WEBVTT - Full Interview w/ Charlie Cook - In A DIVIDED America, Will Republicans Or Democrats Win In 2026? 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:09.319 Well, joining me now is somebody who, in the world 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:11.440 of political analysis needs no introduction. 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.200 It's the legendary. It's the great Charlie Cook. 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:19.880 And he's here because he also is part of perhaps 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.200 the single most important reference book in both of our lives. 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:27.200 It's called The Almanac of American Politics, and the latest 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.400 edition is hitting bookstores now ish or really, why do 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:33.800 we call it bookstores? Yes, there'll be a few in bookstores, 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.760 but you'll get to order it directly. I'm one of 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:41.479 those people that always says the older the Almanac, the 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:43.760 more useful it is. So and I have to have 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.040 every single one of them, and over the years my 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.760 ability they go back to nineteen seventy two. I finally 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.320 have a complete set and got it completed about ten 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:57.560 or fifteen years ago. But the biggest impediment to completing 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:00.840 the set was always Charlie Cook, because every time I 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.720 went to a used bookstore in Washington, DC looking for it, 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:05.320 I put my name on a list and they said, yeah, 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:06.640 that's nice, but Charlie's ahead of you. 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.280 In the list. But yeah, any bay works pretty well too. 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.000 But I did have two complete sets and then was 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.080 having to do a third because we were splitting the 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.680 time between anyway. So now I actually gave somebody a 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.720 bunch of my extras, so I've got two full sets. Though. 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:23.480 Well, what I joke with people about this is that 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:26.800 I'm in the sports I like sports cards. And you 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.320 know there's a there is if you're trying to collect 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:33.040 every edition of the American Politics, there is a short print, 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.720 and the short print edition is nineteen seventy six, which 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.679 I would argue is the single most important one of 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.560 my generation because it was the first almanac after the 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.520 Watergate elections, which had this massive transformation, and you. 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:48.520 Were dying to read the Almanac. 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.680 And of all years that they were short printed, that 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.240 was a tough one because I think I spent five 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:56.040 hundred dollars on my nineteen. 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.640 Seventy sixth edition. It was so it was so hard 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:01.560 to find. What I finally got first in nineteen seventy 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.280 two is a senior in high school at a bookstore 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:08.880 my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, and have been addicted to 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.160 it ever since. I think they're at a max of 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.200 twenty two hundred. I think like twenty two hundred pages 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:16.560 is the most I think they could get into that 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:19.000 kind of binding. Is that what it is now? And 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:20.960 that's what that's the limited, That's what it was last 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:22.880 two So I think that's probably what it is. It's time. 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.560 I know you. My essay is about a third or 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:28.200 fourth the size that originally was. Well, this is what 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:28.960 I want to talk about. 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.000 Look, Michael Baron is the guy who came up with 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:33.960 the concept with grand Ujifusa still his name on it. 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.600 He's less involvement. I don't think there's zero involvement. If 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:41.079 I'm not mistakes, He's still pretty involved. But you get 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:44.440 to write the opening essay. Does he write an essay anymore? Yeah? 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:46.960 I think, Well, I haven't seen the new one, but 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:49.880 I believe he's got Yeah. I think there are three, 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:54.799 at least three, Lou Jacobson, who's the quarterbacking the whole thing, 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.240 and Michael. I mean I think so. I think there 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.960 are three, and there may actually be a couple of others, 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.880 but there are a bunch of really really talented people involved. 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.840 Jessica Taylor, you know a lot people you all know well. 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:11.120 As I am a I always say that it is 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:16.680 it's different than most reference books because it you know, 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.600 there's it does have it was it's a better read 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:22.600 than c Q. That's what I used to say, and 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:26.800 I don't CQ sometimes had more information, but it was 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.360 but you learned less about each congressional district. I mean, 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.760 what Barone created was this model of essentially two profiles 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.160 and one and half the profile of each district would 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.360 be about the district and about the economy of the 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:40.720 district and the culture of the district. And it really was, 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.200 you know, helped you understand the tapestry of America. 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:45.960 And then the other, frankly. 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.560 Smaller part, unless it was a well known lawmaker, would 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:50.440 be the profile of the lawmaker themselves. 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:53.880 And literally the now I used to joke you could. 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.960 Track Michael Barone's political evolution by just reading Henry waxman 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.920 biography profiles from Night eighty two versus nineteen ninety six, 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.720 you know, and you could see, you know, the question 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:07.080 is did Henry Waxman change or did Michael Barone change? 