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Bipartisan Data Center Backlash Could Help China Win AI Race · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
0:04
Speaker 2: Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
0:07
Speaker 2: and Jim Garrity of National Review.
0:10
Speaker 1: Free Martini's coming up.
0:13
Speaker 3: So glad you he're with us for the Monday edition
0:15
Speaker 3: of the Three Martini Lunch. A lot to get to today,
0:18
Speaker 3: And Jim, we keep hearing about all the energy on
0:21
Speaker 3: the far left in the Democratic Party. All these self
0:24
Speaker 3: avowed socialists. Some of them align with the Democratic Socialists
0:27
Speaker 3: of America.
0:28
Speaker 1: You know.
0:29
Speaker 3: We got a little bit of a taste of that
0:30
Speaker 3: with a couple of mayoral races last year. Mamdanie in
0:33
Speaker 3: New York City certainly one of them. Another one was
0:37
Speaker 3: socialist Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, who was elected last year
0:41
Speaker 3: after a sterling resume of not much. I think she
0:44
Speaker 3: lived in her parents' basement for most of her life,
0:46
Speaker 3: or something close to that. But the people of Seattle
0:49
Speaker 3: are not very fond of her anymore, and were only
0:51
Speaker 3: a few months into this administration. A lot of this
0:54
Speaker 3: probably stems from the city's really poor handling of a
0:57
Speaker 3: July twenty sixth shooting at the Bite of Sea Seattle
1:00
Speaker 3: food festival, But of course there was also that moment
1:03
Speaker 3: earlier in her administration, where they were saying, hey, you
1:06
Speaker 3: know a lot of wealthy people could leave Washington if
1:09
Speaker 3: this whole plan of an entire household grossing more than
1:13
Speaker 3: a million dollars in income comes in and that gets
1:15
Speaker 3: taxed at a pretty hefty rate. And her response was well, by, well,
1:19
Speaker 3: that's showing up now in some polls. Two separate poles
1:22
Speaker 3: released in Seattle show her deeply underwater. A new Change
1:27
Speaker 3: Washington pole never heard of that one, but conducted August
1:29
Speaker 3: thirteenth to seventeenth, found only twenty two percent of Seattle
1:33
Speaker 3: registered voters approve of Wilson's job performance, while sixty six
1:36
Speaker 3: percent disapprove and twelve percent unsure. Meanwhile, the sixty six
1:40
Speaker 3: who disapproved, sixty percent said she should resign or be
1:43
Speaker 3: removed from office, compared with thirty percent who said she
1:48
Speaker 3: should remain in ten percent who weren't sure. Meanwhile, a
1:51
Speaker 3: separate poll conducted by Fulcram's Strategy Group for the Seattle
1:55
Speaker 3: Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, five hundred people questioned, found that
1:59
Speaker 3: Wilson's favor ability had fallen to thirty seven percent, down
2:02
Speaker 3: from fifty seven percent in April to twenty point collapse
2:05
Speaker 3: in four months. Sixty two percent now view Wilson unfavorably,
2:09
Speaker 3: including forty two percent who view her strongly unfavorably. So,
2:13
Speaker 3: you know, the Canarian the coal mine is out there,
2:15
Speaker 3: people considering voting for a socialist just because they want
2:18
Speaker 3: to change who's in power, or change something else, or
2:21
Speaker 3: maybe pursue some sort of leftist agenda. Careful who you
2:25
Speaker 3: want to win, because sometimes you get it.
2:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you look at the problems of Seattle. They
2:30
Speaker 2: may be more intense in certain categories than other cities,
2:33
Speaker 2: but they're not really different from the problems you'll find
2:36
Speaker 2: in lots of other cities. Because of the tech boom
2:39
Speaker 2: over the last really, you know, thirty, some might even
2:42
Speaker 2: say forty years, a lot of money has come into Seattle.
2:44
Speaker 2: Microsoft is a bunch of other tech companies, and.
2:47
Speaker 1: Usually that's good.
2:48
Speaker 2: But a lot of money coming in means that increases
2:50
Speaker 2: the amount of money people have to spend. And if
2:52
Speaker 2: you don't increase sa housing or places for people to
2:57
Speaker 2: live or stuff, then all of a sudden, demand is high,
3:00
Speaker 2: i supply is low, prices go up, and Seattle has
3:03
Speaker 2: become one of the most expensive cities in the country,
3:07
Speaker 2: people get frustrated, like, oh, well, we're gonna elect a socialist,
3:09
Speaker 2: We're gonna put somebody on the left is gonna finally dah.
