Speaker 1: Well, good morning, happy Monday. At least that I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that's when you're listening to this. I'm taping on a
Speaker 1: Sunday evening. Here give you a quick rundown of everything.
Speaker 1: I've got to have a little open here for you
Speaker 1: about the end of Elon Musk in Washington, and I'll
Speaker 1: get to that in a minute. My guest today Amanda Littman.
Speaker 1: She runs an organization called Run for Something. It's geared
Speaker 1: more towards Democrats or people on the left side of
Speaker 1: the aisle, although they will work with people that are
Speaker 1: thinking about running as independents. It's basically an organization that
Speaker 1: number one is trying to encourage younger people to run
Speaker 1: for office, but also trying to be a resource for
Speaker 1: people that don't, because if you're younger, you usually don't
Speaker 1: have as much of a network, You may not have
Speaker 1: as many rich friends. You get the picture here if
Speaker 1: and you'll hear me make these comparisons during the interview.
Speaker 1: Back in the eighties and nineties, you had go Pack
Speaker 1: on the right. That was a similar organization that was
Speaker 1: trying to get conservatives who were not connected, essentially with
Speaker 1: the tools to figure out how to run for local office,
Speaker 1: and this is you know, maybe Emily's list, you'll hear
Speaker 1: a little bit of that, but it's about trying. And
Speaker 1: clearly the Republicans have done a much better job over
Speaker 1: the last twenty or thirty years encouraging folks to run
Speaker 1: for local office. Democrats have been a bit too focused
Speaker 1: on the presidential big big offices and don't think about
Speaker 1: the smaller stuff than they were. You know, arguably it's
Speaker 1: why they're getting crushed on the issue of schools and
Speaker 1: funding of schools and the privatization of the public school system.
Speaker 1: You've had a lot more activist parents on the right
Speaker 1: get involved in school board politics, and you've had activist
Speaker 1: parents on the left, pure and simple. And it is
Speaker 1: those type of outcomes that I think are making some
Speaker 1: people reassess and decide where to where to participate. If
Speaker 1: you've ever thought about running for office and didn't, I
Speaker 1: actually think you'll enjoy this conversation. If you thought about
Speaker 1: running thinking about running for office now, regardless of your
Speaker 1: politics left or right, I think you will hear some
Speaker 1: interesting advice and to do that, so you I hope
Speaker 1: you'll do that. I've had a tremendous weekend. I had.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of fun and I want to
Speaker 1: showcase a neighborhood I used to work in. It's called
Speaker 1: del Rey. Basically, this a neighborhood in Alexandria, just on
Speaker 1: the border of Arlington and Alexandria. Back in the in
Speaker 1: the Hotline days before we were moved to the Watergate
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. The Hotline was headquartered out in Orlandria,
Speaker 1: literally this little pocket of northern Virginia in between Arlington
Speaker 1: and Alexandria, right on the border there. Well, some good
Speaker 1: friends of mine are very active in that business and
Speaker 1: civic association, and so they asked me to be the
Speaker 1: judge at their annual It's basically a restaurant contest. So
Speaker 1: both the people come for the for the food festival
Speaker 1: put on by the Delray Business Association, and I got
Speaker 1: to play judge. So there was two awards mine whoever,
Speaker 1: I decided we're the three best bites of food that
Speaker 1: I had versus the people. If you will, and I
Speaker 1: just if you are, this is probably our hippiest and
Speaker 1: coolest food neighborhood that you can have in the Northern
Speaker 1: Virginia area. There might be others will argue in h
Speaker 1: Street and some other places in the district. Don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, but if you're a Food Network fan, you
Speaker 1: would have There's a couple of restaurants in that participated
Speaker 1: in this where that have been featured on Food Network,
Speaker 1: a couple of chefs that have been featured on Chopped.
Speaker 1: I do want to shout out my winner, Bella Napoli,
Speaker 1: who made a chicken brunello that was amazing. You're eating
Speaker 1: outside in a little cup and you're like, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Lena's was my second place. She made a terrific Cuban
Speaker 1: beurrea taco, just awesome, and of course, being a Miami guy,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be partial to anything like that. And there
Speaker 1: was a ton of gaspachos. But the folks at Tako
Speaker 1: a poblanomado a good spat show that was not red
Speaker 1: tomato based, so it was a different It had a
Speaker 1: green color to it if you were a green yellow
Speaker 1: color to it, and it had shrimp in it, and
Speaker 1: it was just it was sort of it felt more
Speaker 1: like a Savie Chase soup, if that's possible. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I just want to give a shout out to them.
Speaker 1: My friend Pat Miller he's been the unofficial mayor of
Speaker 1: del Rey for decades now and an old friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Maureen Schweer's really appreciate you guys getting me involved. I'm
Speaker 1: still full from the process and the way I digested
Speaker 1: that had been obsessed over college baseball. This week, it's
Speaker 1: been an amazing baseball weekend for my household. The Nats
Speaker 1: have been on a roll, in fact, over the last
Speaker 1: fifteen games, best record in baseball, So take that, everybody literally.
Speaker 1: We were all starting to rail on the Nats front office,
Speaker 1: and sure enough they go on this role. Who knows
Speaker 1: if the pitching can hold up, but James Wood is
Speaker 1: proving that he was every bit the one Soto trade,
Speaker 1: which is given the Nats these starters James Wood, c
Speaker 1: j Abrams, Mackenzie Gore, and Robert Hassel the third. I
Speaker 1: still miss Soto, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: a bad return and James Wood is doing a pretty
Speaker 1: impressive one Soto impersonation. But I gotta even shout out
Speaker 1: to my friends at ESPN. I like to give them
Speaker 1: a lot of grief for how they've ruined college football
Speaker 1: in their partnership with the SEC. Sometimes, however, ESPN Squeeze Play,
Speaker 1: which is the college baseball tournament, and there happened in
Speaker 1: all Granted my house, Miami and Florida State are in
Speaker 1: my house, so we care about what's going on here
Speaker 1: in both. Mimi in Florida State been doing well so
Speaker 1: far in this tournament. He's been Squeeze Play. It's the
Speaker 1: red zone for college baseball. I just have two requests.
Speaker 1: Can we please get rid of the metal bats? It's silly.
Speaker 1: We've got these major programs can afford wood bats. That's
Speaker 1: number one. Number two, how you determine who's the home
Speaker 1: team at these sites is ridiculous. Just use records, then
Speaker 1: highest seat? Is it that difficult? This bizarre rotation that
Speaker 1: they do. Literally go look it up in the internet.
Speaker 1: It's a five step process, all right. So I've probably
Speaker 1: given more about my personal weekend plans than perhaps my
Speaker 1: family wishes I did. But hey, isn't that what we're
Speaker 1: all doing now? We're supposed to overshare. And I did
Speaker 1: want to give a good shout out to my friends
Speaker 1: in Delray, But look, let me move on to starting
Speaker 1: my week because we do. We ought to mourn the
Speaker 1: departure of Elon Musk and out of Washington, and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it's going to totally disappear. In fact, as
Speaker 1: I was coming back from that from that food festival
Speaker 1: where I got to judge, I drove right by a
Speaker 1: Tesla dealership where there was a very active protest still
Speaker 1: against Elon Musk and against Tesla, which is probably the
Speaker 1: why he has accelerated his exit. And technically he can
Speaker 1: say he was exiting at the time that he always
Speaker 1: intended to exit, but let's be honest, he is leaving
Speaker 1: Washington with his tail between his legs, and you know
Speaker 1: it's This is one of those where I hope the
Speaker 1: idea doesn't get thrown out with the bathwater, because the
Speaker 1: problem with what Musk was doing was how he went
Speaker 1: about it. It wasn't the idea itself. But if you
Speaker 1: try to run government like a disruptive tech startup, you're
Speaker 1: gonna fail. It was a masterclass in misalignment, if you will.
Speaker 1: The approach was haphazard, it was discombobulated. It treated government
Speaker 1: like a badly managed Silicon Valley startup. Musk was or
Speaker 1: is intentionally ignorant of the complexities of public administration, and
Speaker 1: that impatience coupled with his short attention span, and I'm
Speaker 1: not even going to comment on what he may or
Speaker 1: may not have been on if you will when we
Speaker 1: got all that story about his prolific drug use, both
Speaker 1: legal and illegal, but all of it seemed to be
Speaker 1: the ingredients that led to some chaotic attempts at policy
Speaker 1: make But I don't want to miss the force through
Speaker 1: the trees to beat up a cliche like that. Musk
Speaker 1: and Trump ended up these strange bedfellows together because they
Speaker 1: do share some key traits. They're incredibly impatient, and they
Speaker 1: prefer quick, sweeping actions over the slow, meticulous work that
Speaker 1: the federal government often requires. They couldn't be more mismatched
Speaker 1: for the job. The mentality was great for headline grabbing moves,
Speaker 1: but it was disastrous for actually sustaining this idea of
Speaker 1: cutting government. And it's a cautionary tale for the dangers
Speaker 1: of trying to apply a tech disruptor mindset to the intricate,
Speaker 1: slow moving machinery of government. There is no less qualified person.
Speaker 1: The worst phrase I hear is we've got to run
Speaker 1: government like a business. Bullshit. If you run government like
Speaker 1: a business, you will not do the stuff that doesn't
Speaker 1: pay big dividends. That is not how government works. Everybody
Speaker 1: has to get a service. If you ran the postal
Speaker 1: service like a business, nobody in Alaska would get mail
Speaker 1: more than once a week. Okay, that is not When
Speaker 1: you're providing services, and you're a country that claims to
Speaker 1: be for equality, then the service you give to a
Speaker 1: citizen that chooses to live in Alaska, it's got to
Speaker 1: be the same than the services you give somebody that
Speaker 1: lives in New York, Virginia or Maryland. And that is
Speaker 1: the problem, right, it is. Frankly, if you could run
Speaker 1: government like a business, you could make a lot of
Speaker 1: changes that would make the government's balance sheet look better
Speaker 1: and would completely be unpopular and would be a complete
Speaker 1: disaster that set for all the horrendous ways that Musk
Speaker 1: went about this, for the stupid, incompetent way that the
Speaker 1: Trump administration went about this, it doesn't mean the idea
Speaker 1: was bad, right, And in fact, this should be there's
Speaker 1: an opportunity here, particularly for somebody on the left, to
Speaker 1: pick up this, to pick up this chalice and go
Speaker 1: on with it. Here's the opportunity. Must failure cannot mean
Speaker 1: that the idea of reforming government is a bad idea.
