Speaker 1: Pressure from the left after a prominent liberal calumnist rights
Speaker 1: President Biden should not run again in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: setting voter concerns about age and the VP's unpopularity.
Speaker 2: That combination seems to me to be potentially dangerous for
Speaker 2: the Democrats in fending off what would be a disaster
Speaker 2: a revenge presidency by Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: David Ignatius getting so much heat from the left for
Speaker 3: saying what everybody knows is true. Oh yeah, not self evident,
Speaker 3: not the stuff about Trump being revenged whatever, all that crap,
Speaker 3: but the fact that Joe Biden is the most likely
Speaker 3: person to lose and Kamala Harris would lose two. But
Speaker 3: he also points out in that column it's getting pretty
Speaker 3: late to do anything about it, which is true on
Speaker 3: the right. Also, all these conversations about who's gonna run
Speaker 3: and who's gonna jump into a race, and is Michelle
Speaker 3: Obama gonna get in or on the left or Glenn
Speaker 3: Younkin on the right, or at some point you run
Speaker 3: out of time, And I thought we should talk to
Speaker 3: somebody about that. Yeah, how's all that work? Let's ask
Speaker 3: Gary Dietrich, non partisan political analyst, longtime friend of the
Speaker 3: Armstrong and get a show. You ought to follow him
Speaker 3: on the Twitter machine at Gary Dietrich. Gary, Welcome, how
Speaker 3: are you sir?
Speaker 4: Hey, Good morning guys. And so I've been waiting for
Speaker 4: one of the two of you, I mean pretty much
Speaker 4: every morning to throw your hat in the ring. But
Speaker 4: time's a wasting, guys, It's time to get in. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I feel like the average person runs around with this
Speaker 3: belief that any human being can just decide to run
Speaker 3: for president the month before the election and surprise everyone.
Speaker 3: But what's the reality of when you got to get
Speaker 3: in before it's too late.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question, guys, And it is coming
Speaker 4: up a lot right now for the reasons you mentioned,
Speaker 4: And of course, you know, let's be clear also because
Speaker 4: if Donald Trump's legal was in particular, you know, how
Speaker 4: long before somebody else could get in? If somebody you know,
Speaker 4: everybody kind of has sometimes their fantasy candidate, they're like
Speaker 4: to see, this is the real key to the whole deal.
Speaker 4: And this is why you also hear so much talk
Speaker 4: pretty much every election cycle about you know, why does
Speaker 4: an independent candidate get in and what would that take
Speaker 4: and why is that so difficult? It boils down to
Speaker 4: one very simple general fact, and that is, we do
Speaker 4: not run national elections in the United States. We run
Speaker 4: fifty separate state elections. Each state has their own filing requirements.
Speaker 4: Some of those require a certain fairly sizable number of
Speaker 4: voter signatures, others are just a filing fee. But they
Speaker 4: all have deadlines. That's the real key, and so that's why.
Speaker 4: For example, next month is the filing deadline for South
Speaker 4: Carolina and Nevada. After that it's Arkansas and another state.
Speaker 4: In December comes a whole slew of states, including the biggies,
Speaker 4: California and Texas.
Speaker 3: So in other words, if Michelle Obama decided, you know,
Speaker 3: I am going to run for president in November, she
Speaker 3: can't get on the ballot in South Carolina, in and Nevada,
Speaker 3: for instance. If she makes this decision in November, she
Speaker 3: just couldn't well as an independent or as a Democrat.
Speaker 4: Either way. You have to, I mean you have to.
Speaker 4: You know, if you're gonna put your name on a ballot,
Speaker 4: you have to go through this filing process. And that's
Speaker 4: the real challenge. That's what people sometimes forget, and that
Speaker 4: is why you know, now there would be a difference.
Speaker 4: For example, if the president were to stay in the
Speaker 4: middle of next spring, for whatever reason, he's incapacitated, he
Speaker 4: has to leave office, and then the vice president, of course,
Speaker 4: would assume his dude, he's now you're in a whole
Speaker 4: different ballgame. Half the primaries are over. You'd have to
Speaker 4: have the party itself begin to think about what they're
Speaker 4: going to do about it. And keep in mind, you know,
Speaker 4: there is always the option for the party to have
Speaker 4: a still called broker convention that came up sometimes, you know,
Speaker 4: when we are talking about people like Hillary versus Bernie Sanders,
Speaker 4: et cetera. But the real bottom line is you've got
Speaker 4: to go through a process of getting your name on
Speaker 4: a ballot. Every candidate, of course, has a filing process,
Speaker 4: doesn't matter whether you're running for city council or whatever
Speaker 4: it is. And they're very specific requirements to attach to
Speaker 4: each of those.
