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Speaker 1: com slash chuck. Hello, They're happy Wednesday, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: another episode of the Chuck Podcast. So, boy, did we

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Speaker 1: have quite the tuesday. If you uh dipped into our

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Speaker 1: livestream coverage of the first midterm twenty twenty six election

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Speaker 1: night with my friend Chris Eliza, Jeffrey Scaling and this

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Speaker 1: and the team from Decision Desk HQ, you know that

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Speaker 1: we went all the way close to midnight and did

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Speaker 1: not yet have a call in the Texas Democratic primary.

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Speaker 1: And of course the only thing that we don't know

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Speaker 1: is whether Tallarico's number will end up below fifty percent,

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Speaker 1: therefore triggering a runoff on that side of the aisle.

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Speaker 1: We do know that Ken Paxson and John Cornyn are

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Speaker 1: going to be facing off in a day after Memorial

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Speaker 1: Day run off there in late May. It promises to

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Speaker 1: be an epic, probably among the nastiest runoff interra primary

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Speaker 1: runoffs we have probably witnessed in the twenty first century.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is going to be nasty, this is

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Speaker 1: going to be negative. And the question, you know, the

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Speaker 1: million dollar question or the fifty first Senate seat question

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Speaker 1: could very well be what does Donald Trump do? Does

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Speaker 1: he get involved? Does he try to bail John Cornyan?

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Speaker 2: Out? Right?

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Speaker 1: We know John Thune, Senate Republicans, major donors, They all

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Speaker 1: believe the safest way to hold the Senate is to

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Speaker 1: help Cornyn get the nomination. That Cornyn has a better

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Speaker 1: shot at holding that Texas senden see than the very

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Speaker 1: scandal plague ethically and morally challenged Ken Paxton. The one

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Speaker 1: could argue it seems like no matter what you throw

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Speaker 1: at him, he just sort of keeps on going and

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Speaker 1: keeps on surviving. Kind of reminds you of a certain

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Speaker 1: leader of a certain party that Ken Paxton is a

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Speaker 1: member of. But here we are. The votes came in

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Speaker 1: a little slower on election day. We had a massive

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Speaker 1: early vote turnout. It does appear as if Democrats narrowly

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Speaker 1: outpolled overall Republicans, and talking to one Republican polster, it

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Speaker 1: is important to note, you know, where do these voters

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Speaker 1: come from? These are mostly Democratic voters who just don't

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Speaker 1: normally vote in primaries. They vote in general elections. Well,

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Speaker 1: this primary certainly got their interest, and it looks like

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Speaker 1: that the Democrats got just you know, maybe one hundred thousand,

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Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more than the Republicans. It's a

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Speaker 1: big deal for Democrats. The question is did they just

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Speaker 1: max out all their voters or is this the sign

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Speaker 1: of something happening in the state of Texas. I think

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Speaker 1: the most interesting aspect of the James Taller Rico likely

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Speaker 1: victory in this primary. And I say likely. Look, I

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Speaker 1: don't think Jasmine Crockett. You know, she made it clear

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Speaker 1: when she decided she wasn't going to stay up and

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Speaker 1: wait for the results.

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Speaker 2: She went to bed.

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Speaker 1: She made the decision to wait until this morning and

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Speaker 1: more votes come in to see what the status is.

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Speaker 2: I don't think she's.

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Speaker 1: Going to concede until it is she is one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent certain there is no shot at making a runoff. Look,

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Speaker 1: if this narrow lead for tallar Rico holds, and there's

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Speaker 1: every indication it's probably gonna hold unless she just the

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Speaker 1: Dallas County numbers come in some in some big ways

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Speaker 1: for Crockett. I think a few things are fair to

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Speaker 1: look at when it comes to explaining how did tall

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Speaker 1: Rico win number one? You can't you can't talk about

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Speaker 1: tal Rico's victory without talking about Stephen Colbert in that moment.

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Speaker 1: The moment was a pivotal moment. It was the beginning

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Speaker 1: of early voting, and it was at a time when

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Speaker 1: tall Rico was struggling and Crockett was on the rise.

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Speaker 1: She was pulling strongly. Tall Rico was still having to

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Speaker 1: explain what he apparently said about Colin Allred. That moment

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Speaker 1: seemed to galvanize Colin Allred to support Jasmine Crockett. I

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Speaker 1: think ideologically was not necessarily ready to go there. I

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Speaker 1: think he was ready to be, but he you know,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, he felt kind of pushed out of

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Speaker 1: the race, I think by Crockett, not by tall Rico.

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Speaker 1: But he sort of rallied around her, she rallied around him.

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Speaker 1: He's now, of course running for a congressional seat. That's

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Speaker 1: that's also going to end up in around This is

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Speaker 1: going to be an extraordinarily busy runoff ballot in Texas.

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Speaker 1: It's not just one or two races that are in

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Speaker 1: a runoff. We've got races up and down the ballot

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Speaker 1: that are in a runoff. We're going to have multiple

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Speaker 1: congressional primaries end up in runoff, including the Member versus

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Speaker 1: Member that features Al Green. He trails, but he's going

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Speaker 1: to at least have a shot.

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Speaker 2: And a run off.

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Speaker 1: Looks like Colin all Right and Julie Johnson. He's running

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Speaker 1: basically for much of his old seat in the Dallas suburbs.

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Speaker 1: There that's likely to go to a runoff. We've got

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Speaker 1: the age races on both sides are going to end

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Speaker 1: up in runoffs, including Chip Roy who finished a fairly

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Speaker 1: distant second, but he's going to be strong enough to

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Speaker 1: end up in a runoff on that front. So it

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Speaker 1: has been a very To say it's been a competitive

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Speaker 1: and lively primary season in Texas as an understatement and

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Speaker 1: the fact that there's so many of these races ended

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Speaker 1: up in a second round. That's just the happiest. Campers

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Speaker 1: are those that make money off of political advertising. Whether

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Speaker 1: you're the digital side of things or the legacy television

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Speaker 1: side of things. This extended season in one of the

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Speaker 1: largest states that we have with so many media markets

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Speaker 1: is show we say manna from heaven for some of

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Speaker 1: those local businesses. But to break down tall Rico, the

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Speaker 1: big difference for him is and the big question mark

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Speaker 1: was what we were Latino voters going to do in

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Speaker 1: the Democratic primary? Right, we saw in these voters, Tall

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Speaker 1: Rico was strong with independence that lean left and progressive whites.

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Speaker 1: Jasmine Crockett was strongest with older voters and African American

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Speaker 1: voters and those that are self described Democrats. Now, Texas,

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Speaker 1: you could pick a ballot, right, you could decide in

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Speaker 1: each side. It's sort of one of those types of primaries.

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Speaker 1: So it's possible Tall Rico, right, had, you know, was

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Speaker 1: perhaps trying to appeal to some of the same voters

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Speaker 1: that John Cornet was trying to appeal to. It's just

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Speaker 1: worth noting there. But let's stick to this Democratic primary

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Speaker 1: here a minute. When you looked at all the polling,

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Speaker 1: and it was a bit erradic, but one thing that

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Speaker 1: was pretty consistent is that Latino voters, it was a

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Speaker 1: fairly high undecided among Latino voters, they were making the decision,

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Speaker 1: you know, where they're going to go with a candidate

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Speaker 1: that was projecting herself more as a fighter and Jasmine

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Speaker 1: Crockett or somebody who was grounded himself a bit more

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Speaker 1: in religion, James Tallerrico, and I think the assumption was

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Speaker 1: that tall Rico might have had the inside track that

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Speaker 1: his the fact that he wears his faith on his

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Speaker 1: sleeve is something that I think appeals to some Latinos,

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Speaker 1: And when you look at the dominant performance he had

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Speaker 1: in the Rio Grande Valley, that I think shows you

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Speaker 1: that that really was the difference. If you're gonna pick

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Speaker 1: some knits at Jasmine Crockett's campaign, she didn't run a

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Speaker 1: very conventional campaign. She seemed to run as if she

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Speaker 1: wasn't a well funded candidacy. But she did, and she

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Speaker 1: ran it slightly more unconventional, a bit more social media

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Speaker 1: heavy sort of one could argue, sort of trying to

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Speaker 1: see if she could win it the new way instead

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Speaker 1: of having to do it some of the old way.

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Speaker 1: Tall Rico had more money and so they could do

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Speaker 1: some of the more old school ways of blocking and

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Speaker 1: tackling and getting out the vote and running a more

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Speaker 1: statewide campaign in a more traditional sense probably was worth

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Speaker 1: the extra two points that tall Rico needed to avoid

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Speaker 1: a runoff. And so again I'm gonna be a little

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Speaker 1: tentative here because I think that this is you know,

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Speaker 1: I do think that Jasmine Crockett's going to not concede

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Speaker 1: quickly here, that she's going to exhaust every effort make

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Speaker 1: sure this question mark about which bat make sure all

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Speaker 1: the ballots in Dallas County get counted there with some right. First,

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Speaker 1: a judge extended vote times. Then the state Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: came in and said, well, no, some of those votes

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Speaker 1: shouldn't count if people didn't wait in line at seven.

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Speaker 1: So there was a bit of a dispute over that.

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Speaker 1: So she's going to exhaust every effort here. So I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if this takes a day or two

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Speaker 1: for the Democrats to unify. And I think that's going

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Speaker 1: to be a bit of a challenge for tall Rico,

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Speaker 1: is unifying the party. I assume they get there. I

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Speaker 1: think the fact that what you you know, these days,

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Speaker 1: beating Donald Trump and beating Ken Paxton and getting power

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Speaker 1: usually can pay over these divisions. Now, the question is

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Speaker 1: our democrats, you know? Is that going to be easy

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Speaker 1: to paper over those divisions? We'll see. Like I said,

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Speaker 1: I think, I think Crockett feels a bit aggrieved and

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Speaker 1: has shown her grievance's face a little bit on the

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Speaker 1: campaign trail ever since the Colbert moment, right, which always

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Speaker 1: felt a bit manufactured, a bit over over sold for

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Speaker 1: what it ended up being, for what it was, what

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Speaker 1: it was sold as.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: The FCC never stepped in, there was nothing about it yet.

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Speaker 1: It was basically CBS's lawyers versus Colbert's producers. And it's

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Speaker 1: a he said. He said that, I still don't feel

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Speaker 1: like any of us got the full story. But the

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Speaker 1: fact of the matter is the moment worked. It really

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Speaker 1: did change the narrative a bit for tall Rico, and

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Speaker 1: it gave him some space, and it gave him some

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Speaker 1: extra money, and it gave gave him some extra juice,

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Speaker 1: and it did put Crockett on the defensive. And when

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Speaker 1: you look at a race this close, it's hard not

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Speaker 1: to look at that moment as having been perhaps more decisive.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't one hundred percent sure of how decisive it was,

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Speaker 1: but perhaps more decisive. Now there's another question that I

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Speaker 1: don't know if we've got the answer for tonight. Does

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Speaker 1: this mean that given the choice of a candidate who

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Speaker 1: says he's about love in tall Rico versus Crockett, who says, hey,

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Speaker 1: I'm meeting the moment, and the moment right now is

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Speaker 1: essentially fight and she thinks she used the phrase raw.

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Speaker 1: You know what do voters want?

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Speaker 2: Right? Well?

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Speaker 1: I think it's clear Democratic primary voters about half of

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Speaker 1: them wanted a fighter and about half of them wanted

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Speaker 1: a unite her And I think in many ways this

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Speaker 1: is the divide in the party. What is the best

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Speaker 1: way to get power back? What's the best way to

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Speaker 1: win swing voters. Is it to show yourself as strong

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Speaker 1: to overcome the perception that the Democratic Party has become

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Speaker 1: soft and weak? Or is it better off to be

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Speaker 1: post Trump and to be the polar opposite of Trump?

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Speaker 1: Or do you sort of accept the Trump tactics and

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Speaker 1: get as pugilistic on the left as they've been getting

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Speaker 1: on the right. I'm not sure this primary resolves that answer.

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Speaker 1: You know, when you basically have a forty seven result, right,

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Speaker 1: maybe fifty two forty eight at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: something like that. I don't think you could say that

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Speaker 1: that fully resolves things. But I think when people look

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Speaker 1: at Tallarico's messaging and how he has been pitching himself,

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Speaker 1: I do think you will see more more strategists make

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Speaker 1: the case that hey make the case that you can win,

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Speaker 1: and it Democratic primary voters look, this idea of electability

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Speaker 1: is incredibly subjective. But if you can convince a majority

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Speaker 1: of a primary that you are the more electable candidate,

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Speaker 1: you can Trump ideology, you can Trump style, if you

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Speaker 1: are seen as the more likely to win. Clearly, that

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Speaker 1: is not how Republican primary voters behave because if Republican

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Speaker 1: primary voters behave that way, Cornyn wouldn't be in a runoff.

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Speaker 1: Cornyan would have won without a runoff. And so that's

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Speaker 1: where I think the open question and really what the

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Speaker 1: next two months are going to be is Cornyn's going

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Speaker 1: to be begging Trump for the endorsement when all the

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Speaker 1: votes are counted. I do think if Cornyn can be

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Speaker 1: one vote ahead of Paxton in the first round of

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Speaker 1: voting rather than even one vote behind, that those superficial

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Speaker 1: things matter to Trump, right he wents tobacco quote winner,

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Speaker 1: not a loser, but Paxton in many ways is Trump.

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Speaker 1: And Paxton has been a warrior for Trump. Right, he

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Speaker 1: filed the original suit that you know, the sort of

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Speaker 1: that basically stalled and created the illusion that the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty election was was somehow disputed. But he'd been going,

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Speaker 1: you know, he was. He was an early warrior for Trump.

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Speaker 1: Trump is not known to be loyal. We know this, right,

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Speaker 1: and you can get to Trump. Do you want to

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Speaker 1: be seen as a loser? Do you want to back

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Speaker 1: a loser? Do you want to be you want this

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Speaker 1: to be on you that one of your acolytes lost

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Speaker 1: control of the Senate and lost the single most important

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 1: think about, especially if you've got a growing family. I

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Speaker 1: do think that Tallarico being the Democratic nominee instead of

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Speaker 1: Cricket probably gives, uh, probably gives cornn and John Thune,

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Speaker 1: who are going to be making this case to Trump,

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Speaker 1: a stronger set of variables to say, hey, this tall

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Speaker 1: Rico can win, He can beat Paxton. Tall Rico might

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Speaker 1: be able to beat Corny for all we know when

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden done on this. So that's you know,

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Speaker 1: that's that's the other part of the fallout from this primary.

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Speaker 1: It's going to be, you know, can John Cornyn convinced Trump?

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Speaker 1: And if Trump endorses, he's got to do so emphatically.