3:12
Speaker 2: Those darn big corporations, those rich people, you know, they
3:16
Speaker 2: play on this class warfare and we're seeing here and
3:20
Speaker 2: the other example. Moment you mentioned this as a potential
3:23
Speaker 2: topic idea today, Greg I started thinking about Brandon Johnson
3:26
Speaker 2: out in Chicago, another candidate who was not technically DSA.
3:30
Speaker 2: He actually had requested to not be on the DSA
3:33
Speaker 2: line for obscure Chicago election reasons, but basically very far left.
3:37
Speaker 1: Now.
3:37
Speaker 2: I believe earlier in the year he had a job
3:39
Speaker 2: approval rating of something somewhere in the teens. The most
3:43
Speaker 2: recent one that I saw in July, he has his
3:45
Speaker 2: job approval rating has skyrocketed to twenty six percent. So
3:49
Speaker 2: three out of four Chicagoan's like, no, I don't think
3:52
Speaker 2: he's doing a particularly good job. Just thirteen percent want
3:55
Speaker 2: him to run for his second term. So I would
3:58
Speaker 2: ask the voters of Chicago. I would, But this is
4:00
Speaker 2: after Lori Lightfoot, who was not exactly a you know,
4:03
Speaker 2: moderate centrist, but not left enough. Apparently she only served
4:07
Speaker 2: one term because brand you know, voters are and I
4:09
Speaker 2: kind of want to ask the voters of Chicago and
4:11
Speaker 2: also the voters of Seattle, and really the voters of
4:14
Speaker 2: any city that is like either elected a socialist mayor
4:17
Speaker 2: or is thinking about electing a socialist mayor, why.
4:19
Speaker 1: Do you think this keeps happening?
4:21
Speaker 2: Why do you think that these people keep coming along
4:23
Speaker 2: and saying, trust me, I will make it better, I
4:26
Speaker 2: will make government bigger, I will make taxes higher.
4:29
Speaker 1: When corporations threatened to leave, I will say bye.
4:31
Speaker 2: As as the mayor of Seattle did said, why, like
4:36
Speaker 2: is that getting you where you want to go? How's
4:37
Speaker 2: that working out for you? As doctor Phil used to say,
4:39
Speaker 2: And the answer is like, it's working out pretty badly.
4:41
Speaker 2: Like you all wait to say, Wait, we elected this
4:44
Speaker 2: far left person and they're chasing out companies and jobs
4:46
Speaker 2: are going down and obviously shootings.
4:48
Speaker 1: Gee, I think maybe maybe you got to crack down
4:50
Speaker 1: on crime.
4:50
Speaker 2: Maybe you can't have the chop the Capitol Hill revolutionary
4:54
Speaker 2: you know, enclave or whatever that was. It's a the
4:58
Speaker 2: only like, the only thing we have on the right
5:00
Speaker 2: going for us is that our ideas work. We're not popular,
5:03
Speaker 2: they're not cool. We're not the free ice cream party.
5:06
Speaker 2: We're not stylish. Our candidates are usually a bunch of spazes.
5:10
Speaker 2: We recite a lot of numbers. We're boring. But the
5:13
Speaker 2: only thing we have going for us is in the work.
5:15
Speaker 2: And the other side's ideas constantly don't work, and they
5:18
Speaker 2: all it goes terrible and they're like, well, clearly we
5:20
Speaker 2: need someone.
5:20
Speaker 1: Who's even more socialists. We need someone who's even more
5:22
Speaker 1: to the left.
5:23
Speaker 2: No, no, stop doing the same thing over and over again.
5:26
Speaker 2: So it might seem strange that this is a good martini,
5:29
Speaker 2: but like, look, the voters of Seattle are learning the
5:32
Speaker 2: hard way that these you know, Charlottean's that come along
5:34
Speaker 2: and say, ah, I'll fix everything by being more socialist.
5:37
Speaker 1: Now, it does not get you where you want to go.
5:39
Speaker 3: If the people of Seattle, one of the most left
5:42
Speaker 3: wing cities in the country, are starting to see the
5:44
Speaker 3: light on hopefully socialism in general, maybe they just don't
5:47
Speaker 3: like her and they're some of these people who say, oh, well,
5:50
Speaker 3: real socialism and Seattle's never been tried.
5:53
Speaker 2: Well, if real socialism has never been tried, what does
5:56
Speaker 2: that say about that idea?
5:57
Speaker 1: Right?
5:58
Speaker 2: Apparently, like old fusion is easier to do than get
6:02
Speaker 2: true socialism enacted. So at this point it becomes this
6:05
Speaker 2: imaginary fairy idea because every time it gets tried, it
6:09
Speaker 2: gets to oh, it's not true socialism unless it comes
6:11
Speaker 2: from the Socialisium region of France. It's only considered sparkling statism,
6:17
Speaker 2: as to paraphrase the line from Wayne's.
