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Ep. 37 (video): The Obama Organizer Who Showed Up in Sherman and Changed Alex's life (Scott Mackey)
45 Plays12 days ago
Alex has told this story before — how a campaign organizer showed up in Sherman, Texas of all places, and changed the trajectory of his life. This week, that organizer is finally on the mic. Scott Mackey recruited Alex as a high school senior during the 2008 Texas Democratic primary, back when the campaign had no budget, no VAN data, and was cutting turf on hand-drawn Google Maps. It's a homecoming conversation and nostalgia journey.
But Scott and the hosts don't just stay in 2008. They use the Obama years as a lens for everything that's happened since — what that campaign got right about organizing and message, where the party has drifted, and what it would actually take to build that kind of coalition again in Texas and beyond.
In this conversation:
- How Scott went from Peace Corps-bound in Guatemala to catching a flight to South Carolina the morning after New Hampshire
- Organizing Sherman with no data, no staff, and hand-drawn turf maps — and what that scrappy model still teaches
- The Obama organizing principle of "respect, empower, include" — and how far Democrats have drifted from it
- Why Trump's rise runs on the same playbook as Obama's, just a different feeling
- James Talarico's "top vs. bottom" framing and why it's connecting where traditional Democratic messaging hasn't
- Citizens United, dark money, and how Democrats became the party defending institutions instead of people
- The 2028 primary field — and why the candidate who changes everything might not be on anyone's radar yet
Plus: Scott ran the 2030 census numbers — and even holding Obama's exact 2008 map, Democrats lose seven electoral votes. The old math won't cut it.
Follow Scott: @scottmackeywriter on Instagram
Scott's novel: Love Is Not The Answer
Learn more: Veterans for All Voters — veteransforallvoters.org
Support the show: Love what we're doing? Become a member at patreon.com/missiontexaspodcast — just a few dollars a month keeps independent Texas media alive. And if you can't spare the cash, a five-star review goes just as far. God bless Texas. 🤠
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Transcript
Introduction and Host's Political Journey
00:00:00
Alexander Clark
Hello and welcome back to Mission Texas. This a very special episode for me because it really gets into the heart of my origin story, not only as someone who's interested in politics at all, because I didn't come from a political family, but also because it's really the path that took me into political science as as a major in college and and really to law school and many other things.
Guest Scott Mackey and Early Political Engagement
00:00:22
Alexander Clark
To be a teacher, to be honest, it was Barack Obama.
00:00:25
Alexander Clark
Maybe you've heard of him, very important guy. Our guest is Scott Mackey, the Obama organizer who recruited me as a high school senior at Sherman High. Welcome, Scott.
00:00:38
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:00:39
Alexander Clark
let's Let's cast our memory back to the wonderful world of the Texas primary between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Let's just talk about who you are where you where you grew up, how did you get involved with the Obama campaign?
00:00:50
Kate Rumsey
Oh, geez. We
00:00:55
Alexander Clark
Take us take us through it.
00:00:58
Scott Mackey
All right. i will I will try to do it concisely and quickly. but yeah i
00:01:01
Alexander Clark
Okay.
Scott's Path to Politics and Obama Campaign Involvement
00:01:03
Kate Rumsey
got time.
00:01:04
Scott Mackey
i grew up in I grew up in East Texas near Tyler in a town called Van. So the 903, that's exactly right.
00:01:08
Alexander Clark
The 903. Okay. Okay.
00:01:11
Scott Mackey
963 specifically. I was still in the age of landlines when I was learning to use a telephone.
00:01:13
Alexander Clark
okay
00:01:17
Scott Mackey
So yeah, the Texas primary specifically in 08 was a little bit of a homecoming for me.
00:01:17
Kate Rumsey
Same.
00:01:23
Scott Mackey
homecoming because I didn't necessarily always love growing up in rural East Texas, but i I got out after high school. I went to college in Oregon and was planning to join the Peace Corps, actually. So after college, I had move to Guatemala and I was there to learn Spanish until my Peace Corps assignment came through, which was going to take me somewhere in North Africa or Middle East, at which point I was going to learn Arabic. And I'd pop out at 24 with three languages under my belt in the world at my feet.
Inspirational Readings and Campaign Excitement
00:02:09
Scott Mackey
I initially read Dreams of My Fathers. And then I'd also a couple years, but well, probably a year before that, I'd read a book called America in an Age of Genocide by Samantha Powers.
00:02:19
Alexander Clark
Mm-hmm.
00:02:20
Scott Mackey
And that was really the book that first, as someone who had was very idealistic at that age, but thinking a lot about policy, that was actually the book that taught me that if you're worried about policy, you have to be worried about politics as well.
00:02:34
Scott Mackey
And Samantha had taken a leave to go work for Barack Obama, like then Senator Barack Obama. And so that was what got Barack Obama on my radar. Started reading about him with some other friends in college. You know, by the time I was in my senior year of school in 2007, was like really into Barack Obama.
00:02:53
Alexander Clark
Mm-hmm.
00:02:53
Scott Mackey
So I gotta say fast forward a little bit. I was in Guatemala observing the campaign very closely. And he won the Iowa caucus initially. And in my young brain at that point, it was like, oh, oh my gosh, it's all going to happen.
00:03:02
Kate Rumsey
Mm-hmm.
00:03:08
Scott Mackey
Barack Obama is going to win the primary. He's going to become a president as someone, at that age who had a strong and growing sense of our past and really some of the dark parts of the past of what it means to be an American and especially a white American.
00:03:22
Scott Mackey
i was like, oh, Barack Obama is going to become president. And in some way that is going to absolve me or us of some of our sins or help bring justice to the current day from like wrongs that were done in the past. And it meant a lot.
00:03:38
Scott Mackey
And then he lost New Hampshire a week later. And, same young me was just crushed. And I remember walking around the city called Quetzaltenango that night, just so bummed.
00:03:49
Scott Mackey
It was like walking around late night. I was despondent. I didn't know what to do. and I had this thought, thought, which
00:03:55
Scott Mackey
not rocket science, but it was like, there's more primaries to come. I could actually act on the sense of disappointment. I could do something. And the next day I was on Skype and I finally got someone in a field office in South Carolina to answer.
00:04:06
Alexander Clark
Okay.
00:04:07
Scott Mackey
This woman named Jillian Bergeron, who became a dear friend later on. And she was like, yeah, just show up. You can volunteer. And The next day I was on a bus to Mexico City and I caught a flight to Charleston, South Carolina, and i became a super volunteer like you did several months later.
00:04:21
Scott Mackey
And then after the South Carolina primary, i just jumped in a car with an organizer and went to Alabama. And then after Alabama, the Texas primary was up, which is where we cross paths eventually.
00:04:33
Alexander Clark
Yeah, so it's so funny. Something you said earlier reminded me of the old proverb that a man makes plans and God laughs.
00:04:40
Scott Mackey
Laughs and plays.
00:04:40
Kate Rumsey
Mm-hm.
00:04:40
Alexander Clark
But I mean, it's something special is going on in a political campaign. If it takes an idealist who had joined the Peace Corps to come back to work on an electoral campaign, there was something about that moment.
00:04:54
Alexander Clark
and It's funny talking about Skype. I hadn't thought about Skype in a long time. But there was. There was something very exciting. And you mentioned the New Hampshire loss. I remember that was where the the kind of iconic Yes, We Can speech was delivered for the first time.
00:05:10
Alexander Clark
And i don't know if it's too cheesy, but I'm sure the kids these days would say
Obama Campaign's Emotional Impact and Strategy
00:05:15
Alexander Clark
it's cringe. But the Will.I.Am music video that was made out of that speech would genuinely give me goosebumps.
