WEBVTT - The Blue Wave Flipped Texas Scam 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:12.560 What are we recording? Yeah, yeah, yeah, what the episode started? Now, 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:14.840 I was, I was, I was going to say something 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:19.120 something to do with Texas. But to be honest, you know, why, 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:21.439 why why do we do this? Why do we let ourselves, 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:25.040 you know, get famous for for for saying a particular 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:27.640 bit and then just keep repeating it over and over again. 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.240 Are we so creatively bankrupt that there's there's nothing else 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.240 we can do but repeat our greatest hits in order 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:38.160 to recapture some of the some of the the excitement 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:42.720 that we felt as younger men. Anyway, my co hosts 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:47.680 on this episode, James Stout and me along, welcome to 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:48.599 it could happen here. 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:52.960 Hi, rob It. I'm glad you're doing so well. 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:56.400 We're all doing great. James, You've just been having a 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:00.800 searing emotional experience at the border. Yeah mm hm. And 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.800 everyone else is busy living in the United States, which 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:05.919 is its own searing emotional experience. 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:06.720 Man. 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.600 Today, today we're going to be talking about the both 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:20.760 the most and least American state, Texas. Huzzah, Yeah, love you. Yeah, 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.320 who here has spent a lot of time in Texas. Garrison, 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:25.440 you lived in the Dallas area, right. 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:28.800 A lot that I I've made my visit to Texas 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.920 over the years with you, even in the murder House. 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:35.920 You and I have quaffed many a shiner bock together, 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:40.680 James Many. Okay, I guess we'll move into the fucking episode. 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.800 So uh, there was a There was a an email 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.520 sent out by Texas Democrats dot Org recently with the 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:53.480 title Texas moves from solid red to battleground. Sure, you know, 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:58.720 like clockwork. A lot of Democrats got very excited, and 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.440 I made a couple of people made posts being like, hey, 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.080 this is the same thing that happens every single election. 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.760 They are never right. Texas is never a battleground and 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:12.239 it always costs an insane amount of money. It is 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.680 a con by DC political consultants to get your money 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.959 and pump it into something that will fill up their 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:24.160 coffers and not achieve anything of value for the state 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.119 of Texas or for the Democrats nationwide. And this makes 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:30.160 people very angry for two reasons. One, they tend to 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.080 interpret it as saying abandon Texas and the people there, 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:35.680 which is not the statement I was making or anyone 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.880 else was making. And number two, everyone kind of obsessively 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.639 starts pointing out like, look, look at how over the 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.960 last thirty years, you know, the things have narrowed in 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:51.680 Texas and the proportion of like Democratic votes is raised. 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.360 This is winnable. We can do it. We can do it. 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.480 We're going to talk today about why anyone who talks 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.320 to you about flipping Texas as a political goal that 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:06.040 you should give money to is conning you, and not 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.360 only conning you, but making it actually more difficult for 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:13.040 Democrats to win, both in Texas and nationwide. That's that's 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:15.360 that's the premise of the episode, everybody. 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:18.320 Here's here's how Bernie can still win. Though at the 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:19.520 very end we will give you. 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.040 Yeah, We're gonna let you know he's got a shot. Look, 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.280 look if he if he is capable of putting another 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:31.840 three rounds of six point five into a dinner plate 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:38.400 sized target at one hundred and fifty yards, now that 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.480 was a that was anyway, he'd have to shoot a 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:42.560 lot of people to make. 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:48.240 He's going to deploy bought a joy into a. 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:54.119 Name, absolutely not. 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.000 Person. So I want to talk about this because I 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:02.240 find it, like I think people tend to interpret this. 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:04.600 I've certainly gotten accused of like, oh, you're just kind 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.680 of being like a nihilist. This is you're being you know, 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.640 just an anti electoralist. You're not being practical. There was 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.280 a there was one particular guy who's like a local 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.840 Democratic candidate who responded seven times to my tweet being 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.880 like with variations, and his obsession was like, if we 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.560 win Texas, it's impossible for the GOP to win national elections, 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.279 which is true. If theoretically the Democrats flipped Texas, the 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.719 GOP would have no chance at winning a federal election ever. Again. 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:36.080 Yeah, and so simultaneous to this, right, if the Republican 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:38.800 there are more Republicans in California than there are basically 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:40.760 any other state in the Union, and if the Republicans 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.159 won California, they would they would win every election forever. 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.880 Yeah, yeah, yeah, happen. Not going to happen. I mean, 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:48.880 it's it's one of those things. I am not saying 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:53.640 Texas will never be a blue state. You know, that 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.039 is something that is possible, even likely, given enough time. 