Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And a new Gallup poll says that
Speaker 1: only eighteen percent of eighteen to thirty four year olds
Speaker 1: are proud to be an American. What a show we
Speaker 1: have for you today, A show of shows. Inside elections.
Speaker 1: Jacob Rubashkin analyzes the latest polling in the Republican primary.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to Ohio Capital Journal editor in chief
Speaker 1: David DeWitt about Ohio's Prop one and it's huge implications.
Speaker 1: But first we have the host of the time of monsters,
Speaker 1: the nation's G Tier. Welcome back to Fast Politics, frequent flyer,
Speaker 1: close personal friend, G Tier and future husband a future husband.
Speaker 1: Let us know, I forget, Yes, we will enjoy having
Speaker 1: six kids.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: That's nothing better than a blended family of six kids.
Speaker 1: And little kids the best because I haven't raised little
Speaker 1: kids in me or five years.
Speaker 3: It's like the pretty bunch, But with politics.
Speaker 1: Jeet, when you look down on US Americans from Canada
Speaker 1: and you notice the double entendre here, you're welcome. I mean,
Speaker 1: how fucked do we seem?
Speaker 4: I'd say fairly So what I always tell Americans is
Speaker 4: that it's a global struggle, right, Like there's a lot
Speaker 4: of these battles against fascism are happening all over the world.
Speaker 4: The United States, I mean, I would give it, US
Speaker 4: are a middling grade, Like it's not maybe doing as
Speaker 4: well as New Zealand, say, but it's better than.
Speaker 3: You know, some of the European countries.
Speaker 1: You know, exactly, we're better off than Italy.
Speaker 4: Congratulations, you don't have a you know, Bussolini's granddaughter or whatever,
Speaker 4: right exactly. In the governments, I'm trying to be like
Speaker 4: not a dumer. I think there's like, you know, obviously
Speaker 4: big serious problems, you know, not least of which is
Speaker 4: how that is a two party system and one of
Speaker 4: the major parties is like insane and so as I
Speaker 4: always say, it's like Russian U liit.
Speaker 3: At some point the bullet.
Speaker 2: Is going to come up.
Speaker 4: So this is what happened in twenty sixteen and will
Speaker 4: happened in the future. Just to me, that's like the
Speaker 4: big solvable problem, I mean, the short term solutions you
Speaker 4: can try to work, and you should be working to
Speaker 4: make sure that the Republicans don't come back to power.
Speaker 2: Anytime soon.
Speaker 3: But I mean, I think that is the problem.
Speaker 1: Like that right, the Republicans have brain worms?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the authoritarian takeover of the Republican Party.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like because yeah, so you know you can't have
Speaker 4: a normal government at that point.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read you something right now, because I
Speaker 1: love to read and I think it's like, really quite smart.
Speaker 1: It's from the Discourse blog. Pretending like Trump isn't going
Speaker 1: to absolutely dog walk the entire GOP playing field into
Speaker 1: oblivion for the next year makes a degree of craven sense,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean it's actually worth taking seriously. In
Speaker 1: the year twenty twenty three, get fucking real, the Republican
Speaker 1: Party will nominate Trump for each and every election for
Speaker 1: the rest of its life and after. And don't be
Speaker 1: too shocked if you see Donnie wheeling out his deer
Speaker 1: departed Dad's coffin onto the twenty thirty six R and
Speaker 1: D stage to accept the nomination on his behalf discuss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's right.
Speaker 4: I do see a sort of weekend for Bernie fus here,
Speaker 4: But that was Bernie weekend. We can get Bernie, right,
Speaker 4: we can at at Donnie's I think it's absolutely the
Speaker 4: case that. I mean, the thing is spectraly like, no
Speaker 4: sitting president has ever lost the nomination for a party
Speaker 4: in like, you know, well over a century, and Trump,
Speaker 4: in the eyes of the Republicans is a sitting president,
Speaker 4: right Like, a majority of Republicans think that he won
Speaker 4: the twenty twenty elections, you will be the nominee, and
Speaker 4: if he loses, they're still sayings that you want, so
Speaker 4: you basically have I mean structurally, what that means is
Speaker 4: you're going to have a country with people living in
Speaker 4: two sets of reality. There'll be people who actually know
Speaker 4: what's happening and are realizing that like Trump lost the election,
Speaker 4: and they're a sizeable part of the population. They live
Speaker 4: in this alternative reality where like he's still president, right like,
Speaker 4: and I don't know, maybe you could create some sort
Speaker 4: of Truman show on a vass scale where they can
Speaker 4: have like Fox News say, like President Trump as you know,
Speaker 4: like fanned critical race theory and he is dangerous to
Speaker 4: have a country where a big chunk I wouldn't say
Speaker 4: it's half I actually think it's maybe thirty percent of
Speaker 4: the population, but live in an alternative reality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the whole idea that Trump will stop
Speaker 1: running when he loses. If he loses, seems kind of nuts.
Speaker 1: Do you agree or disagree that the incredibly craven third
Speaker 1: party ploy on the part of Republican donors and the
Speaker 1: push for it RFK Junior whatever that is and Cornell
Speaker 1: West is all just because they know Trump can't win.
Speaker 3: Basically, I agree with that. I think more with RFK
Speaker 3: than Cornell West.
Speaker 4: They're not quite the same. Cornell West is coming from tradition.
Speaker 4: You know, you can agree or disagree with it. But
Speaker 4: I mean there is this, you know, like Ralph Nader
Speaker 4: type politics that thinks the two party system is loopy
Speaker 4: and you have to party change. Yet I mean there's
Speaker 4: like just abundant evidence that RFK Junior is being promoted
Speaker 4: by the Republican Party as a sort of gambit. And
Speaker 4: I have to say this is like a kind of
Speaker 4: all the tactic of Roger Stone in particular, like like
Speaker 4: he's always been kind of interested in promoting like third
Speaker 4: parties as a way of helping Republicans out. He has
Speaker 4: a sort of history of that. I'm not sure it's
Speaker 4: going to work at all. I mean, I just think
Speaker 4: the thing we were seeing is that RFK Junior is
Speaker 4: like Ron de Sandas in the sense that the more
Speaker 4: people see him, you know, the less they like him,
Speaker 4: you know. And then there might have been people who
Speaker 4: are like theoretically like, oh you know Robert Kennedy, Oh
Speaker 4: I remember that guy? They fixed his blood? Would I
Speaker 4: guess are? You know? It's just like like people, you know,
Speaker 4: they remember they am Azer nostalgic Fundus or the Kennedy name.
