Speaker 1: Hello there, Welcome to my Thursday edition of the Chuck Podcast.
Speaker 1: I got a great episode for you today if you're
Speaker 1: frustrated by the two political parties. And there's actually been
Speaker 1: some news about that, right The former White House Press
Speaker 1: secretary for Joe Biden announced that she's leaving the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: Kareem Jean Pierre, who one time we used to work
Speaker 1: for move On, which was in itself a force that
Speaker 1: was more progressive than Democratic. Interesting decision there, And she's
Speaker 1: got a book that's going to be coming out about
Speaker 1: her experience at the White House. But launching her book,
Speaker 1: launching the book, news was this idea that she is
Speaker 1: unregistering as a Democrat. Well, guess who I've just interviewed
Speaker 1: and what this episode is going to feature. It's the
Speaker 1: CEO of the Forward Party. You may remember the Forward
Speaker 1: Party from the days of Andrew Yang, who was a
Speaker 1: presidential candidate in twenty twenty one. Of many he actually
Speaker 1: caught a little bit of fire the Yng Gang at
Speaker 1: one time. He had a friend of mine reminded me
Speaker 1: he may have had the best political paraphernalia in a
Speaker 1: big shot glass and it was like the ultimate long shot.
Speaker 1: Andrew Yang for President, which was terrific, but he his
Speaker 1: experience running as a Democrat working with the Democrats caused
Speaker 1: him to think that there's got to be a better way,
Speaker 1: so he started the Forward Party. It has since sort
Speaker 1: of combined forces with what former New Jersey Governor Christy Whitman,
Speaker 1: one time a Republican, now I think an independent now
Speaker 1: member of this Forward Party. Kerrie Healy, who was Romney's
Speaker 1: lieutenant governor when he was governor of Massachusetts, is also
Speaker 1: active in this and so there is a growing coalition
Speaker 1: of sort of what you would call refugee political refugees
Speaker 1: from the two parties. Now, I think we're going to
Speaker 1: have this conversation with Lindsay and you'll see what they're
Speaker 1: trying to be. They Are they an outpost for the
Speaker 1: frustrated man major party adherents or are they going to
Speaker 1: try to be something more. I'm not going to give
Speaker 1: that away, but there's a lot of people frustrated by
Speaker 1: the direction of both parties, and there's always been this
Speaker 1: question why do we have only two? Obviously, battled access
Speaker 1: is one reason the two parties have created duopoly. If
Speaker 1: any other business work this way, there'd be the government
Speaker 1: would force some sort of change here. But there's no
Speaker 1: doubt that the political party structures in this country need
Speaker 1: to be disrupted or we're going to continue to have
Speaker 1: these unhappy elections where we continue to vote out whatever
Speaker 1: parties in power. And if you look at basically, that's
Speaker 1: the twenty first century, and to me, it is a
Speaker 1: sign of wholesale dissatisfaction with political leadership. And so the
Speaker 1: only thing we can do if we don't like our
Speaker 1: political leadership is vote the other party in. And if
Speaker 1: you look, I mean it is amazing. We've only had
Speaker 1: two elections this century where the status quote prevailed completely.
Speaker 1: It was in two thousand and four and twenty twelve
Speaker 1: the Bush reelect and the Obama reelect, and both Congress
Speaker 1: and the Senate did not change hands in either of
Speaker 1: those cycles sations the only time that's happened. Every two
Speaker 1: years we have tossed some party out of power of
Speaker 1: either the White House, control of the House, or control
Speaker 1: of the Senate every single election two six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty,
Speaker 1: twenty two, twenty four, likely twenty six. Right, we'll see
Speaker 1: what's coming. So it is to me a primal screen
Speaker 1: from the American public that they want to stop picking
Speaker 1: going to the clothing store and only having the choice
Speaker 1: of extra small or extra large. I think they would
Speaker 1: like some some sort of choice of political of parties
Speaker 1: somewhere in between those two. But before we get to that,
Speaker 1: I've got a there's been in some ways this goes
Speaker 1: to the distrust of the two political parties. Well, first,
Speaker 1: let me touch quickly on the Elon Musk Donald Trump feud.
Speaker 1: What are we to make of this? Right? What I'll
Speaker 1: say is be careful lumping all of the opposition to
Speaker 1: the big beautiful Bill into one camp. Right, Elon Musk's
Speaker 1: opposition is different than Josh Holly's opposition, is different than
Speaker 1: Lisa Murkowski's opposition, is different than Akim Jeffrey's opposition. There
Speaker 1: is and so while there is a growing collection of
Speaker 1: people of all politicians of various stripes, if you will,
Speaker 1: and political leaders of various stripes, most of them have
Speaker 1: a different reason for what they're upset about. I will
Speaker 1: just say this, if the Republican Party, or if the
Speaker 1: Trump White House is frustrated by this process, they only
Speaker 1: have themselves to blame. They have chosen not to govern
Speaker 1: for the entire country they have chosen to try to
Speaker 1: govern via one party rule. Governing via one party rule
Speaker 1: never works. You do not get what you want. Obama
Speaker 1: got forced into one party rule. But the reason Obamacare
Speaker 1: stuck is at least he spent a year trying to
Speaker 1: get bipartisan support. He went and sat there and let
Speaker 1: invited Republicans to Blairhouse to give their perspective on healthcare.
Speaker 1: It was a bipartisan effort, even though the ultimate result
Speaker 1: in order to pass it was a partisan was a
Speaker 1: partisan vote. But at least the process was bipartisan. They
Speaker 1: were trying hard, and it was essentially a Republican idea.
Speaker 1: The mandates and just remember Obamacare is just a derivative
Speaker 1: of the original Heritage Foundation idea from the mid nineties
Speaker 1: that Bob Dole was a fan of. That met Romney
Speaker 1: built the Massachusetts health Care Plan. So the point is
Speaker 1: it was an effort to so the idea was bipartisan,
Speaker 1: even if the result getting it done was. But ever
Speaker 1: since then, and in some ways perhaps it's the wrong
Speaker 1: lesson that both parties took from that experience from Obama
Speaker 1: is like, well, just do it with one party. It's
Speaker 1: the only way. In that way, you're only negotiating with yourself.
Speaker 1: But this is not how you govern, and this is
Speaker 1: not how you get anything done. And then you end
Speaker 1: up creating these Frankenstein bills, right Biden had a Frankenstein bill.
Speaker 1: Trump put together a Frankenstein tax bill the first time,
Speaker 1: you know, and they had to create this expiration date
Speaker 1: in order to prevent the deficit from look from the
Speaker 1: debt projections from just blowing people, blowing the markets out
Speaker 1: of the water. And now they're stuck with another version
Speaker 1: of a Frankenstein bill that if they would actually try
Speaker 1: to get bipartisan buy in, they might have a more
Speaker 1: durable bill. It might not be have everything that they
Speaker 1: wish that they had, but they wouldn't have the political
Speaker 1: nightmare that they're dealing with right now. And of course
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what gets past. It is not going
Speaker 1: to say half of it is going to get overturned
Speaker 1: by the next administration, just like this administration is trying
Speaker 1: to overturn half of what Biden got done. There'll be
Speaker 1: some things they won't be able to get rid of,
Speaker 1: just like there'll be some things the next administration won't
Speaker 1: we get rid of Trump, but it will be a
Speaker 1: much easier to wipe away his legacy, just like it's
Speaker 1: pretty easy to way boy the Biden legacy simply because
Speaker 1: of this decision by everybody. And they blame it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's the other party's fault that we have to do
Speaker 1: this one party. You got to get caught trying. And
Speaker 1: one thing Barack Obama did is got caught trying. And
Speaker 1: you know, even though he didn't get any Republican support
Speaker 1: for Obamacare, he went through the motions. You don't even
Speaker 1: see Biden didn't go through the motions. Trump certainly is
Speaker 1: going out of his way not to go through the motions.
Speaker 1: In fact, the fact that they are purging people based
Speaker 1: on whether they gave money to Democrats, what they did
Speaker 1: to this NAS employee, which of ken I think? And
Speaker 1: this gets me to Elon Musk. So what do we have?
Speaker 1: What do we make of this? Right, there was plenty
Speaker 1: of us that said, we know this relationship is going
Speaker 1: to end badly. We just don't know when it's going
Speaker 1: to end badly. And you know, there was always going
Speaker 1: to be a test of wills. Right, one is the
Speaker 1: most powerful person in the world and one is the
Speaker 1: richest person in the world. One is term limited. The
Speaker 1: rich guy is not, and so I had always assumed
Speaker 1: it's and it was it felt as if and if
Speaker 1: you want to just look at it through the terms,
Speaker 1: and Trump is a power guy first and foremost, right,
Speaker 1: That's why he always, you know, sits a certain way.
Speaker 1: He always wants to be in a power position. He
Speaker 1: believes in just sort of doing things every once in
Speaker 1: a while to make sure people know where they who they,
Speaker 1: where they sit, as far as is Orbit's concerned. So
Speaker 1: it's not a shock to me that he wanted to
Speaker 1: send little shot at Elon that says, hey, just remember
Speaker 1: you know you still need me. So he dumps the
Speaker 1: NASA guy. Well, in some ways, I think Musk took
Speaker 1: that as oh, okay, well then I can go public
Speaker 1: criticizing you if that's the shot at them. And so
Speaker 1: here we are, do I think it will escalate more.
Speaker 1: I kind of have my doubts. One thing about the
Speaker 1: pattern of Donald Trump is anybody who's wealthier than he is,
Speaker 1: he doesn't quite go after with the same vigor as
Speaker 1: he will say me and other people in the press,
Speaker 1: for instance, Right, I mean, look at how he softened
Speaker 1: on Zuckerberg and softened on Bezos anybody with money he
Speaker 1: will eventually soften on. Part of it is that he
Speaker 1: just usually because he wants a piece of the piece
Speaker 1: of their action, and if they come in with some
Speaker 1: sort of transactional aspect to it, then he's there to
Speaker 1: do business. So I think he will. He will be
Speaker 1: careful here too much. So I have to tell you
Speaker 1: there's one thing I want to single out, and I
Speaker 1: actually i'm hoping to. I'm going to, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: going to publicly say that I want to book Ari
Speaker 1: Fleischer and have a discussion with something he tweeted. Ari
Speaker 1: was reacting to what Elon Musk was doing, and he
Speaker 1: tweeted this. He said, Elon Musk is on his way
Speaker 1: to becoming Scott Scott McClellan. Scott McLellan was a press
Speaker 1: secretary during the Bush forty three administration who did a
Speaker 1: tell all book and suddenly everybody hated him in the
Speaker 1: Republican Party because he did a tell all anyway, so
Speaker 1: Ari Fleischer said, that's he's becoming Scott McClellan. That's not good,
Speaker 1: smart or principal thing to be. These will always hate him,
Speaker 1: even if they may now quote him before he destroys
Speaker 1: the good will he still has with ours. I hope
Speaker 1: he'll think twice he's done great things. I hope he
Speaker 1: doesn't burn all his bridges. So basically, what what Fleischer
Speaker 1: is implying, it's like, hey, if you have an independent thought,
Speaker 1: be careful expressing it because you're going to need one
Speaker 1: party or the other and those guys are always going
Speaker 1: to reject you. Don't you want don't you want our support?
Speaker 1: And this I just hate that this is the mindset.
Speaker 1: And ri might be right. I'm not going to sit
Speaker 1: here and say he's wrong that. You know, if Elon
Speaker 1: thinks this is going to help him get back into
Speaker 1: the good graces of a democratic leadership administration, should that
Speaker 1: be what comes next? Maybe he's right and these will
Speaker 1: never you know, forgive him for his relationship with Trump
Speaker 1: or what he did, you know, his sort of what
Speaker 1: he did at AID, which is just a ridiculous way
Speaker 1: to go about this with DOJE. But this shouldn't be
Speaker 1: the mindset, right. This assumes that basically the goal of
Speaker 1: governing is only one party, right, and if you're in
Speaker 1: charge your part, you do everything with your party, and
Speaker 1: you better be a team player. God forbid you. You
Speaker 1: you somehow disagree, don't ever say you're disagree. This is
Speaker 1: kind of what's wrong, right. This is why both parties
Speaker 1: have had this outsider explosion at the elites and the
Speaker 1: establishment of these two parties because of this type of behavior.
Speaker 1: So I you know, like I said, I hope to
Speaker 1: have of a more robust conversation with Ari about this
Speaker 1: because I think he will. He's willing to have thoughtful
Speaker 1: conversations like this about you know, this is this is
Speaker 1: no way to do This is no way to governor country.