00:05:20
Scott Mackey
Yep.
00:05:20
Kate Rumsey
Oh, yeah.
00:05:23
Scott Mackey
i mean It's still giving me goosebumps.
00:05:25
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:05:26
Kate Rumsey
So wait, so y'all met during the Texas primary or did you guys continue to volunteer through the general? Like what? Step me through that because I don't know this. I i knew y'all had been doing work together and this was part of Alex's story, but please tell me more about that.
00:05:41
Scott Mackey
You want to take this one, Alex?
00:05:42
Alexander Clark
Yeah, sure. So I was literally a high school senior. i I was not allowed to travel to the next state or whatever. But Texas was part of Super Tuesday, if I remember correct. And at that time, we were really kind of fun. It's called the Texas Two-Step. We had both a primary and a caucus at the same time, which is very strange.
00:06:01
Alexander Clark
And Hillary Clinton actually won the primary. But because of the way the caucus works, we actually have to take really excited, dedicated volunteers to show up somewhere in person. We won the caucus.
00:06:12
Scott Mackey
Exactly.
00:06:13
Alexander Clark
The very strange result, split screen result there. So, no, I actually had to finish up high school. And but no, i'm what I'm curious about is So you show up in Sherman, Texas, of all places, and you send out an email. Was it you who sent out the email to the Sherman High School leadership class? Because I remember getting and getting pulled aside by my teacher, and there were two of us who were like, yeah, let's go. And everyone else is like, we're not dumb enough to be like out and out pro Barack Obama in Sherman, Texas.
00:06:45
Kate Rumsey
Can I ask, why, how did you end up in Sherman? I mean, I'm just imagining, how a but Barack Obama campaign is in the middle of Sherman. And I'm saying that because if we jump forward to today, having any national candidates or presence, it seems just so, foreign.
00:06:54
Scott Mackey
Yeah, so... Yeah,
00:06:56
Alexander Clark
Thank you.
00:07:02
Kate Rumsey
And to have them not only, because they come through Dallas, they come through Houston, maybe, but Sherman? So tell me more about that.
00:07:10
Scott Mackey
the... The campaign from the start and before I got on it was very, like very committed to organizing, like ideologically committed to organizing. And then they're also committed to showing up everywhere. the idea being to fight for every vote.
00:07:23
Scott Mackey
Related to that, I had, you know, I, maybe been on the campaign a month at that point. I still actually wasn't staff. I was just a full-time volunteer working in my hundred hour weeks, getting some gas cards to help cover costs and letting volunteers make me meals sort of thing.
00:07:37
Alexander Clark
Mm-hmm.
00:07:37
Scott Mackey
But, they were like, we're going to open an office in Sherman. There's no budget for it. Go. And, you know, that was an especially,
00:07:43
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:07:46
Scott Mackey
Democrats rely on the VAN, Voter Activation Network. That's the database that we manage volunteers, we manage voters in and similar. But Texas hadn't had a competitive Democratic race in ages. So data in the van was terrible.
00:07:59
Scott Mackey
So, we didn't have a lot of identified volunteers. We didn't know exactly who our voters or supporters were. The only good list that we had to call were small dollar donors.
00:08:09
Alexander Clark
Thank you.
00:08:09
Scott Mackey
And so it's like, you arrive in Sherman and you just start talking to anybody and everybody you can looking for an office, but then looking for supporter housing, like where am I going to live?
00:08:19
Scott Mackey
and looking for volunteers. And so that's how I found you eventually, Alex, was like probably however it was I was able to find it was finding email addresses, maybe calling schools to get them to email like civics or government teachers or history teachers, and then sending an email looking for volunteers in that process. So just really scrappy organizing more or less.
00:08:42
Scott Mackey
And that kind of thing works. It surfaced someone like you and a lot of others who, signed up for the adventure basically.
00:08:50
Kate Rumsey
Well, I was going to just tie the dots a little bit because, we've all heard of van, maybe our listeners haven't, but one of our guests, Cliff Walker, who used to work in the party here in Texas, talked about how we finally got our own van towards the mid, like 2018, I think Alex, he said. And so it took almost a decade, right, for us to get that kind of data. And now as a candidate myself in 2024, like I have seen the data, I've seen that hard work that has happened over the last decade and and a half where I see someone has been to that door,
00:09:17
Kate Rumsey
These are the answers that they gave. here are the years that they're voting.
Challenges of Political Organizing and Campaign Comparisons
00:09:21
Kate Rumsey
and it's just amazing that you guys just went in blind. I mean, you just went completely blind.
00:09:26
Scott Mackey
I mean, I was, we were sending out people to knock doors you using, like literally would just make a map. And, like a lot of our voters were African-American voters and, like so had some African-American volunteers and they'd be like, yeah, these are the parts of town where we live.
00:09:37
Alexander Clark
This
00:09:47
Scott Mackey
And so then like worked with them to make a Google map and would just draw squares on it. And then like go knock every door in your square. And so, for y'all, I'm sure, and for anybody listening who's volunteered or worked on campaigns, you know how
00:09:56
Kate Rumsey
which we call cutting a turf. Yeah.
00:10:02
Scott Mackey
detailed the turf cutting and list making process can be when you have good data.
00:10:06
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:10:07
Scott Mackey
But at that point, we absolutely did not have that.
00:10:07
Alexander Clark
Right.
00:10:10
Scott Mackey
And so we're just trying to, use some version of, common sense intuition and volunteers enthusiasm to go, do whatever good we can.
00:10:18
Alexander Clark
We were organizing like our ancestors. but before Before technology.
00:10:22
Scott Mackey
Indeed.
00:10:24
Alexander Clark
Yeah. No, and it it was, and thank you.
00:10:25
Kate Rumsey
That was a great accent.
00:10:27
Alexander Clark
And it was it it was exciting. i remember as the other intern from Sherman High School, her name was Courtney. She and I skipped class. We were kind of on the tail end of our time and in the leadership class in Sherman High School. My time as student vice president had, this the sun had set on that. And I was looking for things to do with my hands. And I was so excited to to put them to work in this campaign.
00:10:49
Alexander Clark
And we we skipped class and we went to Reunion Arena in Dallas and saw Senator Obama speak. And it was just such a magical experience. I don't know how to describe it for someone who's listening and was not around for that. Like if you were too young to remember hope and change, but like standing shoulder to shoulder with complete strangers who by the end of the the rally felt like family. And we were all like,
00:11:14
Alexander Clark
as they said, fired up and ready to go, right? Like I'm having so much fun reliving the memories of all this.
00:11:18
Kate Rumsey
Hello.
00:11:20
Alexander Clark
And I have like a, you know, a shoebox full of old campaign buttons and and things. But I want to, I want to ask like,
00:11:31
Alexander Clark
you're you're here on a hope and a dream. You got no money. i didn't even realize you weren't even staffed at this point. Have you seen the the kind of engagement of non-voters by the Democratic Party since the Obama years?
00:11:52
Alexander Clark
Or do you think that we're kind of missing that that old Obama magic?
00:11:56
Scott Mackey
I think they definitely tried.
00:11:59
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:12:00
Scott Mackey
You know, like you see that in you see that in a variety of ways, but I don't think that there has been, like Bernie Sanders did this in a way as well, but there hasn't been a candidate that effectively colored outside the traditional lines or had a message or an aura that like really transcended
00:12:13
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:12:22
Scott Mackey
the traditional lines since President Obama. And so, you know, the campaign was able to really effectively and like intelligently capitalize on that in the end.
00:12:33
Scott Mackey
And like who we have seen do that very effectively over the last several cycles is Donald Trump, though.
00:12:33
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:12:40
Alexander Clark
Yeah, unfortunately.