Speaker 4: And I do want, like maybe the Democrats to be
Speaker 4: running someone younger. But I mean, like when people see
Speaker 4: what rf K Junior is, especially Democrats, I mean like
Speaker 4: he's running in the wrong primary.
Speaker 1: Well, he wants to seal the border. He's very excited
Speaker 1: to seal the border.
Speaker 3: That's right, That's why.
Speaker 4: So I don't know what sort of language one can use,
Speaker 4: but there is a sort of erminent politic associated with
Speaker 4: Rogers on evolving rodents and their sexual activity.
Speaker 1: You can say it here.
Speaker 3: I can say, okay, so yeah, I mean, yeah, let's
Speaker 3: let's be real. This is a rat fucking operation.
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean I also think that it
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting if we're just gonna do you know,
Speaker 1: we're still like a month out or a little less
Speaker 1: than a month out from this Republican debate. Trump has
Speaker 1: said he wasn't going to be in it. Then Trump
Speaker 1: said he would be in it, and then Kelly and
Speaker 1: Conway the famous my my friend and yours not my friend,
Speaker 1: but somebody's round.
Speaker 3: She's going to be like the Rate of Honor had
Speaker 3: our wedding. So I just want to be.
Speaker 1: Lad she's not. Kellyan said the other day on Fox
Speaker 1: News that they should keep the center podium warm for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. So it seems very likely he's going to
Speaker 1: be at this debate. And I think an important thing
Speaker 1: that none of us remember from season one of this
Speaker 1: incredibly fucked up and political meltdown was that actually during
Speaker 1: season one, Trump is a very even though he's so
Speaker 1: disjointed and so crazy, she's very good at these debates.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely.
Speaker 4: I mean I feel a lot of guilt because I
Speaker 4: actually enjoyed those debates because you have absolutely destroyed Jabs
Speaker 4: and Ted Cruz and all the others. I mean, he's
Speaker 4: the thing is he's a television professional, right, Like this
Speaker 4: is the one job he's actually had. He'sed to be
Speaker 4: a reality show. Oh he's just you know, like very good,
Speaker 4: and he has a kind of humor that translates well
Speaker 4: on TV. So yeah, I think, like, why wouldn't he
Speaker 4: do it, especially so it's like, you know, like he's
Speaker 4: like he's holding his lead. The Santus is already crumpling.
Speaker 4: Like I actually, you know, Natural Review had this sort
Speaker 4: of saying, well, if he take Trump out of the equation,
Speaker 4: run de Santus is clearly the leader, Like well, yeah,
Speaker 4: but that's not the way.
Speaker 3: These things work.
Speaker 4: And secondly, even if you say the Santus is the leader,
Speaker 4: he's actually like following, like like the people are like
Speaker 4: becoming warrigasted in alternatives to Scott in particular.
Speaker 3: So I just think, I.
Speaker 4: Think, yeah, like doing the debate would be a good
Speaker 4: thing for Trump not just because he can dominate over
Speaker 4: other people, but I think because if he does the
Speaker 4: debate and he can sort of like you know, very
Speaker 4: easily bully ron descentis even if people don't become more
Speaker 4: pro Trump, I think that'll be like the you know,
Speaker 4: the knockout blow, like like Dessanta's is already like so weak,
Speaker 4: but that will be the knockout blow, and that that
Speaker 4: that is good for Trump, Like people will start looking
Speaker 4: at all the other candidates and that's the end of
Speaker 4: the race, you know.
Speaker 1: But it is interesting to me when you think about
Speaker 1: if we're talking about Ron DeSantis, this idea that somehow
Speaker 1: an entire party that has been touching the third rail
Speaker 1: of Republican politics, fully embracing George Wallace style racism, fully
Speaker 1: embracing the kind of nativism and anti anti anti Dad crew,
Speaker 1: is now going to nominate someone black.
Speaker 4: Discuss Yeah, I don't see that's going to happen. And
Speaker 4: actually I think that what you historically in the last
Speaker 4: few election cycles, what you've had is like, briefly a
Speaker 4: black candidate will start doing well in the Republican primary.
Speaker 4: It happened with Hermeran Kane, it happened with Ben Carson.
Speaker 4: Canan Carson both enjoyed this kind of like bomb because
Speaker 4: there are enough Republications who think like and it's basically trolling,
Speaker 4: like they think like, oh, we'll nominate a black candidate
Speaker 4: and then we'll really own the Libs. And unfortunately these
Speaker 4: candidates always quickly diminished because you get another set of
Speaker 4: Republicans say, wait a minute, we're nominating a black candidate.
Speaker 3: Like that's not what I find out on the Republican
Speaker 3: Party for.
Speaker 1: Our whole thing is racism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So Trump had like no problem at
Speaker 4: all finishing off Ben Carson, and I'm assuming the same
Speaker 4: thing will happen with the Scott And I actually don't
Speaker 4: think Scott has even running to president. He's running to
Speaker 4: be like Trump's vice president Jill nominee.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, I mean I think that's right. And
Speaker 1: can we just talk for a minute about the idea
Speaker 1: of running to be Donald Trump's vice presidential nominee? What
Speaker 1: happened to Donald Trump's other vice presidential nominee?
Speaker 3: Yeah? No, it does seem like a weird positioned to
Speaker 3: have some of you listeners.
Speaker 4: I'd remember the movie Spinal Tap, where the drummer of
Speaker 4: the bandos dies and after a while you wonder, like,
Speaker 4: why would someone want to be a drummer on spinal Tap?
Speaker 4: Like why would you want to be the VP a
Speaker 4: Trump campaign? Where like, I think your only best case
Speaker 4: scenario is that the call off the mob that he's
Speaker 4: incited to kill you at the last minute. It doesn't
Speaker 4: seem like a position with a lot of future in it,
Speaker 4: except that you know, these are people who are still
Speaker 4: following traditional political career paths, and in some way that's
Speaker 4: what Pennce did right, like he you know, he had
Speaker 4: alters the qualms about Trump, you know, especially I think
Speaker 4: it is why they were parted, that his wife didn't
Speaker 4: like Trump at all and because of Trump's lewdness and
Speaker 4: general poorishness. But I mean, like Pennce thought, well, I'll
Speaker 4: be VP and then now have a clear path to
Speaker 4: be the presidential nominee or Trump will die. You know,
Speaker 4: like we've just seen that does not work. It's we're
Speaker 4: not a new or no, we're not in Kansas anymore.