Speaker 1: We cannot keep having this mindset. We are just going
Speaker 1: to keep going down the road that we've been going
Speaker 1: down for the last ten years. One other topic I
Speaker 1: want to get to before we get to my conversation
Speaker 1: with Lindsay Draft and the future of third party politics,
Speaker 1: independent politics in this country. Andrew Cuomo, we are three
Speaker 1: June twenty fourth, We're going to have the New York
Speaker 1: City Democratic primary, and in probably the winner of the
Speaker 1: primary probably is the next mayor. I say probably Eric
Speaker 1: Adams and company is running on an independent line. Things
Speaker 1: have happened, but you have a primary that looks like
Speaker 1: it's going to be fairly competitive with Cuomo one and
Speaker 1: a progressive candidate coming close but probably coming up short.
Speaker 1: But I have to say, and you've heard me with
Speaker 1: some a couple of these interviews I've had with New
Speaker 1: York City Members of Congress Dan Goldman, who is not
Speaker 1: supporting Cuomo, Richie Torres, who is supporting Cuomo. I didn't
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if there's an enthusiastic amount
Speaker 1: of support for Cuomo, but there is a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are looking at the options and going, well,
Speaker 1: what choice do we have? Cuomo's might be the most competent,
Speaker 1: even if it's not clear whether he deserves this access
Speaker 1: or not. And that's that's where I want to get
Speaker 1: at something. So Cuoma did this interview at the Times.
Speaker 1: He hasn't done many interviews, but he did this interview
Speaker 1: at the Times. And there were two things that stuck
Speaker 1: out to me on this interview. One had to do
Speaker 1: with him admitting that he hadn't lived in New York
Speaker 1: City since he was thirty two. He's now sixty seven,
Speaker 1: so it's been thirty five years since he had a
Speaker 1: domicile in New York City until the last six months.
Speaker 1: You know, yes, you know, it's not as if Cuomo
Speaker 1: isn't of New York City. You know, he worked on
Speaker 1: his dad's campaign for mayor that was unsuccessful in seventy seven, certainly,
Speaker 1: and he said he lived there till he was thirty two,
Speaker 1: until he ended up in the Clinton administration. But I
Speaker 1: that's a you know, that that could leave a mark.
Speaker 1: If if the the candidates that have lived in New
Speaker 1: York City longer than six months are likely to make
Speaker 1: an issue of that, that could that could matter. That
Speaker 1: could matter. Although I just don't think anybody's going to
Speaker 1: think Cuomo's not a New Yorker, right given how how
Speaker 1: sort of you know, he's just a part of the
Speaker 1: of the of the fabric of New York on that front.
Speaker 1: But it was something else he said that I think
Speaker 1: deserves a little more. He said he regrets resigning, and
Speaker 1: it gets me to something. You know what, He's right,
Speaker 1: he shouldn't have resigned. But I have a different reason
Speaker 1: why he shouldn't have resigned because we did not get
Speaker 1: closure on whether what he was accused of doing is
Speaker 1: something he did. He said he chose to resign to
Speaker 1: avoid an impeachment process, that he chose to resign to
Speaker 1: avoid the distractions to governing that would have created the
Speaker 1: Attorney general. Leticia James came out with a scathing report
Speaker 1: and you know, just to take you back into that moment, right,
Speaker 1: you know, the allegations emerge. You know, in in mid March,
Speaker 1: he was still you know, a majority of New Yorker
Speaker 1: said no, they didn't want him to resign. Then on August,
Speaker 1: that was March of twenty twenty one, so it was
Speaker 1: sitting out there. Then you had various leaks of different
Speaker 1: women coming out in different media reports, but his numbers,
Speaker 1: for the most part, you know, there were you know,
Speaker 1: his personal fable ratings went down. It was very similar
Speaker 1: to what Bill Clinton happened to Bill Clinton in the nineties.
Speaker 1: But there was a there was a chunk of New
Speaker 1: Yorkers that are like, no, he should stay governor. Then
Speaker 1: Letitia James releases her report on August third, and the
Speaker 1: next day Maris comes out with a poll and it
Speaker 1: was fifty nine percent of New Yorkers thought Quoma should resigned.
Speaker 1: Fifty two percent of Democrats thought the same thing. By
Speaker 1: a few days later, as more people absorbed the information,
Speaker 1: a Quinnipiac poll had the number up to seventy percent
Speaker 1: of New Yorkers who wanted him to resign, and basically,
Speaker 1: you know, within a week he were to resigned and
Speaker 1: he was out. Here's what we didn't get. And this
Speaker 1: is where I think. I think these these forced resignations
Speaker 1: of democratically small d democratic elected officials without a full
Speaker 1: accounting of what they did when you resign in disgrace,
Speaker 1: I think we need to have and this is something
Speaker 1: that would probably take constitutional amendments in some states, but
Speaker 1: I think that there should be an extra penalty if
Speaker 1: you resign in disgrace before the end of your term.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't be allowed to immediately come back and run
Speaker 1: for another office. Right if you resign in order to
Speaker 1: avoid an ethics investigation in the House or the Senate.
Speaker 1: Right if that's what happens. Literally, if the Ethics Committee
Speaker 1: has opened a probe on a member of Congress and
Speaker 1: that member of Congress decides to resign, the probe is dropped. Right,
Speaker 1: So then all you have are the allegations which do
Speaker 1: stick to that, but there's no sort of due process
Speaker 1: for the individual. Now you could argue they would have
Speaker 1: had due process, that they'd chosen to go through the process. Well,
Speaker 1: that brings me to Andrew Cuomo. So these allegations come out,
Speaker 1: there is no you know, in some ways, there's no
Speaker 1: We have not had them litigated under oath. Had there
Speaker 1: been an impeachment proceeding in the New York legislature, there'd
Speaker 1: have been a trial and we would have at least
Speaker 1: been able to let the public decide whether or not
Speaker 1: he should he should, you know, with all the evidence
Speaker 1: out there. But this was you know, so in some
Speaker 1: ways you know I this, you know this, And sometimes
Speaker 1: the media plays a role in this, right, which is
Speaker 1: to sort of create the drum beat to just force
Speaker 1: these individuals out, when that is the worst thing for
Speaker 1: the democracy. We need to air the dirty laundry. In
Speaker 1: some ways, the impeachment proceedings of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: while horrendous perhaps to watch and certainly created a lot
Speaker 1: of acrimony and dysfunction in the country, was also a loot.
Speaker 1: Was also an education of the process for the country,
Speaker 1: and so it gave them an idea, Okay, what is
Speaker 1: serious and what isn't you know? In fact, I think
Speaker 1: going through the impeachment process cured voters of the idea that,
Speaker 1: you know, how much should character impact whether someone should
Speaker 1: stay in office or not. And of course we have
Speaker 1: selective outrage when it comes to character. If we're mad
Speaker 1: at somebody about something else, then we look for a
Speaker 1: character excuse in order to get rid of him. I
Speaker 1: would argue that Andrew Cuomo, you know he was at
Speaker 1: first it looked like he was handling COVID Well. I
Speaker 1: think now history shows that he didn't do the best
Speaker 1: job that was possible there and certainly seemed to worry
Speaker 1: more about his self image during the COVID thing than
Speaker 1: actually getting stuff done. But we didn't. We didn't have
Speaker 1: So I think he's right. He shouldn't have resigned. And
Speaker 1: I think this of everybody I went through, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go through some. We've of all the people since
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty that have statewide governors that have resigned while
Speaker 1: in office. You've had John Rowland of Connecticut who just
Speaker 1: got a pardon from Donald Trump, Jim McGreevy in New
Speaker 1: Jersey who basically resign due to an extra mental affair,
Speaker 1: Robert Bentley in Alabama in twenty seventeen, he resigned due
Speaker 1: to an extra medical affair. John Kitzeber of Oregon resigned
Speaker 1: early because he didn't want more information about an extra
Speaker 1: marital affair. Eric Brighten's essentially very similar things in named
Speaker 1: crew Cuomo, but all of them essentially ducked an opportunity
Speaker 1: to defend themselves. And to me, if you resign in disgrace,
Speaker 1: we really there should be an extra penal. We should
Speaker 1: be forcing due process for the voter. Right, it is
Speaker 1: that the voter deserves a full accounting and a full story.
Speaker 1: And it's also not fair to that potentially disgraced politician
Speaker 1: that the innuendo and accusations, because when you resign, then
Speaker 1: everybody believes it. Right, If Andrew Cuomo believes he was railroaded,
Speaker 1: then why did he resign? Right the minute he resigned,
Speaker 1: he ended up essentially con confirming the entire report. Now
Speaker 1: he may believe he wasn't doing that by resigning, but
Speaker 1: as far as a majority of the New York public,
Speaker 1: that's the message he was sending. Well, she got me,
Speaker 1: when maybe society would have been better served to like,
Speaker 1: let's let's get the detail of the allegations out there
Speaker 1: and if it's too again, if it's too embarrassing for you,
Speaker 1: then you want to resign early. You have put the
Speaker 1: state in a bind. You sometimes resignation forces a special
Speaker 1: election sometimes resignation, so there should be a higher penalty,
Speaker 1: and that penalty should be a six year ban, an
Speaker 1: eight year ban, a ten year ban from running for
Speaker 1: any office in that state. Again because the Andrew Cuomo campaign.
Speaker 1: Here we are he resigns in twenty one. Now he's
Speaker 1: running for marin twenty five, and we don't know, we
Speaker 1: don't really have the full accounting. We know why I resigned,
Speaker 1: we know what he was accused of. He denies some
Speaker 1: of it, but we've not had a formal, a formal
Speaker 1: process to sort of litigate this and to hear his
Speaker 1: side of the story under oath rather than his side
Speaker 1: of the story via via political campaigning. You know, I
Speaker 1: mean it is you look at the Senate resignations. The
Speaker 1: most egregious is clearly the Al Frankin one where Al
Speaker 1: Franklin was basically forced to resign by his own party
Speaker 1: all because Chuck Schumer wanted to win the Alabama Senate race,
Speaker 1: right if the Alabama Senate race doesn't happen. And you
Speaker 1: know it was also loud calls by Senator Kirsten Jillibrand
Speaker 1: was the first she was getting ready to run for president.
Speaker 1: You know, so there was a lot of political factors
Speaker 1: outside of Franken's control. But what we never got and
Speaker 1: Franken went ahead and resigned, but we never got a
Speaker 1: full accounting of the ethics committee. That's not fair to Franken,
Speaker 1: nor is that fair to the voters of Minnesota. But again,
Speaker 1: all that was done because in the moment, Democrats were
Speaker 1: trying to embarrass Roy Moore in Alabama and that mess,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to look cleaner than the Republicans, and
Speaker 1: you know, essentially they sacrificed Franken in order to get
Speaker 1: a Senate seat for Doug Jones. You might say that
Speaker 1: was politically smart, What was that really good for the process?
Speaker 1: Was that really good for democracy? And does that really
Speaker 1: increase trust in politicians anyway? I just it was it
Speaker 1: was an interesting thought experiment. I agree with Cuomo, but
Speaker 1: not for the reasons perhaps he thought he shouldn't have resigned.
Speaker 1: He really I think it would have been better for everybody,
Speaker 1: better for Cuomo, better for the voters, better for the
Speaker 1: for the institutions, had you actually let the impeachment process
Speaker 1: play out. But sometimes we're in such a hurry to
Speaker 1: sort of move on to the next story that that
Speaker 1: becomes this sort of feeding frenzy. The press plays a role,
Speaker 1: pundits player role, people just looking to move up in power,
Speaker 1: lieutenant governors wanting to become governor. There becomes all of
Speaker 1: this rather than realizing, you know what's in the this
Speaker 1: was a duly small de democratic elected official. So if
Speaker 1: you're gonna we probably should take take those take those
Speaker 1: elections a bit more seriously, take the voters a bit
Speaker 1: more seriously, and not just sort of force somebody out.