00:12:40
Scott Mackey
They it's a different message, a different sense of alienation. that they've really capitalized on to go find non-voters to pay attention to them, to make them feel respected.
00:12:45
Kate Rumsey
Yep.
00:12:53
Scott Mackey
whatever you think of the message, there's been this like very human element they've effectively leveraged to engage new types of voters. And the same playbook, just reading off of a different set of talking points.
00:13:04
Alexander Clark
The Obama campaign, I remember, had a, internally within their organizing training, they had an expression. It was a slogan. respect, empower, include, right?
00:13:14
Scott Mackey
Respect empower include. Yeah.
00:13:15
Alexander Clark
You remember that? Yeah.
00:13:16
Scott Mackey
Oh yeah.
00:13:17
Scott Mackey
great
00:13:17
Alexander Clark
And I feel like that's something we could do better about.
00:13:20
Alexander Clark
I mean, I've heard you in recent... talks on on your own platform talk about how disdain begets disdain. And I do feel like sometimes, whether explicitly or just kind of implicitly, there are messages sent by some within the party, not necessarily even elected officials, but some within the activist class, people like us who don't hold any office, but we're kind of like a very public Democrat, that we don't like certain people.
00:13:50
Alexander Clark
And that that that shuts them out and then they don't like us right back. Right. And talking about coloring outside the lines, we talk about some actual lines on the map, like because Obama was able to put together a team that respected it and empowered and included voters and and and non-voters who were showing up for the first time, he pulled in Iowa.
00:13:54
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:14:12
Alexander Clark
He pulled in Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina. Florida, like these are all states we would love.
00:14:19
Kate Rumsey
Are about the general election? Yeah.
00:14:21
Alexander Clark
Yeah, this is in 2008. Yeah. In the general election. And then even in 2012, right, he still hung on to Iowa and in Ohio and Florida.
00:14:33
Alexander Clark
These are all states that we have not really had in our column since then.
00:14:39
Scott Mackey
Yeah, he, something that he was very good at and I think was authentic and real for him, a core part of who he was, not perfectly none of us are, but like he really saw people.
00:14:51
Alexander Clark
Right.
00:14:51
Scott Mackey
And, would see the person behind political party label, see a person behind, a belief that you said that you had,
00:15:01
Scott Mackey
And, people felt that from him. And it was a core part of his rhetoric, but also, like, that was the energy that he showed up with, the attitude that he had. And, something that people really sensed. everyone is communicating all the time with much more than the words that they're saying.
00:15:20
Scott Mackey
And, I think when folks... get so mad at politicians a lot of time or leaders of any sort. It's when their words and their energy or their words and their actions are inconsistent.
00:15:33
Scott Mackey
And it's almost impossible to be perfectly consistent, especially if you're looking for political outcomes. But, if you can take like your energy or your attitude or your values and match that to your words, then that's really going to come across as being sincere and people reacted to that.
00:15:49
Scott Mackey
And I think to your previous point, like all humans struggle with this. It's not unique to Democrats or Republicans or any ethnic or religious or social group or class.
00:15:55
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:16:00
Scott Mackey
But, there's like there's this deep reality like, can we rise above our biases or can we rise above this core need that we have to feel that we're right and then being right, being better than somebody else.
00:16:13
Scott Mackey
And if we don't or we can't, one, we get like a quick dopamine hit of belonging or superiority, but at the same time, anyone that we're communicating to or with can also feel that coming from
The Role of Emotional Appeal in Politics
00:16:26
Scott Mackey
us.
00:16:26
Scott Mackey
And if they're the target of that, or they feel demeaned or disrespected in that process, like, not only will they tune somebody out, but they will also return the favor.
00:16:37
Kate Rumsey
Right.
00:16:37
Scott Mackey
And we've been collectively returning that favor to each other for long
00:16:37
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:16:41
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:16:43
Kate Rumsey
Well, so what can i just do some parallels here? Because we're about flipping Texas and, how can we do that? But I've also been heard Alex say, because this is about his origin story, that he appreciates Beto because he came to Sherman. And, there's an obvious parallel there. And so the two things I'm hearing are that very similarly, they both believe no stone is left unturned. We're going to go everywhere.
00:17:06
Kate Rumsey
But also about how you make people feel. Like I feel seen. I feel heard. i have hope. And I think that we see Republicans, especially Donald Trump, lead so well in a different kind of feeling that overrides everything, which is of fear.
00:17:20
Scott Mackey
Mm-hmm.
00:17:22
Kate Rumsey
And that is leading people to vote. And I'm wondering in, not in maybe the Beto years, but in others, whether we have not done a good enough job of countering that feeling with a different kind of feeling.
00:17:32
Kate Rumsey
And that, yeah, these are points that other people have made that we kind of go through a laundry list of policy points that we want to accomplish. And it really doesn't drive people out. And Just to give you my you know, in 2008, I was in New York.
00:17:42
Alexander Clark
Thank you.
00:17:45
Kate Rumsey
I had just graduated law school and taking the bar exam. I've got $200,000 of debt and I had thought I was a Republican for most of my life. And I remember.
00:17:56
Kate Rumsey
That year, Dark Knight was on the movie screens. I saw it the night before I took the bar exam. i started my job in September of 2008 in a law firm with a lot of debt.
00:18:07
Kate Rumsey
And then the next that very week, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy and it catapulted us into a recession. And then I very proudly... was voting for Barack Obama that that fall and was feeling so much, even though we were going through the recession, a swell of pride for my country and the patriotism. And it's led me on a path to wanting to become in the in the military to work in the Department of Justice. and I even have the Game Change book. I don't know if you see it like behind me. i read all about the the campaign that you were a part of. So I wonder, like what can we be doing now to counter the fear talk that Republicans lead so much with instead of just that like laundry list of points and and also just to also to get back into organizing in all parts of the the state?
00:18:53
Scott Mackey
A lot of questions tied up in this.
00:18:55
Kate Rumsey
There's a lot.
00:18:55
Alexander Clark
Yeah. and and And speaking of game change, I feel like really the the origin story of the modern day MAGA movement was when, unfortunately, despite being a man of honor himself, John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his vice presidential moment.
00:19:10
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:19:11
Alexander Clark
feel like that's where really this modern, it's it's been around for a long time, but the modern iteration of it, I feel like really started there. Let me know if you disagree about it.
00:19:20
Kate Rumsey
Can i tell you I was Sarah Palin for Halloween that year. I was in that like red skirt suit dress.
00:19:27
Alexander Clark
Could you see could you see a Russia from your house?
00:19:30
Kate Rumsey
I could for it very much in New York. Yep. Very much.
00:19:32
Alexander Clark
OK.
00:19:34
Scott Mackey
And, you know, i I think that's right in a lot of ways. But, you know, whether you're talking Sarah Palin or Donald Trump eight years later, in the end, what they were largely doing was tapping into a vein or a stream of discontent and feeling.
00:19:49
Scott Mackey
They weren't creating it themselves. And that becomes a self-reinforcing cycle eventually.
00:19:54
Alexander Clark
That's right.
00:19:54
Scott Mackey
But, know, they there was something that was there that a lot of us had missed or weren't aware of. That, you know, that year, John McCain's strategist or he were aware of. And they found someone in Sarah Palin that they thought they could capitalize on what was then not as big of like a vein of discontent.
00:20:13
Scott Mackey
But, a you know, a side note on that, after 2008, probably end of that year, beginning of went back and i read a book.
00:20:25
Scott Mackey
i think it was called 1988 Road to the White House. And that might be the wrong title, but like very famous kind of political book tracing the entire campaign across both parties in 1988.
