Transcript
Speaker: Hey everybody, Mike Zaleski. Thank you to everyone who over the last couple years supported have all voted a wish. Thank you to the guests who made themselves available.
Speaker: Those episodes are true labors of love and they are all on Spotify, Apple Music, all of the podcast platforms. Please continue to watch listen to them if you haven't already.
Speaker: We are starting fresh with a podcast called The Perfunctory Podcast for any number of reasons. The most honest and brutal reason is I lost access to my old plaque podcast platform and had to restart everything.
Speaker: So what we have today is the hopefully the first of a two-part series. I taped two episodes while we were in this sort of abeyance period, one with Christian Mitchell,
Speaker: who is at the University of Chicago, my former seatmate in the Illinois General Assembly. We taped it after Biden left the ticket and Vice President Kamala kamala Harris became the nominee.
Speaker: It is, in the moment, a very good episode in a discussion of politics and looking back a very good political podcast. Christian's very smart. He knows how to drive a point home.
Speaker: And in both hindsight and in the moment, you learn a lot about, I think, that moment and... What transpired since then, we can sort of discern, but we very much appreciate Christian's appearance on that podcast, and I really wanted to publish it. So Christian Mitchell, part one.
Speaker: We juxtapose that with a podcast that I taped with Ron Holmes, a Pav Hevall-Wish alumni. In veto session, after the after the election was over, at Vinegar Hill, William Vance. Shout out, William Vance, Vinegar Hill, great new coffee spot in Springfield.
Speaker: Again, both in the moment, a very good look at what we were dealing with, and in hindsight, sort of an interesting look back on what was occurring in light of what we know now about the view in Washington, what we're dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker: The Perfunctory Podcast, Part 1, Christian Mitchell, Ron Holmes. We hope to have some more for you soon. Thanks again, everybody, for supporting. We are here with a dear friend, former seatmate, guy who's doing amazing things at the University city chicago university of Chicago, Christian Mitchell. Welcome.
Speaker: Thank you. it's ah It's good to be with you, and it's it's good to see you, buddy. We haven't done this podcast in a while. The reason why stretches different reasons. The last 100 days in politics cried out for a podcast.
Speaker: And there's been a ton of podcasts. I won't pretend like it hasn't been covered. But a I don't think it's been covered from an Illinois perspective. And B, I think there's not nearly enough podcasts.
Speaker: attention paid to it given the historical nature of it. And I thought you'd be an interesting guy to talk to about it. Before the podcast, you looked at your phone and you said, oh my God, and I assumed something else had happened.
Speaker: Fortunately, not about that. So, yeah. What were your impressions of the debate that day? Because I think that's where it all started. And I'm interested from a guy who practices politics, understands how a campaigns run,
Speaker: obviously attenuated to Illinois specifically. What were your impressions that day? How did you feel? Yeah, I mean, I imagine like a lot of other people in politics, I watched the debate live as did others. And, um you know, by about 10 or 15 minutes in, it was kind of like, oh, my God, this is going really badly.
Speaker: um And really badly, frankly, in ah in a different at a different level than I'd seen before. So I was on the Obama campaign in 2012, but for my First primary win and then getting actually sworn in you know, in Illinois, like, there's not really a Republican primary in Chicago. And so I had time. I was on the paid media side of the campaign.
Speaker: So famously, President Obama had a pretty rough first debate. But it was more, it was it was lethargy. it was clear he was kind of off. It was out of character, right? And I think that that the problem, as you know, in politics is always the worst thing that can happen is something that confirms what people already think they know.
Speaker: And i think that people were looking, myself and others included, and saying, hey, this is ah Joe Biden's been a magnificent president. He's done amazing things. He's probably had the most consequent consequential legislative success since, what, probably Lyndon Johnson.
Speaker: um But this is rough, and it's to slowing down. and And in this time when democracy itself is on the line, this is really bad. And you know It's one thing when like you know all of us who do this professionally are kind of texting each other and saying, hey, like this is not going well. It's another when you know my mother, for example, who I adore and and has really great instincts but is not a professional politico, is texting me like, baby, this is bad.
Speaker: right And so that's kind of the moment I was like, OK, this is kind of going to break through middle you know non-political America in a way that could be really, really rough. I was in Oregon driving back along. um I think I was like in Oregon among the in the country.
Speaker: I only got to listen to it, which is an interesting experience for that day because I didn't have a visual on Biden's sort of gaze and the way he was looking off camera and the way he was responding to Trump.
Speaker: My reaction was. Man, he he's letting things he's letting Trump get away with things that he a replacement-level candidate would have to punch back on.
Speaker: Reproductive choice, our choice you know career conviction, threat to democracy. And I also thought in the second half of the debate, he picked it up a little bit. I thought the first half was awful. I thought the second half was a little bit better.
Speaker: Kerry had the same reaction as your mom. She texted me and said, this is awful. I don't know what we're going to do about this. So there was clearly – and she had visuals. So there was clearly a different reaction amongst substance versus optics, and I think that it was reflective in the way it all fell out.
