WEBVTT - Interview With Michael Murphy: Masters in Business (Audio) 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:07.119 This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholds on Bloomberg 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:12.640 Radio this week on the podcast what Perfect Timing I 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:17.640 Have Michael Murphy uh He is the founder of the 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.360 Right to Rise pac, a conservative pack that raised a 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:25.200 hundred million dollars for Jeb Bush and and conservative causes. 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:31.280 He has been the campaign manager for people as diverse 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:38.839 as uh Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, Mitt Romney, Governor 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:44.040 of Massachusetts, and presidential campaign candidate Jeb Bush who ran 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:49.480 for the nomination of the Republican Party uh in and 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.800 and did not make it. The timing of this is perfect. 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:58.160 He is not only a conservative and a very successful 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:04.840 political and pain consultant and adviser, but he is a 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:09.200 person who has been watching elections for a long time. 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.679 Full disclosure, he is a member of the Never Trump 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:18.000 group who think that um Donald Trump is not the 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:22.000 ideal candidate to be president of the United States. I 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:28.640 found this whole conversation to be quite fascinating for two reasons. First, 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.680 we booked it six months ago having no idea, UM 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.040 what would happen in the campaign. Because I thought we 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:40.240 were booking Michael Murphy, the technology newsletter writer and I 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:42.640 thought this was going to be an opportunity to geek 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:48.960 out about all things technology, software, telecommunication, etcetera. Instead, we 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:52.640 got lucky and we got the guy who is really 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:58.120 an extremely influential person, uh in the Republican Party. So 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:00.920 that's number one and number two. The time we booked this, 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.720 we had no idea who the nominee was going to be. 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:07.320 We had no idea, um about anything that was taking 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:11.360 place on the political side. Uh. It's a pleasure to 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:18.000 speak with somebody who is incredibly skilled about political communication, 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:24.120 about the way elections run, about the way successful campaigns 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.720 do certain things or don't do certain things. All told, 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.440 the timing of this could not be better. This will 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:39.040 broadcast before the first debate, the first presidential debate, and um, 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:43.480 it was really absolutely fascinating conversation about the state of 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:48.560 politics in modern America. So, with no further ado, here 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:57.320 is my conversation with campaign consultant Michael Murphy. This is 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:02.359 Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. My 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:07.399 special guest today is Mike Murphy. He is a Republican 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:12.440 political consultant. He advised Florida Governor Jeb Bush in the 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:18.960 current election. He previously has advised such luminaries as Massachusetts 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:23.799 Governor Mitt Romney, U S Senator John McCain, California Governor 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:29.800 Arnold Schwarzenegger. John McCain privately called him Murphy stapils, so 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.320 that should give you some sense of his ability to 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:37.440 foretell the political future. He is a commentator on NBC's 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:39.920 Meet the Press and The Today's Show. Used to write 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.440 a column for Time magazine, and served as a fellow 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:49.680 at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Governments Institute of Politics 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:52.600 and as I think I could fit safely say, you're 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.760 you're pretty much recognized as one of the GOP's most 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.040 successful consultants and innovators that affair statement. Yeah, I own 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.920 that until we lost the retro Rice superPAC for Jeb. 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.600 Now now I'm going to be a retired uh formerly 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:06.320 one of the great concils. But I had about twenty 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.040 nine winning statewide races and that got me pretty established. 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.119 Mike Murphy, welcome to Bloomberg. So let's let's jump right 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.120 into your background, because I find it absolutely fascinating. You're 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.680 not even out of college. You and you decide, Hey, 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:24.400 I could at age twenty launched my own political consulting company. 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.600 How did that help? Luckily it's an unregulated business. So 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:30.960 I was going to Georgetown, was in the Foreign Service school. 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:32.680 I grown up in Detroit, and I thought, wow, am 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.000 I gonna wind up in the auto industry, which was 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.120 kind of appealing. But I was really interested in international 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.000 relations and politics, so Georgetown was the place to be. 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:43.440 I was involved in the College Republicans. I was all 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:47.039 about politics, and I got this internship at the old Nickpack, 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.520 the National Conservative play Clashing Committee, which had invented the 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.040 independent expenditure where a third group could run ads. And 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.400 so one day they fired the ad agency and they said, 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.240 anybody here and anything about advertising? And I had been 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.200 like around a radio station a little bit in like 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:04.400 high school, so I of course said me, I'm an expert. 