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.880 What I am saying, the argument that I'm making here, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.800 and I'll provide you with evidence, is that number one, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.040 focusing on these elections from the top down and when 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.559 you're saying, we want to flip Texas. That's a top 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.320 down approach, right. You are not focusing on we want 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.280 to fill up and win a bunch of different local elections. 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:17.640 We want to flip, you know, the state houses. We 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.360 want to flip a bunch of mayoralties and stuff. You 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:24.760 are saying, what matters is how Texas votes in the 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:29.120 national election. And if you were to get if you 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.640 were to kind of eke out a bear like in 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.760 Georgia right where you get a narrow victory in the 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.280 federal election, that would be great for the Democratic Party. 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:39.599 One of my issues with it is that kind of 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.800 focusing obsessively on flipping Texas isn't focusing on the stuff 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.120 that actually will help Texans, like Texans currently being targeted 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.240 by the state government, because flipping the state in a 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.599 federal election, but not taking the governor's seat, not taking 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:58.360 the lieutenant governor seat, not like actually taking the state house, 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:02.360 doesn't improve life for people in Texas. I think the 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.600 kind of the degree to which the federal government, Biden's administration, 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:11.240 has been unable to push back very effectively against kind 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:12.880 of a lot of the shit that DeSantis has been 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:16.240 doing in Florida. You know, they have started to make 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.880 some attempts. Is evidence of this, and kind of more 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:22.280 to the point, even if you don't agree with that, fundamentally, 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.719 these strategies that the Democratic Party has embraced in Texas 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:31.080 do not work. The Texas Democratic Party is incompetent. They 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.680 are bad at their job. They are worse. People bring 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.200 up Georgia a lot when I talk about flipping Texas, 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:38.640 and folks are like, well, we flipped Georgia, And it's like, yeah, 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:43.760 because the state elected officials and candidates in George number one, 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.320 the state party did a much better job of kind 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.360 of harvesting is a weird way to phrase it, but 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:54.320 of incubating talent to run for election in a number 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:58.480 of local offices then the Texas Democratic Party has ever done. 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.560 And that was a big part of what allowed them 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.720 to be competitive and eventually to flip the state. There's 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.080 a lot of like kind of dollar sign information on 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.560 how bad the state party in Texas is at this shit, 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:14.960 and I guess I should go ahead and provide some 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:20.040 of that now. So in the twenty twenty two election, 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:25.000 the midterms famously an unusually good showing for the Democratic 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:31.280 Party nationwide for a midterm election everywhere but Texas. O'Rourke 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.720 ran against Greg Abbott. He lost by eleven percent. This 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:38.080 is kind of to contrast the election that got everyone 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.680 excited when he was running against Cruise. I think they 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.560 were like three percent apart. And again, the only reason 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:47.360 there was this kind of mistaken belief and excitement among 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:51.160 dims that O'Rourke, because he was so close to Cruz, 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.240 had a real shot of winning Texas. No, he got 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:58.680 kinda close to beating Cruz because Ted even Republicans hate 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:01.360 Ted Cruz. No one is ever liked that man. His 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:03.440 own wife can barely stand to be in a room 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.640 with him. His political allies would turn the other cheek 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.760 if fucking somebody anyway, we shouldn't talk about political assassinations 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.440 on this podcast. It wouldn't anger anybody though, right. Lindsay 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.920 Graham has said that, like Lindsay Graham's like, what maybe 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.679 the only good joke a Republican elected officials ever told 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.440 is that if you were to shoot Ted Cruz on 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:27.640 the floor of Congress and the trial was held in Congress, 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:33.400 like nobody would vote to convict the murderer anyway. So 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.920 Beto lost quite badly to Greg Abbott and beyond that, 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:42.080 basically every statewide candidate that the Democrats ran lost in 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.199 that election. It was a bad election for the Democratic 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.840 Party and people who pay attention to Texas politics and 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:52.320 actually like aren't just trying to like grift your donation money. 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:52.600 Know this. 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.439 Joel Montfort, a Democratic consultant in North Texas said, quote, 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.000 it's been one election after another where we ramp everybody 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:01.240 up and set these xpectations that we're going to finish 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:03.520 in first and then we finish in second. I don't 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:05.520 see any indication that we can win at state wide 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:07.960 levels or won't continue to bleed house seats to the 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:08.720 other party. 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.000 I love these to finish in second. 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:19.560 There is if there's like a podium on election libertarians. Yeah, 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:23.120 the text Democratic Party to take the l to like 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:23.800 giald Stein. 