Speaker 4: This is like you're being the vice president of the
Speaker 4: Wicked Witch of the last You're one of the flying monkeys.
Speaker 4: That is what being the VP is, and that's what
Speaker 4: working for Trump is. You're getting a job as a
Speaker 4: fighting monkey and that's not a good position.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it does seem that people still want it.
Speaker 1: Do you think that people want power more than they
Speaker 1: have good judgment?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 4: And I mean that's the whole thing with the Republican Party, right,
Speaker 4: like that is the whole deal that they made. I mean,
Speaker 4: you mentioned Megan Kelly just now. I mean, like think
Speaker 4: about like how Trump umulated her and like you know,
Speaker 4: ended up like destroying her career because that was the
Speaker 4: beginning of our severance from Fox. But now she's all
Speaker 4: best buddies again with Trump. So as long as.
Speaker 3: Trump is a power was in the party.
Speaker 4: As long as he's like the most popular person in
Speaker 4: the Republican Party, a lot of people, you know, like
Speaker 4: Trump could do anything to them. He can humiliate them,
Speaker 4: you know, he can insult their wives as he did
Speaker 4: with them, was going to like make up with him,
Speaker 4: and they're always gonna like.
Speaker 3: Suck up to him.
Speaker 4: The best one can say is, at least it's funny.
Speaker 4: You know, it's squalid and bad for democracy, and you know,
Speaker 4: it could be the end of the Republic. But man,
Speaker 4: did we have some laughs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be the end of democracy. But at
Speaker 1: least we had fun and good for the brand. I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you. Speaking of branding, we have
Speaker 1: four minutes to talk about X.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Elon's latest adventure.
Speaker 4: Yes yeah, I mean, like, like Musk is sort of
Speaker 4: making me rethink one of my long held positions, which
Speaker 4: is on a drug decriminalization.
Speaker 3: Bad.
Speaker 4: This is true, Like maybe it does actually Harvey or
Speaker 4: judge about Twitter doesn't have a lot going for it,
Speaker 4: you know, like it never made money and was losing money,
Speaker 4: but at least it was a very well known brand,
Speaker 4: Like it's something everyone kind of knew was about it,
Speaker 4: and it had an iconic you know, like bird image,
Speaker 4: and you're placing it with like a letter, you know,
Speaker 4: and apparently like the ex is already trademark, which I
Speaker 4: don't even understand how that's possible, Like how can you
Speaker 4: trademark a letter like but but apparently you can. But
Speaker 4: musk kasm, He's like created a trademark that someone else owns,
Speaker 4: you know, like one of many bad, bad decisions I
Speaker 4: need to think people forget is you know, like he
Speaker 4: never really wanted to own Twitter, Like I know, people
Speaker 4: have this Machiavelian theory that he's trying to destroy this
Speaker 4: the site, like like he actually was forced to buy
Speaker 4: Twitter because you know, like he had made a joke
Speaker 4: offer and then the court said, well, you know you
Speaker 4: actually made that offer, right, yeah, exactly, you know you
Speaker 4: actually have to like fulfill your obligation.
Speaker 3: It's he as he went to Cork.
Speaker 4: To like not by Twitter and lost that was made
Speaker 4: to buy Twitter, and now I feel like he's like,
Speaker 4: you know a kind of hopped up Simpson like, you know,
Speaker 4: like I'm just gonna take this thing down with people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, for sure. I mean that's what we're
Speaker 1: seeing is a complete and utter you know, a man
Speaker 1: who is just cannot ever say uncle. And for that,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll watch a play out a jet here.
Speaker 1: I hope you will come back.
Speaker 4: I'm always happy to be back, and in fact, I'm
Speaker 4: just working on our wedding invitations right now.
Speaker 1: So. Jacob Rubashkan is an analyst and reporter for Inside Elections.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, Jacob.
Speaker 5: Rubaskan, Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Let's first talk about the insane top primary. We just
Speaker 1: have to keep pretending that there's a chance someone else
Speaker 1: besides Trump will be the nomine.
Speaker 5: I don't know if you have to keep pretending, and
Speaker 5: I think there are a lot of people who have
Speaker 5: a vested interest in keeping pretending. But the picture is
Speaker 5: increasingly clear as we get, you know, just a couple
Speaker 5: of days away, a couple weeks away from this first debate.
Speaker 2: Who is in the driver's.
Speaker 5: Seat and who has a lot of work to do
Speaker 5: if they want to remain or enter the conversation.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think is maybe an
Speaker 1: underreported story here, which is not necessarily good. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying this is good. I'm not happy about it, but
Speaker 1: is that it does strike me that Trump has actually
Speaker 1: really professionalized his organization since twenty fifteen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think when you look back to
Speaker 5: the kind of campaign that he was running in those
Speaker 5: very early days before most people took him seriously. Right there,
Speaker 5: there were sixteen candidates in the race, and probably a
Speaker 5: dozen of them had a better claim to the professionals
Speaker 5: in the industry, the people who you know, had run
Speaker 5: presidential campaigns before, had run any kind of campaign before
Speaker 5: at scale. You know, they were signing up with the
Speaker 5: jebs and the Marco Rubio's and Scott Walker's and Bobby
Speaker 5: Jindall's and you know everyone else who was in that
Speaker 5: race had the connections and had the relationships with the
Speaker 5: political folks that knew how to run these races. And
Speaker 5: so that's why, you know, we forget now. But there
Speaker 5: was a real concerted effort to deny Trump at the convention,
Speaker 5: use some you know, funky delegate math to figure out
Speaker 5: a way to see if they could nominate someone else.
Speaker 5: And since he became president in twenty seventeen, right, he
Speaker 5: has gotten access to the cream of the crop of
Speaker 5: Republican you know, political strategists as it were, because the
Speaker 5: rest of the party fell in line behind him. So really,
Speaker 5: you know, in the twenty twenty election, he had access
Speaker 5: to a level of resources that he just never had before.