6:20
Speaker 1: World, exactly exactly.
6:21
Speaker 3: And obviously mayors and governors can do more than a
6:24
Speaker 3: single member of the legislatures. We'll talk about in another martini.
6:27
Speaker 3: But regardless of the office, be very very careful about
6:30
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8:01
Speaker 3: All right, Jim, there's not much that Republicans and Democrats
8:03
Speaker 3: agree on these days, particularly as we get closer and
8:05
Speaker 3: closer to election day. But one of the things we're
8:08
Speaker 3: starting to see some alignment on, which may not be
8:11
Speaker 3: good for the long term, is both of them are
8:13
Speaker 3: starting to hate data centers. Now, you and I live
8:16
Speaker 3: in north of Virchatney, where I think we were kind of,
8:18
Speaker 3: I don't know, ground zero, but really close to the
8:21
Speaker 3: initial surge of data centers. They're all over around here,
8:23
Speaker 3: and people started to get tired of them because you know,
8:26
Speaker 3: they make noise in the neighborhoods, they take up a
8:29
Speaker 3: lot of power, they take up a lot of water,
8:30
Speaker 3: depending on how you construct them. But at the same time,
8:34
Speaker 3: you got to have data centers. So the kind of
8:37
Speaker 3: how the Internet run, and especially as emerging AI technology
8:40
Speaker 3: comes in and everybody wants to win or at least
8:42
Speaker 3: they should want to win the AI race against China,
8:44
Speaker 3: which seems inevitable, you gotta have them. But now there's
8:48
Speaker 3: this again, this bipartisan push for not to have data centers.
8:51
Speaker 3: Political with a story in this Today saying the intensifying
8:54
Speaker 3: late summer backlash against data centers is inspiring panic amongst
8:57
Speaker 3: some corners of the tech sector, and it fears that
8:59
Speaker 3: the the industry is mishandling a political crisis that will
9:02
Speaker 3: stretch into twenty twenty eight and beyond. Those worries have
9:05
Speaker 3: deepened in recent weeks as politicians across the political spectrum
9:08
Speaker 3: embraced various curbs on data center construction, with Republican Texas
9:12
Speaker 3: Governor Greg Abbott, potential Democratic White House hopeful Josh Shapiro,
9:15
Speaker 3: Governor of Pennsylvania, and Michigan GOP Senate nominee Mike Rodgers
9:19
Speaker 3: being among the latest to sign on. And I would
9:20
Speaker 3: also add that shared Brown is making this a huge
9:22
Speaker 3: story in Ohio as well as he tries to win
9:25
Speaker 3: back a Senate seat there. And so it also says
9:28
Speaker 3: some tech industry advocates maintain that the public pushback against
9:31
Speaker 3: the hulking artificial intelligence hubs is a fleeting storm generated
9:34
Speaker 3: by candidates seeking wedge issues for November. Their best course,
9:38
Speaker 3: they say, is to avoid any political deal making until
9:40
Speaker 3: temperature is lower after the midterms. So, Jim, I don't know.
9:44
Speaker 3: This seems like one of the new cause CELEBSA is
9:45
Speaker 3: certainly on the left and to some extent on the right,
9:48
Speaker 3: maybe the populace right. But you've written about this before,
9:51
Speaker 3: I know, and people you respect have written about this,
9:54
Speaker 3: and there's not exactly a consensus. Of course, as I said,
9:57
Speaker 3: the debate goes. You kind of have to have them,
9:59
Speaker 3: but nobody wants them in their own backyard anymore.
10:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
10:01
Speaker 2: So, one of the intriguing things that came out in
10:04
Speaker 2: the last week or so was Gallup asking people why
10:06
Speaker 2: do you oppose data centers? And the answers were really
10:10
Speaker 2: all over the map, and some of them were about
10:12
Speaker 2: energy use. Apparently there are some people who believe that
10:15
Speaker 2: data centers don't pay for the electricity. They do pay
10:19
Speaker 2: for their electricity, and in fact, you know, the Louden County,
10:22
Speaker 2: which is not too far from where you and I are,
10:24
Speaker 2: consider really the data center of the world, if not
10:26
Speaker 2: the United you know, beyond the United States, has more
10:29
Speaker 2: than anyone else, and people say that without them, local
10:31
Speaker 2: electricity bills would be significantly higher. They also pay property taxes,
10:35
Speaker 2: provided of course, that they have not gotten some sort
10:37
Speaker 2: of like special generous deal that sometimes localities or states
10:41
Speaker 2: will do. I think a fox con it's not a
10:43
Speaker 2: data hunter, but like the fox con thing like, ah, well,
10:45
Speaker 2: you're gonna build a big facility here, We're gonna give
10:47
Speaker 2: you all kinds of special tax breaks. And I know
10:49
Speaker 2: you and I are fans of low taxes. We are
10:51
Speaker 2: not fans of particular tax breaks for one particular company
10:55
Speaker 2: because the you know, local lawmaker wanted to bring them
10:58
Speaker 2: there or something like that. Ordinances, zoning ordinances, these are
11:02
Speaker 2: all perfectly fair, and people say, ah, you know you
11:04
Speaker 2: wouldn't want one next door.
11:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, correct, right.
11:06
Speaker 2: You know, generally, we have our industrial zoning in one
11:09
Speaker 2: part of our community, and we have our residential zoning
11:12
Speaker 2: in another.
11:12
Speaker 1: Part of our community.
11:13
Speaker 2: You generally you try to keep a decent amount of
11:14
Speaker 2: space between them. I heard somebody saying, you know, well,
11:18
Speaker 2: you know why, you know, if data centers are so great,
11:21
Speaker 2: why aren't they building them in wealthy communities. Loud And
11:24
Speaker 2: County is one of the ten wealthiest community it's counties
11:26
Speaker 2: in the entire country. Also, there are apparently two within
11:29
Speaker 2: one and a half miles of mar Lago. Data centers
11:32
Speaker 2: are basically giant racks of servers. Lots of Internet data
11:35
Speaker 2: gets stored there, lots of Internet data transfers through there,
11:38
Speaker 2: and yes, when you're using artificial intelligence, you're using chat, GPT,
11:42
Speaker 2: you're using clawed all that stuff. But here's the thing, Greg, Basically,
11:45
Speaker 2: everybody uses data centers every day. You and I are
11:48
Speaker 2: using them right now as we talk to each other
11:49
Speaker 2: through our recording equipment. Everybody listening to it is going
11:52
Speaker 2: to be like like the arguing against data centers is
11:55
Speaker 2: like arguing against the Internet. And one of my old
11:58
Speaker 2: traveling companions from India, Nick Barmont, said that actually, this
12:01
Speaker 2: is not just an objection to AI and people's sphere
12:04
Speaker 2: of the AI technology and revolution. This is like a
12:07
Speaker 2: delayed argument against the Internet. This is a broad based
12:10
Speaker 2: sense of we don't like how the Internet has changed society,
12:13
Speaker 2: we don't like where it's taking us, and you know,
12:15
Speaker 2: we object to that.
12:16
Speaker 1: I get that.
12:17
Speaker 2: I'm enough of a traditionalist to understand that. But it's
12:22
Speaker 2: really hard to put this toothpaste back in the tube.
12:24
Speaker 2: We're not going back to nineteen ninety four. The Jets
12:26
Speaker 2: had a really mid decade that year. We're going to
12:28
Speaker 2: go back We're going to sixty nine, right. No, like
12:31
Speaker 2: this kind of the sense of like I can see
12:33
Speaker 2: do I wish we didn't have to worry about a
12:35
Speaker 2: world of cyber bullying and cyber hacks, and sure these
12:40
Speaker 2: are all cyber terrorism and revenge porn and all these
12:44
Speaker 2: other tales. Yeah that these are perfectly legitimate fears. But
12:48
Speaker 2: you're not going to undo the Internet. You just aren't.
12:51
Speaker 2: And so the question is how do you build the
12:53
Speaker 2: infrastructure that is necessary to operate the Internet for all
12:56
Speaker 2: the commerce, all the stuff you buy from Amazon, dangerous clickbooks,
13:00
Speaker 2: of all the stuff you want to build or listen
13:02
Speaker 2: to this podcast. You know, like if you're going to
13:04
Speaker 2: expand it, you're going to need the infrastructure for it.
13:06
Speaker 2: And this is that you know, if you want to
13:08
Speaker 2: have a certain distance from homes, totally understand that can happen.
13:11
Speaker 2: When I wrote The Morning Jold about this a couple
13:12
Speaker 2: of months ago after talking to a friend who worked
13:15
Speaker 2: in this field. Never mind's a zoning, never mind the
13:18
Speaker 2: regulations and things like that. What it takes to actually
13:21
Speaker 2: build the facility, because it's very tough to take an
13:23
Speaker 2: existing facility and convert it to a data center. You
13:26
Speaker 2: basically have to build these things from the ground up.