Speaker: Did you have empathy for President Biden? And I guess that's a stupid question, but did you sort of – think that it was going to go the way it did that maybe that's the way to phrase it did you the simplest answer Occam's razor is ah guy drops out because the party lines up against him but it kind of felt that maybe that wasn't going to happen because he had dug in did you see it happening the way did no I mean this is obviously how it went is obviously historic and and up to that point I think he had had run actually a a really good campaign
Speaker: But that was, it seemed like ah just a fracture point, right? It seemed like um this is something different than we've seen before. And I think that once, there were a lot of, I think, fears and anxiety that had built up over the past year or so, right? Nobody was going to challenge an incumbent president.
Speaker: um But I think a lot of people kind of looked back on some of the quotes he'd given when he was running in 2020. It's like, I'm a bridge to a new generation. it kind of implied that maybe he was only going to do this for one term. And I think that um those folks who were kind of like, OK, well, you said this, but hey, you're the president, you run for your election, we've got to defer to you, um found a permission structure um to raise those voices again. right People looked up and said, how is it that we've got Senate and congressional candidates running ahead of the president, but like not enough to escape the gravitational pull if if this really goes as badly as we think it does. And so when the polls started coming back and when you know some of the luminaries in the party, like Speaker Pelosi, started saying, hey, let's give him time rather than we're with him to the hilt, um that that was a bit of a canary in the coal mine that said you know this may not be sustainable. And the donations started to dry up in ways that were not just going to affect the president and obviously the contest for democracy.
Speaker: but also other candidates and and in places like Congress that would end up being the bulwark if indeed the presidency was lost again to to Donald Trump. That's when I think the snowball just became too large and too fast.
Speaker: There was reporting that last Sunday he got a briefing that he was starting to put states in play that would never have been in play with, ah again, a replacement-level Democrat. I think it was Virginia New Mexico. yeah I give him a lot of credit for being cold-blooded calculus in that moment and saying, look, I'm firmly firmly of the belief I can no longer win.
Speaker: So in that moment, he leaves and he decides he's not going to be – the the nominee, were you surprised at how fast Vice President Harris consolidated? um that It happened on that Sunday. It was not a few days. It wasn't a lot of hemming and hawing.
Speaker: It felt in about three hours, in in a carefully orchestrated rollout of the announcement, his endorsement of her, her being able to make about a dozen phone calls, that she had it locked down. Did any of that surprise you Yes and no.
Speaker: um So i'll start with um I'll start with the yes. The yes only in that orchestrating something of that, as you know, you've been in politics for a long time, orchestrating something of moderate complexity is incredibly difficult. Something of this yeah level of national significance, quelling the ambitions of others, getting people lined up, trying to push people off of wanting to cut deals, it takes extraordinarily level of skill. and And I think that's credit to the vice president as well as the people around her and other, again, people in the party.
Speaker: that it got done that quickly. So that surprised me. The reason why I say also no is I think that um there has been a clear focus from the beginning of this campaign. The president articulated it. Everyone else has as well.
Speaker: We have to be Donald Trump. He cannot be allowed back to the White House. It is it is the question of the future of NATO. It is a question of the future of the Pacific and Taiwan. It's a question of democracy and whether the middle class is going to have a fair shot.
Speaker: And so in that sense, I think people looked up and kind of said, we don't need drama. We don't need to have the kind of convention mess that could, you know, publicize dysfunction on television. Let's get behind this person who has the experience and and has the backing of the incumbent president who's just done this incredibly selfless thing, first president since Lyndon Johnson, to say, I'm going to step aside. And so that's kind of a hard thing to go against. But still, like, to do it that quickly, i think it was because people wanted to avoid drama.
Speaker: Did you have any sort of reaction to the Sorkin fever dream, let's do four weeks of reality show television where Taylor Swift hosts a candidate forum? I did i ah for a couple reasons. One, it was pretty clear only the vice president could take over the Biden-Harris campaign account.
Speaker: They would have had, based on reporting, could be wrong, but the way I understood it, they would have had to transfer all that money back into the DNC and then somehow rewash it into a new nominee's account. And that field felt kind of crazy to me.
Speaker: But also, you would have gone a month without having anyone making the case against Donald Trump. Now, a lot of people would have done it in their own vacuums, but not in a unified voice. So I'm wondering if, as ah again, ah someone with political senses, if that struck you as concerning that maybe the Democratic Party would get a little star struck as opposed to bearing down and actually focusing on the task at hand.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think timing, as you know, is one of the most important things in politics. So if this had happened ah couple weeks ago, if this happened um a couple of months ago, then yeah, I think something where we showcase the incredible bench of the Democratic Party. That's the thing, Mike, I'm most excited about is you know Unlike our friends on the Republican side who had to dredge up a weird guy with a thing with a couch to be vice president, like we have this really exciting bench of people, of you know young governors, of mayors who are very diverse and interesting and talented and young. And so like I think showcasing that could have been really exciting.