00:20:37
Scott Mackey
And a part of that was Pat Buchanan, like an early moral majority leader on the Christian right.
00:20:40
Kate Rumsey
Mm-hmm.
00:20:42
Scott Mackey
And what was fascinating and very educational for me at that point in my life, and I think... You were a senior in high school. I was 23, I think, Alex, like just out of college. But Pat Buchanan and Sarah Palin were reading from the exact same playbook using the same talking points, literally the same language.
00:21:01
Scott Mackey
And for me, it was just this like, oh, like some version of this thing has been around a very long time.
00:21:04
Alexander Clark
Definitely.
00:21:10
Scott Mackey
You know, this is our our iteration of that today.
00:21:11
Kate Rumsey
History rhymes, yeah.
00:21:11
Alexander Clark
definitely
00:21:14
Scott Mackey
Yeah. But, I think maybe to get back to your previous question, Kate, what can we do now? And, we haven't talked with either of y'all about Texas politics right now, who the candidates are and similar, but I do think, and and so you guys know, I've spent a lot of time thinking and writing about like independent politics recently and largely because think we're getting the, we're getting the results our system is designed for right now.
00:21:38
Scott Mackey
And we want different outcomes, like change the incentive structure. And I think, the incentive structure of the two-party system and how funding works in politics right now is oriented towards.
00:21:48
Alexander Clark
Right. And that' that's why I'm a volunteer with an organization called Veterans for All Voters. And they they push, they put great organization, they push democratic reforms that are exactly focused on changing the incentives.
00:21:52
Scott Mackey
Yeah. Great organization.
00:22:00
Alexander Clark
things like ranked choice voting, things like the way you actually process a primary can have huge impacts on the kinds of people you get out. And for exactly, we were talking about Sarah Palin, right?
00:22:10
Alexander Clark
The only reason why Sarah Palin is not a member of Congress right now is because Alaska has ranked choice voting.
00:22:11
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:22:15
Alexander Clark
And even the Republicans in Alaska did not want her.
00:22:19
Scott Mackey
Yeah, indeed. Yeah. i But to candidates right now, I think James Tallarico is doing an incredible job of running a very different type of campaign. And i don't I don't necessarily mean like the tactical aspects of how one is campaigning or raising money, but what he talks about and how he talks about it and the respect that he shows for people, his willingness to speak very wisely on like some of the really hot button issues right now, especially around like challenges that men are having, the degree to which he effectively uses like faith-based or spiritual language.
00:22:59
Scott Mackey
And I think he's caught onto a, like a core societal problem that not a lot of folks in mainstream politics are talking about.
Economic Crisis and Political Realignments
00:23:08
Scott Mackey
think a lot of people outside of politics who, you know, maybe who live in a more like spiritual or therapeutic sort of space talk about a lot.
00:23:15
Alexander Clark
Thank you.
00:23:15
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. hmm.
00:23:16
Scott Mackey
But, the idea that, like at the root of every crisis we face as a country right now is a single crisis. It's a spiritual crisis in the end. And it's a crisis of separation or disconnection and that we are the nature of life, the nature of how we're organized, the nature of society, the nature of the anxiety-inducing distraction supercomputers that we all carry around in our pockets. is that we get so disconnected from like who we actually are. We get disconnected from each other, from community, from family. we're disconnected from like this earth that is our home in a lot of ways.
00:23:54
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:23:54
Scott Mackey
And, like the larger answer is like, it can be political, but like so much of it is, it's a it a spiritual question. Like, how are we connecting to the powers of this earth, whatever you want to call them? And then to what degree are we able to recognize that those powers are also illuminating every single one of us, that we are all alive, that we all have value, that we are all human, like children of God, if you want to use that language in the same way.
00:24:21
Alexander Clark
And I like that he's not afraid to point out who's who's benefiting from that, who benefits from our separation.
00:24:21
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:24:26
Scott Mackey
Great.
00:24:29
Alexander Clark
And like he says, not left or right.
00:24:30
Scott Mackey
Let's go clear.
00:24:31
Alexander Clark
It's top versus bottom.
00:24:32
Scott Mackey
Absolutely.
00:24:32
Alexander Clark
Right. And I think that was also one of the through lines from the Obama years was I think there was a really clear understanding that he his phrasing of it back then was the special interests.
00:24:45
Alexander Clark
right? They, you know, pundits wanted to slice and dice United States between red states and blue states. And in real reality, they wanted to slice us up between people wearing the red jersey and when people wearing the blue jersey.
00:24:57
Alexander Clark
But that's not how most voters conceive of themselves, right? Like I didn't join the Obama campaign team as a senior in high school because I was like, Democratic Party, right?
00:25:07
Alexander Clark
Like, I was like a big fan of Barack Obama.
00:25:08
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:25:10
Alexander Clark
I came around to become a member of the Democratic Party because honestly, how I watched what I thought were very good faith efforts on behalf of President Barack Obama to reach out, get rejected by a by Mitch McConnell who would say things like, our number one job is to make you a one-term president.
00:25:27
Alexander Clark
And in like policy proposals that were aimed at bringing on Republicans get turned down just so that they wouldn't give them a win, those kinds of things. but but But back get to the bigger point that most people don't think of themselves as a card-carrying member of a party.
00:25:44
Alexander Clark
Like even if they're going to vote for our candidates and even if they exclusively vote for our candidates, that's not how they conceive of themselves. They're first and foremost Americans who care about things. Right.
00:25:54
Alexander Clark
And so, yeah, I think that we have to keep that in mind, that when we use kind of phrases like turn Texas blue. That means nothing to like 90 percent of voters.
00:26:08
Alexander Clark
Right.
00:26:09
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:26:09
Alexander Clark
It means something bad for five percent of voters who are going to show up in the Republican primary. It means something good for the five percent are going to show up in the Democratic primary. But for like the 90 percent of the people who don't show up to the primaries at all, turn Texas blue doesn't motivate them at all.
00:26:25
Alexander Clark
So we have to think bigger and we have to connect with people on a more visceral level than that.
00:26:31
Scott Mackey
And then. Mm-hmm.
00:26:37
Kate Rumsey
with James, I think it's, he's already set himself apart as far as that connectedness, Scott, that you talk about. And also i think people resonated with like flip tables, which is also like a feeling of a call to action.
00:26:49
Kate Rumsey
We need to like do something about it. And I think then, but then I try to look back and I'm not trying to be super critical of Colin Allred, but I don't recall, even though I voted for him, like what his core message was, like what was he trying to accomplish? I know a lot was leading with reproductive rights and his background as the single mom. and And I remember like one phrase was Ted Cruz is all hat and no cattle. I remember that being a core phrase, but I don't really remember other things, do you have any thoughts on that? And then for Beto, I...
00:27:19
Kate Rumsey
I recall the sense of like he's going everywhere. He's there for everybody and he's going to go to Uvalde and like stick up for the families when no one else was. And he was going to be there to hear everyone and stick up for me as a little guy and a bigger picture.
00:27:34
Kate Rumsey
And i don't know. mean, do you have any thoughts on that? And especially like what it would take to get back to that feeling that we got from Obama?
00:27:41
Alexander Clark
just tack on I would just tack on for Beto, I think it was compelling to a lot of people, again, who weren't on the blue team, that he would say that he wasn't going to take corporate PAC money.
00:27:52
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, that's a good one.
00:27:52
Alexander Clark
i remember that being something he would also emphasize. And they every one of his events that I ever went to, he would start off with, if you're a Republican and you're here,
Spiritual Disconnection and Political Challenges
00:28:00
Alexander Clark
you're in the right place. If you're an independent and you're here and you're right you're in the right place.