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:09.680 But I say this with love. I love Michael and 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.000 his you know, we don't agree at everything, but the. 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:13.560 Guy I'll go with the latter. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.320 But yeah, the guy is was a savant, is a 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.279 savant on this stuff and taught us all to learn, 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:23.560 have to learn America one district at a time. 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.920 A lot of people go from you know, I'm trying 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.839 to come up with a metaphor other than caterpillars and butterflies, 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:34.080 one of this little less less judgmental. But you know, 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:38.160 Pat Cadell, you know, who was always a maverick, but 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:40.960 the last you know, eight ten years of his life, 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:45.080 was much more of a maverick than even he was 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.440 when he was a senior in college. And McGovern's pollster. 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.560 You know, some people are always outsiders, Yeah right, no 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:55.000 matter what, they're always outsiders, Like Bernie Sanders. Strikes me 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:57.839 that he would always find a way to be the outsider. 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.320 Even if he were put in charge. Yeah, you know right, 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:01.839 and in some ways that's Donald Trump. 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.240 Well let's start with Look, the beauty of these of 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.400 these almanacs is it does try to sort of paint 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.720 a picture in a moment, right where are we as 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.240 a country in this moment in time. This will be 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.479 technically the Almanac of American Politics twenty twenty six, but 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:22.760 it's really about twenty twenty four, you know, And what 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.560 did we learn about America in twenty twenty four? And 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.159 what does it say of who we are in this moment. 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:31.400 How did you tackle your essay? 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.880 Well, I have a bit of a contrarian view. To me, 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.040 the twenty twenty four election was kind of a bifurcated 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.120 election that at the presidential level it had one outcome 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:47.080 and then below that it had a very different one 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:53.320 at the top. It's astonishing how broad the declines were 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.560 for Democrats, both geographically and demographically. In fact that the 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:03.240 Catalyst study looked at one hundred different subgroups demographic subgroups, 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.880 and the Democratic percentage declined in ninety two out of 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:09.400 one hundred, and I think it went up in like 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.240 three and say the same at five or something like that. 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:14.080 And then you've seen the ones about you know, the 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.400 countings and stuff. But the thing is, but at the 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.040 same time, it was a tiny bit less than a 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.880 point and a half and so it was a horizontal loss, 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.880 but it wasn't a vertical loss either in the sense 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.760 of it being down that much or but more importantly, 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:36.640 you look down ballot, look at the house. When you 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.040 have it, I mean a gain. Democrats wanted to get 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.120 a majority. Yeah, absolutely, they didn't get it, but they 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:46.680 gained seats. Now do you lose an election if you 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:50.120 gain seats, I mean, you know, you may. It may 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.880 have been a disappointing election, but it wasn't the wipeout 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.520 that people suggest it is. And then you look at 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.440 the Senate races, and you know, if you divide the 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:05.720 country up seven purple states, nineteen blue states, twenty four 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:10.360 red states, Democrats won every one of the races in 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.680 blue states, Republicans won every one of the races in 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:17.160 red states. And there were five Senate races that were 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:19.880 in purple states and Democrats won four out of five. 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.600 But the election is seen as a repudiation of the 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:27.360 entire Democratic Party. No net change in governors, there was 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:30.200 a net gain of one Republican in ags. There was 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.400 no net change in Secretary of State races, and the 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.720 change of Julia Sees. The changes in state legislative seats 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:41.200 was less than a percentage point, So down ballot this 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.360 was about as status quo or predictable election as you 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.000 could possibly possibly get you. 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.160 No, it reminds me, I remember the ninety eight min 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:54.400 terms were barely budged anything. If I remember, I want 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.400 to say five House seats total, maybe not a single 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.360 Senate seat. It may have been zero I think, in fact, 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:03.480 I used to joke, right, Mitch McConnell was the NRSC 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:05.720 chair in two cycles and he had a net loss 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.800 of four in those two cycles ninety eight and two 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.760 thousand and two thousand, they ended up losing seats. But 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:14.560 I remember a headline we came up with at the highline, 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.520 status quo. But wow, right, because the fact that was 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.280 status quo was the shock in ninety eight type of 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:24.520 thing is I think what shocks everybody is a Trump 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.200 won the popular vote, so it feels like it was monumental, 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.560 but when you look at everything else, nothing really budged. 