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Speaker 1: And that's the it's hard to imagine he would. He

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Speaker 1: might endorse corn but might not do it emphatically. Say

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Speaker 1: I like Ken Paxton to that Republicans will be great

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Speaker 1: no matter who wins, but all my people tell me

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Speaker 1: that that Cornan has a better shot at winning, and

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Speaker 1: we gotta hold the Senate. Right, I'm trying to think

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Speaker 1: of the different ways he could communicate this. I could

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Speaker 1: picture him communicating it that way. I like him both,

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Speaker 1: and I plan to you know, and whoever loses is

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Speaker 1: going to work for me in the administration. Right. He

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Speaker 1: could do something like that. So it's going to be

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Speaker 1: interesting to watch the dance that Cornyn Senate Republicans because

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Speaker 1: here's the awkward part for Senate Republicans. If Paxton wins

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Speaker 1: the runoff, and look, the history says when an incumbent

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Speaker 1: is dragged into a runoff against somebody who's either you know,

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Speaker 1: more liberal or more cons or whatever whatever. If the

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Speaker 1: Democratic primary, the more liberal candidate wins runoffs, in a

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Speaker 1: Republican primary, the more conservative candidate usually wins the runoffs.

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Speaker 1: The only time this has not happened that way was

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Speaker 1: a Mississippi Senate race in twenty fourteen. In that race,

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Speaker 1: that Cochrane looked like a sure loser after the you know,

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Speaker 1: in the first round of voting to Chris McDaniel, a

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Speaker 1: Conservative challenger, and then Cochrane and National Senate Republicans ran

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Speaker 1: a campaign to convince a whole bunch of voters who

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Speaker 1: didn't vote in either primary to show up in a

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Speaker 1: runoff and more. I think the Cochrane McDaniel race actually

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Speaker 1: had more voters in the runoff than the original first

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Speaker 1: round Republican primary.

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Speaker 2: Well, what did that mean?

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Speaker 1: Cochrane somehow changed the electorate and he got in this

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Speaker 1: case a lot of African Americans who hadn't voted in

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Speaker 1: either primary because the Democratic primary wasn't really highly contested.

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Speaker 1: They showed up and he voted for Cochrane. The point

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Speaker 1: is it's an outlier. It's an exception. Every other every

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Speaker 1: other time we've had primaries go like this with an

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Speaker 1: incumbent dragged into a runoff by a challenger closer to

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Speaker 1: the political base, the result is just about always been

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Speaker 1: the same. It is hard to imagine that there is

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Speaker 1: a that they're going to be able to somehow.

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Speaker 2: Do this differently.

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Speaker 1: Right, he needs a higher turnout then you would normally

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Speaker 1: get in a runoff. This is taking place the Tuesday

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Speaker 1: after Memorial Day, so there are a lot of things

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Speaker 1: going against corn In here. But given all, given the

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Speaker 1: hand he was dealt in this primary, everything basically happened

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Speaker 1: about the best possible way it could happen for him

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Speaker 1: to possibly find a way to be Paxton right, he

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Speaker 1: needed Tallarico to be the nominee without a runoff, so

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Speaker 1: the threat of tallar Ico being seen as the more

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Speaker 1: formidable challenger in a general election, he needed to himself

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Speaker 1: do better than what the polls had shown he would do.

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Speaker 1: Cornan has done much better than what the polling had

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Speaker 1: shown he was going to do, so we'll see. But

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Speaker 1: the bottom line is, with Tallarico's the dem nominee and

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Speaker 1: the like possibility right now, I'd say it's probably a

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Speaker 1: sixty to seventy percent chance. Now that Ken Paxton's Republican nominee.

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Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm saying this, but Texas Senate is in.

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Speaker 2: Play and Paxton may still win.

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Speaker 1: But the amount of money Republicans are going to have

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Speaker 1: to spend to bail him out.

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Speaker 2: One two.

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Speaker 1: The rhetorical gymnastics that the Senate Republicans are going to

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Speaker 1: have to take. I mean, they have all and and

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Speaker 1: it's clear that Cornyan has promised a scorched earth runoff campaign.

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine Republicans are not going to walk away

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Speaker 1: from the center race, right, they can't afford to walk

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Speaker 1: away from it. This isn't you know, as much as

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Speaker 1: they don't like Ken Paxton, I don't think they would

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Speaker 1: treat him like David Duke in this situation. It's uh,

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Speaker 1: it's going to be a tough road, very tough road.

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Speaker 1: And so but they're in for a dime, in for

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Speaker 1: a dollar now, and so there's going to be more

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Speaker 1: money dropped on Ken Paxton. Now here's a few interesting

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Speaker 1: strategic decisions Democrats have to make. Do the Senate Democrats

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Speaker 1: play in the Republican runoff? We were joking on the

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Speaker 1: live stream. Does the you know, we've seen Democrats have

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Speaker 1: done this and especially during the Trump era, have done

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Speaker 1: this a few times to try to help a candidate

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Speaker 1: win a primary or a runoff that they think is

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Speaker 1: more beatable in a general election. So does the Senate

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Speaker 1: Does Chuck Schumer Senate pack run an ad that says

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Speaker 1: call Senator Cornyn and thank him for his vote on

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Speaker 1: gun control or do they run ads talking about how

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Speaker 1: Ken Paxton is supports Donald Trump too much to support

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Speaker 1: him in the Senate, right support an independent like John

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Speaker 1: Cornyn in the Senate. There's all sorts of games, game

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Speaker 1: theory you can do there. Now, look, there's risk to that,

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Speaker 1: but one would one could argue it is it is

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Speaker 1: a it is a cheaper way to play in Texas

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Speaker 1: because look, if it's Cornyn tall Rico, tall Rico is

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Speaker 1: probably going to be on his own. I don't think

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Speaker 1: the National Party comes in and helps them. They do some,

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Speaker 1: but I don't think they go all in it's Paxton.

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Speaker 1: I think they're going to be tempted to go all in. Right,

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Speaker 1: And it's and if you look at the Senate map,

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Speaker 1: it's really not that expensive of a Senate map for Democrats. Right,

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Speaker 1: you have North Carolina where your candidate is ahead, your

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Speaker 1: candidate's out raising everybody, You're in good shape.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think.

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Speaker 1: Arguably roy if there hadn't if Democrats had won more

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Speaker 1: than one Senate race this century in the state of

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Speaker 1: North Carolina, I think most handicappers would already have labeled

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Speaker 1: this race as lean Democrat instead of toss up. But

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Speaker 1: because Democrats have only won one Senate race this this

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Speaker 1: century in North Carolina. It was in two thousand and eight.

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Speaker 1: So you know, John Edwards got elected in ninety eight

432
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 1: in case you're wondering about that about him. So I

433
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: think it's the only reason why it's seen as a

434
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,719
Speaker 1: toss up. But it's a race that they should you know,

435
00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:06,440
Speaker 1: they're going to have. You know, it's a presidential swing state.

436
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:09,399
Speaker 1: You don't ever screw around. But they're in pretty good

437
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 1: shape there. Main's going to be super expensive and they're

438
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:16,160
Speaker 1: probably going to have to spend even more money because

439
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,400
Speaker 1: it's going to be a messy primary and the eventual

440
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee is probably going to be starved for resources

441
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 1: come the end of that primary campaign. So they're going

442
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: to have to come in and they're going to go

443
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:34,200
Speaker 1: in big there. So then the question is you've got Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, Texas,

444
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 1: you know, maybe Nebraska if you expect the National Party

445
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: to go in for an independent like Dan Osborne. Right,

446
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 1: maybe at Kansas if that other independent candidate takes fire.

447
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 1: But ultimately you're looking at those aren't super expensive states, right,

448
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: Iowa's not super expensive, Alaska's not super expensive. Ohio and

449
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:57,360
Speaker 1: Texas are and Ohio is about half the cost of Texas.

450
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 1: But you know, well, yes, Georgia and Michigan are expensive defenses.

451
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: I think Minnesota is an underrated expense for the Democrats

452
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: there in that Senate race in New Hampshire. It's the

453
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: Boston market. So it's not a cheap state either to defend.

454
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 1: So you know, now they're not defending a huge place

455
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 1: like Illinois, and they're not going to be defending in

456
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: a California, and they're not going to be defending in

457
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 1: a Pennsylvania, and they're not going to be defending in

458
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 1: a Florida or something like that.

459
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 2: So you could.

460
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 1: Argue that compared to previous cycles, the Democrats should have

461
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:39,199
Speaker 1: the budget to also target Texas if they so choose,

462
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,400
Speaker 1: But it is super expensive and they've never really done

463
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,399
Speaker 1: it before. Right, They've always kind of been half in,

464
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: half out. But the Republicans they are, they're going to

465
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:52,880
Speaker 1: be in no matter what they have to be, right,

466
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: Democrats can get to a setup majority without Texas in

467
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 1: their minds, right North Carolin on A, Maine, Ohio, Iowa, Alaska.

468
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:04,439
Speaker 1: They just win four of those five. We haven't even

469
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,159
Speaker 1: gotten to Texas. That assumes they hold Michigan, then they

470
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 1: hold Georgia, and they hold Minnesota, and they hold New Hampshire.

471
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: Of those four, I think Michigan's the most precarious. I

472
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:15,800
Speaker 1: think I've said that to you before. It's why it's

473
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: the one Republican seat in my top five most likely

474
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:24,919
Speaker 1: to flip. But Texas is a nice to have for

475
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:30,679
Speaker 1: Democrats Republicans. It's a half to half right and and

476
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: it's bigger than just losing a Senate seat if they

477
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:37,919
Speaker 1: somehow right, if the Democrats crack open Texas. I just

478
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: went you're going to later in this Later in this podcast,

479
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: you're going to hear my top five all time races

480
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: in Texas, because I think there's a chance this Senate race,

481
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 1: if it's particularly if it's Paxton v. Tall Rico, may

482
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: end up in the all time in an all time

483
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,080
Speaker 1: list when all is said and done. But one of

484
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 1: the five races in all time list is the first

485
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: time a Republican wins statewide in Texas, and happened in

486
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one with John Tower, and it was literally

487
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: a foot in the door. And once they won a

488
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: special election in a state wide contest and sort of

489
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: broke the streak. They hadn't won a statewide race in reconstruction.

490
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 1: Then money came in and funded the state party. Then

491
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: the state party was able to fund county parties and

492
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: so on and so on, and you know, John Tower,

493
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: you know, it took them another seventeen years before they

494
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: were able to win a governor's race, but they won

495
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: that in seventy eight, and then essentially, by nineteen ninety

496
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 1: it is a it is an evenly divided state, and

497
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 1: then by ninety four it becomes a solid Republican state.

498
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: And nineteen ninety four is the last time a Democrat

499
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:49,239
Speaker 1: won any state wide race on any level in the

500
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: state of Texas.

501
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 2: So the point.

502
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 1: Is is denying Texas any Democrats any win is a

503
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: big deal for Republicans. You let, It's sort of like

504
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:05,479
Speaker 1: you let, you let you open the door, and all

505
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 1: of a sudden money starts pouring in. They win one,

506
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 1: then there's belief they can win two, they can win three,

507
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 1: et cetera. So pop your popcorn. It's going to be

508
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 1: fascinating this Republican primary. John Cornyn has promised that, you know,

509
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: he hasn't even that that. Ken Paxton hasn't seen what's

510
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: about to become, and I think he've referred to a

511
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 1: Judgment Day. It sounded like a trailer for a Jerry

512
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 1: Bruckheimer movie. Judgment Day is coming to Ken Paxton. In

513
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:41,880
Speaker 1: a world where Ken Paxton thinks he's going to be

514
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 1: a United States Center incomes John Cornyn. It's going to

515
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: be something else. I'm happy that I'm going to be

516
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 1: in the state of Texas a couple of times between

517
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 1: now and the runoff, and I look forward to uh

518
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: dipping my toe in that race. Some other things down

519
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 1: the ballot that are worth worth noting. My favorite result

520
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: of the night is the two vote margin for the

521
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 1: state Senate president in I think he trails by two

522
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: votes in the state Senate president in North Carolina. It's

523
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: to a political rival that goes back thirty years. Kind

524
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: of love an old fashioned grudge match, right, But this

525
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: is a big deal for Republican Party operations in the

526
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: entire state. In the legislature of the Republican legislature is

527
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 1: extraordinarily influential in North Carolina. And here's the state Senate

528
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: president who is going to need a recount at best

529
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: to survive a primary, and who knows, but I think

530
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: you're going to see a lot of litigation in that state,

531
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 1: and that's going to be a dominant story among political

532
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 1: types in North Carolina for a few weeks. Incumbents, boy

533
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: it is. You know, the tight incumbent races we expected,

534
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: a few are going to end up a runoffs. I

535
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: think Al Green's in a runoff. Crenshaw does not look

536
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 1: like he's going to get a runoff. The only Republican

537
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 1: incumbent member of Congress to seek reelection and not have

538
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's endorsement was Dan Crenshaw. I think Donald Trump

539
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 1: will love making note of that. That the that you know,

540
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 1: if you don't have his endorsement, you can't win. That

541
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: still matters in Republican Party politics, that's for sure. But overall,

542
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 1: I think that if you're John Cornyn, you probably got

543
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 1: the best possible result you could hope for it. It still

544
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: may not be good enough. If you're National Democrats and

545
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 1: you you know, tall Rico appears to be probably the

546
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: more the candidate that can win. It has a higher ceiling.

547
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: I'm not as I'm not as convinced Crockett couldn't win

548
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: for what it's worth, but I you know, tallar Rico

549
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: certainly has a his strength with self described independence that's

550
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:09,719
Speaker 1: going to be key this In so many of these elections,

551
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 1: you're seeing independence look more like Democrats across the board.

552
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 1: And then I would argue the news of the day

553
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: nationally was not very helpful if you're a Republican on

554
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: the ballot, whether it's Christynome doubling down and calling those

555
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:33,959
Speaker 1: folks in Minneapolis domestic terrorists, to suddenly Americans waking up

556
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 1: to finding out that we've launched military strikes, and yet

557
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:42,479
Speaker 1: another country, this time it's Ecuador going after Narco so

558
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 1: called Narco Terras. You have a president flailing to sort

559
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: of explain the rationale for Iran. Now it appears we

560
00:33:54,680 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: didn't do enough before the attacks to get Americans out

561
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: of the region, and there seems didn't seem as if

562
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: the president felt like he felt bad about that. So

563
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: he's not showing himself to be a very stable wartime

564
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 1: leader at this moment. The Iran you know, I go

565
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:24,320
Speaker 1: back to something I said earlier. The best news he

566
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: can hope out of this Iran campaign has already happened,

567
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 1: and that's the death of Kamani. Every other headline so

568
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 1: far out of this war feels like it is it

569
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: is only stoking voter skepticism about this decision and about

570
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:46,239
Speaker 1: the timing of this decision. This doesn't seem to be

571
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:50,439
Speaker 1: wearing well. I mean, I've never seen an initial military

572
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 1: and this is you've arguably been a was a successful start,

573
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 1: right when you when you kill the bad guy, and

574
00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: you know, the supposed bad guy in the first twenty

575
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 1: four hours, it's a pretty good start to your military intervention.