Speaker: But that was months ago. That was weeks ago. And when we are are you know roughly a month out from a convention, that just becomes more difficult. So I, it by the way the last Sorkin fever dream that I read was that we should nominate Mitt Romney. So I'm going say is stick to the West Wing. okay Great show. Love it. Watch it for nostalgia.
Speaker: Maybe not making political suggestions because that one's a little nuts. So assess us assess for us right now. It feels very good. i think mildly surprising to us how the party, at least to me, how the party has coalesced around the vice president.
Speaker: There was a double hater problem, clearly. There were people that were like, I am not interested in voting for either of these two, and they both are kind of bad for the country, for the future.
Speaker: We don't have a double hater problem anymore. We have a third option, which is a very unique, something can be very unique, apologies, something that is unique to American politics, especially in this century.
Speaker: Do you think what may be a Vice President Harris sugar high will actually turn into sustained growth, or is there gonna be a calm ah come down here and ah you know resetting and realignment of the race?
Speaker: to where it just becomes a grudge match? It's a really good question. I think the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. So and I think it depends on a couple things. One, it depends on the kind of campaign they run, right? And they've got you know smart professionals over there. our Our old friend from Illinois, Quentin Folks, is the chief deputy campaign manager for for Biden. i I hope he stays on with with Vice President Harris in a new and enhanced role because he did a really fantastic job.
Speaker: The kind of campaign they run is going to matter. How do they... you know, kind of sharpen the issues down to drive contrast with Trump. She's started doing that so far, which is to say, like, he's a felon.
Speaker: I'm a prosecutor. This one's pretty simple. I've seen his type before. I'm to be fighting for the middle class. He's fighting to stay out of jail. If they can be grinding in that message and then making sure that their policy is touching the kitchen table issues that Americans care about, from inflation to making sure that we're creating new high-tech jobs and giving access to those to communities historically locked out.
Speaker: I think as long as it doesn't just become he's really bad and I'm not him, but he's really bad, he's a threat to democracy, and in addition to fighting that threat, here's also what we're going to do to make your life better, to drive down gas prices, to increase the amount of money you feel like you have in your pocket. I think they can do a really, really nice job, and that can sustain.
Speaker: I also think that um ultimately they had a really good fundraising month. I mean, probably one the—I think they had the best 24 hours of fundraising. They've got to keep doing that. They've got to make sure that she drives the contrast in doing rallies all over the country, showing her energy.
Speaker: And now all of a sudden, the race have between two octogenarians, it's our party has just said that when you get to a certain point, you need to step aside and usher in the next generation. want to remind you that Donald Trump, the Cheeto, is only two years younger than the current president is.
Speaker: I'm the candidate with the energy. I'm the candidate pushing and fighting for the future. So if you run a really good campaign and you drive that contrast, I think that she can sustain this through Election Day. You mentioned Quentin. Interesting thing about Quentin, he knows Georgia.
Speaker: Georgia felt lost under the Biden map. How much do you think she can re-energize and create new paths to map the map for them that otherwise wouldn't have been available? Because pre-withdrawal, it felt like Georgia may be off the table, Arizona may be off the table.
Speaker: um States where Biden had clearly done enough in 2020 were no longer available. Do you think the vice president has the ability to unlock the places like Georgia and Arizona this time around. I do. I do. I think especially Georgia. I think you know she's an African-American and South Asian woman, but um I think that she's going to excite the base. I think you've seen that. There were a couple of Zoom calls I wasn't able to make, the one that was was black men for Harris, but there were black men and black women for Harris that kind of broke Zoom. There was a white women for Harris call that apparently broke Zoom last night with people like Pink and Connie Britton. I'm available for the white guy for Harris ah Zoom. Absolutely. i you know We'll make sure we pass that up the chain. i But I do think that she probably takes New Mexico and Virginia back off the map. right She can drive the contrast. you You said something earlier I wanted to to go back to, which is you know there was that kind of layup moment on Roe versus Wade in that first debate, and and the president just kind of missed it. He's you know lost a bit of speed on his swing.
Speaker: She's not going to miss that. yeah right if she's If she's the 2016 2020 Harris who was you know going after um the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, and others in in those committees, yeah very sharp-witted and and able to drive that contrast, she is going to be really good on that issue in a way that is going to, i think, energize that suburban base, that suburban base of women, take those states off the table. And then if she is driving young people, driving progressives, we've seen some of those groups start to consolidate behind her, they're going to be incredibly important in Arizona. And of course, base African-American voters who
Speaker: She's going after the Divine Nine. She's been at the AKA conventions and others. um If she can drive enthusiasm, get people doing that kind of friend-to-friend program, I think that she can do very, very well. But they've got to run a really good, really disciplined campaign, good field operation, turn out the boat.
Speaker: You, as an advisor to the 2018 Prisker campaign, helped pick a running mate. What were you looking for then? What kind of things helped shape a running mate choice in your mind? Now, again, it's vastly different for a presidential versus a gubernatorial, but what what yeah are you looking for a good teammate? Are you looking for someone who shores up a constituency you don't ah you don't feel like you have your arms around?