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.080 That's basically what you're what you're kind of saying, Well, 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.880 and you know, we're going through a period where there's 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:41.720 virtually no third party or independent vote, and so you 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:43.520 know there's going to be, you know, likely to be 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.640 a majority, you know, or closetro majority, no matter, no 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:52.800 matter what. But you know, I got a little bit 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.120 more time on my hands. You know, when the last 0:08:55.520 --> 0:09:01.000 Democrat Democratic Senate incumbent lost re election general election in 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:06.960 a blue state, Mark You'dahl in Colorado in twenty fourteen, 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.360 the last Republican to lose in a red state general 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.600 election was Ted Stevens in Alaska in two thousand and eight, 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.400 and that was after he was indicted, but before the 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.880 indictment was reversed, and that nowadays. 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.560 So it's been over a decade, over a decade since 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:30.400 blue stayed blue unless unless the Democrats toxic. 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.280 And the same thing for Republicans in red states is 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:37.560 that basically all the action is in purple states. 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.960 And now Moore, right, like Roy Moore is about what 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:42.800 it takes for a Democrat to win in a red state. 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:47.000 Yeah, no, that's a good definition. Chris Kloback in Kansas, 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.199 in the Kansas governor's race, you. 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:51.960 Know, in my Castle, you know, Mike Castle died earlier 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.360 this week, and they were in fact, I wanted to 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:55.320 make a bigger. 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.040 Note of it because it's funny. 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.240 Mike Castle in some ways as an early victim of 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:05.559 the mega movement. Right twenty ten primary loses to this, 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:09.000 you know, in a small primary. The woman became famous 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:10.720 for doing an ad saying I am not a witch. 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.000 Chris Coons became a Senator for life because of. 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:18.680 It, right, And it was a yeah, it was. I 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.760 remember speaking to a group in Wilmington during that race, 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:26.280 and both Coons and Mike Castle were on the program, 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.920 and I remember listening to Coons because I didn't know 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.320 that much about Coons and thinking, gosh, this guy's pretty good. 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:38.240 If he were everybody other than other than Mike Castle, 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.880 you know, this guy could seem like the Washington generals. 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.319 He was the poor guy that was that they put 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:46.839 up to the because the Delaware politics, it was always 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:48.640 like a year turn type of thing, and it was like, well, 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.920 it was Castle's turn. Everybody likes Castle fine, right, Like 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.160 Biden was barely endorsing Coons at the time. 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.440 It was sort of like that Castle's a good guy. 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.560 It's his turn. Well, small states there, you used to 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:04.679 have these these non aggression packs in small states where 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:09.840 you don't screw with your colleague. And I'm trying to 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.800 decide whether to tell a story or not sure what 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:18.120 the hell I have. It was right after Biden dropped 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:24.200 out of it. It's a it was the Neil Kennick story. 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.079 Well anyway, forty eight, yeah, eighty eight, race eight eighty seven, 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:30.000 eighty eight, nine eighty eight. 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.520 And it was the next time he was up for reelection, 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:38.320 and I get a call from his his AA chief 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.640 of staff, Ted Kaufman saying when are you going to 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.760 be on the hill next? And I said, well, so 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:49.720 go buy. He pulls out this three ring binder blue 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.520 that says Market Opinion Research, you know, which at the 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.320 time was one of the two big Republican polling firms 0:11:56.480 --> 0:12:02.320 had the original and get through where clearly he had 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:07.560 Roth's poll that Roth had had done and was proving 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.640 to me that it had not damaged him in Delaware. 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:14.400 So here was the Democratic chief of staff getting a 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:19.320 Republican polsters, their Republican colleagues polling here. Why don't you 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.560 take a look at this? Well, yeah, in the original notebook, 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.319 So it wasn't even a photocopy. We were talking about 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:31.680 handing over a three inch binder. And you know, you know, 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:33.480 back in the old days you said fun times. I 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.760 had a media consultant one time sitting me down with 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.800 the let me look at all the cross tabs on 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:44.760 a poll that was in anyway, it was basically proving 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.600 that the guy that was likely to win the Democratic 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:52.440 Senate nomination had no chance whatsoever in a general election. 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:55.719 And it was completely conjurary. Well up, you and I 0:12:55.800 --> 0:13:01.440 couldn't cite it, couldn't quote it, but it was it's 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.080 nice to cover an election when you have like really 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:09.680 well informed information. Yeah yeah, but nobody else. That's not 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:10.120 the world. 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.400 It's not the world we live in these days where 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.840 I feel like, you know where I feel like even 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.280 the half I want to share something with you, You're like, 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:18.280 am I being worked? 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:22.880 I being used? Right? Like? And I'm sure you we're 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:24.440 all trying to end. Back in the days when they 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:25.319 were nightly. 