Speaker 1: So you have all these appointed people in power who
Speaker 1: weren't put there by the voters. So anyway, I'm curious,
Speaker 1: I'd love your reaction to this. Send me a note
Speaker 1: on this, Ashta look at thechucktodcast dot com. If about
Speaker 1: my idea that resigning in disgrace, resigning to avoid an
Speaker 1: ethics committee, and resigning to avoid an impeachment process with
Speaker 1: your legislature should automatically trigger a five or ten year
Speaker 1: ban from running for office after that, you shouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to do that essentially to avoid scrutiny and then
Speaker 1: get to come back into public life without having to
Speaker 1: sort of go through go through that process you broke,
Speaker 1: You potentially broke a trust with the voters. You ought
Speaker 1: to have to be forced to see it through and
Speaker 1: explain to the voters why or why not that that
Speaker 1: trust was voting. All right. So, now that I've put
Speaker 1: you in the mood of really loving the two parties
Speaker 1: these days, enjoy my conversation with a third alternative. Lindsay
Speaker 1: Draft of the Poet Party and joining me now is
Speaker 1: the head of the Forward Party. I believe the title
Speaker 1: is CEO, not party chair. And we're going to discuss exactly.
Speaker 1: Forward Party was started by Andrew Yang. It's merged with
Speaker 1: an organization that Christy Whitman, the former Republican governor of
Speaker 1: New Jersey's been involved with. Essentially, it's a whole group
Speaker 1: of people concerned about that the two major parties aren't
Speaker 1: answering the call here and for those of you, I
Speaker 1: hear it all the time. Is there another way? Well,
Speaker 1: I think Lindsay's here to make the case that Forward
Speaker 1: could be that other way. The question is what is it?
Speaker 1: Is it a party? Is it a movement? Is it
Speaker 1: a reform project? These are the questions I hope she
Speaker 1: answers with us today. Lindsay, nice to see you.
Speaker 2: Great to be here, Chuck, thanks for having me. All right,
Speaker 2: let's do the elevator pitch.
Speaker 1: So, meaning you tell somebody I'm with the Forward Party,
Speaker 1: They say, what is that? What do you say?
Speaker 2: We are a new political party in the United States
Speaker 2: that is an ideologically inclusive movement working to reduce toxic
Speaker 2: polarization and extremism by introducing competition into the political arena.
Speaker 1: Somebody whose next question might very well be, well, are
Speaker 1: you red or blue?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're neither. We're purple. We're purple. Okay, But
Speaker 2: you know what.
Speaker 1: Does that mean? Are you centrist? Are you independent?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, so we are independent. We are independent.
Speaker 2: And the reason why I don't love the word centrist
Speaker 2: is I think that it has become a catch all
Speaker 2: for people who are committed to pragmatism and common sense solutions.
Speaker 2: So if you are not an extremist on the left
Speaker 2: or the right, then you must be a centrist. But
Speaker 2: what a lot of American voters kind of equate centrism
Speaker 2: with or moderation is that there's actually that you lack
Speaker 2: conviction on particular issues. And so what I really want
Speaker 2: to encourage people to do is to kind of shake
Speaker 2: off this idea that all policy solutions are either decidedly
Speaker 2: progress or decidedly conservative, and in fact, a party and
Speaker 2: individuals within a party can explore all sorts of new
Speaker 2: innovative solutions to policy issues outside of that idea, that
Speaker 2: kind of you know, binary access there. So what does
Speaker 2: it look like if we triangulate the whole thing and
Speaker 2: really focus on an independent party?
Speaker 1: So look, it is this is one of those things
Speaker 1: where you would say the market really demands this, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but there are real barriers to entry, right that this
Speaker 1: is a there is a strong duopoly in here, and
Speaker 1: if the Republican Party and their Democratic Party were businesses
Speaker 1: that were regulated by the federal government, I have a
Speaker 1: feeling they would be charged with operating a duopoly. But
Speaker 1: that obviously those that are in charge are members of
Speaker 1: this duopoly.
Speaker 2: Literally, the FEC, the Federal elegentc Commission, is made half
Speaker 2: of Republicans and half of Democrats.
Speaker 1: So it is not necessarily a fair arbiter of anything
Speaker 1: that's outside the two major parties, And I guess that
Speaker 1: would be my You know, it is so obvious that
Speaker 1: there's a vacuum here, and there is a lot of
Speaker 1: cynicism that anybody can fill it because we've seen we've
Speaker 1: seen attempts like this multiple times. What gives you faith,
Speaker 1: what gives you hope that this time is different? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, I think that we are an unprecedented
Speaker 1: moment in American history right now that will allow for
Speaker 1: this sort of innovation to come to light. Fifty one
Speaker 1: percent of Americans last summer, Pew tracked at the high
Speaker 1: water mark were registered as independents or unaffiliated voters. You
Speaker 1: have people leaving the two party system in droves. Sixty
Speaker 1: five percent of Americans say they do want a new
Speaker 1: political party. And you post the question earlier, Chuck, about
Speaker 1: is this a movement? Is this a party?
Speaker 2: And what I would say is this is a movement
Speaker 2: of people, but we are deploying that movement through the
Speaker 2: vehicle of a political party, because that's how we run
Speaker 2: candidates in the United States. And you talked about that
Speaker 2: barrier for entry that the duopoly has created, and secretaries
Speaker 2: of states and election boards around the country wear jerseys.
Speaker 2: They wear red and blue jerseys, and when more competition
Speaker 2: has come to the table, they've raised that barrier for
Speaker 2: entry time and time again. In fact, in New York,
Speaker 2: one of our the legacy organization that merged with US,
Speaker 2: the Serve America Movement. They achieved ballot access in both
Speaker 2: New York State and in Connecticut, and they ran candidates
Speaker 2: for governor in both states. When the Democratic Legislature convened
Speaker 2: the following year in New York, they went, oh, gosh,
Speaker 2: those guys got really close. We better raise the barrier
Speaker 2: for entry. And they raised it such that actually it
Speaker 2: knocked off not only the Serve America Movement party, but
Speaker 2: it knocked off the Green Party and the Libertarians off
Speaker 2: the ballot as well.
Speaker 1: What do you mean they raised in the threshold of
Speaker 1: what you have to meet to get automatic to avoid
Speaker 1: having to do petition signatures to get on the battle yep.
Speaker 2: So they raise a threshold for signatures and also introduced
Speaker 2: a requirement that you had to run a candidate for
Speaker 2: President of the United States in order to be a
Speaker 2: recognized party in the state. So that you know that
Speaker 2: continual moving of a the ligne is why we are
Speaker 2: deploying this movement through a political party, because independents face
Speaker 2: a much more significant barrier to entry running by themselves.
Speaker 2: The other thing that political parties do is they provide infrastructure.
Speaker 2: You know, anytime anyone's knocked on your door, they've probably
Speaker 2: gotten your address and your voter registration from their political party.
Speaker 2: Anytime you get an email and it asks you to
Speaker 2: click here and you use Act blue or Win red,
Speaker 2: those are payment processors that are are built by the
Speaker 2: Republican and the Democratic parties. Anytime someone texts you to
Speaker 2: get out the vote and says, you know, go, you know,
Speaker 2: go vote for Glenn Youngkin, I know you're in Virginia, chut,
Speaker 2: that text processor is paid for by a Republican Party effort.
Speaker 2: So we need to build the infrastructure to support independently
Speaker 2: minded candidates across the country. And that's what we're doing.
Speaker 1: So what does success look like in ten years? Is
Speaker 1: it that the Forward Party is one of the two
Speaker 1: major parties or that the two major parties that we
Speaker 1: know of today have reformed in response to the Forward
Speaker 1: Party successes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean success for us in ten years is
Speaker 2: a functional and representative government that's responsive to its voters.
Speaker 2: Where we have actually seen a shift in incentives in
Speaker 2: terms of the way our elected officials behave and respond
Speaker 2: to voters. Right now, the incentive system right now is
Speaker 2: focused on a very very small swath of the electorate,
Speaker 2: a very progressive swath of the electorate, and a maga
Speaker 2: swath of the electorate because of closed party primaries that
Speaker 2: lock out competition and lockout independent voters. So a combination
Speaker 2: of introducing a new political party that runs, new candidates
Speaker 2: for office that are incentivized to be responsive to, a
Speaker 2: broader swap of the electorate, structural changes that open up
Speaker 2: our primary system. Those things together will allow for a
Speaker 2: representative and responsive government that is not gridlocked the way
Speaker 2: we see government now. And you know, we talk a
Speaker 2: lot about Washington, d C. You and I are here
Speaker 2: in d C. But I'm talking about it in state
Speaker 2: houses across the country as well, completely gridlocked, you know,
Speaker 2: driven by partisan politics. We are building this party from
Speaker 2: the ground up, Chuck, which means I get to go
Speaker 2: around the country and meet incredible candidates or municipal seats
Speaker 2: for you know, mayors, city councils, school boards, and they
Speaker 2: just want to serve their communities. So success for us
Speaker 2: would be to create a movement and infrastructure that allows
Speaker 2: people to serve their communities authentically at the federal level,
Speaker 2: at the state wide level, in communities. And that might
Speaker 2: mean it might mean a durable and lasting third party.
Speaker 2: It might mean a more responsive and functional two party system,
Speaker 2: but I think that we have to we have to
Speaker 2: introduce competition through a third vehicle in order to realize
Speaker 2: one or those other two things. So this they're not
Speaker 2: going to do. They're not going to do it by themselves.
Speaker 1: Give me a little bit of the origin story here
Speaker 1: for everything, because I know Andrew Yang's basically started this
Speaker 1: party after twenty twenty, yeah, and then I know there
Speaker 1: was emerging and I hope I got it right with
Speaker 1: what Christy Whitman was doing. So walk me through sort
Speaker 1: of what it was that Yang started and what it
Speaker 1: is today. What's the additive?
Speaker 2: So I will talk to folks a lot about hows
Speaker 2: and whys. There are a number of organizations around the
Speaker 2: country that share a similar why. You know, we want
Speaker 2: we want to reduce extremism, we want to reduce toxic polarization.
Speaker 2: How we go about it, chief that is a little
Speaker 2: bit different. What levers do we pull to get there?
Speaker 2: So Andrew Yang started the Forward Party, and he wanted
Speaker 2: to disrupt the duopoly by creating a new political party,
Speaker 2: in large part to elect people who were fans of
Speaker 2: non partisan structural democracy reforms. So I talked about our
Speaker 2: primary system. So what does it look like to open
Speaker 2: up our primary system? What does it look like to
Speaker 2: introduce innovations like brant choice voting, non partisan primaries, things
Speaker 2: that we've seen adopted in places like Alaska, Maine, Washington State, California.
Speaker 2: The introduction of those reforms means that you're challenging the
Speaker 2: status quo. You're challenging the power structures of current elected officials.
Speaker 2: So Andrew's you know theory of change is that well,
Speaker 2: if you if you launch a movement of people that
Speaker 2: elect people into positions of power with a different incentive structure,
Speaker 2: they can pass these uh you know, these these reforms.
Speaker 2: So there was a group called the Serve America Movement.
Speaker 2: I referenced their work in New York and Connecticut, and
Speaker 2: they also had a similar theory of change, which was
Speaker 2: disrupting the duopoly, uh, you know, through through a new
Speaker 2: political party. Their executive director was a guy named David Jolly,
Speaker 2: who was a Republican member of Congress. David's been in
Speaker 2: the news lately because he actually has become a Democrat.
Speaker 2: He's become a Democrat. He's going to run for governor
Speaker 2: in Florida as a Democrat. And then there was a
Speaker 2: group called the Renew America Movement UH where Governor Whitman
Speaker 2: was and and that group their acronym was RAM, you know,
Speaker 2: it was their theory of a change was how do
Speaker 2: we It was more of a communication strategy, So how
Speaker 2: do we hold up a mirror to bad actors? And
Speaker 2: then potentially what does it look like to galvanize folks
Speaker 2: who were in the Republican Party who were not excited
Speaker 2: about the Mega movement. So the fact that our origin
Speaker 2: story is one of merger and alignment, I think is
Speaker 2: really really important as we go out to do the
Speaker 2: work because.
Speaker 1: We'se right, wh what we're wanting out of our government?
Speaker 1: Absolutely sure. I mean I always say politics was invented
Speaker 1: by humans to you know, resolve disputes without violence, right,
Speaker 1: which meant not everybody gets what it gets everything they want.
Speaker 1: That that's what political are. Real good political decision usually means.
Speaker 2: You have to walk into a room willing to give
Speaker 2: something up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think so that the President that that
Speaker 3: merger set was really important for us, and it's continued
Speaker 3: as a real es central part of our ethos.
Speaker 1: Christy Whitman and Andrew Yang co chairs. And what's the
Speaker 1: role of Kerry Heally, the former Republican Lieutenant governor of Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: Romney's one time running mate on the statewide level. What
Speaker 1: what is is she also a chair of this or
Speaker 1: how does that?