576
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:08,800
Speaker 1: And yet voters are starting in a negative position. And again,

577
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: what turns this around. There's no obvious way this turns

578
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:17,800
Speaker 1: around right away. And if anything, it looks like and

579
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: you know, now there's reports or we're going to try

580
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: to help the Kurds become an insurgent force inside of Iran.

581
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 1: I mean, that looks like you're opening up a can

582
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: of worms. And we know that the Kurds, well, they're

583
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: a lethal fighting force. Suddenly that creates issues with the Turks,

584
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:39,760
Speaker 1: it can create issues in Syria.

585
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 2: It's just.

586
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:45,839
Speaker 1: A lot of folks had warned that, you know, if

587
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 1: you start open hostilities with Iran, you don't know how

588
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:53,839
Speaker 1: this there. You know, it's in the cliche. It's easy

589
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 1: to start a war, it's hard to end one. And

590
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 1: it feels like more countries are finding themselves involved all

591
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: of a sudden.

592
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 2: Not less.

593
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 1: There's more uncertainty, not less. So I would say that

594
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 1: when you look at this, you look at the what

595
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 1: happened in these primaries tonight, and then you look at

596
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: the larger, sort of bigger news picture that is impacting

597
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:25,760
Speaker 1: the larger political conversation. This is about the worst start

598
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: to a midterm election cycle that an incumbent party could have.

599
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 1: At the moment, their single most important state is suddenly

600
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: potentially a swing state, or at least for this election

601
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: cycle it is. And you've just started a war in

602
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 1: the Middle East that is starting out very unpopular and

603
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine how it gets more popular. And oh,

604
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 1: by the way, the stock market, which was once a

605
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: barometer that Donald Trump cared a lot about, is not

606
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 1: something he wants to be pointing people to now. So

607
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:10,839
Speaker 1: you've now got a disrupted economy due to this war

608
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: in Iran, a disrupted national security space in general, and

609
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 1: all of this overlays what was already an election cycle

610
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 1: that looked like it was just going to be an

611
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 1: old fashioned referendum on the Party in Power. This episode

612
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,160
Speaker 1: of the Chuck Toddcast is brought to you by American Financing. So,

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Speaker 1: remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night.

647
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:24,239
Speaker 1: Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Now. Look,

648
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 1: I don't drink anymore, so I can't give zbiotics pre

649
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 1: alcohol a personal endorsement. But my producer Lauren does drink

650
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 1: and he tried it out.

651
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 2: Lauren, how was your experience.

652
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 3: I'll be honest. Chuck I was a bit skeptical at first,

653
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:37,239
Speaker 3: but the other night I went out with my wife

654
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:39,720
Speaker 3: to our favorite spot for Margarita's and tried pre alcohol

655
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 3: beforehand and got to admit I was surprised by how

656
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:43,839
Speaker 3: good I felt the next morning, disable the pop right

657
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:45,879
Speaker 3: out of bed, get a workout in, have a great

658
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 3: day of work. So pre alcoholic gets my stamp of approval.

659
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 2: So there you go.

660
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: You ready to try it, Go to zbiotics dot com

661
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664
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665
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666
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667
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Speaker 1: fifteen percent discount. Again, use the code Chuck podcast. It

668
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:25,239
Speaker 1: is a Wednesday, which means I have a top five

669
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 1: list and I'm going to do a twist on it.

670
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 2: And it's something I told you.

671
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:31,319
Speaker 1: I was going to be working on pretty soon. And

672
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 1: this will continue to evolve, but that is sort of

673
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:44,959
Speaker 1: campaign history, and I have those of you that those

674
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: that know me have known me a long time, know

675
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:51,839
Speaker 1: that I've got a file boxes filled with research of

676
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: unwritten books, whether it's on crazy stories from the presidential

677
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 1: campaign trail that my late mentor Doug Bailey was working

678
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 1: on and I inherited all of that scholarship, or what

679
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 1: I worked on on what I called tales from the Trail,

680
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 1: sort of the crazy. Every state has had a crazy campaign,

681
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:11,359
Speaker 1: at least one, if not more. Once you sit back

682
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:12,280
Speaker 1: and wait, don't I tell.

683
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 2: You a story.

684
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: But this is the beauty of this format, right is

685
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: you have an opportunity to test out some of your

686
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:21,880
Speaker 1: theories of the case and some of your storytelling. So

687
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:26,360
Speaker 1: this episode, obviously it's huge Texas Senate. We kicked off

688
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:31,280
Speaker 1: the midterm election coverage at the start of this podcast. Obviously,

689
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 1: everything that happened Texas has a chance. The Texas twenty

690
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:38,760
Speaker 1: twenty six Senate race, with these messy primaries and everything

691
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:43,280
Speaker 1: that has happened inside both parties a we have Obviously

692
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 1: we're still sorting ourselves out with the runoff situation, but

693
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:51,160
Speaker 1: it has a chance to become an all timer in

694
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:55,800
Speaker 1: Texas history. And it got me thinking, what are the

695
00:41:55,960 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 1: all time great Texas statewide campaigns and it's just governor

696
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:06,279
Speaker 1: and Senate that qualify for this. And I've done I've

697
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:10,479
Speaker 1: worked on this for all fifty states, and I've got

698
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 1: sort of different lists that I've put together over the

699
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 1: years of this and different ways that I've wanted to

700
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: publish content about it. But I thought today I would

701
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:23,920
Speaker 1: at least make my top five lists my top This

702
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 1: is my top five all time statewide campaigns and Texas history.

703
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 3: To top five topp.

704
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 1: We've had a few minutes here give you a little

705
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:44,839
Speaker 1: little background in each of my top five. Inning will

706
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 1: also note some races that get honorable mentioned but didn't

707
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: quite crack my top five. I would love for my

708
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 1: Texas listeners, my Texas and my political science and political

709
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: junkies if you don't agree with my ranking, reranked the

710
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:01,759
Speaker 1: five to it in a minute or what did I

711
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,759
Speaker 1: leave out? What did you what were you surprised by?

712
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 2: Etc?

713
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 1: Because look, Texas, you know, as we did with my

714
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 1: podcast Time Machine earlier this week, it has an incredible history,

715
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: right being an independent country for a small period of time,

716
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:21,920
Speaker 1: there's a lot that has happened. Texas has produced multiple presidents,

717
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 1: political legends, and frankly, some of the strangest campaigns in

718
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 1: American history. Not all these races that I'm going to

719
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 1: put in the top five were actually close races, but

720
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: in some cases they were extraordinarily consequential for the result

721
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 1: that happened. But these races changed something, something bigger. Some

722
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: of these races launched careers, some of them ended eras.

723
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,400
Speaker 1: Some of them featured something so unusual you just couldn't

724
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:47,879
Speaker 1: make it up.

725
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 2: Look, I get it.

726
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,600
Speaker 1: All time lists are subjective. The point is to spark debate,

727
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 1: get people thinking about political history and how it matters

728
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: to today's politics. And again, if you disagree with my choices,

729
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 1: please send me your feedback, your pushback, your own nominees.

730
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 1: Ashchuck atdchucktodcast dot com. So I got five races for

731
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 1: you today. And if the Texas the twenty twenty six

732
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:14,360
Speaker 1: Texas Senate race turns into the humdinger that some people

733
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,359
Speaker 1: expected to be by November, it may earn its own

734
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:22,320
Speaker 1: place on this list someday. But hey, I'll let you decide.

735
00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:25,400
Speaker 1: The question is which one of these five would you

736
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:29,600
Speaker 1: bump from this list? So this is my top five.

737
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 1: Number five is actually one race in the twenty first century.

738
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 1: And there's only one race on my list that I

739
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 1: include from the twenty first century, and it's two thousand

740
00:44:38,520 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: and six. Texas Governor Rick Perry wins this race with

741
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: thirty nine percent. The Democratic nominee Chris Bell gets thirty percent,

742
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:51,319
Speaker 1: Carol Keaton Strayhorn gets eighteen percent running as an independent Republican,

743
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:56,839
Speaker 1: and the late Kinky Friedman, who once had a hit

744
00:44:56,920 --> 00:45:00,479
Speaker 1: song called they Don't Make Jews like Jesus Anymore, got

745
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 1: twelve percent. So here's what you need to know about

746
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:06,759
Speaker 1: this campaign. Rick Perry's running for a second full term

747
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: as governor, a term he inherited, right, he inherited the

748
00:45:11,200 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 1: term when Bush became president. Wins in two fairly easily.

749
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:19,440
Speaker 1: Six is his attempt at a second full term. His

750
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:22,120
Speaker 1: approval ratings are not great, right, two thousand and six

751
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:25,800
Speaker 1: not a good year for Republicans in general. Right across

752
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 1: the board nationally and Poles had consistently showed that roughly

753
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 1: six and ten Texans said they'd vote for someone other

754
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 1: than Perry, and the final results showed that six and

755
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: ten Texans voted for someone else other than Perry. So

756
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:43,840
Speaker 1: why wasn't Why didn't this end up a real race. Well,

757
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:47,799
Speaker 1: those six and ten Texans were split up between three

758
00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 1: other candidates. So yet Chris bout he was an accidental

759
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:53,799
Speaker 1: member of Congress, ended up Member of Congress in the

760
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 1: Tom Delay seat for a brief term. He ends up

761
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:59,719
Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee because no one else really wanted the job.

762
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:02,920
Speaker 1: The most interesting candidate and the chief rival to Rick

763
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:06,239
Speaker 1: Perry for this was Carol Keaton Straehorn. She was the

764
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:09,800
Speaker 1: sitting Comptroller of Texas. She decided to skip the Republican

765
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:11,880
Speaker 1: primary because she didn't think she could win a primary,

766
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 1: but she thought she could run as an independent. She

767
00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: branded herself as one tough grandma and really was a

768
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:21,640
Speaker 1: big chunk of her funding came from traalers, came from

769
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:24,720
Speaker 1: the same communities that normally back in the nine eighties

770
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:25,480
Speaker 1: and nineties.

771
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:26,600
Speaker 2: Used to support Democrats.

772
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: She was trying to run a sort of hybrid, trying

773
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 1: to get sort of the oppositional funding, you know, to

774
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:35,759
Speaker 1: try to sort of you could call it moderate Republican,

775
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:38,440
Speaker 1: Republican light whatever you want to call it, but that

776
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:41,800
Speaker 1: was the theory of her case. But she needed the

777
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:46,160
Speaker 1: Democrats not to essentially run a series campaign, and in

778
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:49,799
Speaker 1: theory Chris Bell really was an incredibly underfunded campaign, didn't

779
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:52,719
Speaker 1: really run anything. And of course Kinky Friedman, was it

780
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 1: a publicity stunt? Was it a frustration? Well, at that

781
00:46:56,640 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 1: time iMOS was if you remember the late great Don Imas,

782
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: Kinky Friedman was sort of a regular fixture of IMIS.

783
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 1: So he had his own sort of he had his

784
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: own sort of persona, and as he used to he

785
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 1: had a campaign slogan that simply was how hard could

786
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 1: it be? There was a libertarian on two now what's

787
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 1: interesting about But it was Strayhorn that was the chief challenger. Now,

788
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 1: over the course of her political career she used several

789
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 1: last names, McLellan, Rylander, Strayhorn, and eventually back to Keaton.

790
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 1: She actually wanted to get Grandma officially added to her

791
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 1: ballot name, but the Perry appointed Secretary of State denied

792
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:42,400
Speaker 1: that request. Was what added to the drama of this

793
00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: Republican inner fighting, was it? One of her sons, Scott McClellan,

794
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 1: was the press secretary for George W. Bush, So he

795
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,320
Speaker 1: had the president's press secretary's mother running as independent against

796
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:55,880
Speaker 1: the Republican governor of Texas who succeeded George W.

797
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 2: Bush.

798
00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 1: Right, That was quite the story. And of course you

799
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 1: had this, you know, to understand this race. The money

800
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 1: was really only with Perry at twenty four million, Strayhorn

801
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: at thirteen million, Kinky Friedman raised about three and a

802
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:14,520
Speaker 1: half million, and Chris Bell, the Democratic nominee, only raised

803
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:17,280
Speaker 1: two million dollars. And in fact, at one point Strayhorn

804
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:18,960
Speaker 1: had more than eight million cash on hand. Bell had

805
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 1: less than one hundred thousand. Bell was not at all

806
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:24,880
Speaker 1: a serious candidate, and y had. He finished second with

807
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:28,200
Speaker 1: thirty percent of the vote. And it to me, the

808
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:31,319
Speaker 1: reason I find this fascinating is because it was a

809
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: reminder that the major party line, there is a habit

810
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: that a chunk of voters in both parties just always

811
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:42,799
Speaker 1: pull the lever for whoever has the D or the

812
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:45,759
Speaker 1: R next to their name. We know what the baseline

813
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:48,879
Speaker 1: number of that is. In Texas, it's thirty percent, because

814
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:49,879
Speaker 1: that's what Chris Bell got.

815
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:50,760
Speaker 2: He got thirty percent.

816
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:53,799
Speaker 1: My guess is the baseline for just an R is

817
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 1: somewhere in that same range, right thirty to thirty five percent,

818
00:48:57,560 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 1: probably on the Republican side too, no matter the state

819
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 1: which is, you know, unless it's a you know state,

820
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: of Vermont. But you know, there is a voter that

821
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 1: always pulls a lever. You know, had there had she

822
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:14,200
Speaker 1: you know, worked harder to win over some Democrats, and

823
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,920
Speaker 1: also there were all sorts of ways. But it's why

824
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:23,800
Speaker 1: third party candidacies only succeed when one one of the

825
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 1: two parties has to basically give up on a race,

826
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 1: has to completely walk away, because just simply having their

827
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:34,359
Speaker 1: presence on the ballot will eat into that. And it

828
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 1: really it's why I include this race because I think

829
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:41,800
Speaker 1: it's one of the great lessons of to independent those

830
00:49:41,840 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 1: trying to break up the two parties?

831
00:49:43,880 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 2: How do you do it?

832
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:48,319
Speaker 1: You know, you're just you know, don't assume that just

833
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 1: because one of the two major parties only fields a

834
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: guidefly candidate that's underfunded, that there isn't going to be

835
00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 1: a strong poll by voters there. So that's why that

836
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:01,760
Speaker 1: makes my top five number four on the list. Nineteen

837
00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 1: ninety four, Texas Governor George W. Bush wins with fifty

838
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:08,160
Speaker 1: three and a half percent of the vote and Richards

839
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:11,840
Speaker 1: gets forty six percent of the vote. She's the incumbent governor.