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:30.720 Tracking, right, and there was a cycle when I won't 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.160 get specific at all, but where someone was reading to 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:38.480 me the numbers in house races that they were getting 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.880 from their tracking, and they would do a quarter of 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:46.040 the races on Monday Tuesday, another quarter on Wednesday Thursday, 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.840 and then the next week Monday Tuesday, another quarter and 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:50.480 so every other week they had. 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.840 They had current numbers with on all the rays and 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.040 uh yeah, we I look pretty smart that year. 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:00.840 So let me let's I want to talk about a 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.160 conundrum that I consistently talk about, but I'm not one 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.560 hundred percent sure what to do about it, which is, 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.000 we live in an era of weak political parties and 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.960 strong political alliances. Right, the Red and Blue has never 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:17.440 been stronger, and the d N r has never been 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:20.440 weaker discuss To me. 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:25.280 The decline was, we used to have two broad based, 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:34.320 ideologically and geographically diverse parties that overlapped substantially with conservative 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:38.440 Democrats that represented small town, small town rural areas of 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:43.960 the South, whatever, urban Republicans that represent major metropolitan areas 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:48.080 that George Voinovich's or Dick Luger or whatever, and that 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:56.400 each side had moderating influences and that and that the 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:01.440 people on the fringes were marginalized. And it was when 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:07.560 you started seeing the parties sorting out, and that basically 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:12.440 anybody that was remotely conservative abandoning the Democrat Party, anybody 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:16.560 remotely liberal abandoning the Republican Party. And suddenly you know 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:21.200 the distance between, like right now, the distance between the 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.400 most liberal and the least liberal ends of the Democrat 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:27.920 Party aren't that far apart, and the same thing on 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.640 the Republican side, most in least, and yet the gap 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:36.080 in between is the whitest it's ever been. And so 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:41.680 that you have two parties that have no overlap, no 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:48.000 agreement on any significant policy, no agreement on values, and 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:53.240 you know, it's borderline ungovernable. And but to me, it 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:59.480 was when the parties became less diverse and more monolithic 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:05.200 and were inward focused and not uh, they don't even 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:17.720 understand anybody that's not in their in their world. You know. 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:19.960 One of the theories I have, and it's just a theory. 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:20.920 I want to run it by you. 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.080 We were talking about it before we started taping, is 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:28.440 that when when we were ignorant about what voters believed 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.000 and what do I mean by that, which is there 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.200 was sort of a pattern of how of how campaigns 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.440 were run in the eighties and nineties and the modern 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:41.480 TV campaigns. And on October of the election year, Democratic 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.640 incumbent ran the ad that ragged about the Republican they 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.760 worked with to get something passed, and the Republican incumbent 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.880 and state X ragged about working with a Democrat to 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.280 get something done. Because there was this agreement that the 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.840 whoever was undecided by October must be vacillating between the 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:03.440 two parties. They might be some sort of centrist independent, 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.159 not just independent, but some sort of eh, they're a 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.199 little this, a little of that. They really want consensus governing. 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:13.639 So make the pitch who's the most believable consensus builder? 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.879 Is how you win over that vote. And then in 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:19.640 two thousand and four we learn more. Right, micro targeting 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:24.040 became something, and we found out and as the campaigns 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.120 learn more about these undecided voters, they realized, oh, they're 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.440 not centrist, they're independents who don't neatly fit into one 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:32.800 box or the other. But there are a handful of 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.160 issues that they like on our side, so let's exploit them. 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:41.480 Well, I highly commend your substock this morning on this, 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:45.159 and we're to me just wording it slightly differently. In 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:49.760 two thousand and four or probably three, Carl Rove and 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:52.600 his team would be probably met dud and Yon von 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:58.119 Lohausen and Melmott. Right, we're looking at the undecided is 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:02.159 the people that were really in the middle, and realize 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:07.280 those people really don't like President Bush and we could 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:11.760 spend the gross domestic product of many countries and never 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.960 win those people over, so that we either have to 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.040 conceive the election or figure out how to organically grow 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.200 our base because we're not going to get a dispurportant 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.440 share of the people in the middle. And they were 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.360 skillful enough, and we're a radial of ingenuity and we're 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:34.960 able to do that and to me, the whole world 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:40.239 went from persuasion oriented to get out your base. And 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.760 I think one was wrong, but the other's wrong. But 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:45.320 to me, you have to be able to walk and 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:47.359 chew gum at the same time. You need to be 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:51.200 able to persuade the people that are not locked into 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:53.720 either party. But at the same time you do have 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:59.080 to keep your base motivated. But right now, you know, 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:01.560 I think you've got four When we you know, think 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.439 back to the big state the swing state vote polls 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.600 that we saw in the last election, undecided would be 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:13.240 two percent. I mean like that. I mean in the 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:14.440 old days, you saw a poll like. 