00:28:04
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:28:04
Alexander Clark
There's a place for you in this campaign. And I know that kind of kind can seem hokey for those of us who are already bought in, but I don't think that it is. I think it's important to respect, empower, and include.
00:28:17
Scott Mackey
Amen.
00:28:19
Alexander Clark
Amen, yeah.
00:28:21
Scott Mackey
You mentioned one of the things James is doing so well. is It's not left first right, it's top first bottom. And that is something most American voters, I think, would agree with right now.
00:28:34
Scott Mackey
And, i whether it's, you know, in like broad circles, like I live here in Austin, whether it's when I go home to East Texas and I have buddies who never left who are, like Republicans and we get breakfast and hang out or similar, you know, left, right or middle, you look around and you're like, the systems are broken.
00:28:54
Scott Mackey
It is not serving us.
00:28:57
Kate Rumsey
Yep.
00:28:58
Scott Mackey
the top 1% or 0.1% or 15% are doing better and better, getting richer and richer. And if you're talking about the 0.1% in radical, extreme ways right now, and
00:29:11
Alexander Clark
I saw Elon Musk is going to have more money than every elementary school teacher in in America, every single one of them.
00:29:15
Scott Mackey
school teacher, that's how it should be.
00:29:18
Alexander Clark
As a former elementary school teacher, i take great offense to that because I know how it is actually the hardest job I've ever had and I assume will be the hardest job I i will ever have.
00:29:18
Scott Mackey
We can all agree on that.
00:29:22
Scott Mackey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:27
Scott Mackey
Right.
00:29:28
Alexander Clark
They're so underpaid.
00:29:29
Scott Mackey
So underpaid and they do such wildly special and important work.
00:29:56
Alexander Clark
Instead, we put ours on the cover of Forbes.
00:30:01
Scott Mackey
I mean, i most of us, and I think, largely outside of, some version of those who are in those classes, and that that exists in both political parties right now, agree with that.
00:30:11
Alexander Clark
Sure.
00:30:13
Scott Mackey
And I think that's, that is one of the insidious aspects of the left versus right, red versus blue knife fight that we're in and we've been in for a long time is that it really, like it really distracts from, the larger systemic reality of what is going on. And a lot of, lot of my frustration with the Democratic Party is I feel like for a long time, Democrats were really effectively an alternative voice that sat on a side, like really effectively sat on the side of equality and being the voice for people that were getting a systemic raw shake was a core part of what they did. And I think, uh,
00:30:55
Scott Mackey
an effect of Citizens United is that Republicans enthusiastically
Influence of Citizens United and Demographic Changes
00:31:01
Scott Mackey
initially, and then Democrats because we had to so that we could win and we could compete, started raising the same amounts of obscenely large money from, from corporations and from billionaire donors.
00:31:01
Alexander Clark
Thank you.
00:31:17
Scott Mackey
And in this world of like unlimited dark money, if that is what one wants to call it, Democrats, as is the case with all of us, like in the end, we respond and we work for whoever is paying us.
00:31:31
Alexander Clark
Mm-hmm.
00:31:31
Scott Mackey
And think in this like increasing cycle over the last eight years, and it's not that Republicans are better at this per se, but like Democrats have become, like have stopped being the voice oftentimes of like marginalized communities or, you know, middle-class Americans that are struggling and have become like,
00:31:51
Alexander Clark
It's such that it stands out when someone actually does the work of running a grassroots campaign.
00:31:54
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:31:54
Alexander Clark
Someone like Beto who will not take money from corporate PAC.
00:31:56
Scott Mackey
Amen.
00:31:57
Alexander Clark
Like when he shows up everywhere and does the real work, it stands out. Like, well, there's something different happening here.
00:32:01
Scott Mackey
It stands out. It's different.
00:32:02
Alexander Clark
It feels like it's a part of, I mean, a part of, not a part of.
00:32:03
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:32:07
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:32:08
Alexander Clark
Mm-hmm.
00:32:09
Scott Mackey
yeah And it's also been a funny side effect of Trumpism is, Trump has been so committed to breaking things that Democrats increasingly became, know, like the institutionalist party.
00:32:20
Scott Mackey
And that has been protecting democratic norms or government institutions, but that also has extended as like an additional side effect of, I think how funding works right now to defending the same type of large corporations and big businesses, whether you're talking pharma ag or otherwise that, you know, we, I, we accurately identified as a societal challenger problem for a long time.
00:32:20
Alexander Clark
Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:49
Scott Mackey
whether it comes from left, right, or elsewhere, I think, like, those alternative voices exist in the grassroots. Like, James Tallarico and folks like him are, weaving a new story right now, which is important, telling that story in a different way. But, yeah, capturing that momentum as a party in a way that, like, leads to, like, real change in terms of how Democrats routinely show up and how they're viewed would do wonders for, like,
00:33:15
Scott Mackey
less than even like any upcoming election and more just do wonders for the direction or the trajectory of this country.
00:33:22
Alexander Clark
Yeah, and it's important. I mean, that's we're at a crossroads, and this this whole podcast is not about the 2026 midterms. It's about what happens when the census completely reshapes the country in really significant ways for elections.
00:33:34
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:33:38
Alexander Clark
And my personal view is the Democrats are at their strongest and at their best whenever they have young standard bearers who are pushing what Reform when they have that mantle of change not to keep making about it for Barack Obama But whether it's Beto or whether it's James Alrico or anybody Zoran Mandani in New York City or or anywhere else That seems to be where there's a lot of momentum and energy and i think that We can't ignore Just the reality of what's coming down the pike in 2030 like I was very curious about this so I ran
00:33:50
Scott Mackey
Mm-hmm.
00:34:17
Alexander Clark
the numbers. And again, this is a little underselling the impact because Barack Obama picked up so many, what we now think of as Republican red states, but even based on what he actually carried, just taking the 2008 map and then changing the number of electoral votes each state has based on what the Brennan Center is projecting to happen with with the population changes,
00:34:43
Alexander Clark
Obama would lose seven electoral votes just based on how population changes have happened. Then again, remember like Ohio and Indiana, iowa forget about that. That's, that's, that's keeping those in his column.
00:34:58
Alexander Clark
And then if you look at the 2012 numbers, you know, he loses 11 electoral votes and keep in mind, He won Florida in both of those races.
00:35:09
Alexander Clark
And Florida is going to get another a couple electoral votes after 2030. So the old ways will not cut it.
00:35:19
Scott Mackey
Yeah, always will not cut it. And also, we're not static. Like 10 years ago, there was great enthusiasm in democratic circles in Texas and elsewhere that for reasons of like the ethnic evolution of this country generationally, that you like a democratic takeover was seemingly inevitable.
00:35:42
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:35:43
Scott Mackey
Demographics are destined to
00:35:43
Alexander Clark
Demographics as destiny, as they would say, right?
00:35:44
Scott Mackey
Exactly.
00:35:45
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:35:46
Scott Mackey
And that didn't happen. And i think that hasn't happened for economic reasons, but that also hasn't happened because we just never know, like, in the shifting sands of reality and how people are reacting to that, and how the two coalitions, which are both our parties at this point, like how they're going to negotiate with each other to land on language that either will or will not resonate effectively with people and over time.
00:35:48
Alexander Clark
Nope.
00:36:15
Kate Rumsey
Kemp.
00:36:15
Scott Mackey
And so I just, at this one it's like never get too excited about what's coming down the pipeline and don't despair too much. Because in the end, know, like having your back against the wall,
00:36:26
Scott Mackey
Being in a dark place, thinking that you're at rock bottom in many ways is an opportunity because that lets you like you see your mistakes real clear. When you've lost or you've broken, there's not much to protect.
00:36:34
Alexander Clark
that's That's an excellent point about the despair.