Speaker 3: Okay, before we get off on that, So here's there
Speaker 3: are a couple of scenarios I think are likely because
Speaker 3: I am on the record saying Joe Biden will not
Speaker 3: run again. He can't. HiT's absurd to think that he
Speaker 3: could serve even part of another term. If if, for instance,
Speaker 3: they go ahead and put off reckoning with that reality
Speaker 3: until the convention he stands up and says, I really
Speaker 3: can't be running. Let's have an honest debate here at
Speaker 3: our convention of who we want the candidate to be.
Speaker 3: They could do that right and get the candidate on
Speaker 3: the ballot in all fifty sevents.
Speaker 4: And Joe he would have a lot of leverage to
Speaker 4: do that, particularly if he'd already garnered enough of the
Speaker 4: delegates to make him the nominate. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I mean he'd be saying, basically, I'm stepping aside for
Speaker 4: whatever reason, and I'm not going to, you know, utilize
Speaker 4: my rights of having this many delegates. It becomes a
Speaker 4: lot more I see of courses when again I mentioned
Speaker 4: that one scenario where you get to a convention or
Speaker 4: get close to a convention with no clear winner or
Speaker 4: at least or at least looking like there's some serious
Speaker 4: competition there. This, by the way, has also made more
Speaker 4: dicey on the Democratic side, because for those people that
Speaker 4: don't know, the Republicans are following the traditional mode. You've
Speaker 4: got the Iowa caucuses coming up here in February, You've
Speaker 4: got the then then followed by New Hampshire the first primary,
Speaker 4: et cetera. Yeah, let's see, I'm just looking for January fifteenth,
Speaker 4: Iowa Republican caucuses real quick. On the Democratic side, there's
Speaker 4: a huge debate underway. The Democrats want to make South
Speaker 4: Carolina their first primary. They want to do that on
Speaker 4: February third. They say it's going to make for more
Speaker 4: diverse representation because.
Speaker 3: They're they're that Biden could lose in some of those
Speaker 3: other places. They want to start with a big win.
Speaker 3: That's why. Yeah, let me clarify something. Get me real quick,
Speaker 3: because I think we're confusing people. We talked about all
Speaker 3: those filing filing deadlines in November and a slow in December,
Speaker 3: blah blah blah. But now you're saying, yes, they could
Speaker 3: switch the candidate in August of next year. So are
Speaker 3: you filing to have like the party on the ballot
Speaker 3: or what? How do you scare those two things?
Speaker 4: Now you're filing, you're filing to have your own name
Speaker 4: on the ballot, Joe, and what what's what ultimately happening.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna jump it again because I'm I'm confused. So
Speaker 3: are we talking about filing to run to be the
Speaker 3: nominee of a party. Okay, but so okay, but you
Speaker 3: could at the convention though, which is not till next summer.
Speaker 3: Couldn't either party pick whoever the hell they want? Yes, okay,
Speaker 3: So all of that is about the nomination process. But
Speaker 3: once you get to the convention, because they make up
Speaker 3: the rules at the convention, they can decide, you know what,
Speaker 3: we do want Michelle Obama. That's possible, she's but she's
Speaker 3: not on the ballot in any of the states. How
Speaker 3: the hell does that work?
Speaker 4: But the dem what ends up happening is the party
Speaker 4: ends up having a you know that they have rules
Speaker 4: committees and the rules Committee to get together and say, well,
Speaker 4: look for various reasons. You know, this has been this
Speaker 4: has been surmised when you've talked about, well what people
Speaker 4: always ask hypotheticals, what happens if somebody gets assassinated on
Speaker 4: a campaign trail or whatever, but now they've already got
Speaker 4: two thirds of the delegates, then what do you do?
Speaker 4: You start the process all over. We have you know,
Speaker 4: primaries again in all those states. No, that's impossible, of course,
Speaker 4: and so there has to be machinations, you know, within
Speaker 4: party bureaucracies for all kinds of scenarios so that that's
Speaker 4: how it works.
Speaker 3: So they would just open it up and say, all right, you,
Speaker 3: Gavin Newsom, you can file to run for president here
Speaker 3: at the convention and we'll get you on the ballots.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that's I'm glad you're bringing up a filing, Joe.
Speaker 4: In that context. You now, you wouldn't file with the party.
Speaker 4: The filing happens with each individual state, and that's why.