Speaker 5: And as he heads into twenty twenty four, rights he's
Speaker 5: shedded some of those, right, some of those people have
Speaker 5: gone to work for other candidates Ron DeSantis among others,
Speaker 5: But he still has access to the kind of infrastructure
Speaker 5: operation that his campaign only could have dreamed of when
Speaker 5: they were first starting out in those early days and
Speaker 5: been twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: But it's so funny because it's like DeSantis, who was
Speaker 1: absolutely the favorite of tech bros everywhere and wealthy people
Speaker 1: who maybe didn't have a great sense of the importance
Speaker 1: of personality and the presidential races. I mean, he is
Speaker 1: now hemorrhaging people. I mean he has had to really
Speaker 1: scale back his whole campaign and everything.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I mean the launch of the DeSantis campaign
Speaker 5: has really been kind of beguiling, and I think I'm
Speaker 5: I'm not the only one who has been kind of
Speaker 5: confused at how they've been handling things, But kind of
Speaker 5: from the beginning. You know, they had this huge build
Speaker 5: up in the kind of before and really after the
Speaker 5: twenty twenty two mid terms where there really was this
Speaker 5: moment when a lot of Republicans woke up, you know,
Speaker 5: the day after the red wave failed to materialize, and
Speaker 5: they said, you know, Trump got involved in all these races,
Speaker 5: maybe he led us a story, Maybe it is time
Speaker 5: to start looking for new leadership. And that was the moment.
Speaker 5: We saw a lot of polling come out that actually
Speaker 5: had DeSantis tied or even ahead of Trump nationally. People
Speaker 5: clearly were looking for something different, and rather than try
Speaker 5: and capture that momentum when it emerged organically, you know,
Speaker 5: rather than seizing the moment when it appeared to him,
Speaker 5: what we saw was DeSantis kind of take a step
Speaker 5: back and refuse not just to launch a presidential campaign,
Speaker 5: but to really even go after Trump in a substantive way.
Speaker 5: And wait, you know, another six months. I mean, he
Speaker 5: doesn't really get into the race until May, and by
Speaker 5: then you've got other candidates in the race, Nikki Haley,
Speaker 5: Tim Scott, a number of you know, lower tier candidates.
Speaker 5: He launches with this Twitter spaces kind of tobop off right.
Speaker 5: And I think, you know, it's been interesting that when
Speaker 5: he did that, it was this question of you know,
Speaker 5: what is what is the point of doing that?
Speaker 2: Is it to cozy up to Musk?
Speaker 5: And I think ultimately what we've seen over the last
Speaker 5: eight weeks of the campaign is this is just a
Speaker 5: very online campaign.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: They've been dealing with the fallout the last couple of
Speaker 5: days of these videos that they've been put out.
Speaker 2: This is just this is.
Speaker 5: A campaign that clearly paid too much attention to Twitter
Speaker 5: and bought into the notion that this was the pathway
Speaker 5: to relevance in a Republican primary. And you know, Trump
Speaker 5: is out there handing out blizzards of dairy Queen and
Speaker 5: you know, doing all the things that he's been doing
Speaker 5: for the last eight years that have kept him front
Speaker 5: and center in the party.
Speaker 1: This idea that Twitter is not real life was so
Speaker 1: I mean, during that twenty twenty election and the twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen primaries, we were told so many times by more
Speaker 1: mainstream pundits that they, you know, I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: kind of tragically centrist, the profoundly centrist, by those guys,
Speaker 1: that Twitter is not real life and that the woke
Speaker 1: left is only you know, relevant on Twitter, and it
Speaker 1: turns out that the far right right is not relevant anywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, it's a very interesting kind of mirror image of
Speaker 5: what we saw in that Democratic presidential primary a couple
Speaker 5: of years ago. I mean, I know you have Ron
Speaker 5: Klain on fairly often, and he would be the first
Speaker 5: guy to tell you back in that twenty twenty primary,
Speaker 5: Twitter wasn't real life, right, you know, if you remember
Speaker 5: that New York Times endorsement kind of miniseries that they
Speaker 5: did where they had all those those interview clips, and
Speaker 5: I remember talking aroun it around that time, and he
Speaker 5: told me, he said, the most important thing we got
Speaker 5: out of there was not in the room with the
Speaker 5: editorial board. It was that clip of the video with
Speaker 5: the guard and the elevator that she was ten times
Speaker 5: or one hundred times the validator that anyone in that
Speaker 5: editorial board room what was going to be. And so,
Speaker 5: you know, I think that we're now seeing kind of
Speaker 5: the bizarro world inverse of that happened with the Deysantis campaign,
Speaker 5: where they have latched onto in their online presence a
Speaker 5: very different sector of the online community, but one that
Speaker 5: clearly is also unpalatable to a larger electorate that they
Speaker 5: care about things and talk about things that rank and
Speaker 5: file Republican primary voters just don't seem to latch onto
Speaker 5: in a substantive way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jackie the elevator woman was just delighted by Biden
Speaker 1: and said, this is the candidate that I'm going to support,
Speaker 1: And video of them together is really quite moving. But
Speaker 1: it's also just such an important realization. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think of this a lot because I live in a
Speaker 1: city with a mayor who I think sucks. You need
Speaker 1: people to elect you, and like, we get so high
Speaker 1: minded in the punditry world that we forget that this
Speaker 1: is actually about people voting, you know, people wanting to
Speaker 1: give you their vote. And I think that's really like,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that Biden is really
Speaker 1: good at it is a really good retail politician.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And I think that one of the things that DeSantis
Speaker 5: really had going for him, right, One of the strengths
Speaker 5: of his campaign before he launched, and maybe the moment
Speaker 5: of his launch, was that he had this strength among
Speaker 5: voters who really were desperate for an alternative for Trump
Speaker 5: and not just kind of your never or trumpers in
Speaker 5: the party that have, you know, small dwindling numbers, but
Speaker 5: there were a fair number. Whether even if it was
Speaker 5: thirty or forty percent, that's still a substantial portion of
Speaker 5: voters who were looking for an alternative. And because he
Speaker 5: was either a blank slate or all they knew about
Speaker 5: him was he had just won Florida by twenty points,
Speaker 5: that was appealing to them. As they've gotten to know
Speaker 5: him more, he has become less appealing. So he has
Speaker 5: not been able to turn that initial kind of appeal
Speaker 5: an opportunity into into real support. He hasn't given those
Speaker 5: people something to latch onto beyond the fact that he's
Speaker 5: not Trump. So if you look at his image ratings, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, he is unpopular now nationwide in a way
Speaker 5: that he was not unpopular when he first came on
Speaker 5: the national scene in twenty twenty two. His favorability rating
Speaker 5: has basically remained unchanged, and as more people have gone
Speaker 5: to know him, his unfavorability rating has gone up. Right,
Speaker 5: So the more people are hearing about him, the less
Speaker 5: they're liking him. And that's just a dangerous place to
Speaker 5: be for any candidate, let alone one who is trying
Speaker 5: to make this electability argument against Trump in a Republican primary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Let's just talk for another minute about
Speaker 1: what it looks like in this Republican primary. We're going
Speaker 1: to see a Republican primary debate, We're going to see Trump,
Speaker 1: We're going to see a bunch of candidates. Now over
Speaker 1: the next year, we're going to start seeing It's a
Speaker 1: very good Senate map for Republicans, but they have these
Speaker 1: candidates who are these trumpy candidates. Tell me what you
Speaker 1: think twenty twenty three is going to look like and
Speaker 1: where you are with us?