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.520 Yeah, there were some kind of site. There were some 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.520 wins by Democrats in Texas. They managed to hold onto 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.040 two out of three seats congressional seats in the battleground 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.959 regions in South Texas, but they still lost one. They 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.880 did what they did, still lose one, and you know, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:43.880 the GOP had to spend a lot of money to 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:45.720 do that. But like one of the one of the 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:47.960 points is that so they they held onto two of 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.160 those seats, and they won a contested seat in the 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:54.880 suburbs of Dallas. Uh. And you know, like but basically 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.720 in all of these areas, Uh, these were like super 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.319 narrow wins, like these the big successes, and they were 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.000 narrow wins in areas that Joe Biden had carried by 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.800 double digits two years ago. And Joe Biden is a 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:08.800 historically like that is part of some of them. Some 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:10.800 of it will show you how bad the Texas Democratic 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:13.360 Party is. Joe Biden is not a popular president, and 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.080 the fact that he carried a lot of these areas 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.160 by more than the candidates who narrowly won in twenty 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.960 twenty two could is not a great sign for the 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:22.920 way things are trending. 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.680 Yeah, It's probably also worth pointing out that like those 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.079 southern Texas seats, like in the Rio Grande Valley, right, like, yeah, 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:32.319 those people are normally Democrats. Yeah, but you have guys 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:35.800 like Henry is it Quella Quala, Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:39.439 who is opposed to abortion rights are yeah yeah and 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.360 extremely hawkish on the border, and like yeah, yeah, what 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:45.840 do we gain by having like, yeah, blue team good, 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:48.120 Like not really if this person's going to take away 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.760 your bodily autonomy and brutalize people for coming to this 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:52.800 country for one day about a life. 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:55.440 Yeah, it's it's like a lot of the some of 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.280 these wins are kind of like marginal at best, given 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.280 the compromises or just given the kind of Democrats who 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.760 can win it. It's like a Joe Manchin kind of situation. Yeah, exactly. 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:09.720 And more to the point, like it's not only is 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.400 this like evidence kind of that the Democrats strategy isn't 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:15.600 isn't working. It's not simply that they tried something and 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.040 it failed. They tried something and it was so expensive 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.480 that it stopped them from trying things in other areas 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.720 where the money could have gone better. For example of 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.839 how fucking wasteful, particularly the Beto wort campaign was. Right, 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.920 he loses by eleven points to Greg Abbot. He raised 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.800 seventy seven million dollars to lose by that much. A 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.680 few years earlier, Lupe Valdez ran against Greg Abbot. She 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:43.000 spent raised like two million dollars and lost by thirteen points, 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:47.840 So seventy five million dollars may have bought Beto two percent. 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.000 You know, like if you assume that national trends had 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.120 nothing to do with that gap closing by a tiny amount, Like. 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.800 With seventy five million dollars, I could take control of 0:11:57.840 --> 0:11:59.439 a moderate at least is Texas City. 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.559 Yeah that is like, yeah, I could buy my chunk 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:07.360 of Texas specific Like you could purchase a large chunk 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:10.719 of Fort Worth with that much money. No, yeah, that's 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:12.120 how I'll go here at cools the own media. 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.760 Yeah, yeah, to own fort Worth. Finally my dream completed. 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.600 I'll be able to be I'm gonna buy those horse 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.760 statues that los kalitas. Finally be happy. 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:25.760 Let's get blucifer as well. It's probably a good time 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:27.880 to pivot to ads that help us pay for a 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:28.480 piece of food. 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.280 Sure, yeah, you know, who isn't a waste of money 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:46.520 these fucking ads. So overall, we just talked about it. 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:49.880 You know, Beto raised seventy seven million dollars. The gubernatorial 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.000 race cost in total something like one hundred and forty 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:56.520 million dollars, which is a huge amount of money for 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.840 something that fails that badly and doesn't there's no evidence 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:04.040 that Beto's campaign, like he was he's obviously good at fundraising, right, 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:06.760 And there was kind of this belief among a lot 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.040 of dims, an errant belief that this meant that he 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.079 would be good for down ballot races. Right, He's going 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.240 to bring the entire because of how much attention he gets. 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:15.400 He's going to raise the entire Democratic Party up. The 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:17.800 poor showing of the Democratic Party in Texas in twenty 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.280 twenty two suggests that that's not the case. And the 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.400 money like there are there are fights that could have 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:27.240 been won and probably weren't because the money wasn't being 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:29.839 invested in those fights. It was going to bettle. And 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.160 I'm gonna quote from an article by the Texas Tribune here. 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:35.640 This year, the party ran Rochelle Garza, a civil rights 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.000 lawyer with little political experience, against Attorney General Ken Paxton, 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.920 who was widely seen as the most vulnerable Republican incumbent. 