Speaker 1: You just have to understand it was poorly executed. He
Speaker 1: was the worst possible person to put in charge with this,
Speaker 1: completely temperamentally unqualified to do it. But if there is
Speaker 1: a leader out there that is willing to put country
Speaker 1: over party, there's a real chance to pick up where
Speaker 1: this experiment failed and to do it right, thoughtfully, legally,
Speaker 1: with a coalition of serious reformers. There's even a chance
Speaker 1: to build a bipartisan effort around restructuring and modernizing these institutions.
Speaker 1: That's what's so frustrating here. It was it was Trump's
Speaker 1: obsessiveness and musk subscessiveness to look like they were being
Speaker 1: moving quickly and being successful, that they failed to actually
Speaker 1: do this the right way. And again, what the most
Speaker 1: likely result of all this is that this experiment will
Speaker 1: actually cost taxpayers more money than it saves. The amount
Speaker 1: of government contractors that will successfully sue the government or
Speaker 1: get their contract monument and probably get restitution is going
Speaker 1: to only grow. And that's why this to execute it
Speaker 1: the way they did was complete chaos and a mess.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that there isn't an opportunity here. Look,
Speaker 1: I've got one of my long held ideas is that
Speaker 1: every government agency should be vote should be sunseted every
Speaker 1: twenty five years, forcing Congress to reauthorize and justifies its
Speaker 1: existence or reform it to meet the current modern needs.
Speaker 1: This is the kind of reevaluation that could help ensure
Speaker 1: that government is actually relevant and effective. This is the
Speaker 1: type of reform that somebody ought to tackle. This isn't
Speaker 1: something the left has seated. This to the right for
Speaker 1: some god forsakered reason. The middle of the political middle
Speaker 1: of this country would like to see some responsible reform.
Speaker 1: And what it really is, it's modernization in the same
Speaker 1: way we finally decided, Hey, maybe the bridges we built
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five ought to be the same bridges we
Speaker 1: drive over with today's vehicles, Right, maybe we ought to
Speaker 1: build a new bridge or update the new bridge. Well,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing with government, Okay, what we you know,
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense that was developed in the fifties
Speaker 1: is not the same department we should be running today.
Speaker 1: And instead, what we do with these government agencies, and
Speaker 1: the reason we ought to sunset them every twenty five
Speaker 1: years and then reauthorize them, is they end up becoming
Speaker 1: like the you know, there's always one house in every
Speaker 1: neighborhood where that people don't have enough money to knock
Speaker 1: it down and build something new, so instead they do
Speaker 1: a little bit at a time, and it's a Frankenstein house. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what every government agency that's more than twenty five
Speaker 1: years old has become. It becomes like a Frankenstein agency.
Speaker 1: Instead of doing maybe rehabbing something within the agency, they
Speaker 1: literally tack on an annex, or tack on a special committee,
Speaker 1: or tack on a special sub agency to do some
Speaker 1: work that they think, oh, maybe this falls under Commerce
Speaker 1: rather than falling under the Department of Defense or something
Speaker 1: like that. You know, I mean, in fact, some of
Speaker 1: our departments couldn't have weirder combinations of things, right, A
Speaker 1: Department of Commerce also happened. The largest department within agency
Speaker 1: within Commerce is Noah. Right, Why is basically our weather
Speaker 1: office in Commerce? Right? The two Yes, weather can impact commerce,
Speaker 1: but okay, but other than that, what's it doing in there?
Speaker 1: You could argue that weather belongs in the Department of Defense,
Speaker 1: or the weather Noah belongs in Homeland Security. If FEMA's
Speaker 1: in Homeland security, why is it Noah in Homeland security?
Speaker 1: Point is that there's a lot of actual good work
Speaker 1: to be done here in this reform. And and you know,
Speaker 1: the fear that I think some real reformers have is
Speaker 1: that Musk's failed effort, in Trump's failed effort, because it
Speaker 1: didn't get done in the haphazard way that they did it,
Speaker 1: that they're just going to give up on it. And
Speaker 1: what somebody ought to do is pick up this mantle
Speaker 1: and carry it and make it their own and do
Speaker 1: it the right way. Get Congress involved. You can actually
Speaker 1: do this speaking of of sort of musk and tail
Speaker 1: between his legs. So it was as if, as if
Speaker 1: as if his humiliation of Washington couldn't get worse. Right
Speaker 1: the day he leaves, the Times drops this story about
Speaker 1: his obsession, his what appears to be excessive drug use,
Speaker 1: uppers and downers, whatever it is that needs to meet.
Speaker 1: The moment his handpick guy that he wanted for NASA,
Speaker 1: Trump decides to boot because somebody drops some appo on
Speaker 1: this nominee for NASA. Apparently he had given to Democrats
Speaker 1: in the last couple of cycles. And Donald Trump, he is,
Speaker 1: even though he himself is given to quite a few
Speaker 1: Democrats in his political career, doesn't believe that somebody in
Speaker 1: the last four years giving to Democrats is anything other
Speaker 1: than an affront to himself. This is again, this is
Speaker 1: a moment where if this is how he's really making decisions, right,
Speaker 1: we already see that pardons and this, and my gosh,
Speaker 1: it is breathtaking. What is happening on this pardon front.
Speaker 1: It is, I mean, and this is the numbness that
Speaker 1: we often describe when it comes to Donald Trump. Here
Speaker 1: is behavior that in any other president would be impeachable.
Speaker 1: This guy's been impeached twice. What kind of appetite is
Speaker 1: our political system going to have for a third impeachment?
Speaker 1: But what he's doing on pardons, that alone, isn't it.
Speaker 1: The partons are for sale. It's plainly obvious these his
Speaker 1: pardons are for sale. It's sitting in front of us.
Speaker 1: It's the quid pro quo. Other than him showing us
Speaker 1: the ledger sheet itself that keeps track of the quid
Speaker 1: pro quot. That's about the only piece of evidence that's missing.
Speaker 1: But you know you had the one whe of the
Speaker 1: person shows up at a million dollar fundraiser. A couple of
Speaker 1: days later, her husband and her relative gets out of
Speaker 1: gets what he wants out of this. So it is
Speaker 1: alarming how easy it is. Everybody has figured it out.
Speaker 1: And this gets it to why foreign governments are all
Speaker 1: willing to do some form of business with him, because
Speaker 1: they all know how transactional he is, and if he
Speaker 1: doesn't get what he wants, he may do what he
Speaker 1: just did to musk Here it looked like he cut
Speaker 1: a deal with musk heye NASA's yours. You get to
Speaker 1: decide who runs it. And then he decided, oh no,
Speaker 1: I've got to make sure that I'm gonna if I
Speaker 1: allow anybody in that gave to Democrats in the last
Speaker 1: four years. Then it means there are other nominees that
Speaker 1: he essentially has already, other people that he has actually
Speaker 1: fired from the National Security Staff and from the Pentagon
Speaker 1: who also had made supposedly, I mean apparently, if you've
Speaker 1: given money to Liz Cheney is the equivalent of giving
Speaker 1: money to a Democrat as far as Donald Trump's concern
Speaker 1: So that is among the other things that are out there.
Speaker 1: So this is how he's running the government, which means
Speaker 1: it's not being run with the best people. It's simply
Speaker 1: being run based on who's the most loyal to him
Speaker 1: and to him personally. I know none of this for
Speaker 1: many of you that are listening his news, but this
Speaker 1: is terrible governance. This is bad for the by the way,
Speaker 1: this is bad if you care about the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: It's bad. He is so corrupting the Republican Party right
Speaker 1: now because there is no difference between Trump's party and
Speaker 1: the rest of it, you know, those there's a lot
Speaker 1: of good Republicans have walked away. There's some Conservatives who
Speaker 1: are uncomfortable but have stuck it out, believing they are
Speaker 1: better operating on the inside on the outside, but the
Speaker 1: stain that they're receiving, you know, it's really interesting. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of ways to look at Jony Ernst, the
Speaker 1: Republican senator from Iowa whose comments about well, we're all
Speaker 1: going to die son, you know, and how they went
Speaker 1: viral and how frustrated. But that s back to me
Speaker 1: of somebody who's had to carry a ton of water
Speaker 1: on ideas that she's not in favor of, but she
Speaker 1: has no choice but to support because if she doesn't
Speaker 1: do it, she will lose any political support she has
Speaker 1: in Iowa. Because the Maga movement is that popular in Iowa.
Speaker 1: It felt like the type of line somebody says when
Speaker 1: they realize they're just sort of frustrated with where they are. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not going to be here. I'm not
Speaker 1: here to tell you that I was going to be
Speaker 1: that competitive of a state in twenty twenty six. Although
Speaker 1: I think it will be more competitive than it's been
Speaker 1: the last cycle. I think it's going to be more
Speaker 1: like twenty eighteen, and who knows. I certainly think Rob
Speaker 1: sand has a very good chance of becoming governor. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to sit there and tell you Joni Arn's
Speaker 1: Senate race should be moved to toss up just yet.
Speaker 1: But that is a line that will stick with her.
Speaker 1: She strikes me as somebody I'm not put it this way.
Speaker 1: I'm actually going in another direction. She doesn't look like
Speaker 1: somebody who's running for reelection. Yes, she went through the
Speaker 1: town hall, which wasn't a great exercise for her, but
Speaker 1: that I'll just say this, I have a I still
Speaker 1: believe she's the hegg Seth backup. I'm not sure Pete
Speaker 1: hagg Seth is going to survive. It's clear that the
Speaker 1: Pentagon and he's not been able to you know, his paranoia.
Speaker 1: You know he sees a spy around every corner. I mean,
Speaker 1: my goodness, he's so restricted press access at somebody from
Speaker 1: Owa n seem to complain about it, right, That tells
Speaker 1: you something. My guess is the only reason she hasn't
Speaker 1: snapped at the Republican party itself is that she would
Speaker 1: like to be Defense secretary. And she's probably the Pete
Speaker 1: Hake seth backup plan, and at this point, I'm sure
Speaker 1: she'd prefer to do that then to try to carry
Speaker 1: Trump's water in a midterm election in Iowa at a
Speaker 1: time when there's not going to be a lot of
Speaker 1: this because this big, beautiful bill is turning out to
Speaker 1: be a big piece of let's just say, of a
Speaker 1: big piece of rock that they got to carry around
Speaker 1: because remember, it does not have a tax cut. It
Speaker 1: just is preventing a tax hike. There is no deliverable
Speaker 1: that Republicans have for the people. They can't say, here's
Speaker 1: a check, here's a tax cut, here's something you're going
Speaker 1: to benefit from this. Instead, this thing is already to
Speaker 1: have been defined by what it takes away, not what
Speaker 1: it gives. That is a bad place to start, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure Trump's going to try to find out how
Speaker 1: to write checks under his name to people in some
Speaker 1: form or another. Maybe it's these baby bonuses, whatever he's
Speaker 1: going to try to do. But right now this bill
Speaker 1: is I don't see any political upside on this bill
Speaker 1: as it stands, and if anything, the impact on the
Speaker 1: bond market because of the debt this thing could be
Speaker 1: considered in the same way. What I think we all
Speaker 1: thought was, Look, I will confess I thought the first
Speaker 1: Biden tranch of money was going to be something that
Speaker 1: would be positive for him. He got those two thousand
Speaker 1: dollars checks to them, Well, it turned out to be
Speaker 1: probably something that shouldn't have been done. It was blamed
Speaker 1: for helping to accelerate the inflationary problems that we already
Speaker 1: were having because of the supply chain, and it really
Speaker 1: sort of tarnished all of his bills, and the public
Speaker 1: didn't see it as a net positive. I think this
Speaker 1: is a situation that Trump is going to find himself in.