Speaker 5: Well, look, I think that on the presidential side, of course,
Speaker 5: the debates are the best opportunity that almost any of
Speaker 5: these candidates are going to get to step out into
Speaker 5: the limelight and try and make their mark.
Speaker 1: Trump is going to crush them all.
Speaker 2: Well if he shows up, right, and I think.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I mean, the thing that is so shocking
Speaker 1: about him is that he's really a good debater.
Speaker 5: He has a commanding presence, right, He was able to
Speaker 5: and because of the way the debates kind of coincided with,
Speaker 5: you know, his entrance in twenty sixteen and the polling there,
Speaker 5: he was able to have that center stage spot on
Speaker 5: lock from the very beginning.
Speaker 2: And you know, I.
Speaker 5: Truly think if he had been over at the periphery
Speaker 5: in those first couple of debates, it would have been
Speaker 5: a different kind of experience for him. But the fact
Speaker 5: that he came in as the front runner and as
Speaker 5: the center of attention. When he has given that power,
Speaker 5: he just wields it so effectively against all of these guys.
Speaker 5: And those were no slouches on the debate stage back
Speaker 5: in twenty fifteen. I mean you had current and former
Speaker 5: governors of swing states, Democratic States, Republican states, senators, congressman,
Speaker 5: you know, legit contenders there, and he kind.
Speaker 2: Of bulldozed through all of them.
Speaker 5: The only candidate who ever really gave Trump a run
Speaker 5: for his money in that kind of pre voting stage
Speaker 5: was Ben Carson, right, who had a very similar kind
Speaker 5: of appeal to voters, and that he as an outsider
Speaker 5: coming at it from a different angle. So no, I
Speaker 5: think that you know, on the presidential side, there isn't
Speaker 5: a ton of suspense here at the moment.
Speaker 1: Tell me what you're watching with this Senate map.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so you know Democrats have a fifty or fifty
Speaker 5: one seat majority, depending on how you want to count
Speaker 5: Kirsten Cinema.
Speaker 1: And see, you know you're a terrible Democrat when depending
Speaker 1: on how you want to count Christin Cinema continue, Yes.
Speaker 5: So, I mean, I think the more important thing, right is,
Speaker 5: like Republicans have forty nine seats, right, and they either
Speaker 5: need to get to fifty plus the White House or
Speaker 5: they need to get to fifty one regardless of what
Speaker 5: happens with the White House to win the majority. They
Speaker 5: are laser focused on three states, right, They're focused on
Speaker 5: West Virginia, Ohio, and Montana. And Republicans really believe that
Speaker 5: the path to the majority runs back through winning two
Speaker 5: of those three, right and everything else. You know, they
Speaker 5: think that they have varying degrees of opportunity in another
Speaker 5: seven or eight states, but the path to the majority
Speaker 5: is flipping that West Virginia seat and flipping one of
Speaker 5: Montana or Ohio. I think West Virginia is probably their
Speaker 5: best shot. It's just such a Republican state. Even if
Speaker 5: Joe Manchin does run again, he's going to have a
Speaker 5: really tough race on his hands, certainly the toughest race
Speaker 5: he's ever had to run in that state. You know,
Speaker 5: I think John Tester in Montana and Shared Brown in
Speaker 5: Ohio or in slightly better position, Shared Brown.
Speaker 1: I have trouble imagining Shared Brown not being able to
Speaker 1: eke it out again.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think it really comes down to,
Speaker 5: you know, just how much his Ohio shifted politically right.
Speaker 2: We have seen the.
Speaker 5: State move pretty considerably, you know, I think, Look, we
Speaker 5: saw a close competitive Senate race in Ohio this last
Speaker 5: year between Tim Ryan and Jade Vance. And you know,
Speaker 5: Tim Ryan ran very much in the mold of Shared.
Speaker 5: He didn't have as much money as Shared will, and
Speaker 5: he was running in a you know, not a great year.
Speaker 1: He's no Shared though. I mean I like him just fine,
Speaker 1: but he's no Shared. But certainly, I mean, West Virginia
Speaker 1: seems almost unwinnable for Democrats.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it is. It is real tough sledding there.
Speaker 5: This is a state that Trump could win by forty
Speaker 5: points if he's the nomine You know, a seventy thirty
Speaker 5: victory isn't really out of the question. And you know,
Speaker 5: Joe Manchin has a particular appeal in the state that
Speaker 5: no other Democrat has. You know, he has he has
Speaker 5: shown that before, you know, thinking back to twenty eighteen,
Speaker 5: you know, he won that race. Well, Claire mccaskell and
Speaker 5: Bill Nelson and Joe Donnelly and Heidi Hidekamp. We're losing
Speaker 5: races and you know, states that were not nearly as Republican.
Speaker 5: But you know, it's going to be really tough, especially
Speaker 5: if he's facing off against Jim Justice, who's the incumbent
Speaker 5: Republican governor. He's running in that Senate primary. He's very
Speaker 5: popular in the state, and so.
Speaker 1: He owned the Greenbriar and has an enormous dog, yes,
Speaker 1: and more importantly called the baby Girl.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think she's you know, in
Speaker 5: terms of his you know, the assets he brings to
Speaker 5: the table there, she's certainly number one.
Speaker 2: I think the Greenbrier is a distant second on there.
Speaker 1: But baby Dog, I'm sorry, Jesse has fact checked me
Speaker 1: once again. Baby dog. Yeah, he couldn't come up with
Speaker 1: a name. Baby dog was the name. And anyway, yes,
Speaker 1: it's true, but that's true. But there's also going to
Speaker 1: be some really interesting stuff happening in this Lest you
Speaker 1: think this is a rerun. For example, Cinema is up
Speaker 1: for reelection. I mean, talk to me about that race.
Speaker 5: Oh gosh. Senate races are always complicated. Some of them
Speaker 5: are more straightforward, some of them are just a complete mess.