Speaker 2: Such? So so? A gentleman not by the name of
Speaker 2: Michael Wilner was also a founding co chair along with
Speaker 2: Christy and Andrew. We kind of frank and boarded the
Speaker 2: Forward Board when it was founded. So we had four
Speaker 2: members of each of the Legacy Board come together with Michael,
Speaker 2: Christy and Andrews serving as equal co chairs. Certainly, you
Speaker 2: know Christy and Andrew having you know, big externally facing personalities,
Speaker 2: people who knew them. They had name recognition and brand
Speaker 2: I d. They did a lot of externally facing work.
Speaker 2: In the last two and a half years, almost three
Speaker 2: years since the merger, we've expanded our board with intentionality.
Speaker 2: Some of the former board members from the legacy organizations
Speaker 2: have rolled off. New board members have come on, and
Speaker 2: as we have leaned into a collective brand and a
Speaker 2: collective culture, we asked Carry Healy to take over his
Speaker 2: executive chair because she's not from one of the three
Speaker 2: legacy organizations.
Speaker 1: Chair of the board.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's the executive chair of the board. Yeah. And
Speaker 2: Carrie's fantastic. She took over as president of Babson College,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to watch the numbers a little bit,
Speaker 2: but it was they were in the kind of sub
Speaker 2: one hundred rankings of colleges and universities around the country
Speaker 2: and when she left there like number two, and so
Speaker 2: I just kept saying to her, well, that's fine, just
Speaker 2: do that with forward. You know, we're the third political
Speaker 2: party right now before yeah, after you take us. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: you take over and we'll be the first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, second to none. Eight. I remember Avis used to
Speaker 1: do a whole thing. They were always number two to Hurtz,
Speaker 1: and they decided we're second to none. But it was
Speaker 1: eart of their way. They embraced the we're number two,
Speaker 1: but we're second to none. I always thought that was
Speaker 1: over we're second to none. Very clever Madison Avenue campaign.
Speaker 1: So give me the goal for the midterms?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: And you know, I remember Andrew I interviewed him about oh,
Speaker 1: I want to say, eighteen months ago, and he talked
Speaker 1: about the role he wanted to play in the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four election was hey, if we can recruit candidates
Speaker 1: on the local level, state rep, State Senate, school board,
Speaker 1: city council. That he wasn't really focused on Congress at
Speaker 1: all or Senate. It was really much lower because he believed, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, if we can just if we have sort
Speaker 1: of more local candidates and it actually has a better
Speaker 1: chance to the message can go more locally viral and
Speaker 1: be more authentic. Is this time are you trying to
Speaker 1: go to congressional and statewide races this time?
Speaker 2: Yes? And the strategy that you're referencing last cycle was
Speaker 2: our reverse coattail strategy. So we had to do a
Speaker 2: lot of kind of debunking of what we weren't check
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three. We are not running a candidate
Speaker 2: for president, We are not a third party spoiler. We
Speaker 2: are not a platform for Andrew Yang to run for
Speaker 2: president again. So there was a lot of what we
Speaker 2: aren't and then we had to get very specific about
Speaker 2: what we are, and we are a movement that is
Speaker 2: building from the ground up, and the best way to
Speaker 2: do party building is to coalesce around state and local candidates.
Speaker 2: So this concept of a reverse coattail strategy is that
Speaker 2: it's been proven, is that if you have disaffected voters,
Speaker 2: and in the twenty twenty four election, you know, we
Speaker 2: talked a lot about double doubters, people who weren't excited
Speaker 2: about Trump or Harris at the top of the ticket.
Speaker 2: If you had disaffected voters and double doubters who were
Speaker 2: not inclined to show up on election day, but someone
Speaker 2: was running for office in their own community, they were
Speaker 2: much more likely to go out and actually vote for
Speaker 2: that member of their community. And once there and once
Speaker 2: in the polling place, the books that were motivated by
Speaker 2: community leadership were more likely to vote for the pro
Speaker 2: democracy candidates towards the top of the ticket and for
Speaker 2: federal seats and for president. So that was a way
Speaker 2: for us to both help turn out pro democracy voters
Speaker 2: during the twenty twenty four election and also do authentic
Speaker 2: party building from the ground up. At the beginning of
Speaker 2: the segment check you said, you know, my title now
Speaker 2: is CEO. If I do my job right, I will
Speaker 2: no longer be a CEO, and instead there will be
Speaker 2: a party chairman that is elected by our members of
Speaker 2: our party members from around the country. And so as
Speaker 2: we look to twenty twenty eight. So you asked about
Speaker 2: ten year horizons and ten year goals twenty six and
Speaker 2: twenty eight. In twenty twenty eight, we are going to
Speaker 2: go to the Federal Election Commission and apply for federal
Speaker 2: party status. In order to do that, they give you
Speaker 2: a menu of requirements that you you have to fulfill
Speaker 2: in order to get federal party status. Running candidates for
Speaker 2: federal office on a ballot line is one of the requirements.
Speaker 2: Having an ongoing.
Speaker 1: Specific amount, you know, to get you know, do you
Speaker 1: have to be in twenty five states that you've done this.
Speaker 2: It's big, it's a vague, so it's fake. So we
Speaker 2: are we are wanting to run federal candidates for office
Speaker 2: because we have to to apply for federal party recognition,
Speaker 2: because we want to have an impact in Congress, because
Speaker 2: we want to contribute members who are going to caucus
Speaker 2: together and vote in a way that is is you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's that they're voting with integrity and that they're
Speaker 2: voting and serving in a way that's representative of a
Speaker 2: collective set of values and principles that the majority of
Speaker 2: Americans share. And so we are we're very bullish about
Speaker 2: looking at seats in twenty six and also mapping up
Speaker 2: to twenty eight to run those those federal candidates. And
Speaker 2: the wonderful thing is it is it's a it's a
Speaker 2: it's a bottom up, top down, you know strategy that
Speaker 2: we're looking towards in twenty twenty six. You know, if
Speaker 2: we have an opportunity to run a candidate against an
Speaker 2: extremist who is you know, someone who's an obstructionist in Congress,
Speaker 2: and we can run a fordist against that person, the
Speaker 2: brand id and the inspiration for people down ballot, we
Speaker 2: hope we'll get more people out and working. And similarly,
Speaker 2: all the party building and the voter turnout that we
Speaker 2: can do around down ballot candidates at the municipal level
Speaker 2: will then serve those candidates that are running up at
Speaker 2: the top of the ticket for federals.
Speaker 1: So are you going to be targeting the single party
Speaker 1: districts more often than the supposed swing districts, meaning like
Speaker 1: eighty percent blue eighty percent red? That in some ways,
Speaker 1: is that is that the better place for a forward
Speaker 1: candidate to go.
Speaker 2: I think I'm looking at as an and right now,
Speaker 2: so a lot of the folks in our coalition in
Speaker 2: the pro democracy space. They're looking at that for those
Speaker 2: forty swing seats around the country, and in some of
Speaker 2: those swing seats, there are bad actors who are obstructionists
Speaker 2: and who are not serving in a way that we
Speaker 2: think is alignment in alignment with our principles and our values.
Speaker 2: So if we can go after some of those extremists
Speaker 2: and coalition with partners where we have ballot access and
Speaker 2: we can use a forward ballot line to run to
Speaker 2: run by partisan, pragmatic focused candidate, we're thrilled to But
Speaker 2: these ones, you know, these these uncompetitive seats, or what
Speaker 2: I think is really exciting and what people aren't really
Speaker 2: talking about, which is, you know, eighty seven percent of
Speaker 2: Congress is decidedly you know, those districts are rud or blue.
Speaker 2: There's no competition.
Speaker 1: Most state legislative race, I mean, Virginia absol. Virginia's Assembly
Speaker 1: is a classic like fifty to fifties, you know, on
Speaker 1: a knife's edge, you know, and there's only like, out
Speaker 1: of thee hundred seats, like ten seats that are competitive,
Speaker 1: Like there's only ten thirty five on each side.
Speaker 4: I think that are that are almost unopposed, you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: which is actually why we're running candidates for the state
Speaker 4: legislature in Virginia this year because they have off yer elections,
Speaker 4: and we did exactly that.
Speaker 2: We focused only on in two congressional districts Virginia five
Speaker 2: and six, that are decidedly read. You know, these are
Speaker 2: like R plus twelve districts. So those down ballot seats
Speaker 2: and those legislative seats see no competition, and the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party is effectively seated any opportunity to run candidates against that.
Speaker 2: And you see the same thing in blue states like Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: where the Republican Party no longer has I mean, who
Speaker 2: would support Charlie Baker right Like? I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: mean that from a voter's perspective. Lots of voters would
Speaker 2: he left with like sixty four percent approval rating that
Speaker 2: there's no infrastructure to actually build a bench of candidates
Speaker 2: that could level up to a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: So those are places where we're really really excited and
Speaker 2: where we're seeing a lot of traction. Utah is a
Speaker 2: great example of a place where we're seeing a ton
Speaker 2: of traction because there's no competition from the Democratic Party there.
Speaker 1: How many states, right now do you have major part
Speaker 1: did you do? What do you call it? Just major
Speaker 1: party status or party status? How does that?
Speaker 2: What party status? Party status?
Speaker 1: How many states study of official status? Because I know
Speaker 1: it's different. Every state has its own set of rules.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Four plus Connecticut where we have party status in
Speaker 2: a series of townships. Got so, yeah, so we've got
Speaker 2: we have Canada. We have BAID access in Florida, South Carolina, Utah,
Speaker 2: and Colorado. So not only can you register as a
Speaker 2: member of the Ford Party as a voter in those
Speaker 2: states is a ballot line and you can run for
Speaker 2: office on that ballot line in those states.
Speaker 1: So Virginia that you don't have this. So how does
Speaker 1: a Virginia Forward candidate going to appear on the ballot
Speaker 1: as an independent? As an independent?
Speaker 2: It's interesting as an independent? Now they can identify in
Speaker 2: Virginia as a Fordists on the ballot, but we don't
Speaker 2: actually have ballot access.
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. Can put it independent and you can
Speaker 1: say Forward parties, Well.
Speaker 2: That's fusion voting. They can identify themselves as Forward when
Speaker 2: they petition onto the ballot, but we don't formally have
Speaker 2: ballot acts.
Speaker 1: And in a minute, but yeah, so just since we're
Speaker 1: both very familiar with Virginia, what would it take for
Speaker 1: you to get party status in Virginia? What are their
Speaker 1: roles specifically?
Speaker 2: So it's a signature collection campaign, similar to a lot
Speaker 2: of states. So you have to collect signatures that are
Speaker 2: verified signatures, which means you have to collect many more signatures.
Speaker 1: Than is it each cycle? How many times you have
Speaker 1: to do this to prove party status?
Speaker 2: You only have to do it once. But then it's
Speaker 2: a it's a percentage of the voter voter turnout, so
Speaker 2: you have to turn out a particular percentage of the voters.
Speaker 1: With what state wide with a state wide candidate.
Speaker 2: With a state wide candidate, and.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if it's governor or senate or lieutenant
Speaker 1: governor attorney general or is that vague in the rules.
Speaker 2: No, it's not vague in the rules. It's vague in
Speaker 2: my memory. So I to look at it, Chuck, But
Speaker 2: I got it.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to play yet multiple you know,
Speaker 1: multiple choice here. But I'm just trying to give people
Speaker 1: an understanding of just how this is not going to
Speaker 1: be easy, even though there is such a probably you know,
Speaker 1: if you did a poll and say hey, should this
Speaker 1: party be on the ballot? Very seventy plus percent would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you want that party on the ballot, Like
Speaker 1: it's a it's one of these no brainer ideas that
Speaker 1: doesn't it's hard to execute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It's hard to it's hard to execute,
Speaker 2: but it's not impossible. And as we said before, you know,
Speaker 2: the two parties have done an incredible job pulling up
Speaker 2: the ladder behind them and making sure that we're not
Speaker 2: able to access the ballots and introduce competition. But it is.
Speaker 2: It's navigable. You just have to understand the nuances of
Speaker 2: each state. You have to study the laws of each state.
Speaker 2: They're constantly changing. Filing deadlines are changing, signature requirements are changing,
Speaker 2: so and you have to do that fifty times over.