13:28
Speaker 2: The construction that's involved requires certain skills. So it's one
13:32
Speaker 2: of those things like by the end of it. I
13:34
Speaker 2: was like, I can't believe we ever build any of
13:35
Speaker 2: these things because it requires so much in terms of
13:38
Speaker 2: building them from the ground up. You structures designed specifically
13:41
Speaker 2: for this. But yeah, this is now, This is hotter
13:43
Speaker 2: than pickleball. This is uh, you know, this is now
13:46
Speaker 2: what everybody's talking about. And I think there's a decent
13:49
Speaker 2: amount of demagoguery going on on this. I think there's
13:52
Speaker 2: a deliberate downplaying the benefits of this kind of stuff.
13:55
Speaker 2: Having said that, you know, somebody said also, this is
13:57
Speaker 2: a consequence of living in an exceptionally low trust is society.
14:00
Speaker 2: Because when you say, hey, this data center, yeah, it's
14:03
Speaker 2: not going to create a ton of jobs.
14:04
Speaker 1: It will create some jobs, it's.
14:06
Speaker 2: Going to be really important for the you know, continuing
14:08
Speaker 2: operation of the Internet, and it's going to pay a
14:11
Speaker 2: ton of property taxes and it's going to pay the
14:13
Speaker 2: electricity bills. People listen to that and say, I just
14:15
Speaker 2: don't believe you. And at that point the question is
14:18
Speaker 2: how do you convince them?
14:19
Speaker 3: And I think both sides of the aisle have a
14:22
Speaker 3: bone to pick with Big Tech. Of course, just a
14:25
Speaker 3: few years ago we had the censorship regime coming down
14:27
Speaker 3: during the Biden years where you know, Twitter was canceling
14:30
Speaker 3: people until Elon Musk bought it, and you know, Mark
14:34
Speaker 3: Zuckerberg was very active on Facebook doing the same thing,
14:36
Speaker 3: and YouTube was demonetizing people all over the place. Meantime,
14:40
Speaker 3: the people who run the big tech organizations, a some
14:43
Speaker 3: of them have moved right, like Musk, like Bezos to
14:46
Speaker 3: some extent.
14:48
Speaker 1: And then of.
14:48
Speaker 3: Course they're the oligarchs because they're super rich, and so
14:51
Speaker 3: the Bernie Sanders types hate these people. They want to
14:54
Speaker 3: have the government run at least part, if not all,
14:57
Speaker 3: of these companies, and so they've they've gotten Some of
15:00
Speaker 3: our friends left in Washington are very few, it seems.
15:02
Speaker 2: Greg there's every AI CEO tends to begin some sort
15:08
Speaker 2: of panel discussion or speech with a lot of people
15:11
Speaker 2: out there. Look at the rise of AI and see
15:14
Speaker 2: a job's apocalypse that will destroy employment for tens of
15:19
Speaker 2: millions of people all across the country, and you know,
15:22
Speaker 2: hundreds of millions around the world. But I'll see something different.
15:25
Speaker 2: I see an artificial intelligence that will enslave humanity and
15:29
Speaker 2: destroy human civilizations. Yeah, but there's only a twenty five
15:32
Speaker 2: percent chance of that happening. And it's just like Are
15:35
Speaker 2: you trying to script free people out? Are you trying
15:37
Speaker 2: to get people to not want you?
15:39
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of Miles Dyson's out there.
15:43
Speaker 3: That's certainly true. So again you make a very good point,
15:47
Speaker 3: No sweetheart deals are really bad. County executive here in
15:52
Speaker 3: where I live in Virginia got beat by a different
15:54
Speaker 3: Democrat who claimed that the previous one was giving too
15:57
Speaker 3: many sweetheart deals to the data centers, and so she
15:59
Speaker 3: ran out on property tax reductions for residents, property tax
16:04
Speaker 3: hikes for data centers. They hiked the taxes on the
16:07
Speaker 3: data centers. We got a sliver of a tax decrease,
16:12
Speaker 3: So technically the promise was kept, but proportionally not quite.
16:17
Speaker 3: But at least it's a little more fair in terms
16:20
Speaker 3: of how people are being dealt with here. All right, Well,
16:24
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Speaker 3: No missed calls, no missed customers. All right, Jim, Let's
17:13
Speaker 3: move to West Virginia. Not literally, although depending on how
17:18
Speaker 3: bad Abigail Spanberger gets, it's always an option, I guess.