00:36:37
Scott Mackey
So you can stop thinking about who you might be offending or who you're responsible to or whatever the case may be and just say, what has to happen? And that can be from what's right or wrong, what's moral or immoral.
00:36:48
Scott Mackey
That can be from a more tactical, well, what do we actually have to do to win?
Grassroots Organizing and Potential for Change
00:36:52
Scott Mackey
And so, yeah, really interesting set of years coming up because like Donald Trump feels dark right now, but he's not a popular president.
00:36:56
Alexander Clark
yeah
00:37:01
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Well, don't know how to feel other than rock bottom last fall.
00:37:02
Scott Mackey
You know, I think the.
00:37:03
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:37:06
Kate Rumsey
So I'm there.
00:37:06
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:37:08
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:37:09
Kate Rumsey
how do we flip state, not only for our sake, but also for the country?
00:37:15
Kate Rumsey
And how do we do that? I mean, I it just so I mean, that's what we're exploring. And how do we help? How do we get people at home to feel engaged and knowing the plan. But I don't know where you were wanting to go, Alex, but I was curious to go back to the national organizing and what that looked like here.
00:37:28
Alexander Clark
Yeah. Go ahead.
00:37:34
Kate Rumsey
Because as somebody who maybe was, I was living in New York, but I didn't see it here. And all I've seen is what we've had in the last five to six years, and it ain't much.
00:37:47
Kate Rumsey
What does it look like?
00:37:47
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:37:47
Kate Rumsey
I mean, did you, like going into the fall, where you did you stay in Texas? Like, what did it look like from an organizing perspective in Texas? Because I will just like, as an example, while you're thinking, like we have candidates coming through Texas, but it's almost all for fundraisers that nobody knows about.
00:37:57
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:38:05
Scott Mackey
Well, I
00:38:06
Kate Rumsey
They're all secret. I know about them because someone told me I wasn't invited. i don't have enough money. We have maybe...
00:38:11
Scott Mackey
well was going to say, if you wrote bigger checks, then you could and you get to be relevant.
00:38:12
Kate Rumsey
yes I know, I got to get it richer.
00:38:14
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:38:14
Kate Rumsey
Yeah, yeah. or we had some rallies. like i Governor Walz came through. kamala Harris had a rally in Houston. I think we're all just very surprised. And I think that our memories are short, right? They forget the 2008 and 2012 years when y'all were around. So what did it look like and what could it be now? Because I think Ken Martin is saying he is not writing off Texas. and And in a way, I don't want to say we need to have a... you know, white knight coming in to save us, because I think we as Texans can save ourselves. But I am curious, like, you know, it doesn't hurt to have more help. It doesn't hurt to have these national organizations or candidates to come in and help organize and bring us all together.
00:38:57
Scott Mackey
i mean, well, just briefly 2008. So I left after the Texas press. So we were like all the organizers in the primaries. We were just writing the circuit. It was state to state to state. So I went from Texas, the brief stop in Pennsylvania to hang out with friends and help while I was waiting for an assignment. And then went to North Carolina for the North Carolina primary.
00:39:17
Scott Mackey
I was in small North Carolina towns, Lexington. Uh,
00:39:22
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:39:23
Scott Mackey
And then i went to Colorado after that to help with the transition. And so there were kind of a couple months between when Barack formally, or a month or two, maybe a month before he formally wrapped up the nomination, so and when the general election would kind of begin. And so I was on the transition team in Colorado, just basically going from town to town across Southwest Colorado. So...
00:39:43
Scott Mackey
just meeting with the grassroots groups that were left over from their primary caucus process and just kind of briefing them and keeping them engaged before the general election started. And then I stayed in Colorado for the general election after that. But in a way, initially, the campaign staffed up like grassroots in every state.
00:40:01
Scott Mackey
And then probably August by August or September, I don't remember the exact time, They pulled out of the states that they felt they weren't going to be competitive in to focus like staff, but also financial resources on the states.
00:40:13
Scott Mackey
We felt like we had a shot.
00:40:14
Kate Rumsey
Yeah.
00:40:15
Scott Mackey
And, I think some version of that same logic is what still drives staffing decision staffing decisions in democratic politics. It's we're like...
00:40:28
Scott Mackey
It's a financial decision. It's also like something of like an ideological component of that. Like, you really believe in grassroots? Do you think that it's important? Do you think there's value beyond even just like the win and loss possibly?
00:40:39
Scott Mackey
but they're choosing to invest grassroots resources where they think they can win. And when it comes down to it, like field on a campaign, like will have some effect if you're in a like two to three point race, but all of the money that is spent on field when it comes down to it is in the off chance that you are in a race that is actually a coin flip and the 1000 or 10,000 votes that you managed to affect across a population of many millions actually like flips the race.
00:41:02
Alexander Clark
Right.
00:41:15
Scott Mackey
Like that's the, that's the calculus you're working on in the end. And that's not many races exist like that in the end. you,
00:41:25
Alexander Clark
For listeners who might not know this, I wanted to point this out because you mentioned Colorado, where the DNC was that year, where the where your transition work was happening.
00:41:28
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:41:34
Alexander Clark
have family in Colorado. Colorado special to me. Colorado, we think of today as is a blue state. 2008, that was the first time a Democratic presidential nominee had carried it since 1992.
00:41:48
Alexander Clark
It was very much very much a battleground state, right?
00:41:49
Scott Mackey
It's a battle map i here. yeah
00:41:52
Alexander Clark
Yeah, but it has been consistent since then. So it's just a matter of a having a bigger imagination,
Comparative Strategies: Texas and Colorado
00:42:00
Alexander Clark
right?
00:42:01
Scott Mackey
That's where demographics is destiny. Denver has grown alive
00:42:05
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:42:08
Alexander Clark
the The current mayor of Denver is actually a guy I've been following since college just because I was teacher for America and so was he. And he was a Democratic state senator and now he's the mayor. And it's just it's been fun to watch his his career progress. But I think I think Colorado is such an interesting example that Texas could look to. But I also think, you know, Arizona, and Georgia, there are a lot of people.
00:42:35
Alexander Clark
people I would like to speak to from those states to get to get the lessons. Because for whatever reason, Texas has this longest losing statewide streak I'm sure you know about.
00:42:47
Alexander Clark
And there's really, I don't think there's like a good reason for it. Other than we've gotten in our own way. We have refused to believe in the possibility of a victory.
00:43:00
Alexander Clark
so and What I mean by that is, you know, Beto, he does this thing. He near the end of the race is starting to get these polls coming out, like showing we can win this thing. And then finally, Texas Democrats believe he can win.
00:43:13
Alexander Clark
And half of the money he raises in a record setting fundraising year for any Senate candidate ever, half of it comes in like the last three weeks of the campaign. But, you know, there's not the best.
00:43:26
Alexander Clark
Not the best way to get it and to spend it, right?
00:43:26
Scott Mackey
That's the story though, yeah.
00:43:29
Alexander Clark
I Beyonce made an endorsement like the day before election day or something.
00:43:29
Scott Mackey
Yeah, and it's with the field as well, yeah.
00:43:34
Alexander Clark
Like we could have had that during early vote. that would have been great at the very least.
00:43:38
Scott Mackey
You could have had it when you were registering voters six months out.
00:43:42
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:43:42
Scott Mackey
Like it was like that's also the thing with field is it's expensive.
00:43:43
Alexander Clark
yeah exactly.
00:43:47
Scott Mackey
Like to really run a great field campaign, you don't run it the last month or three. You start, 10 months or a year out and you're building relationships really early and you have enough staff on the ground to start registering voters at the beginning of the year. And, thinking back Colorado in 2012, we registered or re-registered 150,000 voters in the state.