Speaker 2: Certain states have really low signature thresholds, like Louisiana is
Speaker 2: only five hundred, but then they've got a really high
Speaker 2: voter threshold for a position of statewide. You need the
Speaker 2: following here.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this when we were having an
Speaker 1: off the record earlier. You know, you really need because
Speaker 1: you guys aren't Libertarians or Green Party or anything like that,
Speaker 1: or working families, but they're having to deal with the
Speaker 1: same obstacles you're dealing with. And it almost feels like
Speaker 1: our democratic infrastructure needs an ACLU that you know, like,
Speaker 1: you know, look God by a c l You always
Speaker 1: say this. Everybody, you know, everybody is thankful with the
Speaker 1: a c l U is there for them, right, They're
Speaker 1: usually not crazy about what they do until they're suddenly
Speaker 1: needing protection, right and somebody fighting for their speech rights.
Speaker 1: But because let's talk about the open primaries, I don't
Speaker 1: see how if my tax dollars are being used to
Speaker 1: pay for an election, why then the state can bar
Speaker 1: prevent my ability to vote in that primary? Right because
Speaker 1: I'm not a member of a private club. You know,
Speaker 1: you've told me this is a private club. And at
Speaker 1: the same time you're using public funds. This feels like
Speaker 1: how it feels like partisan primaries that are funded by
Speaker 1: the state are all unconstitutional And I don't understand how
Speaker 1: that that there, that is that is even allowed. Now
Speaker 1: where are you guys? I know you're part of you know,
Speaker 1: one of your goals is to open up primaries. Obviously,
Speaker 1: what is the legal route here to sort of is
Speaker 1: there a legal way to get rid of partisan primaries.
Speaker 1: I know there's attempts to change the laws in these states,
Speaker 1: but is it possible that that there's a case that
Speaker 1: partisan primaries funded by tax dollars are unconstitutional?
Speaker 2: I think absolutely. We just Governor Whitman, you know, as
Speaker 2: the former governor of New Jersey, just signed on to
Speaker 2: another another letter related to the banning of fusion voting
Speaker 2: in New Jersey. So there's a there's been an ongoing
Speaker 2: legal case there about the fact that it was not
Speaker 2: constitutional to ban fusion voting.
Speaker 1: And let me do that. Some people may be wondering
Speaker 1: fusion voting, what do we mean in a handful of states.
Speaker 1: It's mostly in the northeast, correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: where you can be on the ballot line in multiple
Speaker 1: multiple states. New York, the politicians have used this to
Speaker 1: survive primaries in years past. You have various the Conservative
Speaker 1: Party that Republicans would always have an extra ballot line.
Speaker 1: Democrats usually worked with something called working families, and you'd
Speaker 1: have these multiple where literally you could appear. There was
Speaker 1: an Independence Party in New York. I don't know what
Speaker 1: the status that they are, because to me, they should
Speaker 1: be a forward party chapter at this point. If they
Speaker 1: still exist because I think they were part of the
Speaker 1: old Parole Reform Party network, but where you could appear
Speaker 1: on the ballot in multiple on multiple lines, so literally
Speaker 1: your name would be on there twice. And what was it.
Speaker 1: I want to say, It's like New Jersey, Connecticut, New York.
Speaker 1: It's mostly New England states if memory serves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny that Independence Party in New York. The
Speaker 2: woman who used to lead that effort, named Jackie Salet
Speaker 2: is on our board and she's one of the most
Speaker 2: preeminent experts on independent voting trends and ballid Actually she
Speaker 2: is around the country and she talks about when Bloomberg
Speaker 2: came to the Independence Party asking for ballot access and
Speaker 2: what it looked like. And they had a really really asked,
Speaker 2: rational deal that they struck with him, which was abolished
Speaker 2: party primaries, launch a commission to pursue the abolishment of
Speaker 2: party primaries UH in New York. And by doing that effectively,
Speaker 2: she kind of knew she was going to put herself
Speaker 2: out of business, but she was motivated, you know, by
Speaker 2: by a vision of good governance in order to do that.
Speaker 2: And and he did put together a commission and it failed, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: but they're they're doing it again in New York City
Speaker 2: right now. There's a commission for open primaries and it's
Speaker 2: been received really favorably, which is exciting.
Speaker 1: So they just independent party in New York anymore.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there is or not, because you.
Speaker 1: When you said you didn't have I was surprised when
Speaker 1: you said you didn't have party status in New York
Speaker 1: because I thought there were some legacy manager basically, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there was.
Speaker 2: Remember I took but five years ago they bumped a
Speaker 2: bunch of the guys off of the ballot because of
Speaker 2: their provision that you have to run a presidential candidate.
Speaker 2: Now we have merged. So this this legacy of solidation
Speaker 2: and uh and coalition building we have continued. We merged
Speaker 2: with the Independence Party of South Carolina, so they were
Speaker 2: they were kind enough to take our name and then
Speaker 2: we actually took their ballot access there so Forard Party
Speaker 2: of South Carolina merged Independence Party South Carolina. We merged
Speaker 2: with the United Utah Party in Utah. We both already
Speaker 2: had ballot access, but acknowledged that we could be so
Speaker 2: much stronger by combining efforts. And these are also parties,
Speaker 2: you know, the Independence Party of South Carolina, the United
Speaker 2: You Taught Party are ideologically inclusive parties that are values
Speaker 2: uh and principles based rather than single party or single
Speaker 2: policy issue parties like the Green Party or the Libertarians.
Speaker 2: So there's you know, there's a there's a lot of
Speaker 2: diplomacy involved and a lot of trust involved and really
Speaker 2: exploring what are you all about, what are you wanting
Speaker 2: to accomplish? What sort of candidates will you run on
Speaker 2: this ballot line? And I don't take that lightly. I
Speaker 2: think the fact that that South Carolina, you know, they
Speaker 2: were willing to hand that that line over to us
Speaker 2: after they had stewarded it for so many years, was
Speaker 2: a real exercise and trust.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting with if you look at the
Speaker 1: history of non major parties, how often converts from the
Speaker 1: major parties essentially, you know, refugees from one of the
Speaker 1: major parties have been foundational to the success or even
Speaker 1: brief success right, you know, obviously Whigs, right, the Wigs
Speaker 1: you Millard Fillmore, I think right, if I'm I think
Speaker 1: was part of.
Speaker 2: Is it Filmore? The free Soilers, Presoilers.
Speaker 1: Or something like that, And you had obviously there's Teddy
Speaker 1: Roosevelt and in parole in some ways. I guess he
Speaker 1: was always kind of an independent that kind of was
Speaker 1: a Republican, but you know, uncomfortably so. And when he
Speaker 1: started his thing, and obviously his wealth helped there. Nothing
Speaker 1: would jump start you more than getting you know, you
Speaker 1: got a lot of formers that are members of the
Speaker 1: Forward Party right now, but some currents And I don't
Speaker 1: want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds
Speaker 1: like you guys wouldn't mind somebody who said, yeah, I
Speaker 1: caucus with the Republicans, but I'm a member of the
Speaker 1: Forward Party and I'll be running as a Republican. I
Speaker 1: caukd this with the Democrats, but I'm a member. You know,
Speaker 1: I believe in the Forward Party and I also am
Speaker 1: a member of the Democratic Party. Is that a future
Speaker 1: you envision or do you envision it? I No, I'm
Speaker 1: a member of the Forward Party, but I caucus with
Speaker 1: this party for this cycle because they've they've agreed to
Speaker 1: these to work on. I mean, what do you envision here?
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, like, let's say, in a perfect world, Lisa
Speaker 1: Murkowski says, Hey, I'd love to be a member, but
Speaker 1: I'm also going to be running. Letting people know that
Speaker 1: I'll be running and working with the Republicans. What what
Speaker 1: what do you envision here in trying to recruit currents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that they're there's both the practical aspect
Speaker 2: to what you're laying out, which is that in forty
Speaker 2: five states across the country, we don't have ballid access,
Speaker 2: so actually running someone as a forwardist is not possible.
Speaker 2: Now we could run someone as an independent with the
Speaker 2: support of the forward infrastructure, and we will be running
Speaker 2: that play many, many, many times over some real.
Speaker 1: Opportunities in twenty six I just you know, absolutely the
Speaker 1: governor's race in Michigan, where you have a former Democratic.
Speaker 2: Mink doug In.
Speaker 1: He's awesome and he's really you know, there's a poll
Speaker 1: that I featured on my podcast last week that showed
Speaker 1: he was the only candidate for governor that had net
Speaker 1: positive ratings with Democrats, Republicans, and independents.
Speaker 2: He's amazing, He's well, you know, when you talk to
Speaker 2: Mike and his campaign too, he's talking about issues that
Speaker 2: are important in Michigan Anders and as the mayor of Detroit,
Speaker 2: he found that the two most resident issues that voters
Speaker 2: were concerned about were education and job creation. And so
Speaker 2: a lot of these big national themes that most Democratic
Speaker 2: candid are talking about, whether it's women's reproductive rights or
Speaker 2: gun violence prevention. He's just job creation and education, job creation, education,
Speaker 2: and it's what his community wanted to hear. But chuck
Speaker 2: back to the you know, kind of the affiliation way
Speaker 2: and what does it look like it is? So it's
Speaker 2: both practical and that we don't have ballid access in
Speaker 2: a lot of places. But I also think it speaks
Speaker 2: to our commitment to good governance over party affiliation. And
Speaker 2: so the idea that we would have full CRuMs that
Speaker 2: were forward, full CRuMs made up of Republicans, Democrats, independents,
Speaker 2: and Fordists is really unique. And we talked earlier about
Speaker 2: why why now in America and the idea that you
Speaker 2: would be party agnostic. You truly don't care if it
Speaker 2: is a comma R or a comedy or a Comma I,
Speaker 2: because you're committed to caucusing together and furthering legislation that
Speaker 2: you believe in that will help address the real issues
Speaker 2: of our country. That's the way we're approaching it right now.
Speaker 2: So if I look at a particular seat and there
Speaker 2: is a really compelling Republican and it's an R plus
Speaker 2: eight district and I don't have ballot access there. The
Speaker 2: threshold for an independent to get on the ballot is
Speaker 2: way too high. But a really principal, thoughtful Republican who
Speaker 2: wants to affiliate with the Forward Party and say I'm
Speaker 2: a Ford aligned Republican, we are all about supporting that person,
Speaker 2: you know, and they sign a candidate pledge committing to
Speaker 2: upholding our principles and it's very actions oriented.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this, what did the Problem
Speaker 1: Solvers Caucus fail at? Because this was arguably what they
Speaker 1: tried to do, and what no labels tried to do
Speaker 1: was try to create this, you know. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: a party, right, but it was more of a hey,
Speaker 1: these groups promised that they would do this, and of
Speaker 1: course it never worked, right. The pressure of the party
Speaker 1: always pulled, you know, either the d's away or the
Speaker 1: RS away, depending on who was in charge of that
Speaker 1: congressional bill at that given time. How do you how
Speaker 1: do you prevent failure? How do you prevent a problem
Speaker 1: solver's caucus failure? Because it's been a failure. It's a
Speaker 1: noble idea, but it is not worked.
Speaker 2: You have to introduce individuals who aren't beholden to leadership
Speaker 2: of one of the other parties, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, it's a it's a
Speaker 2: it's always a race for the majority. Their focus is
Speaker 2: going to be achieving a majority. And if that weren't
Speaker 2: the case, you know, Kevin McCarthy would still be Speaker
Speaker 2: of the House. You know, you would have had Democrats
Speaker 2: in the in the problem Solver's caucus actually come together
Speaker 2: with Republicans.
Speaker 1: They could vote for. They couldn't do it. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: didn't have the partisan protection, you know.
Speaker 2: But a Fordist could chuck and an independent could and
Speaker 2: if you.
Speaker 1: Have enough, you ran with that promise to voters, and
Speaker 1: voters in theory wouldn't punish that candidate for essentially not
Speaker 1: abiding by the Democratic Party or.
Speaker 2: The Republican Party. Yeah, it should be something that the
Speaker 2: voters are applauding. And you know you mentioned Senator More.
Speaker 2: I mean, she has built that level of trust with
Speaker 2: her constituent base where she can, you know, she can
Speaker 2: vote on things that she knows are right for Alaskans
Speaker 2: and vote against party leadership on certain things. She caucuses
Speaker 2: across the aisle. You know, Jared Golden is doing that
Speaker 2: in the House. Marie Gloosen camp Perez is doing that
Speaker 2: in the House. But what is a common thread between
Speaker 2: those three members of Congress is that they are all
Speaker 2: representing states with non partisan structural democracy reforms.