Speaker: um I saw a tweet ah from a Brooklyn wine shop where someone said, we have more interesting whites than the Kamala shortlist. What would you be telling the campaign about a running mate right now? but it was actually a There was a tweet from a wine shop that was like Kamala's choices for vice president. It was like...
Speaker: ah Bright, crispy whites, rich whites. It was kind of – and I think that the – I disagree a bit with the the media fascination on this. I think that a lot of what I've seen is when you got to pick somebody from a swing state, which ignores the fact that Joe Biden is from Delaware and Kamala Harris is from California and Mike Pence was from Indiana. And those are what I'd call swing states, right? So I think that people – I think presidential campaigns pick running mates ah for a couple reasons.
Speaker: I think um the biggest is often what do you lack, right, or what are you perceived to lack? So President Obama back in 2008 picked Joe Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, brought gravity on foreign policy. and so i think question I'd be asking if I were Vice President Harris is like, OK, well, what does the world think that I need? And so maybe that is, sure, somebody who is a bit more moderate because somehow she's gotten this wild-eyed progressive mantle applied to her by by Donald Trump. Whether that's true or not, it's kind of a different question.
Speaker: you know, what are what what question are you trying to answer or what do you lack, right? Maybe you want somebody with more business experience. Maybe you want somebody who is really, really focused on infrastructure because you as vice president, you've been to the Munich Security Conference. You kind of are seen to have that foreign policy, world affairs credential already. Somebody who's going to focus you on the the domestic affairs, the bridges, the roads, those kitchen table issues.
Speaker: So it's kind of what do you what do you think you lack? In some cases, it's also who doesn't make people wish the names were reversed, right? So sometimes it's a question of like what the wattage is at the bottom of the ticket. But I think Vice President Harris is a pretty secure person. So imagine it's going to be, you know, what do what message do I want to send and who's ready on day one?
Speaker: All right. I don't know. i hope everyone can hear me. We are actually at Vinegar Hill in William Vance in beautiful Springfield. We are back with Mr. Ron Holmes. um It's good to have you back. Thanks for having me.
Speaker: Woosa. Woosa. That didn't work out, man. Woosa. Woosa did not do what we needed it to do. Yeah. um what where Where were you on election night?
Speaker: Yeah, so on election night, I was actually in Houston, Texas. um I, somewhere around 7 o'clock, decided to go play basketball with the understanding that we were going to have either a late night or several other days before we knew anything.
Speaker: I think I got back to the house around like 9.30 or so. And then it was at that moment that like things started to become a little more clear about ah where things were heading. Yeah. I saw, i was at WGN that night.
Speaker: I was in the green room, the waiting room, and there was exit polling from Georgia, listing issues most important.
Speaker: Economy was number one. Threat to democracy was in the ballpark. Reproductive health and immigration were far behind. And I'm like, what yeah is going on right now?
Speaker: um Were you surprised by that? The economy i was running roughshod over everything. No, I wasn't. I think when we all look backwards, those sides were always there, right? there's There's a reason, I think, that President Biden wanted talk about Bidenomics, right?
Speaker: And so somehow along the way, and all the chaos of everything happening in everyone's lives, we kind of drifted away. And I spent time in the last three weeks in Texas, Colorado, and Arizona.
Speaker: And in all of those states, there was some economic message coming from President Trump, which, again, he didn't outspend Democrats, but certainly, like, they spent money on ads that made a lot of sense for their constituencies.
Speaker: Did you think the Charlamagne ad was blown out of proportion, or did you feel the potency more than people wanted to give it potency? Yeah. i i So the Charlamagne ad is interesting, right? Because I think what it did was encapsulated the feelings of some other folks that were already thinking of it.
Speaker: Yeah. Right? And so... I think it was less about Charlemagne, but more so about, like, hey, what is the strategy to actually deal with this constituency? And what we, I think, saw over the last two months of the campaign, which I guess last two-thirds of the campaign, really, right, when you think about, like, the number of days, is almost a a chasing of...
Speaker: things that existed well before she became the nominee. Yes. But having to go backwards to say, like, okay, like, we knew this was a problem, but we didn't know how bad of a problem this could Yes. I don't know about it.
Speaker: I think that's the cool part.
Speaker: Do you think... ah One posit I had was that she, the the vice president, had the burden of incumbency without any of the benefit. Yeah.
Speaker: Like throwing yourself in with whatever amount of time left and having to run on someone else's plan like record without being able to define yourself.
Speaker: And like it by then, it in hindsight, no one gave her credit for the work that had been done in our previous podcast. You talked a lot about our the economy in our previous podcast.
Speaker: Was she, in knowing what we know now, do was there anything she could have done different in your mind to overcome that specific problem? The lack of credit vis-a-vis the burden of inflation?