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:44.760 But Garza struggled to raise money or gain traction in 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.200 Auric's shadow and lost by ten percentage points against Paxton, 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:51.280 who has been indicted on felony security fraud charges and 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:55.400 is being investigated by the FBI for abuse of office accusations. 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.520 And it's what maybe she couldn't have won no matter 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.280 what you did. But one of the rules of politics 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.200 in this country is that the money you spend at 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.840 a big race, like a gubernatorial race, like a like 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.880 a like a Senate or a congressional campaign at the 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:14.480 federal level, like a presidential campaign, goes less far per 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.200 dollar than the money you spend in smaller local elections. Right, 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.880 ten million bucks going into that election might have done something, 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.400 you know, as opposed to seventy five million going into 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:30.880 Bedo O'Rourke and accomplishing very little. This has been not 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.840 just a problem in Texas in previous elections, throughout the 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.720 Trump area and a little before in particular, this was 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:39.880 a problem the DIMS had kind of from the middle 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.680 of the Obama years until the last couple of like 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.000 really the last midterm at twenty eighteen is when it 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.160 started to turn around nationally, and the DIMS have learned 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.160 a lot in other regions about like not spending stupid 0:14:53.200 --> 0:15:00.480 amounts of money on hopeless contests, but not like comprehensively. Example, 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.320 in twenty twenty two, the second most expensive house race 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:07.040 was the fourteenth Congressional District of Georgia, where Marcus Flowers 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:11.040 raised sixteen million dollars and lost by thirty two points, 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:16.640 not a great return on the investment. And it was like, 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.160 the reason why he raised so much money is because 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.800 he was running against Marjorie Taylor Green and nationally, DIMS 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.480 outside of Georgia wanted to put in money because they 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:26.160 hate her. And it's a trend that relies a lot 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.800 on social media on kind of the way in which 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.800 like hardcore dims, the dims that do a lot of 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:36.160 the small dollar donations think about politics where it's like 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.560 Marjorie Taylor Green bad donate money to opponent, Well, her 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.080 opponent had no chance of winning in that district, Like 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.400 no amount of money would have flipped that, and you 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.920 just wasted sixteen million dollars that could have helped somewhere else. 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.800 Like maybe that's an insane thing and it's not as 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:53.280 bad as it used if you want to look at 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.160 like the like the kind of the dumbest it ever was. 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:01.520 In twenty twenty, so Lindsay Graham's seat was up in 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.400 South Carolina and Jamie Harrison ran against Lindsay Grant and 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.720 dims again because Lindsay Graham evil, you know, raised one 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:12.120 hundred and thirty million dollars and he lost fight ten points. 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:15.960 Amy McGrath lost to Mitch McConnell, who is another Like 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:17.680 you can always get a shitload of money to fight 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.600 Mitch McConnell ninety four million dollars lost by twenty points 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.000 either of the like one hundred and thirty million, ninety 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.960 four million, that's two state legislators. You could have flipped, 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.840 or at least made progress on flipping, right, Like that 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.520 amount of money could potentially do that or at least 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.280 help set up, you know, get a couple of people 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:38.400 elected who have a chance at kind of broadening a 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:42.120 base of support and becoming you know, leaders in states 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:46.280 that are currently like dominated by red legislators, Like there's 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:47.680 a chance at least here. 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:52.000 And that like specifically the state legislature. Thing is this 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.640 has been a problem with the Democrats for fucking ages, 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.200 which is that they just yet like it is only 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.880 genuinely in the last years the Democrats are started giving 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.159 a ship about state legislatures, like and this is this 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:05.520 is one of the things from the Obama era, Like 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.359 one of the reasons everything sucks so much is that 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:11.520 the Democrats managed to lose, Like, oh god, I forget. 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:13.000 It was like they I think I think the total 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:17.960 they lost like a thousand seats. It was like yeah, 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.000 and and and you know, on the we were seeing 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.560 the product of this right like this like like Wisconsin 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.480 was sort of just a hell hole for the last decade. 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:27.680 Uh and you know, I mean like and these are 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:29.920 like Minnesota to like the like there are lots of 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:33.639 these states that like that, like not Minnesota or am 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:34.560 I talking about Michigan? 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:35.840 Yeah, Michigan. 