Speaker 1: Well, it is not an accident. It is so true,
Speaker 1: Angus King, Lisa Murkowski, John Curtis, Marie gluskut Perez, Jared Golden.
Speaker 1: You go through the list, David Valdeo in California all over,
Speaker 1: got to talk to correct right. Meanwhile, you got a
Speaker 1: guy like John Cornyn, who if he had the system
Speaker 1: of Alaska or Utah, he'd be untouchable.
Speaker 2: He'd unto artists absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean, here's a guy who who really is And look,
Speaker 1: I you know, he's been a Republican his whole life.
Speaker 1: He can't think outside the Republican box because if he could,
Speaker 1: he could really be a trailblazer. But I get it.
Speaker 1: You know, people are who they are, right like you
Speaker 1: can't and he grew up in the party, so I
Speaker 1: don't want to. I sort of I get it. Okay's
Speaker 1: it's been good to him for his professional career, right,
Speaker 1: so I get his indecision to walk away. But his
Speaker 1: constituency is not inside the current makeup of the Texas
Speaker 1: Republican Party is constituency are more independent, you know, and
Speaker 1: sort of this, and yet he's got a structure in Texas.
Speaker 1: It's impossible for him to survive well.
Speaker 2: And look at three of his colleagues who who were
Speaker 2: able to serve in a way that is probably very
Speaker 2: aspirational for Senator Cornyn did so because they knew they
Speaker 2: were going down swinging. So Mitt Ronney heres in Cinema,
Speaker 2: Joe Manchin. They all knew they were retiring. And what
Speaker 2: did they do. They started to behave in exactly the
Speaker 2: same way that we're talking about. That the problem. The
Speaker 2: members the problem solver's caucus have not been able to
Speaker 2: behave that way because at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: they'll go back and they'll get primary.
Speaker 1: They have their own politically, whatever it is comfort or
Speaker 1: security or write nothing. You know that they embrace their
Speaker 1: Janus jobs Joplin. Right freedom is when you have nothing
Speaker 1: left to lose.
Speaker 2: Right freedoms when you have nothing left to lose.
Speaker 1: So no, Christofferson wrote it, so I should give him
Speaker 1: more credit than you.
Speaker 2: But we're calling you know, we'd call on members of Congress,
Speaker 2: you know, whether they're looking to retire or not to
Speaker 2: come and talk to us about what it looks like
Speaker 2: to start to put together this full croum. Now, you know,
Speaker 2: how can we start to put together a full croom
Speaker 2: of members of Congress and also in state legislatures around
Speaker 2: the country where Okay, we're going to we're recruiting them,
Speaker 2: we're running them, you know. I mean, I was at
Speaker 2: a dinner with Lisa and she said, it can't just
Speaker 2: be me. It can't just be me and Susan. And
Speaker 2: that's why Ford is here, because we want to run
Speaker 2: candidates so that they can join these caucuses.
Speaker 1: So what does she want? What would it take for
Speaker 1: her to feel comfortable joining your cause? You think, I mean,
Speaker 1: without without betraying personal confidences. But whether it's her and
Speaker 1: I know you've met with other sort of what i'd
Speaker 1: call sort of you know, democracy first people. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's maybe it's an Ankus King, maybe it's a
Speaker 1: John Curtis, you know, but what is the general sense
Speaker 1: that they're like, because I'm sure they're all like, boy,
Speaker 1: I wish I could I really want to do this butt?
Speaker 1: Like what's their butt? And how do you respond? To
Speaker 1: their butt.
Speaker 2: I think their butt is that there is not a
Speaker 2: landing pad. If I jump, If I walk the plank
Speaker 2: and I jump, who's going to catch me? And that's
Speaker 2: why scaling this movement is so critical, Chuck, and doing
Speaker 2: it in coalition with other pro democracy partners is really
Speaker 2: critical as well. You know, last year the Republican and
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party spent twenty billion dollars fighting each other
Speaker 2: and we got nothing for it. Twenty billion dollars. So
Speaker 2: on fire the pro democracy movement as a whole, I
Speaker 2: would I would say, and I don't include voting rights
Speaker 2: in this, because the voting rights community is incredible and
Speaker 2: they do great work. But I'm talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: actually running candidates outside the two party system, focused on
Speaker 2: on you know, independent candidates and independent movement changing our
Speaker 2: voting structures. What's six hundred and fifty million dollars, right?
Speaker 2: I mean, we have to scale this movement and having
Speaker 2: audiences like yours today is amazing, Chuck, Like, we want
Speaker 2: people to come to us and help build so that
Speaker 2: we can then go to the Brian Fitzpatrick's and the
Speaker 2: Don Davises of the United States Congress and say come,
Speaker 2: you can jump we've got you.
Speaker 1: No, it's it's you know, you sit here and again
Speaker 1: it's like the market, if this were a free market.
Speaker 1: You know, we see what a free market of political
Speaker 1: parties looks like. It's in the UK and we see
Speaker 1: what's happening. The Tories are collapsing and there's a new
Speaker 1: right wing party and I say this like, okay, that happened.
Speaker 1: Say you know brand X failed, here's brand why. So
Speaker 1: Nigel Faros has brand why And it is gaining traction,
Speaker 1: did really well. He could not have succeeded here because
Speaker 1: of our structure and and and that continues to be
Speaker 1: the toughest thing. You need some wins. Where do you think,
Speaker 1: what's what's what's realistic in winning? You know, is it
Speaker 1: getting a Mike Duggan, you know that would be a
Speaker 1: big one. Is it getting mister Morgan and Morgan which
Speaker 1: in some ways you know, he's he's his own entity,
Speaker 1: he's his own character, and he might be his own
Speaker 1: party And I don't know, you know that's always that
Speaker 1: you know, you.
Speaker 2: Open the candidate, it was already on buses, Chuck, that's great.
Speaker 1: Right, you know you were you opened the door to
Speaker 1: you know, to a big ten independent party and you
Speaker 1: never know who might come in the door.
Speaker 2: That's true, could be Ross.
Speaker 1: But you really do need a win, right You need
Speaker 1: you need a you need a person to say hey,
Speaker 1: this is you know, I look around. Dugan feels like
Speaker 1: the best potential avatar, especially if he wins and if
Speaker 1: he and they couldn't govern. You know, Jesse Ventura couldn't govern.
Speaker 1: He tried, you know, but his frankly hit I think
Speaker 1: naivete and what he was facing, you know, the last
Speaker 1: basically true independent governor, I guess Alaska kind of somebody
Speaker 1: who was independent but was sort of a major party
Speaker 1: player for a while. You know where else am I
Speaker 1: missing any any other places? Or is Doug really probably
Speaker 1: the biggest potential?
Speaker 2: Well? I think I think it's interesting because we've been
Speaker 2: talking about well, we've been talking about legislative branches, and
Speaker 2: we've been talking about Congress. But voters have a very
Speaker 2: different relationship with executive leadership than they do there.
Speaker 1: They care about it and it's very personal.
Speaker 2: It's very personal. So the relationship that voters have with
Speaker 2: their mayor, with their county executive, with their governor is
Speaker 2: very very personal. And because of that, I think we
Speaker 2: have a great opportunity with with gubernatorial seats around the country.
Speaker 2: Mike's someone we're talking to a lot. We really like him.
Speaker 2: He just did Andrews podcast last week. His campaign manager
Speaker 2: is fantastic. One of the interesting things that we've been
Speaker 2: talking about with their campaign is actually going back to
Speaker 2: the idea of infrastructure. So you know who's our digital vendor.
Speaker 2: You know, he was a Democrat, so obviously, like all
Speaker 2: of that democratic resources, you want.
Speaker 1: To be a logistics resource. He needs absolutely structure. Do
Speaker 1: you have a voter file? Are we do?
Speaker 2: We are building a voter file. It is a it's
Speaker 2: a huge goal of mine to build that voter file
Speaker 2: together with other organizations so that we can rival like
Speaker 2: the Data Trust of the conservative movement and you know
Speaker 2: ngp VAN and Phoenix on on the progressive side, so
Speaker 2: that you know, when we have our payment processor and
Speaker 2: you donate to Mike dug In that we're learning about
Speaker 2: all of those folks and we're building up that same
Speaker 2: network that you know an Act Blue or a Win
Speaker 2: Red voter would have or donor would have. So but
Speaker 2: it is it's a lot of questions about infrastructure and support,
Speaker 2: you know, and and that's the other thing, you know,
Speaker 2: when we go back and talk about kind of jumping
Speaker 2: the plank, you know, and what does it look like
Speaker 2: to get some of these converts, to show them that
Speaker 2: there is a there are resources there for them. Don't worry.
Speaker 2: If the party that you're leaving pulls your voter file,
Speaker 2: We've got you. If the party that you're leaving, your
Speaker 2: campaign manager quits, I've got talent for you. The party
Speaker 2: that you're leaving, you know, and tells your digital vendor
Speaker 2: they can no longer work for you. And these are
Speaker 2: all real things, right like, these are all real things
Speaker 2: that happen to people. I had coffee with Kearson, Cinema's
Speaker 2: digital director a couple of months ago, and talking to
Speaker 2: me about the logistics of her leaving the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: and serving as an independent. What did it mean for
Speaker 2: her to continue to communicate, you know, in campaign and
Speaker 2: the already had Reuben Diego running against her, and she,
Speaker 2: you know, she didn't necessarily know. I think that she
Speaker 2: wasn't going to run for reelection when she switched to
Speaker 2: an independent, but she had no infrastructure to support her
Speaker 2: in that race. So we that's a lot of the
Speaker 2: conversations we're having with Mike are related to resourcing his
Speaker 2: campaign and what is it looked like to have access
Speaker 2: to those technologies and that talent, And those are conversations
Speaker 2: we're excited to have with with other governors across the country.
Speaker 2: We did have a big win this spring. Dan Thatcher
Speaker 2: was a Republican member of the Senate in Utah and
Speaker 2: Senator Thatcher came out and switched parties. So he stood
Speaker 2: on the steps of the Utah Capital in Salt Lake
Speaker 2: and said he is joining the Forward Party.
Speaker 1: I mean convert in some ways. Converts are your are
Speaker 1: your are your best advocates?
Speaker 2: Earlier the hugely yeah. I mean for them to say
Speaker 2: I could not serve my community, I could not serve
Speaker 2: my constituents as a member of one of these two
Speaker 2: legacy parties. And Forward told me that I just have
Speaker 2: to commit to you know, a set of values and
Speaker 2: principles in this pledge and then I can focus on
Speaker 2: what my constituents want. Is incredibly empowering for them.
Speaker 1: You're planning a convention midterm concens Yeah, what would that
Speaker 1: look like? Is it going to be virtual? Is it
Speaker 1: in person? I please say it's in person.
Speaker 2: I'm tired of gather somebody wants to be together. It's
Speaker 2: so inspiring. Check I got a time. I mean, you
Speaker 2: go to these meetings. I was in Colorado last week
Speaker 2: meeting with all these municipal leaders and meeting with our
Speaker 2: leadership Colorado.
Speaker 1: Springs as an independent mayor these days.
Speaker 2: Yeah me Mobilatti, Yeah, we love Yemy. He's great Nigerian immigrant,
Speaker 2: Red District military bases Colorado Springs. They elected an independent.
Speaker 2: So there's there's precedent. We're seeing this happen around the country.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, we're going to look at some
Speaker 2: really serious contenders for governor in California as independents.
Speaker 1: So well, the opportunities in California give you, give you
Speaker 1: at least a boxer's chance, right the top two system.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would assume that that in some ways
Speaker 1: you'll end up. Look not to tell you what a target.
Speaker 1: There's underwhelming candidates for governor in Arizona, and Arizona is
Speaker 1: a state that's usually pretty friendly to independence.
Speaker 2: Arizona has an incredible infrastructure too of pro democracy supporters.
Speaker 2: Former mayor of Phoenix Guy named Paul Johnson, was a Democrat.
Speaker 2: He left the Democratic Party and as an independent and
Speaker 2: the business community. Paul's been a leader there. What's interesting
Speaker 2: about Arizona is the business community has been really involved
Speaker 2: in pro democracy efforts, So trying to open up the
Speaker 2: primary system in a way, I have to say, I
Speaker 2: don't think I can think of another state where the
Speaker 2: business community has so invested in democracy initiatives, Because, you know,
Speaker 2: a state that refuses to certify the results of elections
Speaker 2: if not good for business. And I think you know
Speaker 2: and business leaders in Arizona get that. So we're going
Speaker 2: to spend a lot of time in Arizona.