840
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:16,759
Speaker 1: She's incredibly popular, she's witty, nationally known, you know, she

841
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:19,360
Speaker 1: delivered the keynote at the eighty eight Democratic Convention, and

842
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 1: is poor George he was born with a silver spoon

843
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:24,960
Speaker 1: in his mouth. Was sort of the punchline, and it

844
00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 1: just went from there. And she actually had a pretty

845
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:30,960
Speaker 1: good story to tell. The Texas economy was doing well,

846
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:34,360
Speaker 1: crime was down by most normal political standards. She'd have

847
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 1: been in good shape for reelection, but she faced an

848
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 1: opponent with an incredibly famous name, George W. Bush, son

849
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: of the former president, part owner of the Texas Rangers,

850
00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 1: and he was pretty untested politically. Richards kind of dismissed

851
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 1: the candidacy at first, said, ah, some jerk is what

852
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:54,680
Speaker 1: she called him at first, and a lot of Democrats

853
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:58,080
Speaker 1: dismissed it, thinking, oh, he George H. W. Bush just

854
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:02,399
Speaker 1: got walloped in nineteen ninety two. There's Bush fatigue. That's

855
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: not gonna work now. Ironically, this was a race going

856
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 1: into election day. Both candidates had their favorable ratings over

857
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:12,560
Speaker 1: sixty percent. Both were well liked. Richards wasn't unpopular, Bush

858
00:51:12,719 --> 00:51:15,680
Speaker 1: wasn't unknown. There wasn't a scandal election or a bad

859
00:51:15,719 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 1: economy election. The initial polling of this race, one poll

860
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:22,160
Speaker 1: had a forty seven forty in late nineteen ninety three,

861
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: and it is basically, you know, that's when you get

862
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 1: to start that way before you're spending any dollars there

863
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:33,400
Speaker 1: you go. The real issue is the race unfolded in

864
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 1: the middle of the nineteen ninety four Republican Revolution. Democrats

865
00:51:36,520 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 1: lost fifty four House seats nationally and in governor's races.

866
00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:43,040
Speaker 1: Bush was one of four Republicans that year to defeat

867
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 1: a sitting incumbent governor, a sitting incumbent Democratic governor. I've

868
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:50,759
Speaker 1: told you it's one of the hardest things to do.

869
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:54,600
Speaker 1: In ninety four, A lot of incumbent governors lost, including

870
00:51:54,600 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 1: Anne Richards, and she basically lost because of this. It

871
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:04,040
Speaker 1: was the shift, if you will. Carl Rove understood it.

872
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:06,200
Speaker 1: He saw the key dynamic clearly, the rise of the

873
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:09,800
Speaker 1: Republican suburbs in Texas, in and around the major cities,

874
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:15,319
Speaker 1: and the success in those suburbs is why Bush won.

875
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 1: And this race is important because it marks the beginning

876
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:23,240
Speaker 1: of something a storic Texas. Republicans have held every single

877
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:27,279
Speaker 1: statewide office ever since that election. No Democrat has won

878
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 1: statewide in Texas since November eighth, nineteen ninety four. One Guy,

879
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:32,759
Speaker 1: a land commissioner, Gary Morrow won a race that year

880
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:35,640
Speaker 1: in ninety four, and then and then that was it.

881
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:39,799
Speaker 1: So no Democrat has held state wide office since that.

882
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 1: Landmark Bush victory over Richards Bush goes on to win

883
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: re election ninety eight was sixty nine percent of the vote.

884
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:49,080
Speaker 1: Two years later, he runs for president. You can trace

885
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 1: a direct line from a governor's race in Texas in

886
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:54,000
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four to the Iraq War, Bush tax cuts

887
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 1: and a generation of Supreme Court appointments. Right, butterfly flaps

888
00:52:57,600 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: his wing. Number three on my list, you have to

889
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:04,120
Speaker 1: go back nineteen twenty four. Texas Governor Miriam ma Ferguson

890
00:53:04,160 --> 00:53:09,360
Speaker 1: defeats the clan backed candidate, Felix Robertson in the Democratic primary.

891
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:15,040
Speaker 1: Then she goes on to become the first woman governor

892
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:18,960
Speaker 1: of Texas and actually technically the second woman governor in

893
00:53:19,040 --> 00:53:22,880
Speaker 1: American history, because a woman in Wyoming took the oath

894
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:27,360
Speaker 1: a few days before Ma Ferguson did. But here's the story.

895
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:30,439
Speaker 1: To understand nineteen twenty four, you have to go back

896
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:35,439
Speaker 1: to nineteen seventeen. A man named James pah Ferguson. Man

897
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:38,319
Speaker 1: pah Ferguson was the governor of Texas. He was a

898
00:53:38,320 --> 00:53:41,839
Speaker 1: populist politician known as Farmer Jim, and he was also

899
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:45,040
Speaker 1: deeply corrupt. The charges against him read like a corruption

900
00:53:45,200 --> 00:53:48,480
Speaker 1: checklist that would look familiar today. Misuse of state funds,

901
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:51,560
Speaker 1: co mingling his personal bank accounts with state money, a

902
00:53:51,600 --> 00:53:54,040
Speaker 1: mysterious personal loan of one hundred and fifty six thousand

903
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:56,480
Speaker 1: dollars that he refused to explain, which, of course, would

904
00:53:56,520 --> 00:53:58,880
Speaker 1: be like nearly a million dollars in today's money. It

905
00:53:58,920 --> 00:54:01,600
Speaker 1: was later found to have come from San Antonio Beer Brewers,

906
00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:05,719
Speaker 1: which was particularly damaging given the prohibition politics of that era.

907
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 1: And then, most infamously, he tried to purge professors at

908
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:12,759
Speaker 1: the University of Texas who he personally disliked, and when

909
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 1: the ut president refused to fire them, Ferguson actually tried

910
00:54:16,680 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 1: to defund the university entirely.

911
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 2: So the legislature.

912
00:54:20,040 --> 00:54:23,400
Speaker 1: Impeached him on ten of twenty one charges and barred

913
00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:26,640
Speaker 1: him from holding state office ever again. But guess what,

914
00:54:26,840 --> 00:54:30,840
Speaker 1: Pap Ferguson refused to leave politics, He found another way back.

915
00:54:31,280 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 2: Now.

916
00:54:32,640 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 1: By the early nineteen twenties, the ku Klux Klan had

917
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:37,760
Speaker 1: become a major political force in the state of Texas

918
00:54:38,080 --> 00:54:40,200
Speaker 1: wasn't a fringe movement. It was a pretty mainstream. One

919
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:42,400
Speaker 1: Clan day at the Texas State Fair, for instance, in

920
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,879
Speaker 1: October nineteen twenty three, drew massive crowds. The klan had

921
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:50,080
Speaker 1: elected sheriffs, judges, legislatures, district attorneys all across the state.

922
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:53,239
Speaker 1: They voted as a block and used violence and intimidation

923
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:56,680
Speaker 1: to enforce their political will. Their candidate for governor in

924
00:54:56,719 --> 00:54:59,160
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four was a gentleman by the name of

925
00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: Felix Robertson, so Pah Ferguson saw an opening. He couldn't

926
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:05,040
Speaker 1: run himself, so he put his wife on the ballot,

927
00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:08,440
Speaker 1: Miriam Ma Ferguson. Mariam Ferguson had spent most of her

928
00:55:08,440 --> 00:55:10,799
Speaker 1: life as a private citizen, a homemaker who had no

929
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:13,480
Speaker 1: political career of her own, and in fact, her initials

930
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:16,279
Speaker 1: were MA, and it was a reporter that combined the

931
00:55:16,320 --> 00:55:19,120
Speaker 1: initials to give her the nickname Ma. And then of

932
00:55:19,120 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 1: course Pa ran the campaign behind the scenes, and then

933
00:55:22,680 --> 00:55:25,880
Speaker 1: they actually used the campaign slogan two governors for the

934
00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:29,200
Speaker 1: price of one. So Ma wins the Democratic primary over

935
00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 1: the clan backed Robertson. Effectively the election in a one

936
00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:34,920
Speaker 1: party Texas back at that time, there really was no

937
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:38,600
Speaker 1: Republican party back then. She then defeated the Republican George

938
00:55:38,600 --> 00:55:42,080
Speaker 1: Butte in the general election, and in January nineteen twenty five,

939
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:45,840
Speaker 1: she was inaugurated, as I said, the second woman governor

940
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:49,560
Speaker 1: in American history, because she took her fifteen days after

941
00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:51,960
Speaker 1: Wyoming's Nelly Taylo Ross.

942
00:55:52,000 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 2: Now.

943
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:55,800
Speaker 1: One of her early campaign promises targeted the Klan directly.

944
00:55:56,920 --> 00:56:01,680
Speaker 1: She supported an anti mask law aimed at preventing masked

945
00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:06,160
Speaker 1: Clan demonstrations in public. The courts actually would later strike

946
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:10,120
Speaker 1: down the law is unconstitutional, but the political damage that

947
00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:12,800
Speaker 1: she did to the Klan was real and lasting. Clan

948
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: membership in Texas once you couldn't use those face masks

949
00:56:16,719 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 1: collapse from roughly ninety seven thousand at its nineteen twenty

950
00:56:20,040 --> 00:56:22,560
Speaker 1: four peak to about eighteen thousand two years later, and

951
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:26,360
Speaker 1: by nineteen twenty seven, the governor declared the Clan in

952
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:32,920
Speaker 1: Texas effectively dead. Anti mask ordinance anyway, there's number three

953
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:35,200
Speaker 1: on the list. Number two on the list. The nineteen

954
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:40,000
Speaker 1: sixty one Texas Senate special election, John Tower becomes the

955
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:45,400
Speaker 1: first Republican to win statewide in Texas since reconstruction. He

956
00:56:45,480 --> 00:56:49,600
Speaker 1: defeats William Blakelee by roughly ten thousand votes out of

957
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:53,359
Speaker 1: a million cast, and he has Liberal Democrats to thank

958
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:56,200
Speaker 1: for it. So let me give you this setup. LBJ

959
00:56:56,320 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: becomes Vice president January sixty one, obviously vacates a senatecy.

960
00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:03,000
Speaker 1: The city governor is Price Daniel. He appoints a conservative

961
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:05,840
Speaker 1: Dallas oilman by the name of William Blakeley as the

962
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 1: temporary replacement for LBJ until the special election could be held,

963
00:57:09,520 --> 00:57:12,279
Speaker 1: and they hold the special election pretty quickly there. And

964
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:15,359
Speaker 1: here's the rules of that special were fairly unusual. There

965
00:57:15,360 --> 00:57:19,760
Speaker 1: were no party primaries, so instead there were seventy one candidates,

966
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:22,000
Speaker 1: including future Speaker of the House Jim Wright was on

967
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:24,040
Speaker 1: this list, by the way. But there were seventy one

968
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:27,440
Speaker 1: candidates that appeared on this single ballot, Republicans, Democrats, and

969
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:29,880
Speaker 1: Independence all at once. And the idea was the top

970
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: two finishers would advance to a runoff regardless of party.

971
00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:36,080
Speaker 1: Quite the ballot right seventy one candidates. So how did

972
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:39,320
Speaker 1: Tower break through? Well? John Tower was a political science

973
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:44,240
Speaker 1: professor at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls. Genuinely was obscure,

974
00:57:44,280 --> 00:57:46,560
Speaker 1: not a political figure anyone had expected to matter, but

975
00:57:46,600 --> 00:57:51,680
Speaker 1: he was the Republican nominee against LBJ in nineteen sixty

976
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:55,000
Speaker 1: and here LBJ on the ticket with Kennedy. He was

977
00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:57,480
Speaker 1: on the ballot twice, both as vice president for the electors,

978
00:57:57,480 --> 00:57:59,640
Speaker 1: and then of course he was running for reelection to

979
00:57:59,640 --> 00:58:03,120
Speaker 1: the Senate. Tower gets a surprisingly strong forty one percent

980
00:58:03,280 --> 00:58:06,200
Speaker 1: of the vote against the sitting senator. That gave him

981
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:08,440
Speaker 1: some name recognition. So in a special election he ended

982
00:58:08,520 --> 00:58:11,080
Speaker 1: up leading the seventy one candidate field with about thirty

983
00:58:11,120 --> 00:58:12,440
Speaker 1: one percent of the vote, and he advanced to the

984
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:15,840
Speaker 1: runoff against the leading Democrat, which ended up being the

985
00:58:15,840 --> 00:58:21,040
Speaker 1: appointed Senator Blakely. But here's where the liberal Democrats get involved.

986
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 1: You know how today's Texas Republican Party is divided into

987
00:58:25,960 --> 00:58:28,520
Speaker 1: and it's the dominant party, right, Well, back then it

988
00:58:28,560 --> 00:58:30,959
Speaker 1: was the Texas Democratic Party that was the dominant party

989
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 1: and they were divided into So here's where things got

990
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:37,800
Speaker 1: a bit interesting, and how John Tower has Democrats to

991
00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:41,880
Speaker 1: thank for becoming the first Republican senator. Texas Democratic partly

992
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:45,120
Speaker 1: was very very divided between the liberals and the conservatives,

993
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:48,520
Speaker 1: and the liberals had been losing their own primary for years.

994
00:58:48,560 --> 00:58:52,960
Speaker 1: The Conservatives were well backed. Blakely represented everything that they

995
00:58:53,000 --> 00:58:56,479
Speaker 1: hated about the so called conservative establishment. He opposed Third

996
00:58:56,480 --> 00:58:59,400
Speaker 1: Good Marshal's appointment to a federal jug ship. He was

997
00:58:59,440 --> 00:59:02,160
Speaker 1: hostile to organized labor. He was, in the view of

998
00:59:02,200 --> 00:59:05,240
Speaker 1: Texas liberals, a conservative masquerading as a Democrat. But this

999
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:10,080
Speaker 1: was Southern conservatives back then would end up being Republican

1000
00:59:10,080 --> 00:59:13,160
Speaker 1: by the nineteen eighties. Now, some of the liberal strategists

1001
00:59:13,160 --> 00:59:16,320
Speaker 1: made a cold calculation in the sixty one special better

1002
00:59:16,360 --> 00:59:18,960
Speaker 1: to let a conservative Democrat lose to a Republican than

1003
00:59:19,040 --> 00:59:22,160
Speaker 1: keep propping up the conservative wing of the Democratic Party.

1004
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:25,320
Speaker 1: The theory was that if the conservative Democrats kept losing

1005
00:59:25,360 --> 00:59:29,080
Speaker 1: general elections, they'd eventually just migrate to the Republican Party,

1006
00:59:29,480 --> 00:59:33,200
Speaker 1: where they belonged ideologically, and they'd leave the Texas Democratic

1007
00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:36,440
Speaker 1: Party to its liberal wing. Well, congrats, Texas Democrats, you

1008
00:59:36,520 --> 00:59:39,400
Speaker 1: pulled it off eventually. How did that work out?

1009
00:59:39,600 --> 00:59:40,400
Speaker 2: But I digress.

