum up
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: in Massachusetts. But honestly, that's.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: A big one. I'm glad you brought up that. Yeah,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: so Massachusetts. You know, a lot of my friends on
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: the right like to say, Louis, you know, those of
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: you complaining about jerry mandering in Texas and Alabama, look
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: at Massachusetts and I'm like, well, okay, you know this
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: top going to a top two system, right, that's what
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: they're The Massachusetts referendum is about moving to a top
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: two so that you might have in these super blue districts,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: real November competition between you know, one flavor of Democrat
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: versus another flavor of Democrat.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in a state in which seventy percent of the
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: state legislature ran on a posed like what is it
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: in Massachusetts?
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Is one of these weird outliers on party registration there
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: is is it fifty percent that are registered independent?
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: Is it over the fifty mark? Sixty? For it is astonishing? Yeah, no,
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: because independence, like in Virginia, you get to pick a
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: party ballot. You actually have more mobility as you picked
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: a party than if you pick a party. So it's
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: incentivized for people to do that.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: Well, the home of Paul Revere to have that exactly,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: I think the independent should have that kind of But
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: if we could move to a top two system, you know,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: to me, you go to top two in every partisan
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: state and you have you really have opened up the
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: door to competition. And if you believe in democracy in
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: the in the markets, then you should believe in competition.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: I agree. No, I think top two is a real
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: game changer because the other thing about the top two is.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: By the way, is this ballot in Massachusetts on the
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: November or is on their November primary ballot?
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, November's on the November ballot? Okay, good? Yeah. Yeah.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: Sometimes people criticize top two because they say, well, it
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: just means that you know what, what imagine if you're
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: a Republican and who appears on the ballot is Democrat
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: A and Democrat B. Doesn't that mean you have no choice?
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: I'm like, no, it's the exact opposite. Instead of voting
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: for an irrelevant Republican in a blue district where no
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: one cares, you now get a voice. I mean, like Oakland,
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: the most liberal district in America. Fifty percent of the
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: voters are independence and Republicans. Yeah, and under the old system,
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: they had absolutely no say. Now they are kingmakers. They
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: decide which Democrat elects represents that district. And that's a
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: game changer. And you know, by the way, there's distinctions.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: Now we now see this. I think, you know, it's funny.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: I think the nineties and the first decade of the
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: twenty first century created this illusion that there was a
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: generic dem and a generic are And I think now
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: we are back to realizing, Boy, there are some real
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: distinctions between a John Thune Republican and a Donald Trump Republican,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: between a Andy Basheer Democrat, and between a Zon Mamdani Democrat.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: And maybe that you know, And by the way, if
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: the two parties had ideological diversity, there might not be
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: so many independents sitting out there. But for the longest time,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: there's been no ideological diversity within the two flights.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: No, that's true. It's also I think that a fascinating
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: aspect of, for example, the debate between DSA and the moderates.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: But you know is that the base of the DSA
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: is all supportive of open primaries. They're young, they're independent,
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: they're new. The leadership is not. That's interesting.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Whereas well, the leadership sees an opportunity to take over
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: the Democrat Party, and that's what they want to do, right,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: And they want to keep the electorate as small as possible,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: right because they benefit with small exactly, particularly New City.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: Right. And to their credit, a lot of people smarter
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: than me have pointed this out. You can criticize the
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: DSA all you want. They went out and knocked on
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: the doors of the establishment Democrats sat around and said,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: we don't have to do anything. We run this.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: I can't believe there's not more angry Democrats if they
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: don't like what's happened in New York City. Why Jeffreys
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: and Schumer? Why aren't there even more anger at those
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: two because they literally did nothing when when Andrew Cuomo
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: showed up, which was clearly a disaster for the party
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: who thought that was a good idea. And those two
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: pretended they had nothing to do with that in New
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: York City or shielded Joe Biden from any competition. I mean,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: I wrote a column about this, Chuck, and no one
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: listened to me. I said, if Joe Biden wants to
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: run for reelection after telling the American people I'm a
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: one term president, what he should do is say, look,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: I've changed my mind. I think I should run again.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: But I want you to answer that question.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: I'm inviting six to ten prominent Democrats to come in.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Let's have a fight. Let's have a primary. If I win,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: support me. If someone else does, I'll back them. They
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: would to beat Trump with fifty five percent of the vote.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: No, it's just I mean, this is what happens when
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: people put themselves before the party, and I think I
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: think you had that situation. I'm gonna get you out
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: of here on this. Does this reform movement need a
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: presidential candidate in twenty eight to be sort of a
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: siren singer a little bit or not.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, we do, And I think though that we need
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: to be open minded as to what that means. Does
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: that mean running an independent. Maybe does that mean forming
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: a coalition like we did with Obama? Maybe does that
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: mean maybe setting up a process in which we get
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: to do multiple endorsements. We can do endorsements in the
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: primary of of the major party candidates, and then endorsements general.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: It's almost like you're making an endorsement based on who's