Speaker 5: And this definitely falls into the complete mess category. You know,
Speaker 5: she's up for reelection. She has not said what she
Speaker 5: plans to do, whether she's going to run as an independent,
Speaker 5: or whether she's gonna, you know, hang it up after
Speaker 5: one term in the Senate. On the other side, three sides.
Speaker 5: On one of the other sides, you've got Reuben Diego,
Speaker 5: who's basically clear the Democratic field. You know, he's raising
Speaker 5: a lot of money, he's got grassroots support. And then
Speaker 5: for Republicans, you've got Carrie Lake kind of freezing their
Speaker 5: field as well.
Speaker 2: You know, she has she's on a book tour.
Speaker 5: She's still you know, trying to litigate claiming she's the
Speaker 5: real governor of Arizona.
Speaker 2: She hangs out at mar A Lago.
Speaker 1: Didn't Trump say that she was spending too much time
Speaker 1: in Lago?
Speaker 5: There was some reporting that that people in Trump's orbit
Speaker 5: were getting a little frustrated with how much time she
Speaker 5: was spending there. I think some people clearly think she's
Speaker 5: angling for a VP slot, but she's really freezing their field.
Speaker 5: I think if she runs for Senate, she'll probably be
Speaker 5: the nominee. She's very popular still among the base there.
Speaker 5: If she doesn't run, it'll be a messy primary. We
Speaker 5: might see Blake Masters come back from last.
Speaker 1: Year, another great candidate. I mean, that is the Trump's
Speaker 1: big problem, right, We're going to do a lightning round.
Speaker 1: Rick Scott seems like he's pretty safe, right, I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the Democrats need a candidate.
Speaker 5: If they can get a credible candidate who can raise
Speaker 5: a lot of money, preferably one who you know, speaks
Speaker 5: Spanish and can try and club back some territory South Florida.
Speaker 5: Maybe that gets interesting, but at the moment it's it's
Speaker 5: not really a focus.
Speaker 1: Angus King. He's an independent. It's Maine. You think that's fine, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, especially you know Angus King has won majorities in
Speaker 5: three way races before, and now Maine has ranked choice voting.
Speaker 1: So that's right, he'll be able.
Speaker 5: To whatever Democrat appears on the ballot and gets fifteen
Speaker 5: percent of the vote, he'll scoop that fifteen percent up
Speaker 5: in the second round.
Speaker 2: Makes it very difficult for Republican to beat him.
Speaker 1: Debbie Stabna is not running. There's a primary in Michigan.
Speaker 1: Two seconds on that, we had at least Slotkin on
Speaker 1: the podcast.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think Slotkin's definitely the favorite. You know, incumbent
Speaker 5: congresswoman has won tough races, raising a lot of money,
Speaker 5: compelling bio fellow Cornell grad.
Speaker 2: But it remains to be seen how much of.
Speaker 5: A real primary Hill Harper, the actor gives her. That
Speaker 5: could be one it you know, turns into something a
Speaker 5: little more complicated. It could be very straightforward for her.
Speaker 5: Republicans need a candidate. There are a couple of names
Speaker 5: floating out there, but until they.
Speaker 1: Get they're just going to run John James again.
Speaker 2: I think he is going to take a pass. Believe
Speaker 2: it or not.
Speaker 1: I think he's a poor guy. It just run him
Speaker 1: every year.
Speaker 5: What I've heard is, you know, he's if he's going
Speaker 5: to run for another office in the near future, it's
Speaker 5: going to be for governor in two years when that
Speaker 5: seat opens up, rather than running for Senate again. I
Speaker 5: think they'd love to get Peter Meyer, the former congressman
Speaker 5: from Western Michigan.
Speaker 1: But it's good luck.
Speaker 5: I mean, you can't win a primary if you voted
Speaker 5: to impeach Trump, which he did.
Speaker 1: And Trump hates him. Please, Jacob, we need you to
Speaker 1: come back as this trauma unfold. It's really interesting. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks anytime.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 1: It's Molly and I am wildly excited that for the
Speaker 1: first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to right now,
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Speaker 1: David de Witt is the editor in chief of the
Speaker 1: Ohio Capital Journal. Welcome to Fast Politics, David, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Balie.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1: Tell us what your job description is, what you do
Speaker 1: and where you based.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So, I'm based in Columbus, Ohio, and I'm the editor
Speaker 6: in chief and opinion columnists for a publication called Ohio
Speaker 6: Capital Journal. We're a five ZHO one C three nonprofit
Speaker 6: that's part of the State's Newsroom network, which is up
Speaker 6: in about thirty seven states now. And what State's Newsroom
Speaker 6: is is we've built over the last four or five years.
Speaker 2: To be in thirty seven states. We're going to be
Speaker 2: up in forty by the end of next year, I believe.
Speaker 6: And the idea behind this nonprofit model for state capital
Speaker 6: coverage is that as newspapers have closed and consolidated throughout
Speaker 6: the country, a lot of the times state house press
Speaker 6: corps have been really hit hard by that they've lost
Speaker 6: a lot of reporters. So State's Newsroom's mission is to
Speaker 6: put teams of reporters back into our state capitals to
Speaker 6: cover state government with a focus on policy and impact,
Speaker 6: and to offer up our news stories and commentary for free,
Speaker 6: no pop ups, no paywalls, no ads, but also free republications,
Speaker 6: so we get republished in a wide variety of local
Speaker 6: news alternatives, independence TV stations around Ohio as well. And
Speaker 6: the idea is just to bring really good reporting back
Speaker 6: into state governments, to draw the lines between what state
Speaker 6: government's doing, what they're not doing in some cases, and
Speaker 6: how it really impacts people's lives. So we have a
Speaker 6: team of five reporters, including four full time reporters for OCJ,
Speaker 6: plus a TV news partnership, and then myself and a
Speaker 6: couple other regular columnists.
Speaker 1: One of the things that your Ohio based publication does
Speaker 1: is it focuses on bringing accountability to what your Ohio
Speaker 1: government is doing. And this kind of thing gets lost
Speaker 1: if there's no local news. So when these big hedge
Speaker 1: funds bought up all of the local newspapers, and you know,
Speaker 1: some became right wing sites, some became this, some became that.
Speaker 1: When that happened, a lot of these state governments lost accountability.
Speaker 1: So what is happening in Ohio right now could perhaps
Speaker 1: be considered to be a sort of the result of that.