00:44:09
Scott Mackey
We'll largely call it from, February through May or June of that year. And, that's powerful because you're expanding the electorate. Two is you're building your list. Like we were talking about with lists earlier, like every one of those people, we knew that they were engaged enough to re-register to vote or to register to vote that year.
00:44:26
Scott Mackey
We had a fresh address for them. those folks immediately end up, you know, like like in your get out the vote universe. Again, if you match their registration, to someone who voted for you all in the past, but you know, 150,000.
00:44:39
Alexander Clark
You said 150,000?
00:44:42
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:44:42
Alexander Clark
I just looked this up. He only won Colorado by like 200,000 votes.
00:44:47
Scott Mackey
Yeah, it was, I mean, we we were really proud of that, yeah.
00:44:48
Alexander Clark
So, I mean, that's that's a big part of his his his margin right there.
00:44:52
Scott Mackey
Yeah, yeah it's...
00:44:57
Kate Rumsey
So can I ask a question? You if we're thinking like this thought exercise, like in the next presidential year, 2028, there's presumably going to be a competitive primary. Like, what are we thinking? And there's going to be no top of the ticket, no governor, no Senate candidate here in the state of Texas. So, what how do you see that play out, especially as somebody who was organizing in a primary for a Democratic candidate? Because we saw Gavin Newsom already come to Texas. I mean, he was recently here. I mean, do you have any predictions or thoughts, just for 2028? Because we're thinking like that. I know everyone's talking about 2026 and we're all gearing up for the primary. But, you know, I think it's interesting to think, you know, years ahead because we if we want to be organized, if we want to flip the state for a presidential candidate, we have to think about those things.
00:45:45
Scott Mackey
I think first of all, we saw very clearly two years ago that it's important we have a primary.
Future Political Landscape and Candidate Speculations
00:45:50
Scott Mackey
oh okay that and And I trust that we will.
00:45:53
Alexander Clark
Yes.
00:45:56
Scott Mackey
you know Second is i I do not have any predictions for 2028. I think it's clear Gavin Newsom is going to be in the race. I think there's a really good chance.
00:46:05
Alexander Clark
And Governor Pritzker has made a a visit to Dallas recently as well.
00:46:08
Scott Mackey
Yep. I think Kamala is going to run again. i am
00:46:11
Alexander Clark
Think so?
00:46:13
Scott Mackey
it seems likely.
00:46:14
Alexander Clark
Yeah.
00:46:15
Scott Mackey
I don't have any special inside information. and i And I hope that we have a really full field in the primary, frankly. And that there are some, like somewhat out of left field candidates that have a different type or an alternative message that catches on. looking back a number of years, like similar to what was happening with Marianne Williamson several years ago, who she has a little bit different perspective, but is a real pre precursor of what James Tallarico is right now.
00:46:50
Scott Mackey
And she started to catch fire and then the Democratic Party of fish like effectively just squished her because the momentum that she was generating did not fit into the story that they wanted to tell or the exact outcomes as they imagined it.
00:47:07
Scott Mackey
And like sure, like that's your right if you're head of a party, but like what you effectively do when that's happening is like she was tapping into a vein of discontent and or hope that existed.
00:47:19
Scott Mackey
she was bringing that into the democratic party fold in the process. And then because the powers that be in the party found that threatening, they effectively like cut that cord.
00:47:30
Scott Mackey
And in doing so, like you deprived the party of that momentum. Well, you deprive the party of that momentum, but you also deprive the rest of the candidates of a chance to learn from what was happening to maybe evolve themselves and to learn how to,
00:47:44
Scott Mackey
like adopt that language or to learn something new in the process.
00:47:48
Alexander Clark
And to that point, we we may not know who this person is even is yet. Right.
00:47:53
Scott Mackey
Yeah, almost surely we don't.
00:47:53
Alexander Clark
Barack Obama was a no name person in 2004 until he got up on the DNC stage and gave that speech. Right. And you wouldn't have guessed after after George W. Bush won the popular vote.
00:48:07
Alexander Clark
You know, tell me if you've heard this one, you feel like it's rock bottom after an unpopular Republican wins the popular vote. Sounds like today. Right. But again, and in the moments of despair, when you think it's darkest, some guy you've never heard of, who's going to have a message that is way different than what you were expecting, is going to come through and flip all these states.
00:48:31
Alexander Clark
It's going to have a blowout electoral landslide. We might not know who that person is in 2028. There's a lot of well-known figures who we all kind of get a sense of are going to run.
00:48:41
Alexander Clark
And it's going to be a full primary field, kind of like it was in 2008, because everybody senses the opportunity. But yeah, we don't know who that person is yet.
00:48:52
Scott Mackey
So do y'all have any predictions or hopes, insight?
00:48:57
Alexander Clark
i I don't. All I know is it's going to be a lot of people. I think that should someone young win a Democratic Senate seat in Texas, I think their name is going to be part of the conversation.
00:49:16
Alexander Clark
Just like Joe ro just like just like joe ro just like joe rogan wants it to be.
00:49:16
Kate Rumsey
Whoa, whoa, okay. Okay.
00:49:21
Alexander Clark
i'm just saying.
00:49:21
Kate Rumsey
the
00:49:22
Scott Mackey
Hey, that's actually an important point.
00:49:22
Kate Rumsey
okay
00:49:23
Alexander Clark
was It wasn't my first, it wasn't, I wasn't the first person to think it Joe Rogan said it.
00:49:28
Scott Mackey
The ideological landscape of this country is like much more flexible than we tend to think. And what's consistent is the like discontent, dissatisfaction and dis distress that exists. But, you know, like Joe Rogan is something of like a bogeyman to a lot of folks on the left.
00:49:44
Scott Mackey
but I'm not a big Joe Rogan fan. Listened to like several episodes over the years. He's in Austin. So he's kind of just in the general like ether here, but he's somebody that like, he doesn't care about parties.
00:49:53
Alexander Clark
Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:57
Scott Mackey
He senses the world is broken with his experiences where he comes from is out there, like really objectively in his own way, trying to find things that work or that resonate or just like feel true.
00:50:10
Scott Mackey
And, it's like interesting story of how James Tallarico ended up on his radar. But, you know, it's like a comedian mentioned it to him. He watched some of his videos on Instagram was like, oh, this guy's got something going on.
00:50:23
Scott Mackey
And, within a few weeks was on the largest podcast platform in the country speaking to a center right audience that loved what he had to say.
00:50:37
Alexander Clark
Yeah, from a political science perspective, it's fascinating that someone could be like a Ron Paul voter, a Bernie Sanders voter, Donald Trump voter, and then also be like really into James Ellery.
00:50:37
Scott Mackey
And a lot of that is how he was saying it. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:50:48
Alexander Clark
Like there is just people out there who, again, not tied to political orthodoxy.
00:50:49
Scott Mackey
Yep.
00:50:58
Alexander Clark
They're not tied to sort of the tribalism that we somehow think is really important. And i don't I don't think it is.
00:51:09
Scott Mackey
i think they're there is a lot of that tribalism. And I think it's probably more than, like five five or 10% of voters in either party.
00:51:13
Alexander Clark
is.
00:51:17
Scott Mackey
but like a lot of folks, like their identity is tied up in being a Republican or a Democrat. And i I think it's dangerous for a democracy if your identity is tied up in a political party, because that does make an election or politics a zero-sum game.
00:51:33
Scott Mackey
Because like literally your value is tied to winning or losing at that point. And if someone is attacking an idea that is considered orthodoxy within your party, you're not hearing them make an intellectual argument.
00:51:45
Scott Mackey
You feel like they're attacking And
00:51:46
Kate Rumsey
Thank you.