Speaker 1: This bill is not a positive at all for him.
Speaker 1: Not many good deliverables to give to the voters to
Speaker 1: say hey we've lowered cost or hey we've done this,
Speaker 1: and oh, by the way, he's still got the terrified
Speaker 1: that the more the courts say no, the more determined
Speaker 1: he seems to be to have it, which of course
Speaker 1: only does more damage to the economy. All right, I
Speaker 1: will I think I've said enough. The conversation with the
Speaker 1: man a litment. Again, if you've ever once thought about
Speaker 1: running for office, or you know somebody, particularly if there's
Speaker 1: somebody under the age of forty who's been thinking about it,
Speaker 1: take a listen. It's a fascinating conversation and regardless of
Speaker 1: whether you're left or right. Well, my guest right now
Speaker 1: is Amanda Littman. She runs an organization called Run for Something.
Speaker 1: It is primarily an organization trying to recruit more diverse
Speaker 1: set of candidates to run, particularly on the left side
Speaker 1: of the aisle, Progressives, Democrats, and I'm going to ask
Speaker 1: her about her opinion on things like Dan Osborne and
Speaker 1: whether that's the profile of finding more Dan Osborne's as well,
Speaker 1: who didn't run as a member of any major party,
Speaker 1: but certainly ideologically certainly was on the left side of
Speaker 1: the asse. So Amanda, thanks for coming on the.
Speaker 2: Podcast, Thank you for having me. I'm very excited.
Speaker 1: So all right, let's do some basics here. Run for Something,
Speaker 1: When did it start? And explain the motivation.
Speaker 2: So I worked for Hillary for two years. I was
Speaker 2: her presidential campaign's email director for that and worked for Obama.
Speaker 2: I worked with Florida Governor's race. I worked for OFA
Speaker 2: for a bit. But about a week after the election
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, I started hearing from friends I'd gone
Speaker 2: to high school and college with, Hey, Amanda, You're the
Speaker 2: only person I know that works in politics. I want
Speaker 2: to run for office because if trumpku president, seems like
Speaker 2: anybody can do this. What do I do? And at
Speaker 2: the time, if you were young, I was in my
Speaker 2: mid twenties, and you were newly excited about politics and
Speaker 2: you wanted to do more than vote and more than volunteer,
Speaker 2: there was nowhere you could go that would guarantee to
Speaker 2: take your call. So I reached out to a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of people with an idea, what if we started
Speaker 2: an organization that could be this on ramp for folks
Speaker 2: who might want to run for office. One of them
Speaker 2: became a co founder. We wrote a plan, we built
Speaker 2: a website, and then we launched Run for Something on
Speaker 2: Trump's first inauguration day, thinking it would be really small,
Speaker 2: we'd get one hundred people who want to run in
Speaker 2: the first year, because at the time nobody wants to
Speaker 2: run for office. We have a thousand people signed up
Speaker 2: in the first week. As of this moment, we're up
Speaker 2: to about two hundred and ten thousand young people all
Speaker 2: across the country who've raised their hands to say they
Speaker 2: want to run.
Speaker 1: Define young. By the way, when you say young people,
Speaker 1: I'm now in my fifties, so everybody's under fifties young
Speaker 1: to me now, no, So what is your definition of.
Speaker 2: We focus our political program on folks forty and under.
Speaker 2: You know, especially in the Democratic Party, is very young,
Speaker 2: and we've helped elect more than fifteen hundred people, all
Speaker 2: millennials and gen z across nearly every state, all to
Speaker 2: state and local office. So we only do state House,
Speaker 2: state senate, city council, school board, library board. That kind
Speaker 2: of like building blocks of the of the party.
Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting. There are two sort of organizations
Speaker 1: that I guess loosely if I were in your shoes
Speaker 1: that you would I might look back on and see
Speaker 1: how they did it. On the right side of the aisle,
Speaker 1: it was a it was an organization called go Pack,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you've heard the history of gopack,
Speaker 1: but it was literally it's what New Gingridge got involved
Speaker 1: with before you ever got into Congress. And I've run
Speaker 1: into Republican candidates to this day. He goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he sent cassette tapes like how to speak to reporters
Speaker 1: and how to talk to you know this, and this
Speaker 1: was back. And what was funny about go pack is
Speaker 1: it reminds me, in fact, exactly of what you are.
Speaker 1: And I'll get to the other organization a minute that
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of. But at the time, it was Republicans
Speaker 1: who thought, you know, the Democrats are in power on
Speaker 1: the local level. All Republicans were doing was winning presidentials, right,
Speaker 1: they knew how to do that, but they didn't know
Speaker 1: they needed a grassroots And what's interesting is is it
Speaker 1: was a twenty year plan, but it did pay off
Speaker 1: for them, and it was meticulous and it was sort
Speaker 1: of they started very you know, and it's funny to
Speaker 1: me how political parties from the national level let this
Speaker 1: stuff atrophy. There was nobody in the national Republicans thinking
Speaker 1: about this. And I'll be honest, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: the opportunity that Barack Obama had and the DNC had
Speaker 1: in nine and they just blew it. In hindsight, I
Speaker 1: guess right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I have heard stories that after the two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight campaign and the DNZ took over the
Speaker 2: Obama email list, a volunteed Obama email list, and they
Speaker 2: asked in folks out of survey that was like what
Speaker 2: do you want to do next to win a volunteer?
Speaker 2: Do you want to do X Y Z? And one
Speaker 2: of the questions they asked was do you want to
Speaker 2: run for office? And I've been told about fifty thousand
Speaker 2: people said yes, and the DNZ did nothing with that.
Speaker 1: Improve I'm just shocked, you know. It's like you're shocked
Speaker 1: that there's gambling going on. I mean, of course the
Speaker 1: DNC did nothing. This is the It is just anyway,
Speaker 1: well we might I might let you rant more about
Speaker 1: d NC if you'd like.
Speaker 2: Well we can get there if you'd like. But I
Speaker 2: would say, it's like, it is so telling to me
Speaker 2: that there was no place for people to go. It
Speaker 2: was just there wasn't And it's when I was thinking, like,
Speaker 2: when we started this thing, it was not even that
Speaker 2: there was like apples to oranges on the Republican side
Speaker 2: versus Democrats side, it was apples on the Republican side,
Speaker 2: go back back then. Now Leadership Institute has a i
Speaker 2: think at this point fifty million dollars a year annual budget.
Speaker 2: They do candidate training and operative training.
Speaker 1: They've been doing it with Charlie Kirk's building too. I
Speaker 1: think that has turned into a candidate factory as well.
Speaker 2: And on the left it's run for something. And our
Speaker 2: budget this year is about eight million if I could
Speaker 2: raise it like it is just it's not even apples
Speaker 2: to oranges, it's apples to.
Speaker 1: Like apple seeds, which is a college Democrats do? What
Speaker 1: do they do?
Speaker 2: I think they do some organizing on college campuses. They
Speaker 2: don't quite do campaign stuff. And I will say, like,
Speaker 2: part of the reason nobody had done this before is
Speaker 2: because it's hard, and you also you have to be
Speaker 2: willing to engage in primaries, which is what makes it
Speaker 2: a little tricky. Why I do kind of understand why
Speaker 2: the DNC didn't do it at that point, because we
Speaker 2: get a lot of people who want to sign up
Speaker 2: with us and say I want to run, and they
Speaker 2: want to run against a Democratic incumbent. We're like, great,
Speaker 2: let's do it. Let's try. We'll see what happens. But
Speaker 2: I can see why some of the more official institutions
Speaker 2: are a little more wary about it.
Speaker 1: Obviously, the other the other organization that I would assume
Speaker 1: you've built a blueprint on, and you've already name dropped
Speaker 1: a few people, at least in our private conversation. That
Speaker 1: makes me think this is you know, I was there
Speaker 1: at the creation or near the creation of Emily's List,
Speaker 1: that's right, back in the late eighties. And really ninety
Speaker 1: two was to me the year they took off, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: ninety two was the first year of the Woman if
Speaker 1: you will, the election of Patty Murray and Barbara Boxer
Speaker 1: dying find it. That was the heart of that movement,
Speaker 1: and then they became it was candidate training that was something.
Speaker 1: And I have to tell you I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: I worked at something called the Hotline back in the nineties,
Speaker 1: and I'd have people asking me, well, I want to
Speaker 1: run for office, how do I do it? I bought
Speaker 1: a magazine at the Barnes and Noble called Campaigns and Elections.
Speaker 1: Well that teld me how to run for office. And
Speaker 1: it's like, will not not really, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: what else to do, and then Emily's List, you know,
Speaker 1: had this candidate training and go pack. That's what I
Speaker 1: would say. I'm like, go to go pack. But Emily's
Speaker 1: List was only for one gender, like it was. There
Speaker 1: wasn't any place else on the Democratic side that was
Speaker 1: akin to a go pack.
Speaker 2: For instance, one of the things I did when we
Speaker 2: were thinking about starting run for something and actually spurred
Speaker 2: the sort of creation of it, was I read Ellen
Speaker 2: Malcolm's book about the creation of Emily's List, which was
Speaker 2: a really depressing read right after we'd lost the twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen election. A little bit of a masochist, but like
Speaker 2: thinking about how they created it to be an entry
Speaker 2: point for women who were not seeing virable candidates. Young people,
Speaker 2: people forty and under have not been seen as people
Speaker 2: to ask to run for office because we can't make money,
Speaker 2: we're risky.
Speaker 1: Like it. Meanwhile, how old is the Vice President of
Speaker 1: the United States right now?
Speaker 2: Oh, forty three?
Speaker 1: I think you know he's forty. I think he's forty.
Speaker 1: That's my point. Like they're the like they got younger
Speaker 1: people right, Like. It is weird to me that in
Speaker 1: some ways AOC's an outlier.
Speaker 2: I know, I mean the Max Frost is an outliner,
Speaker 2: Maxell Frost. You got a couple other millennial women. You
Speaker 2: got Laura Underwood, Sarah Jacobs. You know, I think John
Speaker 2: assaf is the millennial in the Senate. But it is bleak,
Speaker 2: bleak when you look at the bench of Town now.