1010
00:59:40,760 --> 00:59:43,920
Speaker 1: So enough liberal Democrats crossed over and voted for Tower.

1011
00:59:44,520 --> 00:59:46,800
Speaker 1: Tower wins the runoff by about ten thousand votes, and

1012
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:51,680
Speaker 1: he becomes the first Republican Senator from Texas since reconstruction.

1013
00:59:52,200 --> 00:59:55,360
Speaker 1: Of course, it is worth noting the Conservatives didn't just

1014
00:59:55,440 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 1: leave the Democratic Party. They took Texas with them to

1015
00:59:58,520 --> 01:00:01,520
Speaker 1: the Republicans, and Tower was the first domino in a

1016
01:00:01,560 --> 01:00:05,160
Speaker 1: realignment that ended with Democrats shut out of statewide office

1017
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:09,480
Speaker 1: for now thirty two years in county. Anyway, towers victory

1018
01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:12,480
Speaker 1: cracked the Democratic slid south in Texas for the first time.

1019
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:16,280
Speaker 1: The state Republican Party immediately got to double its budget,

1020
01:00:16,480 --> 01:00:19,840
Speaker 1: hired an actual staff, moved its headquarters to Austin. They

1021
01:00:19,880 --> 01:00:23,480
Speaker 1: realized that they could actually become a competitive second political party.

1022
01:00:24,080 --> 01:00:26,680
Speaker 1: Tower would serve twenty four years in the Senate, ended

1023
01:00:26,760 --> 01:00:30,000
Speaker 1: up Chair of Armed Services, mentored a generation of Texas

1024
01:00:30,080 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 1: Republican operatives, became a major figure in Cold War defense policy,

1025
01:00:34,200 --> 01:00:37,320
Speaker 1: ended up essentially being humiliated out of politics in a

1026
01:00:37,560 --> 01:00:40,080
Speaker 1: very when he was nominated to be Defense Secretary by

1027
01:00:40,480 --> 01:00:46,600
Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush, his drinking became a big story.

1028
01:00:46,680 --> 01:00:52,400
Speaker 1: He withdraws, he ends up not getting actually he did.

1029
01:00:52,720 --> 01:00:54,920
Speaker 1: The Senate rejected him. It was so unusually. He actually

1030
01:00:54,920 --> 01:00:56,440
Speaker 1: went for a voke becaus he was a sitting senator.

1031
01:00:56,880 --> 01:01:04,200
Speaker 1: Senate rejected him and Dick Cheney would be the backup

1032
01:01:04,240 --> 01:01:07,720
Speaker 1: plan for Defense Secretary Tower himself would die two years

1033
01:01:07,760 --> 01:01:09,160
Speaker 1: after being rejected.

1034
01:01:08,720 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 2: By the Senate.

1035
01:01:10,760 --> 01:01:13,360
Speaker 1: But the most important thing to know about this race

1036
01:01:13,440 --> 01:01:16,880
Speaker 1: is the sixty one victory modern Texas, the modern Republican

1037
01:01:16,880 --> 01:01:20,520
Speaker 1: Texas Republican Party was born with that sixty one special

1038
01:01:20,560 --> 01:01:21,400
Speaker 1: election victory.

1039
01:01:21,720 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 2: And the number one race.

1040
01:01:24,760 --> 01:01:27,560
Speaker 1: On my list of all timers is the nineteen forty

1041
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:33,880
Speaker 1: eight Texas Democratic Senate primary. LBJ beats Coke Stevenson by

1042
01:01:34,000 --> 01:01:38,960
Speaker 1: eighty seven votes, eighty seven votes out of nearly one

1043
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:42,240
Speaker 1: million casts. If those eighty seven votes go the other way,

1044
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:47,080
Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson probably never becomes president. So you could argue

1045
01:01:47,160 --> 01:01:50,440
Speaker 1: it's the most consequential eighty seven votes in American political history.

1046
01:01:50,880 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 1: Does the Civil Rights Act pass, let alone get signed

1047
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:58,640
Speaker 1: by LBJ. So let me give you a little backstory.

1048
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:01,560
Speaker 1: By nineteen forty eight eight, LBJ had served eleven years

1049
01:02:01,600 --> 01:02:03,800
Speaker 1: in the House of Representatives. He was a protege of FDR.

1050
01:02:03,880 --> 01:02:07,360
Speaker 1: He was a new dealer, fierce operator in the new

1051
01:02:07,440 --> 01:02:10,480
Speaker 1: deal in the FDR machine. But he'd figure something. House

1052
01:02:10,480 --> 01:02:12,480
Speaker 1: in the House, you climb the seniority ladder, but you

1053
01:02:12,480 --> 01:02:14,440
Speaker 1: have to wait. The Senate was where he thought the

1054
01:02:14,480 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 1: real power in Congress lived and he didn't have to

1055
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:21,200
Speaker 1: wait for seniority. And Johnson didn't have patience for waiting.

1056
01:02:21,800 --> 01:02:23,840
Speaker 1: He'd already run for the Senate once in nineteen forty one,

1057
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:25,840
Speaker 1: and he lost a race that was itself probably stolen

1058
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:28,680
Speaker 1: from him. So he decided he wasn't going to wait

1059
01:02:28,680 --> 01:02:32,840
Speaker 1: any longer. So who was Coke Stevenson? This is important

1060
01:02:32,840 --> 01:02:36,520
Speaker 1: context because Stevenson wasn't some unknown challenger. He was one

1061
01:02:36,560 --> 01:02:40,240
Speaker 1: of the most formidable politicians in Texas history. As Robert

1062
01:02:40,240 --> 01:02:45,439
Speaker 1: Carrow in the Incredible biographical series on Johnson, he notes

1063
01:02:45,440 --> 01:02:48,760
Speaker 1: that Stevenson had run for public office twelve times, county judge,

1064
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:51,640
Speaker 1: state legislator, Speaker of the House, lieutenant governor, governor. He

1065
01:02:51,680 --> 01:02:56,240
Speaker 1: never lost, not once. When Texas legislator summed it up simply,

1066
01:02:56,280 --> 01:02:59,600
Speaker 1: Coke Stevenson was just like Coca cola. He was quiet,

1067
01:03:00,200 --> 01:03:04,640
Speaker 1: deeply conservative, personally incorruptible. He projected an image of a

1068
01:03:04,640 --> 01:03:06,720
Speaker 1: man who didn't need to seek power. Power just came

1069
01:03:06,760 --> 01:03:09,640
Speaker 1: to him. He'd spent all of nineteen forty seven on

1070
01:03:09,680 --> 01:03:12,160
Speaker 1: his ranch, and friends had talked him in to run it.

1071
01:03:12,840 --> 01:03:16,280
Speaker 1: Johnson ran one of the first modern campaigns in American history.

1072
01:03:16,560 --> 01:03:19,160
Speaker 1: He was the first candidate in Texas to campaign by helicopter.

1073
01:03:19,920 --> 01:03:22,880
Speaker 1: He swooped into small towns from the air, drawing crowds,

1074
01:03:22,920 --> 01:03:27,480
Speaker 1: working them with his volcanic energy, moving on before the

1075
01:03:27,520 --> 01:03:31,080
Speaker 1: next stop. He broadcasts statewide radio nearly every day. Right

1076
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:35,400
Speaker 1: being connected to that fledgling radio industry was a huge

1077
01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:38,880
Speaker 1: So he run a modern media campaign and a barnstorming campaign,

1078
01:03:39,960 --> 01:03:42,600
Speaker 1: and the contrast in styles was itself.

1079
01:03:42,240 --> 01:03:43,160
Speaker 2: Part of the campaign.

1080
01:03:43,560 --> 01:03:46,320
Speaker 1: One man was the future, one man was the past.

1081
01:03:47,720 --> 01:03:50,400
Speaker 1: So the fight between Johnson and Stevenson wasn't just personal,

1082
01:03:50,400 --> 01:03:55,040
Speaker 1: It reflected a genuine ideological divide inside the Texas Democratic Party.

1083
01:03:55,400 --> 01:03:59,560
Speaker 1: Stevenson was aligned with the anti Truman faction, the Texas Regulars,

1084
01:03:59,560 --> 01:04:03,280
Speaker 1: as they were called Conservative Democrats, who opposed both FDR

1085
01:04:03,320 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 1: and Truman's New Deal liberalism and were sympathetic to the

1086
01:04:06,200 --> 01:04:09,880
Speaker 1: emerging Dixiecrat movement. Johnson was aligned with the pro Truman

1087
01:04:09,960 --> 01:04:12,920
Speaker 1: Texas Loyalists. They were labor backed, they were the New

1088
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:15,680
Speaker 1: Deal wing of the party. So Truman understood what was

1089
01:04:15,720 --> 01:04:19,440
Speaker 1: at stake. He his entire national operation back Johnson, and

1090
01:04:19,480 --> 01:04:21,640
Speaker 1: in late September eighteen forty eight, right in the middle

1091
01:04:21,640 --> 01:04:26,280
Speaker 1: of the contested post election period, Truman brought his famous

1092
01:04:26,280 --> 01:04:30,720
Speaker 1: whistlestop campaign through Texas. Johnson and Truman were photographed together

1093
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:34,200
Speaker 1: on the back of that train in Austin. The image mattered.

1094
01:04:34,240 --> 01:04:36,200
Speaker 1: The liberal wing of the National Democratic Party had a

1095
01:04:36,240 --> 01:04:39,560
Speaker 1: stake in Johnson winning Stevenson. A Stevenson victory would have

1096
01:04:39,560 --> 01:04:42,480
Speaker 1: been a signal that the Dixie krat faction was ascended

1097
01:04:42,520 --> 01:04:46,960
Speaker 1: in Texas. Johnson also weaponized the Cold War. This was

1098
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:50,240
Speaker 1: a nineteen forty eight Soviet Union had just blockaded Berlin.

1099
01:04:50,400 --> 01:04:52,200
Speaker 1: China was on the verge of falling to the Communists.

1100
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:55,120
Speaker 1: The Alger Hiss spy case was in the news. Americans

1101
01:04:55,160 --> 01:05:00,440
Speaker 1: were genuinely frightened. Johnson hammered Stevenson as an isolationist. The

1102
01:05:00,520 --> 01:05:03,720
Speaker 1: kind of thinking that he said invited aggression leads to appeasement.

1103
01:05:04,240 --> 01:05:07,960
Speaker 1: He explicitly invoked Neville, Chamberlain and Hitler. When you don't

1104
01:05:07,960 --> 01:05:10,520
Speaker 1: confront evil early, you end up fighting it at home.

1105
01:05:11,320 --> 01:05:15,480
Speaker 1: So for Texas audiences in nineteen forty eight, obviously that

1106
01:05:15,560 --> 01:05:19,720
Speaker 1: framing landed. It was also the exact argument Truman needed

1107
01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:21,160
Speaker 1: Johnson to be making.

1108
01:05:20,920 --> 01:05:21,440
Speaker 2: In the South.

1109
01:05:22,480 --> 01:05:26,000
Speaker 1: Of course, the first primary between these Gentlemen was in July,

1110
01:05:26,080 --> 01:05:28,800
Speaker 1: and it produced no majority. Johnson and Stevenson went on

1111
01:05:28,840 --> 01:05:32,760
Speaker 1: to have a runoff on August twenty eighth. On election night,

1112
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:37,400
Speaker 1: Coke Stevenson appeared to have won, his lead held as

1113
01:05:37,440 --> 01:05:41,080
Speaker 1: returns came in, and then six days after the polls closed,

1114
01:05:41,560 --> 01:05:46,960
Speaker 1: officials in jim Wells County reported finding additional ballots Precinct

1115
01:05:47,080 --> 01:05:51,640
Speaker 1: thirteen or Box thirteen in the small South Texas town

1116
01:05:51,680 --> 01:05:55,960
Speaker 1: of Alice, two hundred and three additional votes two hundred

1117
01:05:55,960 --> 01:06:00,000
Speaker 1: for Johnson, three for Stevenson. The names were all written

1118
01:06:00,080 --> 01:06:04,240
Speaker 1: in the same handwriting in the same ink in alphabetical order.

1119
01:06:05,440 --> 01:06:07,480
Speaker 1: Some of the voters listed were not in town on

1120
01:06:07,560 --> 01:06:12,120
Speaker 1: election day, some others were dead. The man behind it

1121
01:06:12,160 --> 01:06:14,800
Speaker 1: was a political boss of South Texas named George Parr.

1122
01:06:15,120 --> 01:06:18,360
Speaker 1: He was known as the Duke of Duval. Parr controlled

1123
01:06:18,360 --> 01:06:20,600
Speaker 1: the machine that ran elections in that part of the state,

1124
01:06:21,320 --> 01:06:24,680
Speaker 1: and he decided his allegiance lay with Johnson. The election

1125
01:06:24,800 --> 01:06:27,160
Speaker 1: judge who actually created the fraudulent ballots was a man

1126
01:06:27,240 --> 01:06:30,520
Speaker 1: named Luis Sallas. He stayed quiet for nearly three decades,

1127
01:06:30,520 --> 01:06:34,120
Speaker 1: and then in nineteen seventy seven, after so many people

1128
01:06:34,200 --> 01:06:37,480
Speaker 1: had died, LBJ was no longer alive. He sat down

1129
01:06:37,480 --> 01:06:40,440
Speaker 1: with an AP reporter named James Mangan and confessed it

1130
01:06:40,480 --> 01:06:43,080
Speaker 1: all on tape. Salas said that on Parr's order, he

1131
01:06:43,120 --> 01:06:45,120
Speaker 1: had fabricated the last two utter and two votes from

1132
01:06:45,120 --> 01:06:48,840
Speaker 1: Precinct thirteen. Those taped interviews have since been donated to

1133
01:06:48,880 --> 01:06:52,000
Speaker 1: the LG LBJ Presidential Library. You can go listen to

1134
01:06:52,040 --> 01:06:58,160
Speaker 1: him yourself anyway. Johnson wins by eighty seven votes, landslide lended.

1135
01:06:58,640 --> 01:07:01,160
Speaker 1: Stevenson challenged the result all the way to federal court.