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.199 Some of the Okay, but there's also a part of 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:22.280 me that believes polling has gotten so so accurate due 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:26.040 to voter files that many times what we are calling 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.760 polls are kind of voter file projections with a little 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:30.639 bit of survey work, yeah, a little bit of a 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:33.639 little bit a little bit of modeling, Yeah, I feel like, 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:36.920 and so when you model it, I don't know. There's 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.760 a part of me that longs for the totally open 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:41.840 and don't go in there and give me a raw 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.119 data set and let me watch the raw data set 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.119 over time I feel like we're so locked into the 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:52.320 voter file companies because we want the most accurate potential poll. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.360 Totally want that based on what we think the electric's 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:55.920 going to be. 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.040 Versus what could the electorate. 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:01.480 Be if you start with just a huge baseline on 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:05.080 adults and then go from there. And I do think, Nope, 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:09.800 there's no mainstream political operative looks at the campaigns that 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.400 way anymore. They almost begin with a voter file, which 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:14.080 means you begin at forty seven percent. 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.959 But let me look at it from a less technical Uh. 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:25.080 You know, it used to be someone who said, you know, Democrat, Republican, independent, 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:29.399 and then he said, well, do you lean Democrat, lean Republican? 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:31.800 And they would vote that way more often than not. 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.880 But right now when you look at people that say 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.639 I'm independent but lean Democrat and you look at their vote, 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.240 how they actually end up voting the virtually at partisan 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:44.960 as Democrats were the same thing on the on the 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.320 Republican side. So that what you've got is forty seven 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:53.200 forty eight percent locked in for either side each side, 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:55.399 and then the two or three percent in the middle 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:58.480 that we used to think of as centrist, you know, 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:02.240 equid distance between the left in the riot. They're not that. Yeah, 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.760 A lot of times these are people they read, watch, 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:10.760 listen to news, current events, less than partisans. They don't 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:15.600 follow politics. They are even more skeptical than other people 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:20.399 are about politicians and parties. And they vote in small, 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:24.680 very small numbers, and so, but there are no defections. 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:29.520 There are no democrats or independent democratically independents that will 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:33.879 ever vote for Republican and vice versa. So there is 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:37.600 no consensus. And we were talking before went on the air. 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:43.719 Was the last landslide defined as ten points or more? Yeah, well, 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.720 first of all, you have to give it to it 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:50.399 would be eighty four. And why not Age? Why not 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:56.520 eighty eight? Eighty eight? I looked at I was actually 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:01.600 just doing some of this. It has been wait, it's 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:06.280 been ten elections since we had a margin of nine 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:11.159 points or more. And that was Reagan eighty four and 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:15.680 this was eight points. I always thought that was a 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:18.560 bigger white. I think it it was. It was like 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:21.040 eight and seven and change. You're a little over eight. 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:24.880 But it did not round to It didn't round Reagan 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:32.880 in nineteen eighty rounded to ten. But I went into 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:35.360 a panic a week or two ago Dave Leap's political 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:42.360 atlas was offline, and I for like days and I thought, 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:44.400 oh my god, what are we going to do? Well? 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:47.800 It was interesting about the Bush docacas because I just 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.600 double checked it myself, because I you know, because Bush 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:53.200 got over four hundred electoral votes. 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:54.359 In your head, you. 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:56.399 Feel like, oh, that must have been a ten point victory. 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.840 And eleven point victory. Well that tells you something about 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:03.000 how you know, he won a lot of states close right, 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:06.359 in order to get in order to get his But 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:08.400 he won every if I'm not mistaken, he won every 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:11.480 big state but New York. Right, he won California, he 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:13.760 won Texas, and he won Florida, And you win those three. 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:16.720 That puts you in a well, that's you know, in 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:18.800 a way you could look at this last election say, 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:22.640 I mean where we are is that very small shifts 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:28.280 in votes are when you have parties that are diametrically 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:32.880