Speaker 2: I think it's changed a lot in the last eight years,
Speaker 2: and I'm really proud that Run for Something's been a
Speaker 2: big part of that. But we are working off against
Speaker 2: a very old institution that we're trying to change.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting you say that, I'm curious what you
Speaker 1: make of the David Hogg controversy in that back and forth.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm pretty cynical about the you know, it's
Speaker 1: sort of out and I'll just going to lay it
Speaker 1: out there, set it before, so I might as well
Speaker 1: make sure you've heard it so that I don't look
Speaker 1: like I'm contradicting myself, which is Look, do I think
Speaker 1: once you're once you're you've become an elected leader of
Speaker 1: the DNC, that you know you shouldn't be attacking fellow
Speaker 1: members of the club that you've chose to lead hard stop.
Speaker 1: Do I think the way the DNC is handling this
Speaker 1: revote situation in some manufactured way that they claim has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with what he's doing. Is also right.
Speaker 1: Like I'm sitting here going, you know, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any good guys here in how
Speaker 1: everybody's behaving. But I understand the motivation that Hog has here,
Speaker 1: because in some ways it's very similar. I think what
Speaker 1: you're driving at now.
Speaker 2: No, when David wanted to create Leaders We Deserve, I
Speaker 2: talked to him for hours about how run for something works.
Speaker 2: When he decided to run for share a flag for him, Hey,
Speaker 2: you might not be able to engage in primaries if
Speaker 2: you do this, he said, he'd think interesting. I think
Speaker 2: what Leaders we Deserve does is good, and I think
Speaker 2: engaging in primaries is good. I think doing them on
Speaker 2: generational lines is good. And I think it's really really
Speaker 2: important that the DNCB scene is a neutral actor, especially
Speaker 2: as they go into setting up what is the most
Speaker 2: important thing the DNC does setting up the presidential primary
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty eight. We know it's going to be
Speaker 2: a very rowdy, open race. The DNC is going to
Speaker 2: be at the calendar. They might move around states, they
Speaker 2: might rethink about criteria like, it's so so important that
Speaker 2: DNC and especially DNC leadership be trusted to be good
Speaker 2: actors here, and I think it is very frustrating that,
Speaker 2: you know, what David is trying to do in good
Speaker 2: measure with leaders we deserve, might actually undermine that effort
Speaker 2: when we need him most.
Speaker 1: So No, it does seem as if that he if
Speaker 1: he wanted to do this, he shouldn't have run for fister.
Speaker 2: Everyone's going to make their own choices, and now this
Speaker 2: is the DNC's choice to deal with as they see fit.
Speaker 2: I think it seems bad all around.
Speaker 1: But let me also posit it wasn't a secret what
Speaker 1: he was going to be at vacating and he won anyway,
Speaker 1: So what message should that send to the leadership of
Speaker 1: the DNC.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if if everyone quite understood that he
Speaker 2: was going to keep his pack going.
Speaker 1: Oh is that right? You think it was a little yeah,
Speaker 1: well you assumption.
Speaker 2: I mean historically DNC leadership has always stayed neutral in primaries, right,
Speaker 2: And I think it is even interesting to me now
Speaker 2: that the first candidate that he's chosen to work with
Speaker 2: is Robert Peters, who is a run for something alone
Speaker 2: running for Congress in Illinois. We worked with him in
Speaker 2: his state Senate race a couple of years ago. He's
Speaker 2: not primary and an older leader. It's in an open race.
Speaker 1: Interesting, let's talk about generational, because if it's generational, then
Speaker 1: a should is he going to recruit a primary challenge
Speaker 1: at to Bernie Sanders?
Speaker 2: Oh, I think we should.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, explain that because there's generational and I
Speaker 1: think it's code for ideological, tell me why I'm I'm not.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be cynical and assume that when I hear
Speaker 1: the phrase generational change in the Democratic Party that it
Speaker 1: is really not just cover for us ideological.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's just ideological. I think it is
Speaker 2: about tone and approach to the opposition, more so even
Speaker 2: than it is about any singular ideology. Yes, millennials and
Speaker 2: gen Z are a little bit further to the left
Speaker 2: than Gen X or boomers. Certainly, even with the discourse
Speaker 2: now about how younger voters are changing, they are still
Speaker 2: more to the left. They're just not as left as.
Speaker 1: They're certainly right. I was just going to say, there's
Speaker 1: certainly the gen Z. Even Look, I've got a gen
Speaker 1: z pocus group of two kids Okay, that both went
Speaker 1: through COVID, slightly different experiences, two different genders, which means
Speaker 1: they have two different feeds. And yes, I see, I
Speaker 1: see this. And also as much as you know, I
Speaker 1: see the interest in a Dave Portinoy, it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: my son doesn't believe government doesn't have a role in
Speaker 1: these things, right, So that's so I absolutely agree. I
Speaker 1: think he's culturally not crazy about some of the don't
Speaker 1: tell me how I'm supposed to speak, but there's agreement
Speaker 1: on hey, what should the role of government be and
Speaker 1: that can you disaggregate those things?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is where it matters that you
Speaker 2: have younger leaders who can speak speak that language, because
Speaker 2: I think the way that we have seen generally speaking
Speaker 2: millennials and gen Z elected officials. I think AOC and
Speaker 2: Maxwell Frost are really good examples of this, but they're
Speaker 2: not the only ones. Is that you can straddle the
Speaker 2: line between wanting government to work for people and wanting
Speaker 2: to change it a way that it works better for
Speaker 2: more people and wanting to fight it from within. They also,
Speaker 2: I think, really clearly understand who the Republican Party is
Speaker 2: in a way that I think some of the older
Speaker 2: Democrats don't. This is in part I think if you
Speaker 2: came of age politically in the last ten years, like
Speaker 2: it's the Party of Trump all the way down, if
Speaker 2: you didn't, I was just seeing something this earlier today,
Speaker 2: Like ten years ago, Mike Johnson was a state legislator
Speaker 2: in Louisiana, like most of the Republican members of Congress
Speaker 2: were not yet there. They were just about to enter,
Speaker 2: Like the Republican Party has changed very very quickly over
Speaker 2: the last decade. And if you've been serving longer than that,
Speaker 2: or been in politics longer than that, you might misremember
Speaker 2: or misunderstand who your opponent is. This is not George W.
Speaker 2: Bush's part of your John McCain's Romney all the way.
Speaker 1: Down, Amanda. I worry about this with my own, my
Speaker 1: own analysis. I try to ground myself in that I
Speaker 1: came of age, Okay. I went to my freshman year
Speaker 1: in college was a year after the Berlin Wall fell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? I went in believing we're right,
Speaker 1: they're wrong. We won. And by the way, I came
Speaker 1: of age in that time when America was still succeeding
Speaker 1: at these things, right, the perception that hey, we're still
Speaker 1: the ones inventing stuff. We're still the right way to govern.
Speaker 1: People were winning right. And I always try to remind
Speaker 1: myself that if you're thirty five or younger, you have
Speaker 1: seen a lot of failure by the US government. Some
Speaker 1: of it was not the government's fault. Nine to eleven
Speaker 1: Iraq War was a self inflicted the financial crisis was
Speaker 1: a self inflicted one. We've seen this sort of Now
Speaker 1: I'm starting to conclude here's the other sort of I
Speaker 1: think very and at this point would be a controversial
Speaker 1: is a little strong of a word, but sort of
Speaker 1: a debatable point here. But I do think that if
Speaker 1: you're fifty or older, you know, you look at politics
Speaker 1: still through the prism of the Cold War, even though
Speaker 1: you don't even though you know it's over. And it's
Speaker 1: very possible that the seventy year period between World War
Speaker 1: Two essentially and nine to eleven, let's just take that chunk,
Speaker 1: is an outlier period in American history, and that the
Speaker 1: country's default political setting is polarization. Because if you extract
Speaker 1: that seventy years out essentially from you know, FDR to
Speaker 1: to to the end of Bill Clinton. If you extract
Speaker 1: that out, all of the other elections look a lot
Speaker 1: more similar to each other. We've had. We've had three
Speaker 1: straight one term presidents. Guess what, we had five straight
Speaker 1: one term presidents at the end of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: We've had all this, And so that's where I accept
Speaker 1: the premise that generational change is beyond ideological. Meaning Schumer
Speaker 1: knows and even myself right anywhere a Corey Booker to
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer, Right, Corey Booker's a little bit older than
Speaker 1: I am, but not much. We grew up in a
Speaker 1: certain type of politics, with a certain type of Republican Party,
Speaker 1: and what the Republican Party sort of was morphing into, right,
Speaker 1: there were sort of two there were two parties almost simultaneously.
Speaker 1: Pat Buchanan in some ways Gingrich was straddling the fence
Speaker 1: between Buchanan and Bush, and we saw where that was developing,
Speaker 1: and you still sort of had the Eisenhower wing was
Speaker 1: what Bush was sort of carrying on. And then Iraq
Speaker 1: collapsed it right like that, that was their collapse. So
Speaker 1: I know I'm rambling here a little bit on that,
Speaker 1: but I think it I'm trying to sort of accept
Speaker 1: the premise that this isn't ideological. Is what I'm selling
Speaker 1: it and I think like it.
Speaker 2: It is an understanding of who the opposition is. And
Speaker 2: then the ways in which people get information now that
Speaker 2: has also changed so quickly. Like I think a lot
Speaker 2: about how many members of Congress like have never run
Speaker 2: their own Instagram account, which feels really silly to say
Speaker 2: out loud, But when you think about how people get
Speaker 2: information and how we use the internet, how we consume things,
Speaker 2: that the way in which we we're doing a podcast
Speaker 2: that is also a video that people will probably watch
Speaker 2: or listen to on their phones, like while they're doing
Speaker 2: other stuff. You know, there's a very different way in
Speaker 2: which you engage with the media and what the media
Speaker 2: is has blown up in a way that if the
Speaker 2: last time you were like a normal person was early
Speaker 2: two thousands, right, maybe, like if you didn't have someone
Speaker 2: curating information for you, which most lucted leaders do at
Speaker 2: this point. You know, they get their clips, they're told
Speaker 2: what's going on, they get briefed. It is so different,
Speaker 2: and that that faculty with the communication tactics of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five, you got to be born of the Internet
Speaker 2: to know how to navigate it.
Speaker 1: All. Right, let's take me through the process of being trained.
Speaker 1: If I run for something, I call you up. I
Speaker 1: live in and I'm going to just pick an area
Speaker 1: that I know pretty well. I live in Miami Dade County.
Speaker 1: I live in a community that leans the other direction,
Speaker 1: and I'm third generation. My grandparents are are are Cuban exiles.