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:37.840 Yeah, And there's a lot of these stats and you know, 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.760 like and both of these places were winnable right, like 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.040 like they're like the Democrats are winning there now, right, 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:47.600 but they just like fucking left, like you know, they 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:50.040 they they fucking left Flint to get poisoned by lead 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:52.200 because they just not like the only the only things 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.520 that the problem is there's there's no money for consultants 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:57.320 in in sort of like downbout like state and like 0:17:57.359 --> 0:17:59.720 local races just just jack ship, right, and the Democrat 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.479 the Democrat Party like is not run by sort of 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:05.280 like it's it's not a party in like an actual 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:07.600 real sense. It is a it is a collection of consultants, 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.439 and those consultants only care about senates about Senate races. 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:12.880 Sometimes they care about house races, and they care specifically 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.600 they spend all of their fucking money in presidential races. 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:18.440 And you know, it's like again, and the Republicans don't 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.240 do that because they have a bunch of like people 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:23.199 they you know, because they have a bunch of like 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:25.919 part of their base, right is these like small and 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.320 mid scale capitalists in you know, in cities, in rural 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:31.960 areas who have like immediate concerns about like, you know, 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:34.920 there's like there there are specific workers who they want 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:37.439 like lives to be worse. And so because of that, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.040 the Republican machine is like seize the entire fucking country. 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:44.199 And the Democrats have been sitting around like spending like 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.600 a trillion dollars on Wendy Davis losing by twenty points. 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:54.640 Yeah, yeah, And it's like you get these you get 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.560 these like cases where you know, you're looking at thirty 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.200 million being spent, you know, failing to uns seat Marjorie 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.720 Taylor Green or somebody thirty three million something like that. 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:09.119 But what you don't like, at the same time as 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:11.480 like that's happening, is all of these massive amounts of 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.199 money are being devoted to these, like to the races 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.320 that get attention because there's famous names involved. You have, 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.640 like in twenty twenty I think it was you have 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:23.760 or no, it's twenty twenty two. You have the election 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:28.200 between Ted Budd, a Republican against the Democrat Sherry Beasley 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:33.159 in North Carolina where the Democratic Party decided not to 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:37.240 prioritize this election because it wasn't winnable, and then Bud 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:39.680 won up wound up winning by just four points. That's 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.800 a seat you can flip with money. That's not an 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.560 unreasonable thing as opposed to again, the races where it 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:47.520 went to and people are losing by like thirty something 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:51.040 fucking percent. And if you want to know who a 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.800 serious candidate is, who is not just trying to do 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.159 the sexy thing or not just trying to like again 0:19:57.440 --> 0:19:59.680 flip the states so that we can win the federal election, 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:01.600 but actually wants to help their state. And this is 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:05.679 again there's very nice things about Beto O'Rourke. I was 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:08.160 in Texas during the ice storm. He did good work 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:12.720 during the ice storm, like actual community defense kind of 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.639 stuff that I do have some respect for. He is 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:17.760 not and has never been a serious politician, and I 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.760 will tell you why he went from winning an election 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:25.760 to losing a state election against Ted Cruz, to losing 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.199 a presidential race to losing the governor seat. That is 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.840 so fucking scattershot. That is not building a base of power, 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:36.800 That is not building from the ground up and like 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:40.360 encouraging the growth of other personalities. You're just darting from 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.919 whatever the sexiest and most like pr driven race is. 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:58.360 That's not serious. I want to talk about what number one, 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.240 the Democratic Party, the ship that like, as we've said, 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:04.800 they're getting better. The National Party got a lot better 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.399 at this, particularly in twenty twenty two. It was less 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.119 stupid than the previous couple of elections had been. 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:12.840 Really difficult to be more dumb than that. But you 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:16.359 know it is British British labor et cetera, et cetera. 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:20.040 Labor actually is the big one. Oh my fuck. 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:25.840 I want to talk what has what has worked, and 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.919 what I think could work again. And to do that, 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:31.080 I'm going to talk about a guy named Howard Dean, 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:36.120 who here knows who Howard Dean was? Garrison simply yeah 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:36.800 a little bit. 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:37.280 Have you? 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:39.359 Have you all heard the video of him screaming that 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:45.840 gotten like his career is before. Okay, well, James, would 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:47.240 you load that up for us so we could play 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:51.119 that in a second to the Deans. Coward, Jamie, pull 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:57.040 it up. Howard. Howard Dean ran for president and was 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:00.919 He was the first national political candidate to use the 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:04.200 internet effectively to raise money in the in the history 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:08.040 of US politics. He's kind of pre Obama. Worked out 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:10.320 a lot of the strategies that Obama's people wound up 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:12.679 using to very successfully raise money for him. He was 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:16.640