Speaker: It's tough because... and one we In one respect, she's running as the vice president. In the other respect, she's running as a basically a first-time presidential candidate. I think people don't remember that like you know Vice President Harris did not make it to Iowa. yeah right And so in a little over 100 days, she is now in uncharted territory.
Speaker: I do wonder, one of the interesting things for me was wondering how they were going to use Joe Biden over the course of those 100 days. And we didn't see, I think, things that could have been done differently, right? And so ribbon cuttings over a lot of the capital projects that were out there never happened, right? And so, like, you would imagine, you know, if you want to leverage the vice presidency, she goes with Joe Biden, she cuts ribbons, builds bridges, et cetera. We didn't see any of that.
Speaker: And so unfortunately for her, yeah, in those 100 days, like she was just lumped in on day one as joe Biden's, you know, governing partner. And in some cases, the person actually running the government for the last three years, which is insane, but it's a message that stuck.
Speaker: ah One thought I had when she did the ELIP speech, which was all threat to democracy. It was a little bit America apple pie, but mostly threat to democracy. And that was Joe Biden's number one lockdown hit get be hit closer.
Speaker: And I felt at the time, like, I understand that argument. Like, I think everyone that cares about democracy was going to vote for her. yeah I just think they'd already decided to vote for her. yeah And I don't know if in the moment they had enough dexterity to realize they were not penetrating an economic argument and therefore they had to go back to what what was going to work for them or if they just didn't see the writing on the wall. i don't I'm interested to know...
Speaker: from your perspective, if there was an overemphasis on traditional democratic values like reproductive health, like threat to democracy, where they were too focused on get out the vote and they weren't as focused narrowly on the limited bandwidth of who hadn't decided yet?
Speaker: Yeah, look, neither one of us have the advantage of knowing what internal polling looks like. But I certainly did think this is an odd choice. It's much more a stop that I would think would have happened earlier in the cycle. And so maybe, you know, within the first 15 days, it's it's a campaign speech versus in the closing days of the campaign.
Speaker: And so I wonder what they were seeing internally to kind of make some of those decisions. ah But certainly, i think there's a reality that, like, a lot of folks looked around at that. I mean, also, I mean, quite frankly, i was in Houston during the Beyonce rally, and there was a giant reproductive health sign-up. And I'm like, okay, this is an interesting choice in Texas, right?
Speaker: And, you know, like, do I think that... it was a wrong choice to talk about these things? No, but I do think at the amount of nauseam that some of these things could have been construed, probably. And so like what what does that that marketing mix look like?
Speaker: I think it's gonna be questioned, right? Because one of the things you know as a lawyer is like, okay, tell me what you're gonna tell me, tell me again, tell me, right? and In traditional comms, you say seven impressions. Everyone knew Donald Trump was a felon.
Speaker: Everyone knew that he was a threat to democracy. And so if you didn't know it by then, That speech wasn't going to help you make up your mind. And so I do wonder, like did we over-talk about some of these things in opportunities where we could have talked about we going to make things easier for people on a day-to-day basis? yes we I taped podcast with Christian Mitchell that's going to hopefully air in the same episode at the time you and I are sitting here.
Speaker: i asked him a question that I want to ask you too. It goes to my earlier point about incumbency. Can people even run on incumbency anymore? Is that even a thing? like Because she did not... I mean, the the the Biden-Harris record was not inconsiderate. It was Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker: It was clean energy. It was a lot of things that a Democrat 10 years ago could have hung their hat on. And no one seemed to care because they just felt like...
Speaker: chaos agent Donald Trump was the guy that was going to say solve their future problems.
Speaker: Does incumbency even matter at this stage in our politics? So you you raised the point earlier about what were the top issues important to people. One of the things that I don't think we've spent enough time talking about kind of post-election is simply like favorability amongst government institutions.
Speaker: Right. Right? And so I do think that there's been this... overriding sentiment in the last decade plus, really, of like the desire to have an outsider, less and less about, like oh, I don't care like how long you've been in this office, but instead, like how are you going to change the system? Because right now, the system isn't working for me. And so chaos is fine, because right now, in my belief, yeah the government isn't serving me well anyway. and so like I think about the favorability of the federal government And as a huge, like, hey, like, there's this thing, this iceberg that none of us were paying attention to.
Speaker: But I think it gets directly to your question about incumbency, right? Like, it's less about the incumbency, but more so about whether or not people think government is serving them well today. And I think we're seeing not only from the likely electorate, which is what we poll instead of, like, the larger body for a variety of reasons, but what we know is that for the majority of Americans,
Speaker: not the voting Americans, but the majority of Americans, government is not working a way that they feel is ideal. And so we've got to take that into account. Do Democrats need their own Trump? Like, do we need somebody that is outside the realm of politics to come in regardless of their policy core, which, let's face it, the I think the future the past president and future president you know His policy cores are not the reason people are enamored with the guy.
Speaker: I wonder if we need sort of a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party at the top of the ticket to compete with this short attention span theater electorate we have. I'm not there yet.
Speaker: I still believe that there's a record to run on, and we're just not good at explaining it. Okay. But I do believe that Democrats have to do more listening than they do talking.