Speaker 1: So walk me through the process of finding me an
Speaker 1: office to run four or how you sort of work
Speaker 1: through that candidate. Maybe it's twenty seven to twenty eight,
Speaker 1: or she's twenty seven to twenty eight, lives lives in Higalia.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to be very specific for those that
Speaker 1: care that much, but Miami Dade County in a largely
Speaker 1: Latino district.
Speaker 2: So you probably went to run for what dot net
Speaker 2: and you looked up what office to run for. Maybe
Speaker 2: you found us via Instagram at Maybe you saw some
Speaker 2: interview I did. Maybe someone from our team happened to
Speaker 2: shoot you a text when we're doing broad scale recruitment.
Speaker 2: Maybe you went to a local event that we did
Speaker 2: with partners on the ground. Maybe we were at near
Speaker 2: your college campus. And however you found us or we
Speaker 2: found you, you entered the candidate pipeline. You then might
Speaker 2: join a conference call which we do every month to
Speaker 2: talk about why you might want to run for office
Speaker 2: and answer some basic questions every first time candidate has,
Speaker 2: like how do I pick an office? How do I
Speaker 2: figure out how to raise it?
Speaker 1: I just do this monthly. You have monthly conference calls
Speaker 1: for anybody or do you have to like sign up?
Speaker 1: Is there a little bit of membership of run for something?
Speaker 2: You have to give us your information to get access
Speaker 2: to like the zoom link. But we have two thousand
Speaker 2: people regularly RSVP for these calls every month. This year,
Speaker 2: you then will start getting information from our team guides
Speaker 2: that we've put together, stuff the partners have put together,
Speaker 2: Invites to trainings either online or in person. You might
Speaker 2: get more like videos about candids we've worked in the past.
Speaker 2: Let's say that you're like, all right, I know I'm
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about running in the next couple years, but
Speaker 2: I'm not sure exactly what for or when. We would
Speaker 2: start working with you, either over email, we'd connect you
Speaker 2: with one of our team members or volunteered to help
Speaker 2: you sort of winnow it down. What's the problem you
Speaker 2: care about solving, what's the office that will give you
Speaker 2: power to solve it? And why would voters want you
Speaker 2: to win, which is different than why you want to win.
Speaker 2: You want to win because winning is great and losing sucks.
Speaker 2: Voters want you to win because you're going to do
Speaker 2: something for them. So maybe you say, you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm really pissed about the Don't Say Gay bill in Florida.
Speaker 2: I'm really pissed about the book bands. I'm thinking about
Speaker 2: running for school board in Miami Dade County, which Run
Speaker 2: for Something has helped elect a number of members of
Speaker 2: Miami Dade school Board. Great, let's get to it, so
Speaker 2: we'll help you. We've got guides to help you figure
Speaker 2: out how to file. Once you have gotten on the
Speaker 2: ballot and you've used our materials to set up your campaign,
Speaker 2: you thought about how much money you need to raise.
Speaker 2: All of that you can apply for our endorsement. We
Speaker 2: do background checks, we screen your your grap suits contact plan.
Speaker 2: That's where we do a values alignment to make sure
Speaker 2: that we're fully aligned on our broad progressive values. But
Speaker 2: because we work both in Miami Dade and also.
Speaker 1: Thousands of right now, I mean, look, Miami Dade's politics
Speaker 1: a little bit different than Burlington Vermont's. Right, we want to.
Speaker 2: Make sure that we're being really accommodating, and we want
Speaker 2: to know, like, how do these values show up in
Speaker 2: the race you're in and in the place you're in,
Speaker 2: and what does it mean to reflect your community there.
Speaker 2: Once we've endorsed you, which we endorse about half the
Speaker 2: people we apply, you're going to work directly with our staff.
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll help you find vendors that you can't get
Speaker 2: access to, Maybe you'll use some of the discounts.
Speaker 1: That we got in that sense, very similar, that's how
Speaker 1: Emily's List worked once they once they identified you as
Speaker 1: an endorsed candidate.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. So we really want to make sure
Speaker 2: that we are leveraging our national relationships on your behalf.
Speaker 2: So we endorse. I think this year our goal is
Speaker 2: to endorse about three hundred candidates. Our biggest year has
Speaker 2: been about seven hundred and fifty candidates, and that's who
Speaker 2: we track through to election day. So when I talk
Speaker 2: about the fifteen hundred people we've helped elect, it's from
Speaker 2: that broader endorsed pool.
Speaker 1: Is there a litmus test and what would be give
Speaker 1: me an example of something that would surprise me that
Speaker 1: you would support a candidate that had exposition.
Speaker 2: We have a set of values you really want to
Speaker 2: align with, you know, pro choice, pro quality to a
Speaker 2: pro tolerance pro reducing gun violence. They'll take gun violence
Speaker 2: as an example here. The way that a Iowa State
Speaker 2: legislative candidate is going to talk about gun safety is
Speaker 2: going to be very different than maybe a Miami Dade
Speaker 2: school board candidate, which will be very different than maybe
Speaker 2: like an Alabama state legislative candidate or a New York
Speaker 2: City state council candidate. We know that we can't have
Speaker 2: a strict policy position or like a platform because it
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense the way that we engage these races.
Speaker 2: But as long as all of our candidates have a
Speaker 2: vision for how they're going to reduce guns in our
Speaker 2: streets and make it safer, lots of different ways you
Speaker 2: can get at the same goal.
Speaker 1: So, you know, take let's take transports. With the transports issue,
Speaker 1: I easily can see a candidate saying I really want
Speaker 1: to protect yeah, the trans community, and I also believe
Speaker 1: trans people shouldn't be competing against women in sports. Is
Speaker 1: that a disqualifier or not?
Speaker 2: It would really depend on the race they're running in
Speaker 2: and the community they're in. We do expect all of
Speaker 2: our candidates to really stake out a strong pro LGBTQ position,
Speaker 2: a pro equity position, and we know that in a
Speaker 2: lot of spaces like this is a conversation happening on
Speaker 2: the now.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at Gavin Newsom, right, who has come
Speaker 1: out against right. He's pretty This is the guy who
Speaker 1: nobody issued marriage licenses before him. Right, So he's got,
Speaker 1: on one hand, an incredible history, and he is pretty
Speaker 1: loudly now against the idea of trans women competing in
Speaker 1: women's sports.
Speaker 2: I think the idea that he wants to be synctown
Speaker 2: to the role of being a high school sports referee
Speaker 2: is sort of beyond me. I don't know why anyone
Speaker 2: would want to take on that position.
Speaker 1: That's a good point there. But you see where I'm going.
Speaker 1: You see where I'm going here, just because this is
Speaker 1: I think a challenge right now for progressives.
Speaker 2: No, it is, and I say, I say like it is. Actually,
Speaker 2: we've worked with hundreds of school board candidates over the years.
Speaker 2: The issues that they are talking about in these races
Speaker 2: are teacher pay and book bands and facilities funding. They
Speaker 2: are so eager to get back to the kind of
Speaker 2: stuff that people really do care about, which is can
Speaker 2: my kids read? Can my kids go to a safe school?
Speaker 2: They want to talk about bullying and mental health, Like
Speaker 2: for all of the discourse around even like trans kids
Speaker 2: in sports, that's not what these races are about.
Speaker 1: No, I take let me well, And that was another thing.
Speaker 1: How often do you have a candidate says, look, my
Speaker 1: passion is this, but I don't you know, and you
Speaker 1: have to tell them, you know what, Look, it's a
Speaker 1: great passion. You're not going to win an election on
Speaker 1: that issue. You really need to be talking about this one,
Speaker 1: this one, and this one. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: I know that I would be torn because I'm you know,
Speaker 1: as somebody given advice too, it's like, look, you got
Speaker 1: to be who you are, don't try to be something
Speaker 1: you're not. So how do you navigate that where you're like, well,
Speaker 1: you know that that issue is just not a voting issue.
Speaker 1: I wish it were, you know, you know, for the
Speaker 1: left that's campaign finance reform and for the right it's
Speaker 1: the debt. I always say, those are these two issues
Speaker 1: that I know there are people that care about them,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yeah, you know who doesn't the voters?
Speaker 1: Because if they did, we'd have done something about it
Speaker 1: by now.
Speaker 2: I think this is where it's fun working on local races,
Speaker 2: because the issues that you run for in a local
Speaker 2: race are so personal to people, and you tend to
Speaker 2: be able to find things that get voters really fired up,
Speaker 2: whether it's you know, schools, roads, water, cleanliness, even We've
Speaker 2: had candidates who ran on like city budgeting process, but
Speaker 2: because they were able to explain to people why they
Speaker 2: should care about that, Like you really need to care
Speaker 2: about the city budgeting process because right now you're getting
Speaker 2: screwed out of services. You deserve that. I think that
Speaker 2: ability to connect it.
Speaker 1: Just connected to people's lives. Yeah, you can figure out
Speaker 1: how to connect it.
Speaker 2: It's I mean, it gets back to that third question
Speaker 2: I made earlier. It's like, why should voters want you
Speaker 2: to win? What are you going to do for them?
Speaker 2: Make it about them, not about you. That's the key.
Speaker 1: Bertie Sanders is not advocating people necessarily to run as Democrats, right,
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, you know, and he's proudly an independent progressive.
Speaker 1: You've had Dan Osborne and there's a there's a gentleman
Speaker 1: I know that that helped recruit Dan Osborne. That's we're
Speaker 1: trying to recruit more Dan Osborne's to you know, possibly
Speaker 1: run as independence maybe where the Democratic Party brand is weak.
Speaker 1: Where do you guys sit on that as run for Something?
Speaker 1: And is is how much responsibility do you think you
Speaker 1: have an improving the Democratic brand versus getting just getting
Speaker 1: people elected.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you asked this. So we just launched a
Speaker 2: partnership with Senator Sanders where when he was asking all
Speaker 2: of his you know, community members and followers to run
Speaker 2: for office, everyone was eligible for Run for Something's program
Speaker 2: got transferred over it to us, and we're working really
Speaker 2: closely with him. It's thousands of people who signed up
Speaker 2: because Bernie asked them to working with them great. We
Speaker 2: specifically endorse people who are running as Democrats or who
Speaker 2: if they're in nonpartisan elections, which a lot of these
Speaker 2: rates are. What alignment at a local level? Right, we're
Speaker 2: exploring whether it makes sense to engage with independence too,
Speaker 2: Like you know, I've asked the team make a recommendation.
Speaker 2: Let's think about it. How does that look practically? There's
Speaker 2: a lot of about access reasons why it's really hard.
Speaker 2: You know, I think there's people who imagine it.