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.920 And one thing led to another, and they said, because 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.640 it was low production budget stuff, all right, kid, make 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:12.400 an ad. And I didn't know what to do. So 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.760 I called up this ACE producer who had turned out 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.880 later had made one ad in his career, named Alex Costellanos, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.919 and out of that came Murphy and Castellanos. We started 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.200 making ads for these horrible, low budget campaigns because nobody 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.520 else would hire us, but some pack work and we 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:29.800 got lucky on a thing or two. And so I 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.719 took a leave of absence my senior year. I gave 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.080 up being yelled at in Russian every morning by Colonel Piragoff, 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:38.640 the defector, who was trying to teach us Department of 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.080 Defense Russian you know which way to the tractor factory? 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.839 Would you like some nylons for a picture of that factory? 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.440 And uh kind of ran away to join the circus 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:49.719 of campaign consultant. So what was the lucky ad that? 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.960 That was the big launch, which was the first one 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.200 that you you said, hey, we got something here. Well, 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:58.400 we we had we did some kind of fun stuff 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.719 for these independent expenditure cam pains in the early eighties. 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.800 But then it was the eighties six campaign when Alex 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.640 and I really officially, you know, got together. We're working 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.920 for this, Uh Senator Steve Sims on Idaho. Everybody thought 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:13.599 was gonna lose. This is a by election between between 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:16.520 presidential elections, right right, an off election. But still they 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:18.640 had the Senate races and six was a top tier 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.000 for the Republicans were these young guys and sims won 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.320 and some congressional races people thought would lose. We did 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.719 pretty well in and eight, six and eighty eight. That 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:29.920 put us on the map, and Alex and I went 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.200 off and we had a great run. We did a 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:34.520 bunch of stuff, and then in the mid nineties we 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.680 had probably the only amicable split up of a political 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.560 consulting partnership. Were still very close. He went off to 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:42.359 do a lot. You see him on CNN. He's a 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.000 big time probably consultant. And I had a good run, 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.120 particularly with governors blue state governors. I worked for John 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:51.160 Angler in my home state of Michigan, three term win there. 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.479 I worked for Terry Branstead in Iowa about his forty 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:56.800 of term. We got a re election there, the Jeb 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:00.000 Bush race. And I did those statewidse Christine Todd Witman 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.160 in Jersey. I just you know, had a great run 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:04.680 of I'm picking up the theme here. These are all 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:09.400 pretty moderate GOP governors. Is that a coincidence or well? 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.000 I people keep calling me a squish, which is the 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.960 Republican word for moderate, But I'm a pretty right wing guy. 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:16.880 How I worked for Ali North, I mean I had 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:19.640 plenty of Alex came out of the helms machine down 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.200 in North Carolina. But I believe in the kind of 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.239 conservatism that can win a swing state, which is something 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.400 that's kind of been lost in our party now. So I, um, 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:31.400 I consider myself pretty conservative, but I'm not at what 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:35.760 we like to call a paleocon. I'm not a cannon Republican. No, no, 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.000 that that's that's really interesting. So let's talk a little 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.640 bit about your pack. Right to Rise. This was looked 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.800 at as a juggernaut, a huge money making machine. Who 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.200 is the typical Right to Rise? Don't or describe them. 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.600 I don't mean, I'm not looking for a list of names, 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:54.600 but what what sort of person is this? Give us? 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:56.800 Some Democrats? Well, the way it kind of works in 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.520 the system now is you have a campaign for president, 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.600 but you're limited under law to take a limited amount 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.120 of money only from people, not from business entities. So 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.680 you can take your twenty you know, seven hundred dollars 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.160 or whatever from an individual. All the campaigns there, for 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:13.120 at least most of them, would create a superpack which 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:17.080 can raise essentially unlimited money. So often your donors who 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:19.520 might give you the what we call the maxed out 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.680 federal check to your campaign, which is relatively small would 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:26.040 also give to the superpack. So we were very successful. 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.400 And the one campaign we won, and really Jeb one, 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.160 was the donor campaign, where you travel around the country, 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:35.760 meet people and convince them the back you not somebody else. 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:37.320 I mean the people who gave to us. Many of 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:39.760 them also met with Governor Walker when he was in 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:44.040 the race with Senator Rubio, Senator Cruz. You know, they 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:46.760 were it was a competition, and Jeb had the most 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:50.480 compelling vision. So the typical person, Uh, some were longtime 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:52.959 party fundraisers who might write us a check for a 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:55.800 hundred thousand dollars. We had, you know, a lot of those, 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.320 or fifty thousand dollars. You had a few of the 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:00.560 real kind of super donors of the party who could 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.760 write I think our largest owner was over two million dollars. 