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: going to look out for the best interests of the
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: independent and reform movement in this primary or that primary exactly.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: So you might say, hey, this is a movement that
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: supports you know, uh, let's say Glenn Youenkin and Andy
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: Basheer because they both have pledged to be open primary
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: guys or something like that, right, yeah, and speak out
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: for independence and speak out for this new constituency that's
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: being born. That's not yet. We don't have our sea
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: legs yet. We're still kind of wobbily.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: And I think we need to be open minded to
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: all kinds of creative ways to play, but we need
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: to play in presidential politics. If we're if we're on
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: the sidelines, then you know, it's the It's funny.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know, you could sit here and I
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: could make a tactical argument that that's a waste of money.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: That that's going to suck up a lot of resources
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: that might be better used to let's you know these look,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: you know, let's keep keep making progress state by state.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: But the way our attention economy works, if you're not
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: in the conversation, you're not you might as well not be,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: you know, doing anything. And so I I've reluctantly sort
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: of agree that you kind of need that.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: I think you need the pied piper. Yeah, and could
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: we create an all independence primary? You know, maybe there's
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: some way that we can organize that. A lot of
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: people are.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: Talking about my old friend Doug Bailey, That's what he
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: kept trying to do. You have that Internet primary?
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: You know? No, And I think that I think the
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: not the mistake because how could you We had to
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: learn this and I know that's try. No, you did
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: in some ways.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: Look what they did no eight, what Doug didn't know
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: eight in twelve is why you know, all of us
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: are thinking about this differently going into twenty twenty.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: Peter Ackerman did and all kinds of right. I think
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: the issue though, is can we create a primary system
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: that is not linearly linked to a specific third party running.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: I think it's more could you do it more like, hey, independence,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: what do you think about the Democratic candidates, what do
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: you think about the Republican candidates? What do you think
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: about the independent and third party candidates? And let's promote
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: that and then maybe what the implications are I don't know,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: but there's a lot of people talking about ways that
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: we can get the independent sensibility into the presidential mix.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: And we'll see, we'll see what that what that looks like.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: Well, look, I am h I am not going to
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: hide my hope to try to figure out how to
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: get to expand the aperture. Frankly, whether it's American media,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: because that's another problem, right, the mainstream media doesn't necessarily
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: only sees independent voters as the swing voter rather than
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: as the main you know, as the star voter, if
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: you will, whatever it takes to expand this aperture, because
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: the only way the two parties are going to self
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: correct is if they're threatened from the outside.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: I agree. That was to me, the greatest lesson.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: I learned from Paro, you know, is sort of when
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: you really look back, Parot did a great job of
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: making both parties take a second look at themselves.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: And I could argue.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: That he created a Democratic party at least in that era,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: that was more fiscally sensitive to voters, and he created
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: a Republican party that over time became more sensitive to
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: the union movement and to workers that you now see today.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: But it took Parole essentially almost eating their lunch right
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: on both of those issues and beating both parties for
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: them to realize, oh, we can't ignore every faction of
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: inside our tent.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: You know. I think also what's so helpful for people
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: to learn is that Parote did all what you're describing
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: and didn't win a single elector vote. Oh.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think he has to win to fix I now,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: it's such an important point, Like, you know, political movements
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: don't have to win to succeed.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: Nope. No, In some ways, there's a there is a
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: way to DSA Argua believe. Yeah. Yeah, look at the DSA.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: You know they're they're not winning much.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: They really aren't winning much outside of New York City,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: but man it you know, they know they're picking and
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: choosing their spots very carefully, and it's smart because it
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: looks like they're building momentum. I mean I look at
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: what mom, Donnie. You know, the fact is he stayed
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: away from congressional districts where his endorsement might have been
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: a problem.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it's very clear he's very very shrewd. But
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: you're you know, you're, you're one hundred percent right. The
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: independent reform movement, we need to be very creative about
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight because it's going to be a wild year. No,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: it is a lot of different players on the board,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: and we need to be interacting with all of them.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Got interact and not allow some rich person to hijack
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: what what you and others are doing too. That's the
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: other that's always my other fear too, John, This was
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: great thanks to open primaries.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: You guys are fighting all over. It is it is.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, you literally are fighting one party in one state,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: another party in another state. I mean there are many
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: reform movements who claim they're fighting both parties. You're actually,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: i think in court against both parties. Yes, and it's
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: it's not a neat and clean fight. You get punched
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: in the face all the time, that's right, But you
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: get back up, you get that's the thing.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: You get back up. John, Thanks a lot, Thanks John