1136
01:07:03,040 --> 01:07:05,920
Speaker 1: He even hired Frank Hamer, the Texas ranger who had

1137
01:07:06,360 --> 01:07:10,240
Speaker 1: killed Bonnie and Clyde, to investigate. Johnson's attorney was Abe Fortace,

1138
01:07:10,960 --> 01:07:13,560
Speaker 1: successfully argued that federal courts had no jurisdiction over a

1139
01:07:13,600 --> 01:07:17,240
Speaker 1: state party primary. Fordison should be noted later was rewarded

1140
01:07:17,240 --> 01:07:21,560
Speaker 1: with a Supreme Court seat by Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was

1141
01:07:21,560 --> 01:07:24,080
Speaker 1: certified the winner the general election in November was against

1142
01:07:24,080 --> 01:07:27,840
Speaker 1: a Republican named Jack Porter. Never in doubt, and let's

1143
01:07:27,880 --> 01:07:30,680
Speaker 1: just say, without those eighty seven votes, real or manufactured,

1144
01:07:30,760 --> 01:07:33,360
Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson goes, perhaps goes back to the House of

1145
01:07:33,400 --> 01:07:36,800
Speaker 1: Representatives or who knows no Senate career means no Senate

1146
01:07:36,800 --> 01:07:39,480
Speaker 1: majority leader Johnson, the most powerful Senate leader of the

1147
01:07:39,520 --> 01:07:43,120
Speaker 1: twentieth century. No majority leader means no vice presidential nomination

1148
01:07:43,160 --> 01:07:46,320
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty. No vice president means no President Johnson

1149
01:07:46,320 --> 01:07:51,959
Speaker 1: after Dallas. It's amazing. Robert Carroll spent decades documenting this race.

1150
01:07:52,360 --> 01:07:55,320
Speaker 1: His conclusion essentially was the eighty seven vote margin. And

1151
01:07:55,360 --> 01:07:58,000
Speaker 1: a South Texas precinct is one of those moments where

1152
01:07:58,000 --> 01:08:01,760
Speaker 1: a tiny contingent event cades and does something that reshapes

1153
01:08:01,800 --> 01:08:08,080
Speaker 1: the world. A butterfly flaps its wings, perhaps illegally, and

1154
01:08:08,200 --> 01:08:09,160
Speaker 1: history has changed.

1155
01:08:09,880 --> 01:08:10,480
Speaker 2: So there you go.

1156
01:08:10,520 --> 01:08:12,320
Speaker 1: You see why I love campaign history. There's so many

1157
01:08:12,320 --> 01:08:14,520
Speaker 1: incredible stories. So those are my top five. I'll go

1158
01:08:14,560 --> 01:08:17,280
Speaker 1: back and do them again real fast. Number five the

1159
01:08:17,280 --> 01:08:19,960
Speaker 1: two thousand and two governor's race, Rick Perry winning only

1160
01:08:19,960 --> 01:08:22,320
Speaker 1: governor yet to win under win reelection with less than

1161
01:08:22,360 --> 01:08:25,519
Speaker 1: forty percent of the vote. Number four Bush versus Anne Richards,

1162
01:08:25,520 --> 01:08:28,800
Speaker 1: the birth of a President. Number three Ma Ferguson's win

1163
01:08:28,880 --> 01:08:32,599
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty four over Klansmen. Number two John Tower,

1164
01:08:32,720 --> 01:08:36,320
Speaker 1: the first Republican to break the mold in Texas. And

1165
01:08:36,439 --> 01:08:40,120
Speaker 1: number one, of course, the LBJ and the magical eighty

1166
01:08:40,160 --> 01:08:44,280
Speaker 1: seven votes that he wins by a few races that

1167
01:08:44,360 --> 01:08:46,920
Speaker 1: didn't make the list that you guys might push back on.

1168
01:08:46,960 --> 01:08:52,120
Speaker 1: I didn't put in nineteen ninety, which was Anne Richards

1169
01:08:52,200 --> 01:08:56,519
Speaker 1: victory over Clayton Williams, who basically threw the race away

1170
01:08:56,560 --> 01:09:00,920
Speaker 1: when he compared rape to back weather and he said,

1171
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:05,040
Speaker 1: just sit back and enjoy it. Let's just say Republican

1172
01:09:05,080 --> 01:09:08,639
Speaker 1: women abandon him in Moss and Texas elected its second

1173
01:09:08,680 --> 01:09:13,520
Speaker 1: woman governor after Ma Ferguson nineteen seventy eight, Bill Clements

1174
01:09:13,720 --> 01:09:16,840
Speaker 1: defeats John Hilly becomes the first Republican governor of Texas

1175
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:20,320
Speaker 1: since reconstruction. Bill Clements would famously be involved with the

1176
01:09:20,320 --> 01:09:24,160
Speaker 1: scandal that would take down the SMU football program, and

1177
01:09:24,200 --> 01:09:28,000
Speaker 1: it actually messed with its eighty six he wins reelection,

1178
01:09:28,080 --> 01:09:31,320
Speaker 1: and he wins election in eighty six. He actually went

1179
01:09:31,360 --> 01:09:35,560
Speaker 1: back and forth with Mark White there. But the scandal

1180
01:09:36,360 --> 01:09:40,880
Speaker 1: that took down SMU football also eventually would end the

1181
01:09:40,880 --> 01:09:44,000
Speaker 1: political career of Bill Clements. And then I could argue

1182
01:09:44,120 --> 01:09:48,400
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy Senate race where George H. W. Bush loses

1183
01:09:48,439 --> 01:09:51,720
Speaker 1: to Lloyd Benson. Here's some fun family lore for the

1184
01:09:51,720 --> 01:09:56,160
Speaker 1: bushes Bush's victory. The Bush victory in ninety four launches

1185
01:09:56,240 --> 01:10:01,000
Speaker 1: George W. Bush's candidacy for the presidency. Teen seventy, George

1186
01:10:01,160 --> 01:10:05,920
Speaker 1: HW loses a Senate race to Lloyd Benson. Nixon consoles

1187
01:10:06,000 --> 01:10:09,320
Speaker 1: him after being recruited by Nixon to challenge at the

1188
01:10:09,360 --> 01:10:12,799
Speaker 1: time a sitting Democratic senator who everybody thought was pretty

1189
01:10:12,840 --> 01:10:16,360
Speaker 1: weak named Ralph Yalborough. Well, of course Lloyd Benson thought

1190
01:10:16,360 --> 01:10:18,160
Speaker 1: he was weak too, and he beats him in a primary,

1191
01:10:18,439 --> 01:10:22,799
Speaker 1: and then Benson beats Bush in the general. But Nixon

1192
01:10:23,040 --> 01:10:26,320
Speaker 1: felt bad that his recruited candidate loud, so he gave

1193
01:10:26,400 --> 01:10:28,960
Speaker 1: him a succession of appointments you an ambassador, R and

1194
01:10:29,040 --> 01:10:33,920
Speaker 1: C chair, CIA director, all of those that if he

1195
01:10:33,960 --> 01:10:36,840
Speaker 1: wins the Senate race, he never serves in any of

1196
01:10:36,840 --> 01:10:39,839
Speaker 1: those three capacities, and maybe he never has the resume

1197
01:10:40,280 --> 01:10:44,280
Speaker 1: to even be thought of as a viable running mate

1198
01:10:44,439 --> 01:10:50,599
Speaker 1: for then Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty. Anyway, there's there's

1199
01:10:50,640 --> 01:10:54,120
Speaker 1: my top five for this week, little Texas history campaign

1200
01:10:54,160 --> 01:10:58,679
Speaker 1: history to me the five most fascinating and consequential camp

1201
01:10:58,800 --> 01:11:00,639
Speaker 1: statewide campaigns in tech history.

1202
01:11:01,400 --> 01:11:02,320
Speaker 2: What's your top five?

1203
01:11:03,600 --> 01:11:08,759
Speaker 1: And go ahead, quiz me tell me this great stories

1204
01:11:08,800 --> 01:11:15,160
Speaker 1: of your state. I've I've got these in my various archives,

1205
01:11:15,360 --> 01:11:19,280
Speaker 1: and I hope to be sharing them with you throughout

1206
01:11:19,320 --> 01:11:21,599
Speaker 1: this campaign. Yere, I think it'll be a lot of fun.

1207
01:11:29,120 --> 01:11:35,360
Speaker 1: Ask Chuck, all right, let's get a few questions in here.

1208
01:11:35,400 --> 01:11:38,559
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to do Here's I'm doing four

1209
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:42,080
Speaker 1: because i have four complete questions on my screen, so

1210
01:11:42,120 --> 01:11:44,880
Speaker 1: I'm no scrolling. This is how I'm deciding to do it.

1211
01:11:44,920 --> 01:11:49,200
Speaker 1: So first question comes from Mike from Honolulu, and he asks, Hey,

1212
01:11:49,200 --> 01:11:52,519
Speaker 1: thanks for the timely past weekend update, real quick on

1213
01:11:52,560 --> 01:11:55,200
Speaker 1: point if mainstream media educates us On CNN for Reid

1214
01:11:55,280 --> 01:11:58,800
Speaker 1: Zacharia did a piece August thirty, first, twenty twenty five

1215
01:11:58,840 --> 01:12:01,439
Speaker 1: that lays out the complex his the US has with Iran.

1216
01:12:01,479 --> 01:12:04,320
Speaker 1: Would appreciate your take on Secretary Pete Eggset's briefing on

1217
01:12:04,320 --> 01:12:06,240
Speaker 1: Monday morning. It felt confusing, not sure if he was

1218
01:12:06,240 --> 01:12:08,960
Speaker 1: addressing our armed forces or the public, with a gesture

1219
01:12:08,960 --> 01:12:11,600
Speaker 1: that reminded me of King George the Six Over and

1220
01:12:11,640 --> 01:12:13,800
Speaker 1: over again. We tried to find a peaceful way out,

1221
01:12:14,120 --> 01:12:17,040
Speaker 1: but Iran started this. How real are our country's objectives?

1222
01:12:17,040 --> 01:12:18,840
Speaker 1: Thanks for all your work, well, Mike, I think this

1223
01:12:18,960 --> 01:12:23,040
Speaker 1: is It's clear that this is they're searching for a

1224
01:12:23,160 --> 01:12:26,599
Speaker 1: rationale that they think the public will buy. They you know,

1225
01:12:29,040 --> 01:12:31,599
Speaker 1: the best reason to do this is not a very

1226
01:12:31,640 --> 01:12:35,439
Speaker 1: strong rationale to do this, which is they're vulnerable at

1227
01:12:35,439 --> 01:12:38,160
Speaker 1: the moment. You're never going to have a time. This

1228
01:12:38,240 --> 01:12:40,599
Speaker 1: might be the weakest they are and if you want

1229
01:12:40,640 --> 01:12:42,679
Speaker 1: to do regime change, this may be the best time

1230
01:12:42,720 --> 01:12:46,800
Speaker 1: to do it. That's not you know, right when you

1231
01:12:46,880 --> 01:12:50,479
Speaker 1: can't tell the truth on your rationale and you start

1232
01:12:50,520 --> 01:12:52,720
Speaker 1: looking for others, Well, they could be this, and they

1233
01:12:52,720 --> 01:12:55,559
Speaker 1: could be that, and they could be this. It starts

1234
01:12:55,560 --> 01:12:58,240
Speaker 1: to look an awful lot like Iraq. And I think

1235
01:12:58,280 --> 01:13:00,200
Speaker 1: that's what they're stumbling into here.

1236
01:13:00,320 --> 01:13:02,040
Speaker 2: And you know, they're.

1237
01:13:01,880 --> 01:13:04,160
Speaker 1: Finding out that all of a sudden, look at how

1238
01:13:04,200 --> 01:13:06,320
Speaker 1: many Middle Look how many countries in the Middle East

1239
01:13:06,320 --> 01:13:14,240
Speaker 1: have already been hit with stray stray fire, intentional arms.

1240
01:13:15,439 --> 01:13:18,519
Speaker 1: What we got four or five countries already. This could

1241
01:13:19,320 --> 01:13:24,160
Speaker 1: quickly get out of control in a hurry. And I

1242
01:13:24,200 --> 01:13:28,080
Speaker 1: think that this they're really struggling with the rationale because

1243
01:13:28,080 --> 01:13:31,960
Speaker 1: the rationale is thin. There isn't a lot of you know,

1244
01:13:32,000 --> 01:13:35,439
Speaker 1: you want to talk about questioning the intelligence behind the

1245
01:13:35,560 --> 01:13:39,080
Speaker 1: WMD during the run up to the Iraq War. Where's

1246
01:13:39,120 --> 01:13:43,799
Speaker 1: the intelligence that indicates where they were with their nuclear

1247
01:13:43,840 --> 01:13:47,559
Speaker 1: and reconstituting the nuclear programmer where they were in ballistic missiles.

1248
01:13:47,800 --> 01:13:51,280
Speaker 1: Essentially about the best case. I feel like I've heard

1249
01:13:51,320 --> 01:13:54,320
Speaker 1: from Rubio and Hank Set doesn't have it. I mean,

1250
01:13:54,320 --> 01:13:56,519
Speaker 1: he's just not very good at this, and he doesn't

1251
01:13:56,560 --> 01:13:58,760
Speaker 1: have a great grasp of history either, so I think

1252
01:13:58,800 --> 01:14:01,639
Speaker 1: he really struggles here. But if you listen to Rubio,

1253
01:14:02,040 --> 01:14:10,200
Speaker 1: you know the essentially it's a preemptive strike against a

1254
01:14:10,280 --> 01:14:16,800
Speaker 1: country that has the ambition to attack us but doesn't

1255
01:14:16,840 --> 01:14:20,120
Speaker 1: have the means yet, and it goes back. I think

1256
01:14:20,160 --> 01:14:24,320
Speaker 1: we all thought we learned a lesson about preemptive wars.

1257
01:14:24,800 --> 01:14:26,360
Speaker 1: But I have to tell you this. I'll tell you

1258
01:14:26,400 --> 01:14:29,519
Speaker 1: something that I'm really one of the other rationales that

1259
01:14:29,560 --> 01:14:32,639
Speaker 1: I think, say, terrible rationale. I don't buy it at all.

1260
01:14:33,160 --> 01:14:35,320
Speaker 1: But I really hate that they're pushing this one. I'll

1261
01:14:35,320 --> 01:14:37,920
Speaker 1: just be honest with you here personally, because I think

1262
01:14:37,920 --> 01:14:44,080
Speaker 1: it impacts a lot of Jewish Americans, which is Rubio

1263
01:14:44,120 --> 01:14:45,680
Speaker 1: seemed to say, well, Israel was going to do it

1264
01:14:45,760 --> 01:14:47,760
Speaker 1: regardless of what we did, and we were going to

1265
01:14:47,760 --> 01:14:49,400
Speaker 1: get drawn in any way, so we might as well be.

1266
01:14:49,400 --> 01:14:50,040
Speaker 2: There at the beginning.

1267
01:14:50,040 --> 01:14:52,600
Speaker 1: And you're just sitting there going so you're telling the

1268
01:14:52,640 --> 01:14:56,280
Speaker 1: American people that Israel's making this decision for the United States.

1269
01:14:56,840 --> 01:14:57,639
Speaker 2: What are you doing?

1270
01:14:58,479 --> 01:15:04,280
Speaker 1: You want to talk about stoking more of this of

1271
01:15:04,360 --> 01:15:06,920
Speaker 1: this sentiment out here that to me is in some

1272
01:15:07,040 --> 01:15:11,160
Speaker 1: places overdone and overcooked in some places. And the conspiracy

1273
01:15:11,200 --> 01:15:14,519
Speaker 1: theories that it's this, it's Israel that drives our foreign

1274
01:15:14,600 --> 01:15:16,960
Speaker 1: policy and then you go out there and say it's

1275
01:15:17,000 --> 01:15:17,920
Speaker 1: Israel that drove.