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:08.360 Mike Fernandez, a healthcare executive down in Florida's big check. Yeah, 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.120 it's a big check. And these are successful people. Sometimes 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:15.320 it's private, family owned businesses. Uh. Sometimes they're they're folks 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:17.480 who just have always had an interest in politics. And 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.560 some were new and there were people generally who knew 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:22.760 the governor, many from when Jeb was governor of Florida 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:25.400 was very successful or liked his vision that we weren't 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:27.559 going to run a grievance campaign about who we're mad at, 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:30.040 and we're going to run a campaign in the primary 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:31.920 that we knew would be rocky, but we do it 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:33.320 in a way where we thought we could win a 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.679 general election. The primary voters wanted something else. So now 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.520 we've got a candidate who was very strong in the primary, 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:41.840 but is in real trouble I believe in the general election. 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.040 I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to Master's in Business on 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:49.240 Bloomberg Radio. My guest today is Michael Murphy. He is 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.280 the founder of Rights A Rise. Is that right? I 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.440 think my title? And you know we folded the pack down. 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.040 We returned about eighteen of the money or excuse me, 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.160 about twelves a different No, no, no no, we we returned 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:04.320 our capital. But let's for this way. Nobody else has 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:06.520 ever returned to Diamond Rio takes. And we gave back 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:08.240 millions of dollars. And what was your title with the 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:11.440 and with the of the right to rize pack which 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:13.640 has now been wound down except as a legal entity 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.079 because we get all the FBC audits after the gods, 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:17.840 you have to keep that around. And then in the 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.520 Bush campaign, what was your title? Uh, well, I was 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.400 Jeb's kind of senior strategist when he was running for governor. 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.760 Under the law, when in the presidential when you're doing 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:30.160 the superpack, you cannot legally talk to the campaign or 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.199 it's one or the other you can do. That's really interesting. 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.839 So so let's talk a little bit about this the 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:40.040 primary season, which was really kind of wacky. So really 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:45.120 it kicked off of me summer with the Fox News 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:50.040 hosted gop Um debate, and it was shocking. They came 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:54.439 right at at Trump right out of the gate. In hindsight, 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.960 it looks like that that approach backfired quite a bit. Well, 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:00.680 Trump had a constituency that was to put up with 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:02.920 a lot of heresy from Trump. In other words, he 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:06.760 could do things that were considered impolite or rude or offensive, 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.520 like attack and John McCain. Most people thought, under the 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:11.800 typical political rules, and I did too, that that would 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.319 hurt him. It didn't among the third of the vote 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:16.960 that really liked him. The other two thirds not so sure. 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.200 Even today, Trump, by no means has all the Republicans 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.960 lined up. But in a multi wait, you know, campaign 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.120 with fifteen sixteen candidates, if you can hold down to 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:30.400 a third, that's a ticket to the end. That's who happened. 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:36.760 And everybody doubted him far far far into the the process, 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.240 and in my mind's eye when he went on Jimmy 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.440 Fallon and did that mirror bit when the two of 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:47.920 them are, you know, it's Fallon pretended and he was so. 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:52.640 I know of him as a New Yorker full disclosure, 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.359 I think he's an amusing guy, but not presidential timber. 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.880 But at that moment I turned to my wife and said, 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.400 this guy can win. This guy can win the primary. 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:04.559 It was just and ever at the time, I don't 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.199 think a lot of people really felt what most people thought, 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:09.040 and I think the people running just about all the 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.520 campaigns is that Trump would be an interesting side show, 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.839 but he'd fizzle out because there was another candidate who 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.200 would get what we call the grievance vote, which was 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.120 very large this year, to blow it all up, hate everything, 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:23.280 mad who who's the enemy? And that was Cruise. So 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:25.640 most of us thought the real threat to the nomination, 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:28.520 who we were very worried about winning was Ted Cruz. 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.800 But Trump managed to kind of out muscle cruise with 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:34.440 that big persona. Trump was also with the Hollywood people, 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.200 and that business would call a pre aware title, which 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:38.640 is when you're making a movie, now you go spend 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:40.960 four hundred million dollars in the marketing department comes up 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:43.120 to you and says, well, we could make you know, 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.280 Flowers of Ralph and spend four million explaining what the 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.640 movies about when we make iron Man eleven, and you 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.959 don't have to have the same marketing iron Man eleven. 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.440 That's why they're making movies called battleship or you know 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.520 these known titles. One title, you know exactly what it is. Yeah, 0:12:57.520 --> 0:12:59.400 and Trump was a known title. Now, even if all 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:01.400 he was doing was teaching Gary Busey how to work 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.160 a snow cone machine. He was on primetime TV every 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.959 week forever in a set which, by the way, is 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.120 now the location of the campaign headquarters set. It's all 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.760 this new kind of politics where pop cultures crossed over. 