Speaker 1: Look, it's my frustration with the duopoly. I do think,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious if you run across is I think
Speaker 1: one of the barriers that people have to running for
Speaker 1: office is that they think, well, I have to pick
Speaker 1: small or large, right, I wear a medium, or I
Speaker 1: wear extra large or I wear small. You know, I've
Speaker 1: always joked that we would hate it if they're only
Speaker 1: offered two sizes of T shirts, you know, right, And
Speaker 1: I assume you run into that, like people, Hey, I
Speaker 1: want to run for some I'm mostly agreeing on this,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if I want to pick a party.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we really try to work with folks through the
Speaker 2: practicalities of that. Like, Okay, if you want to run
Speaker 2: as an independent, how do you get on the ballot,
Speaker 2: how do you get access to the voter file? How
Speaker 2: are you going to tell people? Like break through with
Speaker 2: folks about what you believe, because in a lot of
Speaker 2: places it might make sense, and a lot of places
Speaker 2: they'll see independent and assume crazy. So like, how do
Speaker 2: you navigate that?
Speaker 1: True?
Speaker 2: And we want to be really like on the level
Speaker 2: with folks about why you might pick a partisan identity
Speaker 2: because for a lot of voters, like the d or
Speaker 2: R is sort of how they know who to vote for.
Speaker 2: We want to make sure that if that's a choice
Speaker 2: you're going to make, you know how to how to
Speaker 2: like literally do it. And I think we might change
Speaker 2: our minds on this going into twenty twenty six. It's
Speaker 2: something we're exploring. I actually don't know where we'll land
Speaker 2: because I think the details really matter here.
Speaker 1: Let me ask a very sort of parochial questions. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean I want to run for office, but if somebody is,
Speaker 1: you know, in a I'll give you an example. They're
Speaker 1: in their mid fifties, they had a really successful twenty
Speaker 1: five year career working at the FDA, at NIH You
Speaker 1: see where I'm going. Yeah, and they say, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really like what's happening. I want to do
Speaker 1: something about it. Now. You just said you're primarily focused
Speaker 1: on the forty and under. But I imagine there's a lot
Speaker 1: of former government workers that are suddenly interested who never
Speaker 1: thought they were going to be a political servants. They
Speaker 1: always saw themselves truly as public servants.
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 1: Where are you channeling these folks energy? When I'm guessing
Speaker 1: they You are getting inquiries from people that are older
Speaker 1: than forty that maybe have the background I just suggested.
Speaker 2: We have gotten thousands of them who love them. All
Speaker 2: of our pipeline material is like basically everything up until
Speaker 2: we endorse is public or like public. People in the
Speaker 2: pipeline like you will get access to it. It's not
Speaker 2: our endorsement program is that's we really want to focus
Speaker 2: on people who've been traditionally left out of power, which
Speaker 2: you only need to look around at the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: and see young people have left out of power. But
Speaker 2: everything else is welcome to anyone, and we work with
Speaker 2: so many partners who tackle different pieces of a community.
Speaker 2: So if you're an older woman, great, We've got lots
Speaker 2: of partners who work with older women. If you're an
Speaker 2: older man, great, we have partners who do that. You're
Speaker 2: in Latino or African American or LGBTQI, like, lots of
Speaker 2: different groups engage with different sort of sub segments of
Speaker 2: people for us young folks. But that's why we've got
Speaker 2: a big ecosystem.
Speaker 1: But what you're saying is if if somebody were in
Speaker 1: their mid fifties and is trying to just understand the
Speaker 1: process of running for office, you're more than willing to
Speaker 1: be the essentially to be the classroom.
Speaker 2: They can come to the classroom happily, happily apply.
Speaker 1: All right, are you one of the things that I
Speaker 1: believe we need? You know, I joke that we've we've
Speaker 1: we just passed the big physical infrastructure build over the
Speaker 1: last couple of years to fix roads and bridges and
Speaker 1: someday bring broadband to rural America, which we've been promising
Speaker 1: for twenty five years, which one day, yeah, someday we'll
Speaker 1: get it. Is that we also need to update the
Speaker 1: infrastructure of the democracy, right. I think it's you know,
Speaker 1: I'm an advocate of doubling the size of Congress. I
Speaker 1: think that Congress has become out of reach and out
Speaker 1: of touch. So I think if we uncap the House,
Speaker 1: that would help. I know other people that are advocating
Speaker 1: for all party primaries, right, no more partisan primaries. Does
Speaker 1: run for something? Get involved with the infrastructure debates these
Speaker 1: days of you know, how should elections be run? Who
Speaker 1: you know those sort of things and if you don't,
Speaker 1: what do you what does a mandilipment think of these ideas?
Speaker 2: The organization as a institution does not a lot of
Speaker 2: our candidates are pushing for all kinds of different things,
Speaker 2: from termplements to different ways of funding campaigns campaign finance.
Speaker 1: Are you surprised that term limits is popping up as
Speaker 1: as such a progressive idea? Now? I mean, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I'm not an advocate of it at all. I tell people,
Speaker 1: i'd say every state legislature that's had term limits, all
Speaker 1: it does is in power lobbyists, because I always say,
Speaker 1: guess who isn't Guess who doesn't have term limits? The lobbyists.
Speaker 1: But it's fascinating to me that what was a conservative
Speaker 1: talking point for two decades is suddenly becoming a progressive
Speaker 1: talking point.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's because it feels like the only
Speaker 2: way to get changeover in leadership when I don't think
Speaker 2: that's true, but I think that's feels free.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't be, But I get that, like, well, Chuck
Speaker 1: Schumer's never going to leave, so you better have term limits,
Speaker 1: right yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The thing that I, on my personal capacity, really
Speaker 2: am pushing for is increasing the pay the legislators. I
Speaker 2: think we've got to make these higher paid positions and
Speaker 2: like Congress, yes, but also most of these state legislators
Speaker 2: pay basically peanuts. The New Hampshire state legislature I think
Speaker 2: pays maybe four hundred dollars a year. That's not like
Speaker 2: four hundred.
Speaker 1: It's a part time legislature and most of.
Speaker 2: Them are, but they're not actually working part time. There's
Speaker 2: serve a lot, and they're respect to do constituent services.
Speaker 2: And I think the pay is one of many things
Speaker 2: that makes these really hard for if you're not wealthy
Speaker 2: or retired or married to someone wealthy, you can't do it.
Speaker 2: Use you can't do it, and I want to. I
Speaker 2: think that's one of those things where if you want
Speaker 2: to change that kind of people who run, you've got
Speaker 2: to change the structure that they're running to join.
Speaker 1: You know, I thought about the pay issue as being
Speaker 1: one of the impediments to getting people under forty to
Speaker 1: run for office. And I was wondering, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the one of the I think positive changes that
Speaker 1: took place with the FEC over the last decade was
Speaker 1: this idea that candidates could pay themselves a salary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think some people were worried about abuse.
Speaker 1: There's always going to be any system, there's abuse, but
Speaker 1: for the most part, and I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it's worked out pretty well, because by the way, it's
Speaker 1: all public, so if you're abusing it, it becomes a
Speaker 1: problem for your own campaign. So I think it is
Speaker 1: kind of self correct. Are there things if you thought
Speaker 1: about that run for something could sort of you know,
Speaker 1: supplement income or incubate or provide you know, are you
Speaker 1: trying to figure out a way to provide outside source resources.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's childcare. I'm just spitballing here, but these are
Speaker 1: the various real life impediments to somebody under forty running
Speaker 1: for office.
Speaker 2: I've got a Google doc running back the last eight
Speaker 2: years of like all kinds of crazy ideas, from ways
Speaker 2: we could fund people to support them while they run,
Speaker 2: to cover childcare, cover security costs, which has become a
Speaker 2: more now a bigger thing, ways in which you can
Speaker 2: support candidates families like. A lot of this are some
Speaker 2: campaign finance law that makes it really hard, but in
Speaker 2: some states and in some places it might be doable.
Speaker 2: And if I ever got the money for it, I
Speaker 2: think it'd be really fun and more importantly, I think
Speaker 2: it'd be really impactful.
Speaker 1: And I am curious what has been what do you
Speaker 1: what are the top three or four reasons why you
Speaker 1: can't convince somebody under forty that has I would like
Speaker 1: to do it, but they can't. How often is it financial?
Speaker 2: It's financial both in terms of they don't necessarily have
Speaker 2: the money, like to their job is in necessarily stable,
Speaker 2: but also they probably can't quit their job or they'd
Speaker 2: have a job that has like conflict of interest problems.
Speaker 2: Second big thing is especially for millennials and true for
Speaker 2: gen Z too. Kids. If you have young kids hard,
Speaker 2: really hard, and I like I have, I have two
Speaker 2: kids under two and a half. I cannot imagine running
Speaker 2: for office right now.
Speaker 1: It feels look one of the There's a young Republican
Speaker 1: member of Congress who just retired out of Kansas. He's
Speaker 1: in his mid thirties, Stake Litturner, and this is why
Speaker 1: he did it. It's like I got small kids, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm tired of being the parent that's not at the game.
Speaker 2: I think that's totally understandable. We've definitely had a bunch
Speaker 2: of our folks work with Vote Mama, which is a
Speaker 2: great organization that helps people navigate using campaign funds for childcare.
Speaker 2: But we need that. There are some folks who are
Speaker 2: fearful about security, which I think especially if you are
Speaker 2: a woman in person of color like LGBTQ, there's even
Speaker 2: more hate threats coming your way. I think the final
Speaker 2: big thing is this sense, in particular, if you are
Speaker 2: not a homeowner, that you don't deserve a say in
Speaker 2: the future of the community. So this is one of
Speaker 2: my projects that we're launching later this year. You are
Speaker 2: c three run person thing civic. So does you want
Speaker 2: to get more renters to run for office one? Because
Speaker 2: the housing market is a nightmare, and if you are
Speaker 2: in your twenties or thirties, you think about it very
Speaker 2: differently than if you're someone who bought your house in
Speaker 2: the eighties and are now sitting on well but two.
Speaker 2: Renters make up about thirty five percent of the American
Speaker 2: people and about seven percent of all elected officials nationwide.
Speaker 2: In the New York State legislature, there are more.
Speaker 1: That's the type of diversity we don't tell. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's an e socio economic diversity. This is my beef
Speaker 1: with newsrooms. People talk to me about diversity and newsrooms
Speaker 1: and it's like, I want geographic and socioeconomic. Give me
Speaker 1: somebody whose parents never went to college, who lived you know,
Speaker 1: understand that life versus a lot. You know, it's just
Speaker 1: the socioeconomic diversity, and you're right, Congress does not have it.