Speaker: And so, like, you know, everyone's a lecturer in chief these days, including some of the later so surrogates from the campaign. And I do think there's a reality that...
Speaker: Whoever decides to take the mantle next time around has to be someone that understands what families are going through on a day-to-day basis. Cannot be in any way a Washington insider that doesn't understand the cost of eggs or the cost of milk.
Speaker: And so I don't know what that person looks like. I don't know who they are. I don't know where they come from. But it's something we have to consider, I think, in an open primary that we're going have a couple years from now.
Speaker: Did Illinois specifically, there's a lot of like Twitter back channeling right now, and I guess now Blue Sky, about Illinois wasn't really that bad. once the And here's the thing, like words went to Trump.
Speaker: Chicago words went to Trump. That is just positive. Yeah.
Speaker: i don't I hate asking did this all surprise you, but what did you make of that slimming of the Democratic advantage from four years ago, Illinois specifically?
Speaker: Well, I would also just put in context that in a lot of these areas, we didn't really have a ah statewide apparatus running, right? So there was there was no – Right.
Speaker: There was no top of the ticket. There no top of the ticket. And so essentially you had legislative races and school board races. So, again, if you were an apathetic Chicago voter in some of these areas, you probably didn't show up to vote.
Speaker: But those that did went for Trump. I think if you look at some of these wards, it's not a matter of being more conservative. I mean, some of these wards went for Bernie over Hillary, the same wards that voted for Trump. And so it's not an ideological thing.
Speaker: But again, your to your point, it might be a little bit of a chaos season thing that says, like, hey, we don't want the you know progressive or the more established figure representing us in Washington. You said Democrats need to do more listening. less how got the Cam Buckner, Representative Buckner, talks about it. you need We need more of a thermometer and less of a thermostat.
Speaker: That sounds like a canvism. Yeah, hes he's he's all over Twitter, he's all over X with it. I don't know quite what that looks like ah because in Illinois, I think we have done things that recognized underrepresented communities.
Speaker: We've done things that recognize the need for quality. And I think when you say things like that, there's going to be an inclination to think that somehow what we did was wrong, when in reality that's not what I don't think you're saying. I don't think that's what Cam's saying. I just think, have we are we too is this state too much of an echo chamber, of a Democratic echo chamber where maybe like maybe we can be the first ones to turn the pendulum a little bit, to be like, hey, guys,
Speaker: we're not seeing something here that we need to dial in on. Yeah. This is, this is the part of the the podcast that gets you and I in trouble. Um, good edit function. Yeah. Like the reality is, is I think Democrats here have done a lot, but we haven't done enough.
Speaker: Right. And so for some of these communities, they want more and they deserve more. Yeah. And so the question is, um, not only in terms of the elected representation, but at the staff level, the consultant class, right? Like all of those folks have to be connected to communities in a way that they historically have not.
Speaker: And, you know, you're you're an elected, right? Like, you hire a poster, you hire a TV firm, and they tell you what worked on a race six years ago, eight years ago. yes Oh, yeah, we cut this ad. This is going great for you, right?
Speaker: Times have changed. People are consuming media differently. The economy is different. And so, like, we have to have not necessarily a reset, but we have to get back in tune with, like, what these communities are facing on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker: and And quite frankly, do they understand the things that Democrats are trying to accomplish? Not necessarily what the individual bills are, but like what is the North Star of like what we're all trying to work towards?
Speaker: Does this all feel a little chaotic to you right now? Like this does like the uncertainty of Illinois specifically, let's call it out. Yeah. the The national scene, like, does it all feel like things like you said about how pollsters advise candidates eight years ago?
Speaker: I believe pollsters' math. I don't know that in 2024 would believe a polling number on what I should do about yeah math. Yes, yes. And, like, that puts a whole consultant class out of business if we don't figure it out.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't. This is a time of great uncertainty. And I think we all have to look inward and figure out, like, are we offering our best selves in this moment?
Speaker: And that includes the consultant types, right? Like, am i do I need to revise my methods? Do I need to also get back in tune with what constituencies feel like, right? And so, like, the best pollsters right now are doing exit interviews. ah They're doing focus groups to see what went wrong.
Speaker: and And hopefully they're talking to the people that didn't vote too, right? Yes. Because the other thing that I think isn't talked about enough over the course of this cycle is Donald Trump's desire to expand the electorate.
Speaker: Yes. While Democrats were working to turn out the folks that we thought would traditionally be with us, regardless of where we thought. they felt about the economy or some of these other issues, right? And so the question is, like, what are we doing make sure that this party is intact 10 years from now?
Speaker: ah it What you mentioned goes to something that I experienced the day after the election. i talk about my kids on the podcast, but this was a little instructive.
Speaker: Trump had won. The girls came at $3 and a boy. Girls came downstairs upset. group chats, this is not good. what We don't feel good about what happened.