17:21
Speaker 3: But the new governor of West Virginia as of twenty
17:25
Speaker 3: twenty four, Patrick Morrissey, He's been around a while. Ran
17:28
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen for Senate, lost to Joe Mansion. Joe Manchin
17:31
Speaker 3: didn't run again in twenty twenty four, and so Patrick
17:35
Speaker 3: Morrissey ran for governor and one because Governor Jim Justice
17:39
Speaker 3: won the Senate seat and won it easily. But now,
17:42
Speaker 3: according to a local West Virginia news including Metro News
17:45
Speaker 3: The Voice of West Virginia, Jim Justice is already toying
17:48
Speaker 3: with running again for governor in twenty twenty eight against
17:53
Speaker 3: Republican Patrick Morrissey. That tells me one thing is that
17:56
Speaker 3: Justice does not enjoy being in the Senate. Maybe that
17:59
Speaker 3: bulldog that he keeps carting around doesn't like being in
18:01
Speaker 3: Washington as much as being in West Virginia. I guess
18:04
Speaker 3: he's also, according to this story, not happy with the
18:07
Speaker 3: fact that Patrick Morrissey is taking credit for things that
18:11
Speaker 3: Justice believes were you know, planted and grown and during
18:15
Speaker 3: while he was governor and now they're sprouting, and Justice
18:18
Speaker 3: deserves more credit than Morrissey.
18:19
Speaker 1: So I don't know.
18:20
Speaker 3: Maybe these guys go back aways and they've got internal
18:22
Speaker 3: West Virginia political rivalries going on here, but less than
18:26
Speaker 3: two years into a six year Senate term, it's not
18:29
Speaker 3: the thing you want to hear about your new senator that,
18:32
Speaker 3: you know what, think I want my old job back.
18:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and let's point out that, you know, Jim Justice
18:36
Speaker 2: has been a Republican for about twenty minutes. Ok, I
18:39
Speaker 2: exaggerate slightly, but he was a Democrat for much of
18:41
Speaker 2: his career, including when he was first elected as governor.
18:44
Speaker 1: Now, look, here's the thing.
18:45
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised that if you've been the head of
18:48
Speaker 2: the executive branch of your state, that you really like
18:51
Speaker 2: being a governor, and that you find being a senator
18:54
Speaker 2: one out of one hundred sitting through committee hearings, voting
18:58
Speaker 2: on bills that are you know, probably ever go. Like
19:00
Speaker 2: basically for a long time you're either voting on judiciary
19:03
Speaker 2: confirmations or you're voting on a giant omnibus bill and
19:06
Speaker 2: you don't get to vote in a very specific legislation.
19:08
Speaker 1: Being a senator has become less fun year by year,
19:11
Speaker 1: decade by decade.
19:13
Speaker 2: Be a governor basically as a little mini president. You
19:15
Speaker 2: get your own little motorcade, you get to sit in
19:17
Speaker 2: the living a governor's mansion. You get to vito legislation,
19:19
Speaker 2: you get to sign legislation, get to be in charge
19:21
Speaker 2: of the National Guard, you get to go to natural
19:23
Speaker 2: disasters like you could see this. Rick Scott for a
19:27
Speaker 2: while when he was in the Senate really loved doing
19:29
Speaker 2: hurricane response in the state of.
19:30
Speaker 1: Florida, and I never you know, it's really laughed.
19:32
Speaker 2: We got the sensetor santas Is like, mm, we got
19:35
Speaker 2: a governor doing fine. You know, it sounds like they
19:37
Speaker 2: get along well. But like I remember Ron Johnson talking
19:41
Speaker 2: to him back in twenty twelve at the Republican Convention,
19:43
Speaker 2: and he just came back across as a guy who
19:45
Speaker 2: had run his own company and was used to say,
19:48
Speaker 2: well we should do X, then X would happen by
19:52
Speaker 2: his staff. And in the Senate, well, you've got ninety
19:54
Speaker 2: nine other people who may agree with you, may not
19:57
Speaker 2: agree with you. You got to spend a lot of
19:58
Speaker 2: time cajoling and arm twisting. You know, Guys who have
20:01
Speaker 2: been executives generally don't necessarily like being part of the
20:04
Speaker 2: legislative branch because it's a much more gradual, much more
20:08
Speaker 2: consensus building. You know, they find it frustrating. They want action,
20:12
Speaker 2: they want to get stuff done. So on the one hand,
20:13
Speaker 2: like I sympathized with Jim Justice. On the other hands,
20:15
Speaker 2: you pointed out, dude, we're two years in. You knew
20:18
Speaker 2: what the job was going to be before you got in, right,
20:21
Speaker 2: Like how you you've been a governor for a long time.