1276
01:15:17,760 --> 01:15:19,120
Speaker 2: Our policy decision here.

1277
01:15:21,720 --> 01:15:24,240
Speaker 1: If that's the case, then don't be surprised if you

1278
01:15:24,520 --> 01:15:27,320
Speaker 1: if you know now you know we're all wondering why

1279
01:15:27,360 --> 01:15:30,320
Speaker 1: is there a rise in anti Semitism, a rise in

1280
01:15:30,400 --> 01:15:35,160
Speaker 1: anti Jewish rhetoric, and how it gets conflated with anti

1281
01:15:35,280 --> 01:15:41,720
Speaker 1: Israel rhetoric. Well, when you now say, use a rationale

1282
01:15:41,960 --> 01:15:45,280
Speaker 1: essentially saying that Israel is going to do this regardless

1283
01:15:45,280 --> 01:15:48,479
Speaker 1: of what we did, so we chose to go with them.

1284
01:15:48,880 --> 01:15:52,280
Speaker 1: You know you already have you have critics and the

1285
01:15:52,360 --> 01:15:58,320
Speaker 1: left and the right who are very skeptical of having Israel.

1286
01:15:59,360 --> 01:16:06,280
Speaker 1: Israel's national security concerns become America's national security concerns. So

1287
01:16:06,880 --> 01:16:11,600
Speaker 1: that again I think this administration searching for a rationale

1288
01:16:11,640 --> 01:16:15,080
Speaker 1: because the real rationale is very hard to sell, which is, hey,

1289
01:16:15,479 --> 01:16:17,840
Speaker 1: they were weak and we thought we can get them

1290
01:16:17,840 --> 01:16:20,400
Speaker 1: in a moment. And oh, by the way, the Saudis

1291
01:16:20,439 --> 01:16:22,800
Speaker 1: thought this was the best idea and the sad So

1292
01:16:22,840 --> 01:16:26,320
Speaker 1: it's not that much better that the Saudis were pushing

1293
01:16:26,360 --> 01:16:29,400
Speaker 1: us either, which you know when you realize that the

1294
01:16:29,439 --> 01:16:33,639
Speaker 1: Saudis are funding the businesses of the President's son and

1295
01:16:33,720 --> 01:16:36,000
Speaker 1: his son in law, Jared Kushner. And oh, by the way,

1296
01:16:36,080 --> 01:16:41,080
Speaker 1: Jared Kushner was one of the negotiators with the Iranians

1297
01:16:41,240 --> 01:16:44,680
Speaker 1: on trying to have a diplomatic exit ramp here so

1298
01:16:44,680 --> 01:16:47,320
Speaker 1: that we didn't end up in war. Yet his biggest

1299
01:16:47,400 --> 01:16:52,400
Speaker 1: financial benefactor, the Sovereign Fund of Saudi Arabia, the Crown

1300
01:16:52,439 --> 01:16:55,400
Speaker 1: Prince is lobbying the president to take out Iran. Now

1301
01:16:55,439 --> 01:17:03,599
Speaker 1: this is the moment to strike. That's incredibly disconcerting when

1302
01:17:03,600 --> 01:17:06,680
Speaker 1: you start to follow the money and connecting those dots

1303
01:17:07,240 --> 01:17:13,360
Speaker 1: on that front. So bottom line, I think they're flailing

1304
01:17:14,040 --> 01:17:16,439
Speaker 1: at the moment. And again I go back to something

1305
01:17:16,439 --> 01:17:22,240
Speaker 1: I said to Chris Eliza earlier. The biggest problem Trump

1306
01:17:22,240 --> 01:17:26,240
Speaker 1: has right now is the best, the best news that

1307
01:17:26,320 --> 01:17:28,640
Speaker 1: he could get from this war has already passed, and

1308
01:17:28,680 --> 01:17:34,240
Speaker 1: it's the death of Kamane. There is no other announcement

1309
01:17:34,320 --> 01:17:38,160
Speaker 1: of news that is going to move the public that's

1310
01:17:38,240 --> 01:17:42,360
Speaker 1: more than the death of Kamaane. And so every the

1311
01:17:42,439 --> 01:17:45,760
Speaker 1: longer this goes, it is this is again, it's it's

1312
01:17:45,800 --> 01:17:48,479
Speaker 1: at best, this is a neutral political problem for him.

1313
01:17:49,120 --> 01:17:51,760
Speaker 1: But the most likely scenarios that this is a net

1314
01:17:51,800 --> 01:17:55,000
Speaker 1: negative across the board, whether it's in his own party

1315
01:17:55,439 --> 01:17:57,639
Speaker 1: and it starts an intra party debate inside his own

1316
01:17:57,680 --> 01:18:02,200
Speaker 1: party or with the vast middle. And we've seen Independence

1317
01:18:02,320 --> 01:18:05,160
Speaker 1: look like Democrats in their opposition in the in the

1318
01:18:05,200 --> 01:18:05,799
Speaker 1: early polling.

1319
01:18:05,840 --> 01:18:09,280
Speaker 2: I've seen on a rock. All right.

1320
01:18:09,360 --> 01:18:11,559
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Frank and New Jersey, says regular

1321
01:18:11,560 --> 01:18:13,960
Speaker 1: listener here, first time emailer. Hey, I know Congress is

1322
01:18:14,000 --> 01:18:16,080
Speaker 1: considering a War Powers Act to restrain what the president

1323
01:18:16,120 --> 01:18:17,680
Speaker 1: can do. Of course it won't be signed by the

1324
01:18:17,680 --> 01:18:19,800
Speaker 1: president even if it passes. But why is it that

1325
01:18:19,880 --> 01:18:21,960
Speaker 1: even is that even needed if the power of war

1326
01:18:22,040 --> 01:18:24,400
Speaker 1: is already with Congress for the Constitution, So how would

1327
01:18:24,400 --> 01:18:26,759
Speaker 1: Congress restrain the president? Do they bring it to the courts.

1328
01:18:27,040 --> 01:18:30,360
Speaker 1: Can they only act through impeachment, Well, they cannot. I know,

1329
01:18:30,479 --> 01:18:33,400
Speaker 1: they've got the power of the purse. So in theory

1330
01:18:33,200 --> 01:18:39,200
Speaker 1: they could withhold appropriations, they could not fund, or they

1331
01:18:39,240 --> 01:18:42,439
Speaker 1: could withhold appropriations the next time Defense comes in because

1332
01:18:42,479 --> 01:18:45,120
Speaker 1: guess what, the Pentagon's going to ask for a supplemental.

1333
01:18:45,360 --> 01:18:49,160
Speaker 1: This is an unbudgeted this was an unplanned war, and

1334
01:18:49,200 --> 01:18:52,840
Speaker 1: we're going to have depleted our munitions and you know,

1335
01:18:52,840 --> 01:18:58,599
Speaker 1: we're already doing a sort of backdoor sale of arms

1336
01:18:58,640 --> 01:19:02,120
Speaker 1: to Ukraine via name because Trump doesn't look like he's

1337
01:19:02,160 --> 01:19:07,640
Speaker 1: directing directly giving selling weapons to Ukraine, he's doing it

1338
01:19:07,680 --> 01:19:11,439
Speaker 1: through NATO. So there's no doubt that the Defense Department

1339
01:19:11,560 --> 01:19:14,240
Speaker 1: is going to come to Congress with the request for supplemental.

1340
01:19:14,320 --> 01:19:16,960
Speaker 1: So in theory, it's it's simply the power of the purse.

1341
01:19:17,080 --> 01:19:20,280
Speaker 1: That is where they where they can have the most leverage.

1342
01:19:21,000 --> 01:19:22,479
Speaker 2: But you know.

1343
01:19:22,600 --> 01:19:28,240
Speaker 1: This this until a president. You know, there's a lot

1344
01:19:28,240 --> 01:19:31,479
Speaker 1: of presidential legal scholar that doesn't accept the premise of

1345
01:19:31,520 --> 01:19:36,040
Speaker 1: the War Powers Act at all anyway, and that it

1346
01:19:36,120 --> 01:19:38,960
Speaker 1: isn't fully tested in the Constitution, and that hasn't been

1347
01:19:39,000 --> 01:19:44,840
Speaker 1: tested in supring court. So it's like, is this a war?

1348
01:19:45,280 --> 01:19:48,559
Speaker 1: Is this something else? You know, I think every time

1349
01:19:48,600 --> 01:19:51,640
Speaker 1: he calls it a war, he's proving how unconstitutional this

1350
01:19:51,760 --> 01:19:56,400
Speaker 1: action is. It looks more illegal or unconstitutional than than

1351
01:19:56,880 --> 01:20:01,080
Speaker 1: than finding a through line to make this to make

1352
01:20:01,080 --> 01:20:05,680
Speaker 1: this constitutional, and I don't see it. But you know,

1353
01:20:05,800 --> 01:20:08,599
Speaker 1: Congress has seeded so much authority to the president when

1354
01:20:08,600 --> 01:20:12,559
Speaker 1: it comes to the use of the military. And then

1355
01:20:12,560 --> 01:20:15,960
Speaker 1: there's you know these well, as long as you inform Congress, Well,

1356
01:20:15,960 --> 01:20:18,360
Speaker 1: what is the definition of informing Congress? Is it just

1357
01:20:18,400 --> 01:20:23,479
Speaker 1: informing the leadership or is informing all of Congress? But look,

1358
01:20:23,479 --> 01:20:25,120
Speaker 1: impeachment's the most extreme.

1359
01:20:24,800 --> 01:20:25,479
Speaker 2: Measure that they have.

1360
01:20:25,600 --> 01:20:28,200
Speaker 1: But they have the power of the purse. And I'll

1361
01:20:28,200 --> 01:20:31,800
Speaker 1: be very curious to see how the supplemental support goes.

1362
01:20:31,840 --> 01:20:34,280
Speaker 1: I mean, it's usually unpopular not to pay the troops,

1363
01:20:35,000 --> 01:20:39,080
Speaker 1: so ultimately, you know it, you know, there's usually that

1364
01:20:39,120 --> 01:20:43,920
Speaker 1: gets weaponized and makes it a very very tough vote.

1365
01:20:44,200 --> 01:20:48,120
Speaker 1: But I that I'm not ruling out that that becomes

1366
01:20:48,280 --> 01:20:51,960
Speaker 1: a very close vote when and it's inevitable they have

1367
01:20:52,080 --> 01:20:55,440
Speaker 1: to they've got there, we're going to we have munitions

1368
01:20:55,520 --> 01:20:57,880
Speaker 1: issues that this is going to put us through four

1369
01:20:57,880 --> 01:21:01,400
Speaker 1: to six weeks. You know the the Department Offense is

1370
01:21:01,439 --> 01:21:05,160
Speaker 1: going to be begging for an appropriation supplement, and that's

1371
01:21:05,200 --> 01:21:09,080
Speaker 1: where Congress, in theory, could have real leverage if they

1372
01:21:09,800 --> 01:21:12,800
Speaker 1: so choose to use it, which, of course we know

1373
01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:18,400
Speaker 1: most Congresses don't. Next question comes from John from Annapolis,

1374
01:21:18,439 --> 01:21:19,920
Speaker 1: and he writes, Hey, I'm a big fan of the show.

1375
01:21:19,960 --> 01:21:21,920
Speaker 1: Glad to have more options now for how to get

1376
01:21:22,000 --> 01:21:24,640
Speaker 1: your take on what's happening, and what's happened as I

1377
01:21:24,760 --> 01:21:26,639
Speaker 1: work on my taxes and see the amount I pay,

1378
01:21:26,680 --> 01:21:28,960
Speaker 1: it adds a certain sting to the news regarding how

1379
01:21:28,960 --> 01:21:31,160
Speaker 1: our tax dollars are being spent on this new war. Yeah,

1380
01:21:31,200 --> 01:21:34,000
Speaker 1: I bet it was widely noted that the administration waited

1381
01:21:34,040 --> 01:21:36,439
Speaker 1: until after the stock market closed to launch strikes on Iran,

1382
01:21:36,760 --> 01:21:39,240
Speaker 1: signaling at least some thought to the timing.

1383
01:21:39,439 --> 01:21:40,200
Speaker 2: My question is do you.

1384
01:21:40,200 --> 01:21:42,920
Speaker 1: Think this seemingly optional war would be received better by

1385
01:21:42,920 --> 01:21:45,559
Speaker 1: the American public if it were not launched during tax season?

1386
01:21:46,840 --> 01:21:49,479
Speaker 1: With affordability already a concern in Trump doing nothing to

1387
01:21:49,479 --> 01:21:51,439
Speaker 1: sell the American people on the return on investment of

1388
01:21:51,479 --> 01:21:54,160
Speaker 1: starting a war with Iran, it seems waiting until summer

1389
01:21:54,240 --> 01:21:56,680
Speaker 1: might have been the better option from a messaging standpoint

1390
01:21:57,000 --> 01:22:00,680
Speaker 1: go terms. I don't see how any good with this

1391
01:22:00,880 --> 01:22:03,960
Speaker 1: Arroun deal, whether you waited till the summer, you did

1392
01:22:04,000 --> 01:22:08,200
Speaker 1: it six months ago. I you know, I don't know

1393
01:22:08,240 --> 01:22:11,120
Speaker 1: when a good timing considering where our heads are at

1394
01:22:11,200 --> 01:22:15,599
Speaker 1: as an electorate, right, and how domestic focused I think

1395
01:22:15,680 --> 01:22:19,840
Speaker 1: the voters are at the moment. Certainly we have some

1396
01:22:20,000 --> 01:22:25,360
Speaker 1: theoretical fears about communist China or terrorism, but I think

1397
01:22:25,400 --> 01:22:28,400
Speaker 1: our day to day concern continues to be affordability and

1398
01:22:28,439 --> 01:22:32,360
Speaker 1: continues to be sort of you know, I think it's affordability,

1399
01:22:32,360 --> 01:22:34,559
Speaker 1: but it's more than that, right, I think the bigger

1400
01:22:34,600 --> 01:22:37,479
Speaker 1: issue in which is why it's not affordability alone in

1401
01:22:37,520 --> 01:22:42,960
Speaker 1: the economy, I think that that that it's not it's

1402
01:22:43,000 --> 01:22:45,479
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's like, well, people have jobs, weren't

1403
01:22:45,479 --> 01:22:48,439
Speaker 1: they happy? Though there's this uncertainty? You know, how secure

1404
01:22:48,479 --> 01:22:51,479
Speaker 1: is my job in the age of AI? How secure

1405
01:22:51,520 --> 01:22:54,680
Speaker 1: is my job in this in this unstable war, in

1406
01:22:54,720 --> 01:22:57,559
Speaker 1: this unstable world that we're in at the moment, especially

1407
01:22:57,560 --> 01:23:00,639
Speaker 1: one that feels like we've got a president intention making

1408
01:23:00,720 --> 01:23:02,120
Speaker 1: us less stable.