Speaker: And my spouse and I were like, guys, like we did i did we did the parenting thing that probably may not be the smartest thing, but is the thing we know the best at. We said we've been through this before and we know yeah what to do.
Speaker: Let us do the worrying. You guys go to school. It'll all be fine. I don't know if that's true or not. i think it i think I'd like to think it is, but like we tried to put their mind to these. 13-year-old boy comes down the stairs.
Speaker: Mom, who's apple of eye, by the way. comes downstairs. She asks him, what did you think about the election? His exact quote was, it doesn't really affect me because none of this matters to me.
Speaker: That's a direct quote. And in that moment, like kids are going off to school, like chaos of the morning. I looked at Kerry and I said, that that's a little instructive right there.
Speaker: That guy yeah is not getting connected with. And like I know it's uncouth to suggest that white men, you know, are we coddling white men enough in the electorate? that i don't that's not by the that's That's not by any means the argument I'm making.
Speaker: But I don't know that we're communicating with them. yeah And I don't know that we're motivating them to pull a Democratic ticket. And I don't know that i don't know that we know how to do that. So as a black political consultant, I'm interested, do you think I'm overthinking any of that? No, and but i also don't think this conversation is exclusive to white men. Yeah. Right? And so black men feel the same way, right?
Speaker: And evidently so do Latino men. Yeah. Right? And so the the question again is, in this age where we're seeing –
Speaker: and increasing demographic usage on social media where they're talking about some of these things. you know The Seth Rogen phenomenon I think is a real thing, right? And it's you know it's ironic we're sitting in a like coffee booth for a very Larry David-like conversation. But there there are there are folks that that clearly believe that political conversations are a place where you have to come in a certain way, suit and tie, talk in a certain way.
Speaker: And because those conversations are uncomfortable, they're not willing to go there. So they're having their own. And these silos exist in our country where they're telling us on a day-to-day basis what they feel, what their grievances are.
Speaker: And there's no one providing that counterbalance to say, like, I get you. Here's what we're working when to solve those issues. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, I look, I don't go to barbershops anymore. I stopped during COVID, you know, shaved my head. But like the reality is for years before that you go to black barbershop, you can get a really good idea of what what black men are thinking.
Speaker: You can go in ah a nail shop and get a really good idea a black women are thinking. And the idea that like, again, we've changed over the last 20, 30 years. And so even institutions like the black church or the Catholic church, institutions that historically have been able to kind of bridge that divide for Democrats.
Speaker: Like, they are not what they used to be, right? And so we have to be prepared to be nimble and, like, meet people where they are. Or they'll continue to have these conversations without us. did Did you think President Obama's...
Speaker: his remarks, think it was probably like a month before, did it feel pedantic or did it feel like he needed to to do things necessary to like recognize there was a problem?
Speaker: So what I would say is when you looked around at that stage in the campaign, there were not a lot of figures that could quite frankly communicate with these conversations. Absolutely not. and Now, do I agree with his message?
Speaker: No. But do I think that ah you know the consultant types looked up and so said, like hey, like this is all we got. like He's our best chance to communicate this. Sure.
Speaker: yeah If that same consultant class talked to you know normal folks that had received the Obama-like lecture before, they they probably would have said, like, yo, like yeah sometimes not doing something is better than doing something, right? And so, yeah, it's troubling. Like, again, like the Democratic Party has to find surrogates that can relate to the folks that vote every day or have the option to vote in any election. And right now, that bench doesn't exist. I mean, I was not the ascended audience of that conversation.
Speaker: what What it felt like it was designed to do was appeal to the notion that black women had always had black men's candidates' backs. And, like...
Speaker: this is the time for there to be parody there. And i don't know that it resonated that way. and for whatever for like For a lot of reasons. like i Probably any number of reasons you could attribute that to. But it that I just was, I'm interested to That felt like, first of all, it felt like a little bit of a glowing red light from whoever was briefing the president on polling.
Speaker: yeah Like, hey, we got an issue got an issue here. yeah You know, like there's there's clearly a lag in terms of what was being said. A couple more minutes.
Speaker: Illinois specifically, do you think that there's going to be, I'll say it this way, What kind of realignment do you expect going into 2026?
Speaker: A big one, a medium-sized one, or a little one in terms of top of the ticket, medium-sized ticket? Do you think that there is a hue and cry for – does this change your perspective on things, the Trump victory? 26 or 28? 26. The midterms? Yeah, so as far as 26 goes, and I get the same text that you get, right, or same alert that you get.
Speaker: Trump names new cabinet member, right? And we're all like, what is going on? I don't, if you asked me today, if I was a betting man, what I would say is like a lot of these names that you're hearing aren't going to make it all the way to the midscripts, right? Just because of the nature of the apprentice-like style by which Donald Trump governs.
Speaker: But i also believe that 26 can't be the barometer for Democrats. It has to be how do you keep people motivated through 28.
Speaker: I firmly believe that based on where we are today in our society, that if someone, if we had massive turnout in 26, and the reality is is that you know Donald Trump still controls the Supreme Court and the White House, that lives probably won't be impacted that much by whatever winds happen at the congressional level.