20:23
Speaker 2: I guess as you talk to Mansion, you talk to
20:25
Speaker 2: you know, other senators, Shelley workup, you know, like you
20:28
Speaker 2: would know, Oh man, these these committee hearings can get
20:32
Speaker 2: really boring. And I don't like this, and I don't
20:34
Speaker 2: want to deal with all this kind of stuff, and maybe,
20:35
Speaker 2: you know, is it conceivable with a different president who's
20:39
Speaker 2: less unilateral in his decision making? And you know, the
20:41
Speaker 2: Senate will feel more important in a few years, I suppose,
20:43
Speaker 2: But is it maybe going back to you know, not
20:45
Speaker 2: liking Morrissey.
20:46
Speaker 1: I would be.
20:47
Speaker 2: You know, that's clearly a factor. You don't run against
20:49
Speaker 2: a guy if you really like him, or threaten to
20:51
Speaker 2: run against a guy. But it's a little bit frustrating. Again,
20:54
Speaker 2: you look at the overall partisan lean of West Virginia.
20:56
Speaker 2: If Justice were to run for governor, you probably would
20:59
Speaker 2: have Republican senator replace him. But it just kind of
21:02
Speaker 2: feels like a although I put out that, you know,
21:05
Speaker 2: Jim Justice is seventy five, so we're talking about when
21:10
Speaker 2: he's in his late seventies to run for a term
21:12
Speaker 2: where he'd be into his eighties. So I mean, if
21:14
Speaker 2: you listen to the American people, they keep saying, can
21:16
Speaker 2: we get more octogenarian leaders? Can we get more people
21:20
Speaker 2: in their eighties making important decisions for us? So I sympathize,
21:24
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, you know, Senator Justice, you
21:27
Speaker 2: kind of knew what you're in for with this, And yeah.
21:29
Speaker 1: Don't do the crime.
21:30
Speaker 2: If you can't do the time, if you cannot put
21:32
Speaker 2: up with being a senator, you probably shouldn't run for
21:35
Speaker 2: that job.
21:37
Speaker 3: So, I mean, I don't know exactly if he's as
21:39
Speaker 3: frustrated about the way the Senate runs as we are
21:43
Speaker 3: to some extent, but like you said, it's mostly nominations
21:45
Speaker 3: and spending bills and occasionally, you know, a viral moment
21:48
Speaker 3: and a hearing. But he doesn't seem like the type
21:50
Speaker 3: that's really interested in generating those. So it would be
21:53
Speaker 3: nice if more actual legislation came to the floor. It'd
21:55
Speaker 3: be nice to pass more at least get the Democrats
21:58
Speaker 3: on the record for voting against legislation. But I don't know.
22:02
Speaker 1: Exactly what his calculation is here.
22:04
Speaker 3: But like you said, if he were to run in
22:05
Speaker 3: twenty eight and he were to win, he'd be over
22:07
Speaker 3: eighty and you know, I don't think a lot of
22:10
Speaker 3: people want that. But he's very popular in West Virginia,
22:12
Speaker 3: was extraordinarily popular. That was a lap and a laugher
22:16
Speaker 3: in the twenty twenty four sentate race. Yeah, there was
22:18
Speaker 3: no challenge there whatsoever. So we will see, all right,
22:21
Speaker 3: in a moment, California finally has another state maybe to
22:25
Speaker 3: make fun of when it comes to counting votes. All right,
22:32
Speaker 3: Jim double fisted chaser. Here, let's go up to Alaska,
22:36
Speaker 3: where as of last Wednesday, eighty percent of the vote
22:39
Speaker 3: was counted in the Senate primary. And of course they
22:42
Speaker 3: have to find four people to move to the general
22:44
Speaker 3: election instead of two, which is insane, even though the
22:47
Speaker 3: top two, Mary pel Tole and Senator Sullivan got more
22:50
Speaker 3: than ninety percent of the vote and they'll be the
22:53
Speaker 3: major candidates come November. But no more votes coming in now.
22:58
Speaker 3: Alaska can be logisticallyallenging even in summertime, but you should
23:02
Speaker 3: be doing better than that. But also now the Dan
23:05
Speaker 3: Sullivan story has taken on an even stranger perspective. Dan
23:09
Speaker 3: Sullivan has endorsed Dan Sullivan for reelection over Dan Sullivan.
23:14
Speaker 3: Now we've told you about how there's a second Dan
23:16
Speaker 3: Sullivan running for Senate. Some have said the Democrats have
23:19
Speaker 3: put this guy up to the task, and maybe they did.
23:22
Speaker 3: So there's Senator Dan S. Sullivan who's running against teacher
23:26
Speaker 3: Dan J. Sullivan. And now Senator Sullivan has been endorsed
23:31
Speaker 3: by former Anchorage, Alaska mayor Dan A.
23:34
Speaker 1: Sullivan.