1409
01:23:01,720 --> 01:23:03,639
Speaker 2: And secure, not more stable and secure.

1410
01:23:05,400 --> 01:23:09,280
Speaker 1: So, you know, I don't know, if I don't I

1411
01:23:09,320 --> 01:23:11,519
Speaker 1: don't know if I buy that it would be any

1412
01:23:11,560 --> 01:23:13,240
Speaker 1: better or worse for taxing. But you bring up an

1413
01:23:13,240 --> 01:23:18,559
Speaker 1: important point. Republicans that are on the ballot in twenty

1414
01:23:18,600 --> 01:23:22,560
Speaker 1: six are counting on tax season to be this positive,

1415
01:23:23,240 --> 01:23:26,080
Speaker 1: to have a to be a positive moment for the

1416
01:23:26,080 --> 01:23:29,080
Speaker 1: average American voter that they realize, oh, I'm getting a

1417
01:23:29,080 --> 01:23:33,559
Speaker 1: bigger refund and all of this, and instead people are

1418
01:23:33,560 --> 01:23:37,080
Speaker 1: going to be looking at it going, yeah, you know,

1419
01:23:37,200 --> 01:23:41,880
Speaker 1: my money's getting eaten up by higher energy prices. Now, oh,

1420
01:23:41,920 --> 01:23:44,559
Speaker 1: look what happened to my What little bit I had

1421
01:23:44,560 --> 01:23:49,160
Speaker 1: in the stock market is now collapsing, right like, So,

1422
01:23:50,840 --> 01:23:52,439
Speaker 1: I just don't know, I just don't know if it

1423
01:23:53,040 --> 01:23:55,720
Speaker 1: you know, yes, I think they've stepped on whatever positive

1424
01:23:55,920 --> 01:23:58,080
Speaker 1: vibe that they wanted to get out of tax season,

1425
01:23:58,560 --> 01:24:00,400
Speaker 1: right which they wanted people to feel like, hey, look,

1426
01:24:00,439 --> 01:24:02,920
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, put more money in your pocket, you can

1427
01:24:02,960 --> 01:24:05,559
Speaker 1: handle this affordability issue, and that that would sort of

1428
01:24:05,600 --> 01:24:09,160
Speaker 1: turn things, turn the perception of this economy, the country's

1429
01:24:09,200 --> 01:24:13,080
Speaker 1: perception about the Republican management of this economy into a

1430
01:24:13,080 --> 01:24:17,480
Speaker 1: positive direction. I do think, you know that the folly

1431
01:24:17,240 --> 01:24:21,040
Speaker 1: of this Iran decision, and I use the word folly

1432
01:24:21,080 --> 01:24:23,599
Speaker 1: because I you know, I think it's great that Commenee

1433
01:24:23,600 --> 01:24:27,080
Speaker 1: has gone. I think the possibilities in Iran could be great.

1434
01:24:28,880 --> 01:24:31,840
Speaker 1: I just know that every time we in history tried

1435
01:24:31,840 --> 01:24:36,280
Speaker 1: to orchestrate a regime transition, it just doesn't go well.

1436
01:24:37,280 --> 01:24:40,280
Speaker 1: Uh And it usually is one of those feelings that

1437
01:24:40,320 --> 01:24:45,720
Speaker 1: it's one step forward, two steps back. And I think

1438
01:24:45,760 --> 01:24:49,280
Speaker 1: that you know, we're seeing why there were so many

1439
01:24:49,800 --> 01:24:52,880
Speaker 1: people quietly preaching caution to Trump on Iran.

1440
01:24:53,439 --> 01:24:53,679
Speaker 2: Right.

1441
01:24:54,000 --> 01:24:56,679
Speaker 1: You know you saw me share an op ed from

1442
01:24:56,920 --> 01:24:59,960
Speaker 1: John Ellis, a Bush cousin, right, part of the Bush

1443
01:25:00,080 --> 01:25:04,560
Speaker 1: Plan political observer, longtime political observer who's terrific substack that

1444
01:25:04,600 --> 01:25:07,880
Speaker 1: you should subscribe too, called news items where he was

1445
01:25:07,960 --> 01:25:12,080
Speaker 1: making the case, hey, don't do Iran. If you're looking

1446
01:25:12,120 --> 01:25:16,960
Speaker 1: for an easy, a legacy moment, that might be somewhat easy,

1447
01:25:17,520 --> 01:25:18,200
Speaker 1: go to Cuba.

1448
01:25:20,520 --> 01:25:21,559
Speaker 2: But now by.

1449
01:25:21,439 --> 01:25:24,800
Speaker 1: The time he gets to Cuba, it's after Iran. He

1450
01:25:24,880 --> 01:25:26,880
Speaker 1: then is going to take away whatever. You know, the

1451
01:25:27,840 --> 01:25:30,519
Speaker 1: potential positives that could have come from Cuba are just

1452
01:25:30,600 --> 01:25:33,240
Speaker 1: simply lessened. They'll be there in South Florida, don't get

1453
01:25:33,240 --> 01:25:37,120
Speaker 1: me wrong, but outside of South Florida, this will you know,

1454
01:25:37,160 --> 01:25:40,519
Speaker 1: suddenly it becomes Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba, and that's an

1455
01:25:40,720 --> 01:25:43,800
Speaker 1: entirely different way that the American voter will absorb that

1456
01:25:43,960 --> 01:25:46,439
Speaker 1: than if it had been just simply then as will

1457
01:25:46,479 --> 01:25:53,320
Speaker 1: in Cuba. All right, last question comes from Kira, and

1458
01:25:53,360 --> 01:25:55,439
Speaker 1: she writes, Hey, I love listening to your podcast and

1459
01:25:55,439 --> 01:25:57,439
Speaker 1: occasionally my kids here at playing in the kitchen while

1460
01:25:57,439 --> 01:26:01,160
Speaker 1: I'm cooking nice. How did you handle explaining plex political topics,

1461
01:26:01,240 --> 01:26:04,040
Speaker 1: particularly international conflicts, to your own kids when they were younger.

1462
01:26:04,080 --> 01:26:06,280
Speaker 1: Of course, each kid in situation is different, but I

1463
01:26:06,320 --> 01:26:08,200
Speaker 1: would love your insights. By the way, my twelve year

1464
01:26:08,200 --> 01:26:10,760
Speaker 1: old is the one who suggested I ask you. So,

1465
01:26:15,200 --> 01:26:17,439
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny you sit there and you think,

1466
01:26:17,560 --> 01:26:21,000
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you just don't bring it up. Sometimes

1467
01:26:21,040 --> 01:26:26,040
Speaker 1: you you know, my kids went to elementary school here

1468
01:26:26,040 --> 01:26:32,680
Speaker 1: in Arlington, Virginia, and let's just say, you know, the

1469
01:26:32,720 --> 01:26:35,799
Speaker 1: fact that their dad was on TV and in Arlington,

1470
01:26:35,880 --> 01:26:38,400
Speaker 1: Virginia meet the press is like this. It's like a

1471
01:26:38,640 --> 01:26:41,880
Speaker 1: it's like a bigger deal in the Washington metro area

1472
01:26:41,920 --> 01:26:44,519
Speaker 1: than it might be someone. It's like, you know, other places.

1473
01:26:44,560 --> 01:26:49,560
Speaker 1: So you know, they they would certainly get these, you know,

1474
01:26:49,560 --> 01:26:51,800
Speaker 1: they would always get questions about, well, who's your dad

1475
01:26:51,880 --> 01:26:54,320
Speaker 1: voting for? And I remember one time a teacher told

1476
01:26:54,360 --> 01:26:56,240
Speaker 1: me that my daughter said in class, I think she

1477
01:26:56,280 --> 01:26:56,960
Speaker 1: was in third grade.

1478
01:26:57,000 --> 01:26:59,160
Speaker 2: She said, people.

1479
01:26:58,960 --> 01:27:02,439
Speaker 1: Were begging her, we're pounding her as your dad a

1480
01:27:02,479 --> 01:27:05,599
Speaker 1: Democrat or Republican. And my daughter would say, my dad's

1481
01:27:05,600 --> 01:27:09,839
Speaker 1: a Democrat and a Republican because I used to always

1482
01:27:09,880 --> 01:27:13,680
Speaker 1: explain things, always from both perspectives. That was what my

1483
01:27:13,800 --> 01:27:15,840
Speaker 1: dad did with me. He did not he had it

1484
01:27:15,880 --> 01:27:18,960
Speaker 1: and he would say, I believe this, here's the here

1485
01:27:19,000 --> 01:27:21,680
Speaker 1: are the two or three arguments about a story. And

1486
01:27:21,760 --> 01:27:24,280
Speaker 1: I think I'd like to think he presented him pretty honestly.

1487
01:27:26,439 --> 01:27:29,120
Speaker 1: That would be my I would try to try to

1488
01:27:29,160 --> 01:27:31,800
Speaker 1: do my best to explain it that way. I think

1489
01:27:31,840 --> 01:27:38,200
Speaker 1: on some of the international stuff, I you know, you just.

1490
01:27:38,200 --> 01:27:38,720
Speaker 2: Sort of know.

1491
01:27:38,760 --> 01:27:44,840
Speaker 1: But I guess my basic advice is don't water it down,

1492
01:27:44,880 --> 01:27:51,680
Speaker 1: don't dumb it down. You know, answer every question. And

1493
01:27:51,720 --> 01:27:55,640
Speaker 1: I had sort of a simple answer, a sort of

1494
01:27:56,720 --> 01:27:58,559
Speaker 1: I'd say, here, well, here's what you might learn in

1495
01:27:58,560 --> 01:28:02,240
Speaker 1: school about this soon. And then there's a there's a

1496
01:28:02,280 --> 01:28:06,639
Speaker 1: more complicated answer that you know that you know would change,

1497
01:28:06,680 --> 01:28:11,120
Speaker 1: and so I kind of, you know, it was never.

1498
01:28:13,280 --> 01:28:15,080
Speaker 1: I don't want to say I sheltered them from it,

1499
01:28:15,120 --> 01:28:19,559
Speaker 1: but I actually tried, you know, it was it was

1500
01:28:19,640 --> 01:28:22,320
Speaker 1: more I didn't want to put my kids in the

1501
01:28:22,600 --> 01:28:27,360
Speaker 1: position of of having to try to answer questions when

1502
01:28:27,360 --> 01:28:29,320
Speaker 1: their friends would say, well, what does your dad think

1503
01:28:29,360 --> 01:28:32,320
Speaker 1: about X. So there was a time period where in

1504
01:28:32,320 --> 01:28:36,320
Speaker 1: some ways they we talked very little about it, but

1505
01:28:36,439 --> 01:28:40,280
Speaker 1: when they asked, I would just tell them, well, look,

1506
01:28:41,160 --> 01:28:44,880
Speaker 1: I think this sometimes if if mom and I were

1507
01:28:44,880 --> 01:28:46,760
Speaker 1: on if mom and dad were on different sides of it,

1508
01:28:46,800 --> 01:28:48,880
Speaker 1: your mother thinks this, or we would say, you know,

1509
01:28:48,920 --> 01:28:51,960
Speaker 1: hear the difference. But one of the things that I

1510
01:28:52,080 --> 01:28:56,000
Speaker 1: was obsessed with, and my wife was right is right

1511
01:28:56,040 --> 01:28:59,960
Speaker 1: there with me, is always explaining it from a three

1512
01:29:00,000 --> 01:29:04,120
Speaker 1: sixty perspective. I said, well, here's the flashpoint is this,

1513
01:29:04,280 --> 01:29:07,720
Speaker 1: and so I think it's this, But here's where other

1514
01:29:07,760 --> 01:29:11,960
Speaker 1: people will argue that it's this. Because I wanted them

1515
01:29:12,000 --> 01:29:15,200
Speaker 1: to understand, and I didn't want them to be superficial

1516
01:29:15,240 --> 01:29:19,360
Speaker 1: and think that just because somebody thought of something differently

1517
01:29:19,400 --> 01:29:21,919
Speaker 1: than I did, that that meant that they were stupid

1518
01:29:22,040 --> 01:29:22,519
Speaker 1: or whatever.

1519
01:29:22,600 --> 01:29:24,000
Speaker 2: Right I didn't. I didn't want that.

1520
01:29:24,200 --> 01:29:30,680
Speaker 1: So I guess the simplest way to say, answer the

1521
01:29:30,800 --> 01:29:34,519
Speaker 1: question as honestly but simply as you can, and as

1522
01:29:34,520 --> 01:29:35,639
Speaker 1: they get older, you get.

1523
01:29:35,520 --> 01:29:41,320
Speaker 2: To add more context. Probably. I hope that helps, and

1524
01:29:41,400 --> 01:29:42,639
Speaker 2: I really appreciate the question.

1525
01:29:43,920 --> 01:29:46,479
Speaker 1: And with that, I'm gonna go ahead and put a

1526
01:29:46,479 --> 01:29:49,639
Speaker 1: pin in this episode as you could see campaign season,

1527
01:29:50,360 --> 01:29:52,559
Speaker 1: I'd like to think, this is what you want, this

1528
01:29:52,640 --> 01:29:55,640
Speaker 1: is why you subscribe. We're going to have you know

1529
01:29:55,720 --> 01:29:58,400
Speaker 1: my can't the campaign coverage. There will be no other

1530
01:29:58,479 --> 01:30:03,479
Speaker 1: podcast that go as in depth, that does as much

1531
01:30:03,600 --> 01:30:07,400
Speaker 1: both history and context and all of this. I promise

1532
01:30:07,439 --> 01:30:09,880
Speaker 1: you nobody else will do it like we do it here.

1533
01:30:09,800 --> 01:30:13,960
Speaker 2: At the Chuck Podcast. So buckle up.

1534
01:30:14,360 --> 01:30:18,840
Speaker 1: It's going to be quite and frankly between now and

1535
01:30:18,880 --> 01:30:21,600
Speaker 1: November twenty twenty eight. In some ways we're going to

1536
01:30:21,680 --> 01:30:25,760
Speaker 1: be NonStop when it comes to campaign season, but it

1537
01:30:25,840 --> 01:30:30,280
Speaker 1: is now here we are. And let's just say the

1538
01:30:30,320 --> 01:30:33,919
Speaker 1: Wednesday episodes are going to be humdingers, because if it's Tuesday,

1539
01:30:34,680 --> 01:30:37,280
Speaker 1: somebody's going to be voting somewhere, and just like we

1540
01:30:37,400 --> 01:30:39,840
Speaker 1: just had with this Tuesday, a lot of people are

1541
01:30:39,840 --> 01:30:40,519
Speaker 1: going to be voting