Speaker 1: Let me get you out of here on this, and
Speaker 1: that is, can you be a political party that doesn't
Speaker 1: have an ideology?
Speaker 2: We will continue to refine our ideology the more we
Speaker 2: run candidates. The more candidates run, the more they champion
Speaker 2: policies and solutions to real issues. In the United States,
Speaker 2: can you have candidates that contradict each other?
Speaker 1: I mean, you may have a candidate that says, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm for school choice, and you may have another candidate
Speaker 1: that says, you know, I don't like this about your stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, But at the same time they're both they
Speaker 1: both don't like the two major parties, right, Like, what
Speaker 1: do you do with like a couple of candidates like that.
Speaker 2: I would ask Jeff Sessions and Olympia Snow how they
Speaker 2: used to serve together, you know, I mean it was
Speaker 2: the two parties had a history of being much more
Speaker 2: ideologically inclusive. The part is a litmus tests that we
Speaker 2: see now are far worse than they were twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: There was a lot more room for people to authentically
Speaker 2: serve their communities but be part of a big tent party.
Speaker 4: And that's what we want to replicate. You know that
Speaker 4: if you look at there are both parties are not
Speaker 4: big tents anymore. There are litmus tests now, and it
Speaker 4: used to be. You know, it's funny, it used to
Speaker 4: be there was a bit of a seesaw. When one
Speaker 4: one party got two litmus tests, the other.
Speaker 1: Party opened up their aperture a little bit, right, and
Speaker 1: culturally that sort of happened this last cycle. I think
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why Republicans did a little bit
Speaker 1: better is because they looked a little less judgy, right.
Speaker 1: The Democrats have all these rules to be Democrats, the
Speaker 1: rules of speech and you know, all this stuff, so
Speaker 1: I you know, in that sense, them Fresh calls it
Speaker 1: the tisk party. Right exactly. So I buy that culturally
Speaker 1: there was a bit of a seesaw here, but for
Speaker 1: the most part on issues, you can't you know, well,
Speaker 1: not long ago that plenty of you know, Barack Obama
Speaker 1: would endorse a pro life Democrat because that pro life
Speaker 1: Democrat was you know, parts two or name him to
Speaker 1: to be as vice president. Right. Well yeah, well multiple
Speaker 1: choice with Joe Biden over some days. But it is
Speaker 1: and now it's unfathomable, right, Like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you can be an advocate of just public schools and
Speaker 1: the Republican Party anymore type of thing, right, or you
Speaker 1: can't be for charter schools if you're on the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: I mean there is so I guess what you're trying
Speaker 1: to say is, hey, we're going to be you know,
Speaker 1: we're a solution solutions oriented and we're not going to
Speaker 1: fight over the details at the beginning. We're kind of
Speaker 1: trying to like gather people in who at least will
Speaker 1: agree to agree to compromise. Is that absolutely?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, you know, a commitment to pragmatism, to decisions,
Speaker 2: decision making based on data, you know, upholding the constitution,
Speaker 2: adherence to the rule of law, you know, these are
Speaker 2: these are really pretty basic tenants that we think that
Speaker 2: you know, anybody in public service should adhere to. But
Speaker 2: we're actually having people signed pledges to that end and
Speaker 2: and our uh, our membership models that behaviors, as do
Speaker 2: our elected officials. And it's and there's all sorts of
Speaker 2: really cool things happening to around the country that help
Speaker 2: facilitate that sort of compromise, like citizens assemblies, right Like
Speaker 2: there's all these really cool innovations. It's all it's all
Speaker 2: the rage in Paris right now.
Speaker 1: I mean I not to be you know, totally self
Speaker 1: aggrandizing here, but it's like there are issues that are
Speaker 1: unresolved that only one party seems to care about at
Speaker 1: any given time. Like, you know, I look at campaign
Speaker 1: finance issues, which I think I used to you know,
Speaker 1: not I'm a free marketer, so I used to say, look,
Speaker 1: you know, money, bad money, good money. It's money. It's
Speaker 1: the actors that matter here. But we are getting absurd,
Speaker 1: like there is there's so much money in the lobbying
Speaker 1: trade that we now have. It isn't like corporations versus people.
Speaker 1: It's one corporation hires lobbyists, apple versus another corporation Meta,
Speaker 1: and they're fighting over government regulation that could benefit Apple
Speaker 1: or hurt Meta or vice versa. And you're like, how
Speaker 1: does this have anything to do with the voter? And
Speaker 1: then you look at our debt issue, it's rhetorically usually
Speaker 1: only folks on the right that care about it, but
Speaker 1: they never do anything about it. If anything, they add
Speaker 1: to the debt as fast as the left ads to
Speaker 1: the debt. And then the right never cares about campaign
Speaker 1: finance issues. And I want to say, guys, you know,
Speaker 1: the more money in pol takes, the more money that
Speaker 1: gets taken out of government. Right, Like, it's clear these
Speaker 1: two things are interconnected. Look at I guess, how do
Speaker 1: you become this nexus on these issues?
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, if you if you look at lobbying
Speaker 2: registrations in Q one and then terminations and you track
Speaker 2: that in Q one and Q two of twenty twenty four, Honestly,
Speaker 2: it's really depressing. I think it's really depressing the way
Speaker 2: you looked at Bolts Shift and the amount of money
Speaker 2: they were spending on lodding firms versus all of the
Speaker 2: Democratic lobbyists that had mass resignation, you know, mass terminations
Speaker 2: for their for their client base. These are just tens
Speaker 2: and tens of millions of dollars just in lobbying, just
Speaker 2: in one.
Speaker 1: Quarter, right, and it's just well, these people are in power,
Speaker 1: so we'll do it this way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that's too short term
Speaker 2: right now. And I think that the American people are
Speaker 2: grown ups, and I think that we can have real
Speaker 2: conversations about real issues. You know, we talked about Ross
Speaker 2: prow and you're talking about national debt. I mean, Ross
Speaker 2: Proe just said things. He just talked to Americans about
Speaker 2: things that were real, you know. I mean, we are
Speaker 2: in this culture of punditry right now where it's like, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: I'm a Republican surrogate, I'm a Democrat surrogate. I'm going
Speaker 2: to use my weekly talking points to be little script is.
Speaker 2: Tell me what the script is. It's not they're not
Speaker 2: actually engaging in discussion. And a new party that encourages
Speaker 2: people to engage in that discussion to address real issues
Speaker 2: like a federal debt is. I think people are hungry
Speaker 2: for it, and so we're excited for people to come
Speaker 2: to forward and engage in those difficult conversations.
Speaker 1: It is, like I said, the market is the market
Speaker 1: is there, the demand is there, if only they allow
Speaker 1: you to practice, if only they allow you to participate,
Speaker 1: Lindsay druft. So it's going to be I look, I
Speaker 1: if not now, when right? I mean, I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: how you guys know.
Speaker 2: Then when we are we're fighters too. You know, there's
Speaker 2: there's a rebellious streak to what we are doing here,
Speaker 2: what we're doing with the mare.
Speaker 1: You're recovering republican? Is that the good way of describing
Speaker 1: you recovering democrat?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, yeah, No, it's a great it's
Speaker 2: a great group. Like I said, like we are we
Speaker 2: are we are optimists, but we're pragmatic optimists and we
Speaker 2: know that this is a grind and we're just we're
Speaker 2: going to grind it out every day because it's the
Speaker 2: right thing to do.
Speaker 1: Chuck lindsay draft, I'll be watching. I'm We've got to
Speaker 1: open this up. I mean, politics is inaccessible. It feels
Speaker 1: very inaccessible to a lot of people. We've never been
Speaker 1: more accessible to each other. And yet our politics and
Speaker 1: our government very inaccessible unless you're unless you unless you
Speaker 1: follow the rules of these two clubs. And I think
Speaker 1: people are getting tired of that.
Speaker 2: Indeed, indeed, thanks for having me today.
Speaker 1: Check, I got it. It's great, Thank you well. I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed that conversation. Look, I I you may
Speaker 1: think everybody tries to figure out what am I partial to? Right?
Speaker 1: You know, some on the right thing I'm partial to
Speaker 1: the left. Some on the left think I I'm partial
Speaker 1: to the right. What I am partial to is a
Speaker 1: freer market for political ideas. And I think the two
Speaker 1: parties are are duopoly and they stifle competition, and they're
Speaker 1: stifling competition now. Both parties used to be geographically diverse
Speaker 1: and ideologically diverse, and they didn't stifle as much competition.
Speaker 1: But I look at what the DNC is doing now.
Speaker 1: They're trying to do preferred agreements with for their voter
Speaker 1: file with Target Smart, and part of that agreement will
Speaker 1: be you know, people challenging incumbents in a primary may
Speaker 1: not have access to that. It's it's it is not
Speaker 1: it is not going to be good for the free
Speaker 1: market of ideas. And we desperately I'm I you know,
Speaker 1: I tell you I one of the one of my
Speaker 1: sort of half baked ideas to borrow a phrase from
Speaker 1: Bill Simmons. One of my half baked ideas is that
Speaker 1: the two parties ought to ought to create political subsidiaries
Speaker 1: that essentially function if we were in a prime minister
Speaker 1: situt parliamentary system. They would function as sort of the coalitions. Right,
Speaker 1: you have your left coalition and your right coalition, but
Speaker 1: there ought to be the Working Families Party is the
Speaker 1: Progressive Party, and you know, maybe the New Democrat, New Democratic,
Speaker 1: you know, democratic Liberals, what are you going to call them?
Speaker 1: As your centrist party, and then you'd have a Maga
Speaker 1: party under the under the right wing umbrella, and you
Speaker 1: might have a Chamber of Commerce party. But they're subsidiaries
Speaker 1: and they're almost funded by them, and you sort of
Speaker 1: instead of having interest groups create create sort of political
Speaker 1: party subsidiaries and then candidates can choose. Well, I want
Speaker 1: to tell you what kind of democrat I am, or
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you what kind of Republican I
Speaker 1: am by filing with this with this wing of the
Speaker 1: party versus this wing of the party. Anyway, just a thought,
Speaker 1: as the two parties says, I do think disruption's coming,
Speaker 1: whether it's in form of the Forward Party or independence.
Speaker 1: By the way, keep an eye on Mike Duggan uh
Speaker 1: in Michigan, the Detroit mayor who's running as an independent.
Speaker 1: He could you know somebody is going to be the
Speaker 1: spring cord for this, you know, uh kind of what
Speaker 1: you know? When Rossboro created the Reform Party, it did
Speaker 1: hand us a governor eventually. And Jesse Ventura, do you
Speaker 1: get a dug In? Do you get an Angus King
Speaker 1: and Lisa Murkowski to realize that they'd be better off
Speaker 1: being members of the Forward Party than they would be
Speaker 1: caucusing with either of the d's or the rs. These
Speaker 1: are the things that I think is is potentially possible
Speaker 1: h in this uh, in this current environment, and perhaps
Speaker 1: is necessary if you want to see both parties sort
Speaker 1: of sober up, uh and get their acts together. All Right,
Speaker 1: it's time for a little last check. May I answer
Speaker 1: a few questions here?
Speaker 2: Ask Chuck.
Speaker 1: Remember shoot me any notes ask Chuck at thechuckcodcast dot com,
Speaker 1: drop a note in comments on YouTube, DMS, LinkedIn's, you
Speaker 1: name it, we Are, and every social media site you
Speaker 1: can think of. All right, this question comes from Corey B.