00:51:49
Scott Mackey
and
00:51:49
Alexander Clark
Well, and and I think our well we've we've we've sussed out through our conversation is it's it's bad politics, too. Right. If we are reflexively defending every Democrat who is accused of wrongdoing, that's going to turn a lot of people off.
00:52:05
Alexander Clark
Like we should admit. this person is wrong. And they've done wrong. And if they have committed a crime. I'm not going to name names, not referring to any particular crimes, but we have had a number of issues with Democratic lawmakers who are credibly accused of crimes.
00:52:24
Alexander Clark
And I have tried to be very consistent in my life because right my my political North Star, my origin story is Barack Obama, not left versus right, not red states or blue states.
00:52:34
Scott Mackey
Yeah. Man, we're, whoa.
00:52:35
Alexander Clark
The United States is like, look, You do the crime, you do the time. I'm not going to give you special defense because you're a Democrat. and I'm not going to go after you with special vigor because you're a Republican. Some of my best friends are Republican. I clerked for a Republican judge.
00:52:48
Alexander Clark
Right. Like, I think that we have to keep in mind that these are not our enemies. These are our neighbors. And we're compelled and commanded to love our name
00:53:01
Kate Rumsey
how I was introduced to you was through Alex sending me your position on the No Kings rally and how it just sort of is reminiscent of what you're saying.
00:53:08
Alexander Clark
you
00:53:12
Kate Rumsey
which is, i I get the desire to want to go
Political Accountability and Trust Building
00:53:15
Kate Rumsey
to these rallies. And I understand like pointing out how bad Donald Trump is, but whenever I engage with friends and family or who are his supporters, they easily just point the finger at the other side and say, well, we've got the Biden crime family and we've got these other things.
00:53:29
Kate Rumsey
And it just seems like there's a lot of that whataboutism, but maybe can you explain what that position was with the no Kings rally that i that Alex had sent me?
00:53:39
Scott Mackey
yeah and I think, well, so in the end, in politics, but in the end, politics leading to governance. So in governance, it's like we're in relationship.
00:53:51
Scott Mackey
And I think the discontent, you know, you were talking about, Alex, how do you go from Rand Paul to Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump to maybe Elizabeth Warren to back again to Donald Trump to now done with Donald Trump?
00:54:04
Scott Mackey
It's people sense like, there's a lack of trust. The systems are broken. The systems are working for those at the top and the rest of us are suffering. So I think that's a thing, but like put that to the side. And then we're in relationship and in relationship, ruptures happen.
00:54:18
Scott Mackey
Trust is lost. We act out of integrity. We take advantage of somebody. We may be acting with the best intent, wrong somebody or make a mistake, whatever the case may be.
00:54:32
Scott Mackey
And I think this is largely true of both political parties, is that in a relationship with another person, like if i wronged you, Alex, and I wanted to continue to be in relationship with you, or I wanted to like rebuild the trust after the rupture is repair.
00:54:39
Alexander Clark
Mm-hmm.
00:54:46
Scott Mackey
And how do you repair? You repair by apologizing. You repair by taking accountability for the mistakes that you made. and then you repair by acting differently afterwards. Your words don't mean anything if your actions or the fruits of your words are not visible to those who are around you.
00:55:06
Scott Mackey
And we live in a political system where rule number one is that you do not take accountability. You do not take responsibility. You do not admit that you were wrong. And part of the reason for that is that like your opponents...
00:55:21
Scott Mackey
can so easily take or twist any admission of wrongdoing. And so candidates are like extremely hesitant or anyone in politics is extremely hesitant to admit wrongdoing because they can pay the price for that.
00:55:34
Scott Mackey
But over time, what has happened because of like the reality of those political dynamics is that we're in this like broad political environment where no one takes responsibility for their mistakes.
00:55:45
Scott Mackey
No one admits when they are wrong. we largely, i think, actually become blind to our flaws as a party or as a movement.
00:55:58
Scott Mackey
And when someone tries to point that out to us, and it's normally coming from someone who disagrees with us, who we think may not respect us, we just fight back, like you were saying, Katie, by pointing out all these similar mistakes that exist on the other side.
00:56:11
Scott Mackey
and so I think a lot of ways my perspective where I spend a lot of my time thinking is more broad than the next election or the next electoral cycle or who's going to win an election. but it's like, how do we we rebuild trust as a society?
00:56:24
Scott Mackey
Who's going to take the step that is like choosing to actually lead instead of choosing to do their best to win the next election by the rules as they understand them.
00:56:35
Scott Mackey
And for that person to step up or for a party to step up, It's going to mean like admitting mistakes. That's going to mean like really putting yourself in the shoes of those who are pointing the finger at you, understanding why they are, discovering what is likely at least like the seed of truth in their criticism, taking responsibility for that, and then objectively choosing to act differently moving forward.
00:57:02
Scott Mackey
And, and that's that's true in a relationship with one's wife or significant other. That's true between friends. And that should be true between the leadership of a country and the voters of that country.
00:57:14
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. And so I think that's right. like i think So I think you the point that I had read was that, great, we have the No Kings rally, we're rallying our base, but has to be more than that, like kind of what you're saying in these broader terms that our leaders need to and our people should also be speaking.
00:57:28
Kate Rumsey
not And something that we've mentioned a lot is that we're not just a party that doesn't like kings. We are also a party that is providing value in other ways. And also
Vision for Politics Focused on Public Interest
00:57:37
Scott Mackey
Absolutely.
00:57:38
Kate Rumsey
we're electing people that believe that too, if I'm getting that right.
00:57:43
Scott Mackey
Yes.
00:57:44
Alexander Clark
Yeah, the affirmative case, right?
00:57:44
Kate Rumsey
Okay.
00:57:44
Scott Mackey
Amen. Yeah. amen
00:57:46
Kate Rumsey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:48
Alexander Clark
Well, thank you so much for your time. i mean, it's been a lot of fun going back through and and reliving the Obama years, but also kind of drawing out what those lessons are and how they can still be implemented.
00:58:00
Alexander Clark
We kind of like to ask everyone at the end of all these conversations as you know, what are what do you got going on outside of politics? And how can people stay in touch with you?
00:58:11
Scott Mackey
Yeah, I mean, easiest way to find me is Instagram, like Scott Mackey writer. But I have a novel. It's called Love Is Not The Answer. Something of an allegorical political satire.
00:58:24
Scott Mackey
Don't take the title too seriously.
00:58:26
Kate Rumsey
I love it.
00:58:26
Scott Mackey
Yeah, and then I like live in Austin. i have been like in and out of tech over the last number of years. And then I also do a lot of work called and you know like consciousness or human transformation space.
00:58:37
Scott Mackey
And so... that that touches on psychedelics. It touches a lot on psychedelics and how they can interact with anyone's spiritual practice, whatever, whatever, like faith tradition or religious tradition you might call your own. Yeah, and spend a lot of time thinking or writing kind of like we touched on earlier, but really about interconnection as this foundational reality of life.
00:59:00
Scott Mackey
that we might touch on like intellectually at times, but often doesn't have a lot to do with how we actually are like seeing the world or making decisions or designing systems. And I think it would be really powerful for us if that began to change.
00:59:17
Kate Rumsey
Absolutely.
00:59:17
Alexander Clark
We appreciate your time and your perspective.
00:59:20
Scott Mackey
Yeah.
00:59:20
Alexander Clark
All right.
00:59:22
Kate Rumsey
All right, well, thank you, Scott.
00:59:22
Scott Mackey
Thank you both. All right.
00:59:24
Kate Rumsey
And we will see everyone next week and God bless Texas.
00:59:25
Scott Mackey
Okay. Bye, Alex.