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.760 But that created the identity where he was this super 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.800 business guy on television. Can do fire him? That persona. 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:22.599 He was ratings. It is the news business, so he 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:26.680 got more attention than anybody and that grievance formula, which 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.960 Jeff Bush would never go to do because one that 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.719 he believes in, and Jeb knew that Trump's gonna lose 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:36.520 the general election. You know, the worst thing you want 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:38.679 is to have a primary which is a drunken vendor. 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:41.600 We wake up the next morning, you're blown a presidential election. 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.960 And that's what I believe we've done. So the parallels 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:50.080 between sixteen are are similar. Nobody really gave Trump a 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:54.440 shot in He went not all the not not that 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.720 very deep into the process, got a lot of brand recognition, 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.440 capitalized it, and by some analyzes, the bulk of his 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:07.520 fortune came about post People will argue about that. But 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:12.560 what made this primary so different? And to be to 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:17.959 be blunt, I thought the run of folks other than 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.840 Mitt Romney was far crazier than this run of folks. 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.840 I mean, you had just that was not me, but 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.760 other people have called it a clown car, and it 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:31.960 was apparent, at least to some observers that Mitt Romney 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.040 was going to come out of that ahead. We didn't 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.400 quite have the same dynamic happen this. No, by the 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.440 traditional yardstick of folks who have done stuff, we had 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:45.040 a very heavy field. We had some big governors as 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.480 opposed to last time. We I think Romney is a 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:51.360 very serious guy did as governor's race, but there were 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.760 also some sideshow acts running. This time. It was the 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.400 candidates weren't as crazy, but the voters decided in the 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.040 Republican primary to be crazier. And you can see it 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.680 on the Democratic side too with Bernie. There is such 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:05.960 a populace football going on in the country. The middle 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.840 class hasn't gotten a raise in real wages in a 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.480 long long time, and people have been mad at the 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:13.880 political system. Now for a decade. They're fed up. They 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.080 want to blow the whole thing up. I did Schwarzeninger's 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.800 campaign for governor of California, and I remember Sacramento in 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:22.360 that race for governor, when the voters of a Democratic 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:24.720 state reached in and yanked out the guy they just 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.360 elected and threw him out the window in a recall election. 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.360 Was the same kind of anger. The difference is Arnold 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.240 took the job really seriously. He got the best policy 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:35.920 people he could, starting with Warren Buffett, to work on 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.280 a big plan for what to do when he was governor. 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:40.560 That that's not Trump, He's pure seat of the pants, 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:43.880 you know. But people's the same. People look at Donald 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.720 as if he's just a big dumb actor, but he's not. 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.480 He's a smart guy. He's a savvy businessman. He owns 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.040 a ton of real estate. I'm not surprised that he 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:58.120 did exactly what you said in in California. In trude, 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:00.640 he's a planner. Arnold's always thinking out what's around the 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.200 corn a few steps ahead. Now, it's not a surprise 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:08.160 that in the midst of the financial crisis, um the 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:10.640 public didn't have much of an appetite for a private 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:16.400 equity guy. But what do we think about in you 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.080 have a career politician on one hand, and then you 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.440 have kind of a renegade on the other. Which way 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.240 is the public going to break? Well? The force that 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.440 pushes Trump forward is what we political types called the 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:30.600 wrong track, which is two thirds or more of the 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:32.720 people think the country is off on the wrong track. 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:35.120 That means the election is going to be about new change, 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.720 blow up the system, and that is the win that 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.880 Trump can harness. Hillary is stuck being politics for forty years. 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.640 She's a pre aware title to everybody knows who Hillary 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.400 Clinton has, They have for decades, but she represents, oh 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.440 my god, the old politics now the countervailing force. Though. 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.240 One is Trump's weaknesses. Trump's got a lot of Trump 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.280 driven problems. He ran a campaign designed to offend swing 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:58.280 voters that he needs to win the general election. It's 0:16:58.280 --> 0:16:59.920 like he was building a lab to lose the like 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:04.040 they had strategy. The other problem Trump has his demography, 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.680 the election scale in the general election, those million people 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.640 is increasingly a much more democratic group than it used 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:15.120 to be. Of the voters will be minority voters and black, Latino, 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.879 Asian or mixed race among that group, Trump right now 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:22.320 is losing by essentially infinity. So he's written off almost 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:26.159 thirty percent of the vote, percent of which will probably 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.800 go to Hillary, maybe more so. Let me ask you 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:33.080 this question on that exact topic. So if you had 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.440 to come up with a percentage that we start with 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.800 the electoral college map and we look at everybody who 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.760 went out and voted for Romney. What percentage of Mitt 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.720 Romney voters are just gonna say, I'm not gonna pull 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.439 the leave of Hillary, but I can't go vote for 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:53.919 this guy. What percentage of Romney voters stay at home? Well, 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:55.520 I don't know about stay at home because there are 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:59.720 other places they can go. We got the Libertarians. They vote, 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:01.720 but they don't vote in the presidential They vote down 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.240 ballot center races or house. But let me put it 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.720 this way. I think Trump will lose at least ten 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.080 percent of the people who pulled the lever for Romney. 