Speaker 1: Talk us through what's happening in Ohio right now.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So Ohio on August eighth, thear has a historic election.
Speaker 6: It's a battle over majority voter power over our Ohio constitution.
Speaker 6: We've had this majority voter power over the Ohio Constitution
Speaker 6: since nineteen twelve when we had an Ohio Constitutional Convention.
Speaker 6: And at the time, Ohio government was filled with corruption
Speaker 6: and exploitation and basically it wasn't responsive to the people
Speaker 6: of Ohio at all.
Speaker 2: It was doing the.
Speaker 6: Bidding of industrialists and special interests, and so we had
Speaker 6: this big convention. We had William Jennings Brian come speak
Speaker 6: to the convention. We had Teddy Roosevelt come speak to
Speaker 6: the convention, and they advocated for the citizen ballot referendum
Speaker 6: and initiative allowing citizens to gather petition signatures, introduce amendments
Speaker 6: and referendums, and have those passed by a majority of voters.
Speaker 6: Teddy Roosevelt's speech has been particularly instructive and I've republished
Speaker 6: it in full at ohiocapital journal dot com where he
Speaker 6: talks about when a government becomes misrepresentative of its people,
Speaker 6: the people need to have the power to do something
Speaker 6: about it. And that's what the whole basis for this
Speaker 6: power was, and we've had that for one hundred and
Speaker 6: eleven years. Ohio voters have been incredibly responsible with this power.
Speaker 6: The legislature has introduced the vast majority of amendments that
Speaker 6: have been made to the Ohio Constitution. Citizens introduced about
Speaker 6: seventy one over the past to one hundred eleven years,
Speaker 6: and they only passed nineteen of them. That's a twenty
Speaker 6: six point something twenty seven percent passage rate. So Ohio
Speaker 6: citizen groups have been thoughtful about what they've brought and
Speaker 6: Ohio voters have been incredibly thoughtful about what they've passed
Speaker 6: to put into our Ohio constitution. But now Ohio is in
Speaker 6: a very unique situation. We have had a jerrymandered legislature
Speaker 6: since twenty eleven, since Republicans used a program called red
Speaker 6: Map and they had a secret hotel bunker in downtown
Speaker 6: Columbus to all these jerrymandered maps that they forced on
Speaker 6: Ohios for ten years because they were so bad. In
Speaker 6: twenty fifteen, Ohio voters passed redistricting reform for our state
Speaker 6: house districts with more than seventy one percent of the vote,
Speaker 6: and then in twenty eighteen, we passed redistricting for our
Speaker 6: congressional districts with nearly seventy five percent of the vote.
Speaker 6: That redistricting reform was supposed to go in place after
Speaker 6: the twenty twenty census, but instead of actually following the
Speaker 6: voter's wishes and stopping their jerrymandering, Ohio Republicans controlled the
Speaker 6: Ohio Redistricting Commission. Because voters didn't put in an independent commission,
Speaker 6: they left politicians still in charge of the process, and
Speaker 6: Republicans used their control of the process to once again
Speaker 6: jerrymannder Ohio's congressional and state house districts, and it was
Speaker 6: struck down by the Ohio Supreme Court. It was struck
Speaker 6: down five times for the state house districts and twice
Speaker 6: for the congressional districts, and an anti abortion lobbyist in
Speaker 6: Ohio sued to the federal courts to override the Ohio
Speaker 6: Supreme Court when it came to state house redistricting. Two
Speaker 6: Trump judges then said they didn't say that Ohio's maps
Speaker 6: were not district and this was a bipartisan Ohio Supreme
Speaker 6: Court that ruled these jerrymandered. They didn't say it wasn't jerrymandered.
Speaker 6: The federal judges they said that Ohio voters still had
Speaker 6: to use them in twenty twenty two, and then we
Speaker 6: had to go through the redistricting process again. And so
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty two, Ohio voters were forced to go
Speaker 6: to the polls and vote under jerrymandered, unconstitutional maps and
Speaker 6: Ohio Republicans won't even bigger supermajorities in both chambers of
Speaker 6: the Ohio State House. And at the same time, at
Speaker 6: the end of the twenty twenty two election cycle, some
Speaker 6: polls started coming out showing that about fifty nine percent
Speaker 6: of Ohio voter support putting abortion rights into our Ohio constitution.
Speaker 6: And this was after the Dobbs decision, and we saw
Speaker 6: in other states like Michigan and Kansas and other places
Speaker 6: that voters were passing abortion rights amendments with fifty six
Speaker 6: percent of the vote fifty seven fifty nine percent. And
Speaker 6: so right after that poll came out, the Ohio Republican
Speaker 6: Secretary of State Frank LeRose and some lawmakers in the
Speaker 6: Ohio State House introduced a proposal to raise the threshold
Speaker 6: for passing constitutional amendments from a simple majority fifty percent
Speaker 6: plus one to a sixty percent majorities sixty percent plus one.
Speaker 6: And they also proposed to make it so then instead
Speaker 6: of gathering signatures from forty four out of eighty eight counties,
Speaker 6: which was already the most difficult bar to pass for
Speaker 6: citizen groups trying to put an amendment proposal forward, they
Speaker 6: now say you have to gather them from all eighty
Speaker 6: eight counties. This is their proposal under Issue one on
Speaker 6: August eighth, So sixty one sixty percent and then all
Speaker 6: eighty eight counties. But what that would do effectively the
Speaker 6: eighty eight county requirement would destroy the ability of grassroots
Speaker 6: citizens to be able to bring constitutional amendments. Only the
Speaker 6: most wealthy and well resourced special interest groups would be
Speaker 6: able to successfully get a proposed amendment on the ballot
Speaker 6: in the first place. And then the sixty percent idea,
Speaker 6: which clearly was cognizant of the polls regarding the abortion
Speaker 6: rights Amendment. It is to set the bar so that
Speaker 6: any forty percent minority can veto anything that a majority
Speaker 6: of Ohioans want. And so they originally said this had
Speaker 6: nothing to do with abortion. Frank the Rose tried to
Speaker 6: deny it, and fast forward seven months later and he
Speaker 6: is literally on the campaign trail, campaigning with the same
Speaker 6: anti abortion lobbyists who have helped force Jerry mannering on
Speaker 6: Ohio maps and telling Republican County Party dinners this is
Speaker 6: quote one hundred percent about the abortion amendment in November.