Speaker 4: For example, okay, here's a good example. So this week
Speaker 4: you had the Secretary of State for New Hampshire. People
Speaker 4: have been trying to get bit Donald Trump's name. Listen,
Speaker 4: reversus get Donald Trump's name kept from going on a
Speaker 4: ballot because of the fourteenth Amendment and he's you know, insurrection,
Speaker 4: et cetera, et cetera. The New Hampshire Secretary of State
Speaker 4: came out this week and said, no, if he makes
Speaker 4: the final requirements, I have no legal recourse. And the
Speaker 4: ag in the state said the same thing about it,
Speaker 4: I have no legal recourse to keep him off of
Speaker 4: the ballot. That's Donald Trump filing to run in New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, I'm gonna try one more time. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna try one more time. I do feel like I
Speaker 3: know less than I did before we started. I'm not
Speaker 3: blaming you for this, Gary, but I feel like I
Speaker 3: know less than before. I'm gonna pick Gavin Newsom just
Speaker 3: because his name is bandied about. Gavin Newsom, who has
Speaker 3: not filed to be on any ballots anywhere, is tabbed
Speaker 3: to be the nominee. When Joe Boden announces he's not
Speaker 3: running at the convention, you said, yes, they can do that.
Speaker 3: He can run, but he has not filed in the
Speaker 3: way you described. So how can he be the nominee?
Speaker 3: How does he get on the ballots? Has they'll change
Speaker 3: the rules?
Speaker 4: Well, those that those filings I'm talking about, guys, are
Speaker 4: just for the primaries in each of the individual fifty states. Okay,
Speaker 4: I recognize why this is confusing. So he that's for
Speaker 4: the primary elections. The general election is a separate as
Speaker 4: a separate entity next November, of course.
Speaker 3: Okay. So that's well, like the authorities in Pennsylvania, we
Speaker 3: have finally found the suspect that we are looking for,
Speaker 3: and that's the distinction between the primaries and the general.
Speaker 3: So where the general election do the two major parties
Speaker 3: basically have and they're already they're already in they have
Speaker 3: an open slot. AD Democrat and AD Republican are going
Speaker 3: to run in the general election. At the convention, either
Speaker 3: through the primary process or some new process, they can
Speaker 3: pick whoever they want.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, basically the parties control who their nominee is
Speaker 4: the state. So yeah, so the parties get to select
Speaker 4: who they want. And again this has been talked about
Speaker 4: over the years. You know, again for all the hypotheticals
Speaker 4: I threw out there, you know, what if somebody gets sick,
Speaker 4: what if they find some huge problem you know, in
Speaker 4: their in their whatever it is, and then the parties
Speaker 4: don't want to put them up as their nominee, or
Speaker 4: you have a so called brokeer convention. You get there
Speaker 4: and you don't have nobody has enough delegates. Then the
Speaker 4: party has to become involved at the convention. And that's
Speaker 4: why you hear about the so called brokered convention.
Speaker 3: But whoever they pick, anybody is okay to run as
Speaker 3: the Democrat or the Republican for the general election, Yes,
Speaker 3: clearly so, so what I have been saying has been wrong,
Speaker 3: I think for a long time. Then sol Michelle Obama
Speaker 3: could drop in out of nowhere to the convention. They
Speaker 3: decide to run her at the last moment. Mm hmm h.
Speaker 4: Yes, and this is this is you know it probably
Speaker 4: next year, guys, we're gonna hear more about this than
Speaker 4: we ever have for the reasons you guys have already noted.
Speaker 4: I mean, and the same is true, the same as
Speaker 4: too a Donald Trump. Let's just say he goes through
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden next spring, he collects three
Speaker 4: convictions right on these four different trials. I'm just making
Speaker 4: this up right, But he's got a whole bunch of delegates.
Speaker 4: Republicans could decide. Listen, you know, we just cannot go
Speaker 4: with this guy at the convention. That's that's possible to happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, We've got to be at both conventions because they
Speaker 3: both brokeren conventions. Because I've been I've been mocking for years.
Speaker 3: I remember Tim Russert and Meet the Press and always saying,
Speaker 3: so we could have a broken conn There's not going
Speaker 3: to be a brokered convention, you guys. Just your wet
Speaker 3: dream is a brokeren convention all you old the journalists
Speaker 3: or whatever, and we got a process. Well, this time
Speaker 3: we could have two Wow, could be Gary Dietrich, non
Speaker 3: partisan political analyst. Follow him on Twitter at Gary Dietrich. Gary,
Speaker 3: thanks for the enlightenment. It was our bad our, confusion,
Speaker 3: or just just towering ignorance as usual, but it's always
Speaker 3: good to talk likewise. Thank you.