Speaker 2: Congress doesn't have it. The New York State legislature. New York,
Speaker 2: a state where I think at least in New York
Speaker 2: City something like sixty five percent of people are renters,
Speaker 2: maybe more, has more landlords than it does. Tens currently
Speaker 2: serving California has I think five renters and at one
Speaker 2: point had zero, Connecticut zero. A number of these state
Speaker 2: legislators zero. It is no wonder that we have basically
Speaker 2: no federal law that helps renders outside of some of
Speaker 2: the stuff around like you know, public housing Section eight.
Speaker 1: But where's my man? The rent is too damn high.
Speaker 1: Party were rich tax.
Speaker 2: Deductions, first time home buyer credits, all of that for
Speaker 2: homeowners that I'm thirty five years old, I am paying
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars a month in child care expenses. I
Speaker 2: am never going to be able to own a home,
Speaker 2: at least not in the next ten years. It feels un.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope that's wrong, right, And I get the.
Speaker 2: Feels unimaginable though, And I think when you were in
Speaker 2: your twenties or thirties, that is a very common sense.
Speaker 2: It feels like the American when we talk about the
Speaker 2: American dream, feels out of reach. How ma, I were
Speaker 2: supposed to buy home?
Speaker 1: You know how? No, it's funny and I had not
Speaker 1: heard it more directly. What you just the point you
Speaker 1: just made, And I really want to make sure this
Speaker 1: is a clip that gets highlighted. I'm like saying it
Speaker 1: out loud, because you know, we talk about the number
Speaker 1: one issue that voters ask about. I've had this, have
Speaker 1: done this survey of unofficially of members of Congress. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: when you go home, what's an issue that you get
Speaker 1: asked about that that that we don't cover? And it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if it's a Republican or Democrat. They all
Speaker 1: say housing. It's always housing. And it's like it was
Speaker 1: sort of like you just did the It was one
Speaker 1: of those well duh, when you have no no wonder,
Speaker 1: nobody has it as a priority in front of their face.
Speaker 1: And that's a that's as good of an explanation as
Speaker 1: I've heard of why we have terrible housing policy in
Speaker 1: this time.
Speaker 2: And I think there's a bunch of other factors here,
Speaker 2: including like much housing policy is made on the local level,
Speaker 2: which again there's no renters there either. But and a
Speaker 2: lot of the places where we really need to affect affordability,
Speaker 2: Like you know, I think about one of the many
Speaker 2: reasons why a lot of stuff swung right, like New York,
Speaker 2: New Jersey, everywhere sung right in the last election, in
Speaker 2: part because of the affordability crisis, in part because how
Speaker 2: many Democrats in these blue states sent money to Wisconsin
Speaker 2: and Michigan and Pennsylvania and have never engaged in a
Speaker 2: local election where they live and therefore have not actually participated.
Speaker 1: This gets back to where we began. It gets back
Speaker 1: to where we began. Go Packs got started because they
Speaker 1: concluded the Republicans were too worried about the national politics
Speaker 1: and looking in their backyard. And you're basically this is
Speaker 1: now two generations flip where the Democrats have become it's
Speaker 1: the presidency your bust.
Speaker 2: Mm And like we can't. You can't just win at
Speaker 2: the top and expect everything else to follow. Trickle down politics,
Speaker 2: much like a trickle down economics, does not work, and
Speaker 2: we can't count on that. One of the things that
Speaker 2: I love about what we do is we work in
Speaker 2: all fifty states. We've elected candidates in forty nine. I'm
Speaker 2: just missing Idaho and I'm gonna win a waste there. Eventually,
Speaker 2: I get pushed back on this all the time of like,
Speaker 2: why are you wasting resources in a red state?
Speaker 1: Yeah, wasting resources. I hear that a lot.
Speaker 2: It's not a limited resource, but money and politics, for
Speaker 2: better or for worse, keeps going up and up and up,
Speaker 2: where there will always be unfortunately more money to spend
Speaker 2: in this work. It is not a waste of a
Speaker 2: resource to try and keep white nationalists from running Idaho
Speaker 2: as an example. I think that's a good thing, both
Speaker 2: because it is good for Idaho, but also because we
Speaker 2: have seen over and over and over again what happens
Speaker 2: in these red states does not stay in these red states.
Speaker 2: And Republicans, sure shit, are spending a ton of money
Speaker 2: to try and flip over blue states.
Speaker 1: Right, No, it is, it's the it look at just
Speaker 1: you know, I always look at national politics. As you know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump goes out of his way to campaign in
Speaker 1: the bronx versus. I didn't see Kamala Harris going out
Speaker 1: of her way to campaign in Idaho, right, But I
Speaker 1: did see Barack Obama do that. I think, and you
Speaker 1: know it I know people sit there and laugh at it,
Speaker 1: and it's like, here's the thing. You may not even
Speaker 1: win to vote another extra voter in Idaho, but somebody
Speaker 1: in rural Virginia might say, oh, I see, he might
Speaker 1: he might not ignore my my issues if he cares
Speaker 1: about their That's right.
Speaker 2: And like, I think about how many candidates we've worked
Speaker 2: with over the years who have never who are the
Speaker 2: first or only Democrat to run in their district, sometimes
Speaker 2: ever or for decades. Like, think about all the voters
Speaker 2: in that place who have never met a Democrat running
Speaker 2: for office before, who've never had the opportunity to vote
Speaker 2: for a Democratic candidate.
Speaker 1: Well, this to me is the brand issue. I mean
Speaker 1: it is. And let me ask you, and let's close
Speaker 1: off on this topic, which is you obviously believe that
Speaker 1: Democrats have to improve their brand. You can't you're not
Speaker 1: ready to say I'm going to go with the Forward
Speaker 1: Party and dump the Democrats right like, and I think
Speaker 1: some people are thinking about it. Do you have to replace?
Speaker 1: Is the brand so broken that you it's too toxic?
Speaker 1: Like what could be like what happened to the Israel
Speaker 1: Labor Party? What would you be doing if you could
Speaker 1: wave a magic wand at the DNC right now to
Speaker 1: do some brand improvement.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do it from the DNC, I think. But
Speaker 2: I think what we are doing now, which is getting
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of people to run for office, Like,
Speaker 2: if you want to change the Democratic Party, change the
Speaker 2: people who are out in front as Democrats. Yeah, Like
Speaker 2: for the last four years, the number one Democratic communicator
Speaker 2: was President Joe Biden, who was not the most effective communicator.
Speaker 1: Not a communicator, not a cadicator, right, I mean that
Speaker 1: was that.
Speaker 2: Was the issue. So yeah, I don't blame people when
Speaker 2: they think this party is old and out of touch
Speaker 2: and doesn't care about me because they didn't hear from
Speaker 2: someone for most of the last four years.
Speaker 1: By the way, the other two spokespeople were Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: and Chuck Schumer, who were basically not great.
Speaker 2: I think what we are doing now and this is
Speaker 2: you know, a tipping point in the Democratic Party. But
Speaker 2: I think it's not just in Democrats. I mean this,
Speaker 2: you know, I have a new book out what we're
Speaker 2: in charge. It's also all about like generational changing in
Speaker 2: leadership across all kinds of sectors. But we're going to
Speaker 2: see it everywhere the people in charge are gonna look
Speaker 2: and sound different. It's going to be so consequential for
Speaker 2: both for the Democratic Party or how these community spaces feel,
Speaker 2: for how these governments run.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: The most important thing I think we need. Even this
Speaker 2: conversation about like, oh we need like a Joe Rogan
Speaker 2: of the left, we need more media, It's like, yeah, yeah, maybe,
Speaker 2: but who's going to go on those shows? Name me
Speaker 2: the half dozen current elected Democrats who could go into
Speaker 2: a non political space and have a normal conversation.
Speaker 1: You want to see You want to Chuck Schumer and
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan up. How do you think?
Speaker 2: As on my.
Speaker 1: Front November twenty twenty sixth, what does success look like
Speaker 1: for Run for Something?
Speaker 2: My expectation is next year we will probably work with
Speaker 2: five or six hundred candidates. I would hope that most
Speaker 2: of them will win. I expect we will see run
Speaker 2: for Something alone who win seats in Congress and the
Speaker 2: United States Senate and governorships. We already have a bunch
Speaker 2: of them running. Mallory McMorrow, Eli Sappat is running for
Speaker 2: AG and Michigan. A bunch of folks running for state
Speaker 2: wide office in Colorado and Congress in Texas and Georgia
Speaker 2: and elsewhere. I think it is going to be a
Speaker 2: transformative election for the Democratic Party because no.
Speaker 1: Matter what heppened, you think it'll be some massive generation shift,
Speaker 1: a generational leadership.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that can be either a handing of
Speaker 2: the baton or a taking of the baton.
Speaker 1: Y yanking. Yeah, like either way, handing of the baton
Speaker 1: or yank taking the.
Speaker 2: By the way, someone else is going to be holding
Speaker 2: it when all of a.
Speaker 1: Sudden done, amand alipman, Uh, this is a great conversation.
Speaker 1: And uh what I hope I know you know if
Speaker 1: you're people trying to figure out how do you run
Speaker 1: for office? That's why I wanted you to go through
Speaker 1: that process. And who knows, maybe maybe a handful of
Speaker 1: people will come come check out one for something. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you going, you got. I hope you enjoyed that
Speaker 1: conversation with a man elipment. By the way, if if
Speaker 1: the left side of the aisle is not where you
Speaker 1: want to be running for office, do know. I did
Speaker 1: an interview that'll be dropping this week with Lindsay Draft.
Speaker 1: She is the CEO of the Forward Party. That's a
Speaker 1: party that is now the combination of the efforts of
Speaker 1: former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who left the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party to start this party, and or Republican Governor of
Speaker 1: New Jersey, Christy Whitman. They've put their efforts together. It's
Speaker 1: still it's all under the umbrella of forward, but it
Speaker 1: will be another avenue in another way that people who
Speaker 1: are frustrated, particularly by the two parties in ability to
Speaker 1: work with each other, might find this appealing later this week,
Speaker 1: So be on the lookout for that drop. So with that,
Speaker 1: let me do a couple of ass chucks before I
Speaker 1: send you on your way to to go about your day.
Speaker 1: First question, been struggling on how to word this for
Speaker 1: a few First of all, this comes from Bill s Newberg, Oregon,
Speaker 1: and as he puts in parentheses, it's a liberal state
Speaker 1: that all that's also football crazy, yes, and it's also
Speaker 1: at least in Corvallis, they love their college baseball as well.