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:17.119 And that's that's something like fifty million. Yeah, it's a 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.600 couple of million people put it that way, less than 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.200 what Romney's fifty But he may bring in some people 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.520 Romney didn't have to, you know. So there are two 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.320 numbers there. But fundamentally, if you look at this polling, 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:32.639 and there's constantly panic about polling because the media business 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.280 has to cover for eyeballs every day of the election, 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.120 like it's the Hannenburg explosion. No matter what happens, it's 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:40.479 the biggest thing in the world. We only hear about 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:45.119 that one outlier poll, not day sirens go off because 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.040 they need the daily heat. That's where the clicks and 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.560 eyeballs come from. So they're in business too. So, But 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:52.800 if you look at the last thirty days of the polling, 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.719 give or take a day, and you average it all together, 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.560 which real clear Politics dot Com will do. The Trump 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:04.479 number has basically been forty two, forty one, forty two, 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:09.240 forty two, forty three, forty two, forty three times five. 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:12.720 He's been stuck down there because he's in this demographic 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:14.800 called to sack, where he's not getting what he ought to. 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.040 If college get white people, which Republicans normally win, Ronnie 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:22.119 won him by fourteen points, Democrat has not the Democrat 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:26.760 in a presidential election has not one white college educated males. 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:28.920 And I don't know how many decades, right, And so 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:31.800 he's in trouble there, particularly I white college educated women, 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:34.480 who really are the most powerful swing vote. He's doing 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:39.040 great with blue collar white guys, he's increasingly write a 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:42.000 shrinking pool, and he's getting murdered by the thirty percent 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.240 that's minority. So Trump is stuck in this low forties 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:48.200 called the sack of demography. The reason the race looks 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:50.440 close is one the media only covers horse race forty 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.520 two forty two, Well forty two forty two is the 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.800 voters saying, we hate both these guys because a bag 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.119 of cement can get forty with a D on it, 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:00.639 and a bag of some with an hour on it 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.640 will get thirty nine So the question is the difference 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:07.080 between hillary is forty two and forty nine or Trump's 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.760 forty two and forty nine or fifty. Who are those people? Well, 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:14.200 they look a lot more like democratle in voters than Republican. 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.400 So the real action of this race has been Hillary 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.159 going from the high forties and oh she's way ahead, 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:24.600 to Hillary doing something stupid or having a bad when 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:26.359 they when they keep it a stage secret, the moment 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:28.760 is suddenly the new nuclear code. You can't tell anybody 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.359 for seven hours after you face planting to the Scooby 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:35.240 do van there on television Country. It's insane. But they 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:37.879 get in trouble and the polls are basically a noise 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:41.680 meter what was on cable TV forties, So they ticked down. 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:43.600 So there's kind of a vix of polling going on. 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:46.800 It's mostly Hillary moving around. Trump's creeped up from forty 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.919 one to forty three, but he's running out of voters, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.240 and give him time, he'll find a way to he'll 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.760 offend him again, like again today in the news cycle, 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.760 he's out, you know, attacking more people and the birth thing. 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.280 I can't believe that I thought that was behind us. 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:03.920 I'm astonished that came up again. Is I think working 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:05.640 on something today where he's going to try to get 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:07.560 out of it, but you know, he gets out of it, 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.120 then he gets back in it, so he can't help himself. Yeah. 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.680 The question is can Hillary fix herself just to get 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.280 to her generic number and that's enough for her to win? 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:17.200 She would win because the generic number for them is 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.040 bigger than ours. Now. I'm Barry rid Hilts. You're listening 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:23.600 to Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:29.440 today is GOP campaign strategist extraordinaire Michael Murphy. He has 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:33.320 advised pretty much everyone on the GOP side, from Jeb 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:37.960 Bush to the Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger, uh to Mitt Romney 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:42.280 to uh Um McCain. You were big with McCain in 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.040 two thousand. I did the two thousand campaign. I didn't 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.040 do two thousand and eight, and fermid I did the 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.440