Speaker 6: And so we're at a situation now where for them
Speaker 6: it is very much about this abortion issue and trying
Speaker 6: to stop the abortion rights Amendment in November, but they're
Speaker 6: actually attacking one hundred and eleven years of majority rule
Speaker 6: that would have impacts on almost every issue you could
Speaker 6: think of so further anti Jerry mannering reforms number one,
Speaker 6: but also it would impact bond issues, it would impact
Speaker 6: property taxes, it would impact all kinds of things. One
Speaker 6: one notable thing is the in nineteen twelve of the
Speaker 6: voter's pass we gave ourselves this ability to bring citizen
Speaker 6: initiatives and amendments in the first place with fifty seven
Speaker 6: point five percent of the vote. So under Issue one,
Speaker 6: our whole right to be able to bring these amendments
Speaker 6: to citizens and have majority rule over our constitution would
Speaker 6: have never passed under that sixty percent threshold. So this
Speaker 6: is a clear historic attack on Ohio voter power and
Speaker 6: the Ohio Constitution, and they're doing it very cynically to
Speaker 6: try to move the goalposts rig the game against the
Speaker 6: November abortion amendment, which a poll just came out this
Speaker 6: week showing fifty eight percent of Ohio in support.
Speaker 1: I just want to slow down for a minute here
Speaker 1: and talk about how in Ohio you would need a
Speaker 1: fifty percent threshold to pass a ballot initiative, and now
Speaker 1: they're trying to raise it to sixty. Correct. These Republicans
Speaker 1: are doing this. They've pipped a day in the middle
Speaker 1: of August, this is the only thing on the ballot. Yes,
Speaker 1: So this is really they've decided that if they hide
Speaker 1: this thing in August that they can get a.
Speaker 6: Past that it was part of their original theory. For instance,
Speaker 6: in August twenty twenty two, because of the jerrymandering, we
Speaker 6: had to have a special primary in August and that
Speaker 6: was seven point nine percent turnout. In November, Ohio lawmakers
Speaker 6: actually eliminated August elections. They said they were too expensive
Speaker 6: with low turnout, and then they turned around and realized
Speaker 6: that the only way to stop the November abortion rights
Speaker 6: amendment was to hold it before November, and they didn't
Speaker 6: get it on the May ballot, and so they brought
Speaker 6: back August elections after just eliminating them for this special
Speaker 6: proposal to attack voter power in the Ohio constitution, doing
Speaker 6: it because they saint and they the game away on
Speaker 6: this when originally the guy who introduced it, the state
Speaker 6: rep named Brian Stewart, said we don't want special interest
Speaker 6: putting attacks on our constitution in sleepy May primaries, and
Speaker 6: then he couldn't get his proposal on a sleepy May primary,
Speaker 6: so they tried to put it on a sleepy August ballot.
Speaker 1: Don't you think ultimately the goal here was to get
Speaker 1: this vote in a time when the least possible people
Speaker 1: would show up.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, that was their idea.
Speaker 2: They wanted.
Speaker 6: I mean, if you use twenty twenty two, they wanted
Speaker 6: seven point nine percent of voters to come out and
Speaker 6: say that forty percent of voters got to make decisions
Speaker 6: for one hundred percent of voters. That's the essence of
Speaker 6: what they were trying to accomplish here.
Speaker 1: So what I think is interesting about this is that
Speaker 1: in New York City we have a somewhat flawed system ourselves.
Speaker 1: And if you want to primary a member of Congress,
Speaker 1: which would the only way to get rid of them,
Speaker 1: he is a Democratic primary. Those Democratic primaries tend to
Speaker 1: happen in August too. So it's clearly these politicians know
Speaker 1: that August is the time. If you want to hold
Speaker 1: a vote that very few people show up for, August
Speaker 1: is the time to do it.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, absolutely. People are on summer vacation, they're not
Speaker 6: really thinking about elections. It's a perfect time to try
Speaker 6: to slip one past a lot of voters, and in
Speaker 6: this case, this one that they're trying to slip past
Speaker 6: is literally a century attack on voter power.
Speaker 1: It's historic.
Speaker 6: There's never been constitutional question. This fundamentally important for Ohioans,
Speaker 6: and they're holding it in an August election where they
Speaker 6: were hoping a lot of people weren't paying attention. But
Speaker 6: so far, it feels like a lot of people are.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that. Are people in Ohio paying attention?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Well, so we've had our early voting numbers and they're
Speaker 6: almost as big as the November twenty twenty two election.
Speaker 6: People are work up about this, and we have two
Speaker 6: hundred and forty bipartisan groups that have aligned against this.
Speaker 6: We have four bipartisan former governors, Ted Strickland, Bob Taff,
Speaker 6: John Kasik, and Dick Celeste have all come out against this.
Speaker 2: We have five.
Speaker 6: Bipartisan former attorneys general who have come out against this.
Speaker 6: We have everyone from the Fraternal Order of Police to
Speaker 6: all of the union groups, to all of the good
Speaker 6: government groups like the League of Women Voters in Common
Speaker 6: Cause that are nonpartisan. All of them are against this.
Speaker 6: The only people who are in favor of it. It's
Speaker 6: a handful of groups. And you've got the anti abortion lobby,
Speaker 6: You've got the gun ownership, absolutists, lobby and then you
Speaker 6: have the Ohio Chamber of Commerce in the Ohio Restaurant
Speaker 6: Association say that they don't want to see a majority
Speaker 6: of voters raise the minimum wage and that's about the
Speaker 6: old people in favor of And you have two hundred
Speaker 6: forty bipartisan groups, former governors, formers, attorney general, everybody coming
Speaker 6: out of the woodwork, all of the editorial boards saying
Speaker 6: this is wrong. This is an attack on democracy, this
Speaker 6: is an attack on voters, and this will enshrine special
Speaker 6: interest lobbyist lawmaker power in the state House.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, David. This was so interesting, Absolutely.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate
Speaker 6: you shining the spotlight on this.
Speaker 2: No moment.
Speaker 1: Fuck Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 2: My John Fastman.
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis is not getting in literal car accidents.
Speaker 2: His campaign is one tell us all about it.
Speaker 1: It's pronounced d Santis O D Santis. Sorry, Ron d
Speaker 1: Santis has had to fire one third of his staff
Speaker 1: and he's going to press the gas on what works
Speaker 1: and pump the brakes on what doesn't. Unfortunately, what doesn't
Speaker 1: work is your negative charisma, candidate. But let's give it
Speaker 1: another role. After all, it's other people's money. And for that,
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, you are our moment of fuck Ray. That's
Speaker 1: it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.