23:35
Speaker 3: In order to win that Senate term again for another
23:37
Speaker 3: six years, says he's doing a really great job. So, Jim,
23:40
Speaker 3: I don't know how many Dan Sullivan's there are in Alaska.
23:42
Speaker 3: It's one of the least populous states we've got, but
23:45
Speaker 3: there seems to be a lot.
23:47
Speaker 2: I'm tempting to say, with the real Dan Sullivan, please
23:49
Speaker 2: stand up, or just I guess Dan Sullivan is Spartacus.
23:53
Speaker 1: I'm Dan Sullivan. I'm Dan Sullivan. I'm Dan Sullivan.
23:57
Speaker 2: Dear people in Alaska, including most notably on my focus
24:00
Speaker 2: on the Sullivan family.
24:02
Speaker 1: I think you need some new names. I think you
24:04
Speaker 1: need some variety.
24:05
Speaker 2: A couple of years back, I coached youth soccer and
24:10
Speaker 2: my team consisted entirely of Hayden, Braden, Caden, Aiden, Schmaiden, Flayden.
24:18
Speaker 1: At every other variation of that.
24:20
Speaker 2: And the other team was made up entirely of kids
24:23
Speaker 2: whose names were cities in Texas, Dallas, Beaumont. They all
24:28
Speaker 2: had these you know, Austin. Yeah, there are at least
24:30
Speaker 2: three Austins on every team. And so it's one of
24:33
Speaker 2: those things like we need some variety, folks. There's a
24:35
Speaker 2: lot of names out there. And then finally going to
24:38
Speaker 2: reverse order. So National Review has done two cruises to
24:41
Speaker 2: Alaska that I've been a beautiful state.
24:43
Speaker 1: Love visiting there. Greg.
24:44
Speaker 2: I'm actually not going to give them that much grief
24:46
Speaker 2: because at one point we did the train where you
24:48
Speaker 2: go to Dnali or you know, they used to call
24:51
Speaker 2: Mount McKinley, and you come down and there are certain
24:54
Speaker 2: houses along the train line where there's no road going
24:57
Speaker 2: to that house, right, and so the which comes through,
25:01
Speaker 2: as I understand, like once a week is your only
25:04
Speaker 2: connection to.
25:04
Speaker 1: The outside world.
25:05
Speaker 2: So and this is like part of a homesteading program
25:07
Speaker 2: they had done because they wanted to get more people
25:10
Speaker 2: living up there. So if you order something, you know
25:14
Speaker 2: it ends up on the train and the train will
25:16
Speaker 2: deliver it to you. Like that's what you do. So
25:18
Speaker 2: I assume that's how ballots get sent out and returned
25:22
Speaker 2: and stuff. And if this train is only coming through
25:24
Speaker 2: once a week, maybe twice a week or something like that,
25:27
Speaker 2: I look at that and I'm like, Okay, difficulty collecting
25:29
Speaker 2: ballots in Alaska. I'll cut them some slack. This is
25:33
Speaker 2: really tough territory to get reach out to get to.
25:35
Speaker 2: There are a bunch places you can only connect by
25:37
Speaker 2: there aren't roads. There aren't places where you just drive
25:39
Speaker 2: around and go connect them. So there's that issue. And
25:43
Speaker 2: they also like there's no locality, like there's no town.
25:46
Speaker 2: You're just kind of in this unincorporated area next to
25:49
Speaker 2: the you know, with your log cabin that you presumably
25:51
Speaker 2: built with your own hands, right out next to the
25:54
Speaker 2: train liner. So that's what I assume the hold up is.
25:57
Speaker 2: So I will cut them slack that I would not
25:59
Speaker 2: grant to, you know, other primitive states like California.
26:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
26:03
Speaker 3: No, that's definitely a lot of land to cover and difficulty.
26:07
Speaker 3: It gets even worse potentially in November if the snow's
26:09
Speaker 3: already get out there. So we will find out. But
26:13
Speaker 3: you know, there's enough Dan Sullivan's involved in this story
26:16
Speaker 3: now I think we can cap it at three and
26:19
Speaker 3: hopefully all the other Dan Sullivan's vote for Senator Sullivan.
26:22
Speaker 1: Here's the thing.
26:23
Speaker 2: If Dan Sullivan can win the votes of just Alaskan's
26:27
Speaker 2: named Dan Sullivan, I think he'll be a twenty three
26:29
Speaker 2: percent of the way there. That's it.
26:31
Speaker 3: It's gonna be a huge deal.
26:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
26:33
Speaker 3: So anyway, good start to the week.
26:35
Speaker 1: Jim to tomorrow see tomorrow.
26:37
Speaker 3: Greg Jim Garretty National Review. I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America.
26:40
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27:02
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