Speaker: And so for a burnt-out electorate that has said that these elections may or may not matter to them, how do you then keep them motivated all the way through the presidential, which is the ultimate goal? And so I i don't know what my crystal ball tells me. I do think that, like, how Donald Trump...
Speaker: as a partner with large states will matter. I don't think that he continues to demonize them. I think we saw this during COVID as well. And so i I'm worried. At the same time, I'm i'm curious to see like what happens when Donald Trump starts picking on governors and mayors.
Speaker: Well, how are these governors and mayors? going to balance it's it's goingnna be really hard to balance the need to fight for your constituents against the specter of a Trump presidency. yeah like like that That's something that I don't envy, both the governor and the mayor. like yeah I would not want to have to do the job of collaborating with the federal government while at the same time making it clear that we've made Illinois blue oasis for a reason and we're quote unquote not going back. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. And look, so both the mayor and the governor have a really distinct challenge. but also an opportunity and how they balance that is going to be really interesting to watch.
Speaker: I do think that the responsible thing to do, quite frankly, is to be governors and mayors during this time and not lead too early on the political side.
Speaker: I think there is clearly a political advantage, as you know, to running against Trump in a race in Illinois and Chicago. But if they've got ambitions outside of the state, like i would just – for the sake of governance, caution them about like going too quickly.
Speaker: I, I, yeah. Um, right. A couple of minutes left. We're go finish on that note. Um, we are in a vinegar Hill and you were telling me before we sat down that there is an excellent place to watch some soccer in this place. Yeah. Uh, Trisha Mary's, uh, public house.
Speaker: Uh, if you're ever stuck in Springfield on a weekend, uh, during May, you can check out some premier league games here. Uh, pretty good pub. Uh, lots of beer options. And, uh, Pretty cool place to out. you have an adopted Premier League team? I do. everybody does. I do.
Speaker: I do. I'm a Man City guy, okay which comes to the disdain of a lot my Arsenal friends. What does that mean in terms of NFL? Yeah, so unfortunately, if you ask non-Man City fans, you will see we're like...
Speaker: All right. Well, it took the baseball, like the Yankees. You're like rooting for the Yankees and the Cowboys. But the reality is, is like when I started rooting for this team or club, they were not winning games.
Speaker: so Okay. And so at the time, the other team from Manchester, Manchester United, was a winner. And so, you know, I entered Premier League at a time where Demarcus Beasley, former Chicago Fire guy, went over to Man City. And I was rooting for them. And then, like, I've got a thing about, like, basketball. Like, I...
Speaker: I'm a huge Kobe Bryant fan, but I've never been a Lakers fan. In the same way, I'm a huge Terry O'Ree fan, but not an Arsenal fan. And so I'm assuming that 95% of the people that listen to this podcast won't understand any of that, but that's kind of where I am on all this. What should we be doing better to get people interested in soccer?
Speaker: Listen, I, well, one, I think one of the biggest things that happened in the last couple of years is that the Chicago Fire moved from Bridgeview into the city of Chicago. How they decide to go about doing neighborhood programs, getting youth teams is going to be really important.
Speaker: As you know, like the Sox and Cubs have done pitches all over ah the Chicago Park District. We've got to see that for soccer. It is one of the most low-entry point sports that you can play. And quite frankly, the athleticism required.
Speaker: is substantial in a way that, like, I think kids from Chicago would be great. And so we've got to do that. It's also a huge opportunity for sports for good, right? And so we're keeping people off the streets when they're on the um I think I know the answer to this question. Did Joe Mansueto's comments about stadium construction surprise you at all?
Speaker: He's in a different position, I think, than some of the other teams that exist. for For folks that have been to an MLS game and a team that in a city that has a larger stadium, one of the things that they know is that often MLS games are played at a smaller pitch, and if an international game comes out, and that's when you kind of get the Soldier Field concept. Yeah.
Speaker: I think for anyone that's trying to build out a culture, they don't want kids showing up for the first time and they're at a stadium that that might be somewhat full, but it's not full of capacity. and So I think he's looking for an environment that makes sense for like the new fan that's going to come to game. What he said that surprised me was how bad stadiums are in terms of an investment.
Speaker: Like that's an honest statement like you you we all go to these places and we spend $500 and we think we know what it takes and we think everyone's making money off of it and that was a guy who's in a in a position to know telling us they're really bad Socioeconomic investments and I was surprised to hear him say that it was a refreshing Yeah, i mean, they've got to be anchors. I think if you look at what what's happened in some of the cities across the country, Oakland is a really good example. Like, they've cleared everything out.
Speaker: But they're also building, you know, right now they're repurposing one of their stadiums for a USL team. And so it is a tough proposition right now to convince people to solely spend money on stadiums that don't have a public good.
Speaker: And so the question is, you know at a time where budgets are hard, how do you offer that public good? Yeah. Ron Holmes, you're the best. You're the best, man. Take care.