Speaker 1: In a recent episode, you mentioned that you disliked the
Speaker 1: West Wing because it wasn't realistic, but I'm assuming used
Speaker 1: to watch it. You clearly have a strong grasp of
Speaker 1: politics and a deep understanding of the political arena. That
Speaker 1: got me thinking, is there anything that would make you
Speaker 1: consider working at the White House as a communications director
Speaker 1: in another advisory role, and if so, what qualities would
Speaker 1: you look for in a president or candidate that would
Speaker 1: inspire you to take that kind of job. Well, I
Speaker 1: you know, I would probably only unlikely, Okay, And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you one reason. I feel like my career in
Speaker 1: the in media has been both prominent enough that if
Speaker 1: I chose to work to sort of become a politician,
Speaker 1: and you go work in the White House, you're becoming
Speaker 1: a politician, that I'd be doing a disservice to my
Speaker 1: journalism colleagues. I don't begrudge people that have done that,
Speaker 1: gone through the revolving door, because everybody's got to live
Speaker 1: their own life. Everybody's got mouths to feed, everybody's got
Speaker 1: tuitions to pay, loans to repay mortgages, et cetera. But
Speaker 1: you know, perception is reality these days, and so I'd
Speaker 1: be very hesitant. So the only, the only even remote
Speaker 1: possibility would be the person would have to be a
Speaker 1: member of neither party an independent. I'd probably be more
Speaker 1: likely to want to help somebody who's a little bit
Speaker 1: new to the process. So maybe it's a former military leader,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a former business executive. If you're asking me
Speaker 1: the type of you know, because I think I could help, right,
Speaker 1: it would not be a thing where I would want
Speaker 1: to gain where where Where do I think I could
Speaker 1: help the most? And I think I could help somebody
Speaker 1: who's new to Washington navigate the place. And but I
Speaker 1: but it would have to be somebody who wasn't interested
Speaker 1: in building a political movement, but it was more of
Speaker 1: a coming in. They're the problem solver, They're a fix it.
Speaker 1: You know. I do think we're due for a mechanic
Speaker 1: president that's basically a democracy mechanic. You know, like, look,
Speaker 1: we've got to we've got to rebuild this thing so
Speaker 1: that we can and have a more honest government. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the most depressing aspect of the pardons for
Speaker 1: sales story of Trump is how little outrage there is.
Speaker 1: And you know, my wife said, she goes her and
Speaker 1: I asked, you know, I sort of lewis lamenting this,
Speaker 1: and she says, well, it's because the reason there's no outrage,
Speaker 1: everybody assumes this is always how it works, and that
Speaker 1: talk about and I think she's right, and so you know,
Speaker 1: we're in this we're in a period where people just
Speaker 1: believe the worst in politicians and believe the worst in institutions.
Speaker 1: And the reason you know, there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who support Trump because they think, well, he just says
Speaker 1: what's already been done. He behaves the way others behave.
Speaker 1: You just know it, right that the Mike Johnson, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Biden did it undercover. Trump does it out
Speaker 1: in the open. My goodness, right, we sort of need
Speaker 1: to We need to repair the image and the relationship
Speaker 1: of the democracy with the public and of these institutions.
Speaker 1: So you're asking the type of the type of candidate.
Speaker 1: It would have to be an unconventional, non major party person,
Speaker 1: and it would have to be somebody who's again who
Speaker 1: wants to be a pastor for patriotism. I think that's
Speaker 1: what we could use a little bit right now and
Speaker 1: a mechanic for the infrastructure of the democracy. All right,
Speaker 1: next question, doctor b I've been listening to your show
Speaker 1: for many, many years. I appreciate that I appreciate the
Speaker 1: level of scholarship and networking you bring to journalism. One
Speaker 1: thing I know you appreciate is democracy. The patient scope
Speaker 1: of the erosion of our civil liberties is unnerving. I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I want my life back.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of Americans want our lives back,
Speaker 1: our freedoms, and I want to check in your opinion,
Speaker 1: what are demonstrated political conditions or pathways for restoring and
Speaker 1: advancing lasting civil rights? Who would you say you say
Speaker 1: are the most interesting change makers or organizations right now?
Speaker 1: Can you speak to the history of political leadership during
Speaker 1: the successes of the civil rights movement up to now?
Speaker 1: Why has targeting our freedom's been so easy? I would
Speaker 1: love to hear your a soapbox on civil freedoms, change
Speaker 1: makers organizing in the pathways to balance power with lasting
Speaker 1: peace for humanity. Wow, thanks for all that you do.
Speaker 1: You are I fear that I cannot deliver what you're
Speaker 1: looking for. Uh And in some ways you're I think
Speaker 1: you're pining for the leader I just described of who
Speaker 1: I would you be looking for in something like this?
Speaker 1: Like I said, I think we need a pastor for
Speaker 1: patriotism and people need to understand. You know, there's America
Speaker 1: is an idea. We're not an ethnicity. And I think
Speaker 1: that this is a fundamental disagreement that's going on right
Speaker 1: now in America. There's plenty of people, particularly I think
Speaker 1: Trump tapped into this, and the Maga movement has tapped
Speaker 1: into this, is that no, no, no, no, we are an
Speaker 1: ethnic democracy. We are a Judeo Christian you know. And
Speaker 1: it's like, no, that wasn't the intent. We may have
Speaker 1: developed that way in reality, but you know, I always
Speaker 1: say the single most important phrase of our founding fathers
Speaker 1: is more perfect union, the implication it was never going
Speaker 1: to be perfect, but that we were always going to
Speaker 1: try to be better, right, And America was an idea.
Speaker 1: And so I do think we need the type of
Speaker 1: leader that can teach us again about the story of America,
Speaker 1: that actually appreciates the story of America. I mean, one
Speaker 1: of my big frustrations with Donald Trump. Here's this American
Speaker 1: success story. His family immigrated here, grandfather goes to Alaska,
Speaker 1: starts may or may not have run a brothel or
Speaker 1: at least some sort of hotel out there in Alaska
Speaker 1: in the frontier, made enough money to support a family
Speaker 1: got you know, you know, there's there's and and you know,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have had this success anywhere else. And yet
Speaker 1: he doesn't really appreciate the story of America and the arc,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's and he's the first president in
Speaker 1: my lifetime, you know that that hasn't sort of understood
Speaker 1: that this is a long story, that we're writing new
Speaker 1: chapters and that they're but there's a through line here.
Speaker 1: And you know, this is why I think I'm always
Speaker 1: hopeful that there's a military leader that's going to step
Speaker 1: into the you know, not because I think the military
Speaker 1: is the perfect place for this, but I do think
Speaker 1: the military is the least political side. I'm concerned how
Speaker 1: Pete hag Seth is recruiting. I think he's trying to
Speaker 1: create a partisan environment in the military, which is a
Speaker 1: huge mistake because I think one of our strengths is
Speaker 1: the fact that the military is the last place where
Speaker 1: deep red and deep blue are in a in a
Speaker 1: bunker together and they're just Americans first. Man, they're Marines first,
Speaker 1: they're infantry men first, right, they're naval guys first. You
Speaker 1: get my point. So I I just think that there's
Speaker 1: an appreciation that somebody with military experience, particularly career military,
Speaker 1: who is seen that that. You know, it's the closest
Speaker 1: part of our society that tries to be more colorblind
Speaker 1: than in class blind than any other part. It exists there.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and say it doesn't.
Speaker 1: I don't want to imply that, but it is better.
Speaker 1: It's a better institution than really in many of the
Speaker 1: other institutions. And so that's why I think if we're
Speaker 1: going to find that pastor for patriotism that can sort
Speaker 1: of renew our interest in the story of America, I
Speaker 1: have a feeling it's going to come from somebody who's
Speaker 1: had the experience of being in a bunker with people
Speaker 1: from all different classes, and all different geographic locations and
Speaker 1: all different ethnicities. All Right, last question comes from Josh.
Speaker 1: He says, check, I listened to to west more in
Speaker 1: South Carolina, and it seems to me the den most
Speaker 1: likely to be able to build a coalition similar to
Speaker 1: the one that powered Bill Clinton, Obama, Hillary and Biden
Speaker 1: to a DEM nod. What do you think of that possibility? Yeah, Josh.
Speaker 1: When I'm asked to name the three most likely Democratic nominees,
Speaker 1: first of all, I usually demurror and say I have
Speaker 1: a feeling I'd still rather be a candidate I haven't
Speaker 1: heard of yet than anybody that we see in the mix.
Speaker 1: And I make a note that Pete Bootajij circa twenty seventeen, right,
Speaker 1: was this guy who just unsuccessfully ran for DNC chair,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people enjoyed interviewing him, and people
Speaker 1: were wondering, Hey, that guy's got a future, he's got
Speaker 1: something to say, And within three years he was a
Speaker 1: major candidate for president. And frankly, if there were a
Speaker 1: normal campaign rather than COVID, there's a chance that he
Speaker 1: would have been the nominee in twenty and literally, you know, so,
Speaker 1: I don't know who the mayor of South Bend is
Speaker 1: right now. I haven't looked it up. But you get
Speaker 1: my point, right, which is I think it's possible we
Speaker 1: don't know yet the next star of the party. That
Speaker 1: sort of catches fire. But if you're asking me to
Speaker 1: name three people who are out there that are the
Speaker 1: most likely nominees right now, the three names I put
Speaker 1: out there are Wes Moore, Pete Bootagig, and Gretchen Whimer.
Speaker 1: I think Whitmer's the most s tessful two term governor
Speaker 1: that will be running. I think that Wes Moore. Look,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think both Wesmore and Pete
Speaker 1: h having military backgrounds are vital. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: if the Democrats need that, that that is a I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it's a must in their next nominee, but
Speaker 1: I think it's a I think it's an important potential
Speaker 1: asset for the next nominee. And look, Wes Moore's connections.
Speaker 1: He ran the Robin Hood Foundation, He's got finan very
Speaker 1: wealthy connections. Although he's not from wealth, he certainly knows
Speaker 1: a lot of wealthy people. I think that he and
Speaker 1: Budhaji will have the most professional operations that are running
Speaker 1: for president. And that means something. You know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: guarantee anything, but it puts you. You know. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like it's like getting the top seed in the
Speaker 1: NCAA basketball tournament or baseball tournament doesn't mean you're going
Speaker 1: to make it to the final four or to Omaha,
Speaker 1: but you're going to have an easier path to get
Speaker 1: to the final four or Omaha. So I do think
Speaker 1: Wes Moore, in theory, will have all the right people
Speaker 1: wanting to work for him will have the resources. But
Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you, I'm very skeptical. You know,
Speaker 1: he's got to figure out how to not feel like
Speaker 1: a derivative campaign, right, And there's like a part of
Speaker 1: me with with you know, you know, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: He says a lot. I mean when he talks about
Speaker 1: national service and he's got he's off created and basically
Speaker 1: a service program in Maryland that I think he wants
Speaker 1: to emulate. So there's a lot of things that I
Speaker 1: think that he's I think he's I think he understands
Speaker 1: the tone he needs to have if he does become president.
Speaker 1: But you know, there's also a part of me. It's
Speaker 1: like I remember a candidate that seemed this perfect at
Speaker 1: this point in time, a guy named John Edwards. And
Speaker 1: you know, let David Axelrod has this great saying that
Speaker 1: running for president is an MRI for the soul. Bodhajid
Speaker 1: has already had a little bit of the Rotor Router test,
Speaker 1: so he's going to have a vetting and that might
Speaker 1: be a slight advantage, although I think the Biden baggage
Speaker 1: is going to be quite heavy for him. You know,
Speaker 1: we got to see how well Wes Moore goes through
Speaker 1: the process. But here's what I will tell you, I
Speaker 1: can't the last I'm trying to think of the last
Speaker 1: Democratic president in my lifetime that got elected. You know,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is the only one in my lifetime that
Speaker 1: got elected after failing in a presidential candidate the first
Speaker 1: time Bill Clinton won a first time he ran, Barack
Speaker 1: Obama won the first time he ran, Jimmy Carter won
Speaker 1: the first time he ran. Democrats have a tendency not
Speaker 1: to not to go for somebody that ran before, which
Speaker 1: I think is the problem for Bootajid, and that's a
Speaker 1: potential advantage for more. So. Look, I think More right
Speaker 1: now is an early Uh. He would be in the
Speaker 1: preseason top five of your polling, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: But as we all know, sometimes those season polls are
Speaker 1: super accurate and sometimes they end up being super wrong.
Speaker 1: All Right, with that, I hope you enjoy your weekend.
Speaker 1: It's a big weekend in the Todd household. My son's
Speaker 1: graduating high school. We're very excited. I got a lot
Speaker 1: of family in town.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: It's it's about to go empty nest, and it's going
Speaker 1: to happen faster than I realize. Yes, they don't go
Speaker 1: off back to college until August, but they're so busy
Speaker 1: this summer. I think I'm going to test right it.
Speaker 1: So I will be sharing some of my empty nest
Speaker 1: anxiety with you a little bit. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: overly personalize this, but uh, I'm certainly very proud, proud
Speaker 1: of my son and and I just can't believe that
Speaker 1: that this part, this part of the journey, is already over.
Speaker 1: But with that, enjoy, enjoy your weekend, and I'll see
Speaker 1: you on this channel the next time I up. Oh
Speaker 1: to you Monday morning. M