Speaker 1: By the way, shout out to my friend Nathan Zalez,
Speaker 1: who is an Oregon State rabid Oregon state guy. But
Speaker 1: here's the question from Bill in Oregon. Been struggling on
Speaker 1: how to word this for a few weeks now. But
Speaker 1: the ultimate question is, quote, are the two major parties
Speaker 1: in this country essentially equivalent in your eyes? I asked,
Speaker 1: because you've said you're a character voter. You've also said
Speaker 1: that both parties had become cults of personalities, meaning Trump
Speaker 1: on one hand, Obama and the other. But if I
Speaker 1: put those two politicians next to one another, the difference
Speaker 1: in character is just inescapable. I wonder if this dovestails
Speaker 1: at all with the toxic branding of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: According to Pew and others, being a party that promotes
Speaker 1: good character often means putting the right thing above the
Speaker 1: expedient thing, and sometimes even above winning. The Republicans being
Speaker 1: the party of selfishness. I either current tax bill seem
Speaker 1: to be let off with a boys will be boys
Speaker 1: type of excuse. You've often said that you essentially hold
Speaker 1: the Democrats to a higher standard because they ask you to.
Speaker 1: Isn't having a higher standard to sign a better character
Speaker 1: in the first place? Our folks in the media sometimes
Speaker 1: buying into a false equivalency because essentially being of good
Speaker 1: character is often also boring, I e. Know, drama Obama,
Speaker 1: How does one teach their children how to be of
Speaker 1: good character when the bad characters keep being chosen and
Speaker 1: allowed to act with impunity. That is the most important question.
Speaker 1: How does one teat how do let me repeat this,
Speaker 1: how does one teach their children how to be of
Speaker 1: good character when the bad characters keep being chosen and
Speaker 1: allowed to act with impunity. Look, I don't know other
Speaker 1: how to react to your question other than you're right?
Speaker 1: Do I do not currently see the two parties as
Speaker 1: their run as equivalent parties? I do, and and oddly enough,
Speaker 1: I'm somebody who holds the Democrats more accountable because they,
Speaker 1: you know, I do. I look at this, particularly Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: that his poor leadership is why Donald Trump is back right,
Speaker 1: why voters didn't want to kick Trump to the curb.
Speaker 1: If Biden had been a better leader, they wouldn't looked
Speaker 1: backwards for Trump. The Republican Party would have looked for
Speaker 1: a new candidate. This is the first time in over
Speaker 1: one hundred years that a party decided to go to
Speaker 1: go backwards rather than forwards with who their nominee was.
Speaker 1: And the question is is that on the Republicans? Is
Speaker 1: that on the Democrats? And the answer is yes to both. Right,
Speaker 1: why has the Republican even been an answer well, because
Speaker 1: there's a desperation of one part of the electorate to
Speaker 1: really shake up government and to have government sort of
Speaker 1: understand that we've been living in this I guess I
Speaker 1: think that the anger is over. It feels like we
Speaker 1: live in a two tiered system where it's impossible for
Speaker 1: somebody stuck in one tier to jump to the other tier.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's the feeling that's out there now.
Speaker 1: I can point to individual examples and say this isn't true,
Speaker 1: and then I wish people didn't see it that way.
Speaker 1: But there is this sense of the rungs to the
Speaker 1: ladder are missing, right. They're like, yeah, you can get
Speaker 1: up five or six rungs, but if you're trying to
Speaker 1: get up to run fifteen, ten through fourteen are gone, right,
Speaker 1: and you've got to somehow get lucky to go somehow
Speaker 1: and grab it, or you've got to risk your life
Speaker 1: in order to jump up the economic ladder. So I
Speaker 1: get that frustration. I think it's a lot having to do.
Speaker 1: People don't know what they want, but they do know
Speaker 1: what they don't like, right, And on the issue of character,
Speaker 1: you know, this is something that I vote on character,
Speaker 1: but I'm in the minority. And I've said I spent.
Speaker 1: I wrote a big, long column about the transactional versus
Speaker 1: the aspirational voter in twenty twenty four. You can go
Speaker 1: find it in the NBC website. Because the aspirational voter
Speaker 1: versus the transactional voter. A transactional voter looks and says, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: who's going to benefit me. The aspirational voter says, what's
Speaker 1: in the You know, who's going to benefit the country?
Speaker 1: You know, when we hear all this put in country first,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. The fact is most people do
Speaker 1: vote for what's in their own best interests, right, And
Speaker 1: there's a form of it you get. If you're voting
Speaker 1: in the country's best interests, it usually means you have
Speaker 1: the luxury to do that. Right usually means you're personally
Speaker 1: well off or you feel pretty stable, so you can
Speaker 1: look at the bigger picture. Right, if things are unstable
Speaker 1: in your life, you look at things very binary. Who's
Speaker 1: good for me, who's bad for me? And I think
Speaker 1: what we have with the working class is as a
Speaker 1: large group of voters who are not seeing what's good
Speaker 1: for me. In the moment, Donald Trump is really good
Speaker 1: at sounding responsive in the moment, and you had, you know,
Speaker 1: in Barack Obama the ultimate, hey, let's play the long
Speaker 1: game type of politician. And you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: exactly what people wanted in O eight after the experience
Speaker 1: with Bush. But between the financial crisis, how long it
Speaker 1: took Obamacare to get up and running right, how many
Speaker 1: fits and starts it had, the broken website, it was
Speaker 1: a sense of, Okay, maybe Democrats have good ideas, but
Speaker 1: they don't know how to execute them. They're bad on
Speaker 1: the leadership front, if you will. So whether that was
Speaker 1: the reason for the turn to Trump.
Speaker 2: Is.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to be studying this for fifty
Speaker 1: years and then I think I've joked about this before.
Speaker 1: I hope I live long enough to find out how
Speaker 1: historians fifty years from now assess the Trump era. I
Speaker 1: think it's going to be a much smaller part in
Speaker 1: our history than it feels in the moment. You know,
Speaker 1: we always have recency bias as a society, and thinking
Speaker 1: this is going to be momentous in the history books,
Speaker 1: and then you realize that's a page, that's a half
Speaker 1: a page that might not even be more than one
Speaker 1: sentence right. I mean, just look at the look I
Speaker 1: bet you when Grover Cleveland run his second non consecutive
Speaker 1: presidential term, there was a thought, Wow, this is historic.
Speaker 1: This is something that's going to be taught in schools
Speaker 1: all the time. How much were you taught about Grover
Speaker 1: Cleveland in school? So it's very likely that this is
Speaker 1: sort of thought of that. What Trump is a part
Speaker 1: of that. This is part of this larger I think
Speaker 1: impact that we're having. Right we're in the middle of globalization,
Speaker 1: a transition from industrial attack, a rising global economy. We've
Speaker 1: never had this many people engaged in the free market
Speaker 1: than we have today, So there's a lot more potential
Speaker 1: winners and losers across the globe. Right in the twentieth
Speaker 1: century of the United States had more say over who
Speaker 1: won and lost on the economy. And guess what, we're
Speaker 1: having to share that share that now with more and
Speaker 1: more countries, and this is the growing pains of it.
Speaker 1: I'm one of those long term optimists short term pessimists
Speaker 1: in this. But to get at the nut of your questions,
Speaker 1: are the two parties the same? In my eyes, they're not.
Speaker 1: Right now, the Republican Party has been I think hijacked
Speaker 1: by Trump and trump Ism. This is not a conservative
Speaker 1: party by the definition of conservatism that we've we've I
Speaker 1: think on culture, this is in some ways a recognizable uh,
Speaker 1: part of the Republican Party compared to before, But on
Speaker 1: when it comes to economic policy, it's unrecognizable and it's
Speaker 1: not conservative. It's a reactionary party in many ways. So
Speaker 1: I think that you know, when I when I look
Speaker 1: at a guy like George Will, right, that's you know,
Speaker 1: for me, that was the face of conservatism as a kid. Okay,
Speaker 1: George Will and Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump doesn't fit.
Speaker 1: He feels like, like I said, a bizarro superman, you know,
Speaker 1: compared to Reagan. If you will, You're like, huh, you
Speaker 1: kind of look like a Republican, but you behave almost
Speaker 1: the exact opposite of the type of Republicans I grew
Speaker 1: up with. And that's, you know, especially on the character front.
Speaker 1: I think the Republican Party always prided itself on being
Speaker 1: the party of of of proper character, whatever that meant
Speaker 1: in society in any given moment. But certainly you wouldn't
Speaker 1: expect it to be, you know, the party of serial
Speaker 1: marriages out of wedlock. Children all over the place, like
Speaker 1: an Elon Musk, who may or may not you know again,
Speaker 1: I mean, I just think about ten years ago. Imagine
Speaker 1: if one of the closest listen on Matt Eric Schmidt
Speaker 1: was was in some ways the type of advisor to
Speaker 1: Obama that Elon Musk became to Donald Trump. Somebody who's
Speaker 1: successful in Silicon Valley, trying to trying to help the
Speaker 1: government understand the Silicon Valley mindset. You know what, I
Speaker 1: don't think Eric Schmidt did bring around a drug kit
Speaker 1: for everybody to have it. And if he did, it
Speaker 1: would be either probably would be oversight, you know, hearings.
Speaker 1: There would probably be Congress would want to find out
Speaker 1: where did these drugs come from? Right? Are we going
Speaker 1: to have anything like that with Elon Musk? I think
Speaker 1: you know the answer to that. So I would say
Speaker 1: that this is the part where I'm just a believer
Speaker 1: that eventually bad character does get punished by society. The
Speaker 1: voters eventually sniff that out because we eventually realize people
Speaker 1: with bad characters do bad things, and while they may
Speaker 1: accidentally do some good things that maybe make sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, take what he's you know what Trump's trying
Speaker 1: to do in the Middle East is in some ways
Speaker 1: very good. What he's trying to do with Iran Syria.
Speaker 1: You know, he's trying to sort of put BB a
Speaker 1: little bit back in his place. But how he's going
Speaker 1: about it and his motivation to do it is all
Speaker 1: about the self enrichment business deals, as he's been doing
Speaker 1: with the Gulf State guys. So there's such a corrupt
Speaker 1: you know here he's doing something that trades actually and
Speaker 1: is pragmatic, but he only got it got there in
Speaker 1: a corrupt be a corrupt means. And the question is,
Speaker 1: you know that never holds. And so I guess I
Speaker 1: would say to you long windy answer there for you,
Speaker 1: Bill is from Oregon, is simply, Look, character counts. Just
Speaker 1: doesn't always count when you want it to count, but
Speaker 1: eventually character will count. Look, I would argue that in
Speaker 1: some ways Bill Clinton's character flaws eventually costs the hurt
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party in two thousand and cost Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: the presidency in twenty sixteen. So the point is is
Speaker 1: that you know a lot of people thought, oh, Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton got away with something. Eventually he didn't. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people think Donald Trump's getting away with something.
Speaker 1: Eventually he won't all right with that. I was going
Speaker 1: to do a second question. I'll save it. Got a
Speaker 1: great week of shows coming up for you, I promise.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Can't wait to talk
Speaker 1: to you again until I upload again.