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Ep 5: Texas, Assemble! (with Cliff Walker, the self-titled Nick Fury of Texas politics)
48 Plays22 days ago
Are Texas Democrats waiting for another superhero candidate — or finally ready to assemble a winning team? But what we do know - Thanos is coming, and Texas Democrats need to act fast.
In this episode of Mission: Texas, Kate and Alex sit down with strategist and former deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, Cliff Walker, the self-titled Nick Fury of Texas politics.
Cliff unpacks what a modern state party actually does — from voter-file data and modeling to the strategy behind local organizing — and why Texas needs less Hulk-smash energy and more Ant-Man discipline.
But the real mission? Killing the meta-messaging spiral — what Cliff calls “political navel-gazing.” Instead of doomscrolling and public self-critique, he argues for message discipline, joy, and momentum: turn down the noise, turn up the volume.
Inside the episode:
- Why constant self-critique is killing our message
- How data and modeling really shape campaigns
- Why belief and discipline matter as much as money
- How local races create statewide momentum
Cliff’s challenge: Adopt a candidate. Knock a door. Turn up the volume.
Because Texas won’t flip itself.
Follow Mission: Texas on all social media platforms: @missiontexaspodcast
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Mission Texas'
00:00:00
Speaker
Howdy. This is Mission Texas. A political podcast about winning Texas by 2032 or else we may lose the White House for a generation.
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm one of your hosts, Alex Clark. And I am Kate Rumsey. Other podcasts may focus on the day-to-day the next election. But we are keeping the eyes of Texas on the bigger prize.
00:00:23
Speaker
What happens after the next census?
00:00:27
Speaker
right. Welcome.
The Marvel Metaphor for Texas Democrats
00:00:28
Speaker
um this episode, we're going to explore where Texas Democrats have been, where they're going, and what it will take to build long-term winning movement. And maybe we'll do it with a little help of talking about the Marvel Universe. For example, where are we in the Marvel timeline of Texas Democrats?
00:00:44
Speaker
We're going to win.
Interview with Cliff Walker: Political Origins
00:00:45
Speaker
ah Welcome to the podcast, my friend, my former mentor in a campaign school, Cliff Walker. Welcome. Thank you, Kate. Thank you, Alex. it's Great to be with you.
00:00:55
Speaker
Well, I wanted to just start off by asking you if this, we we're talking about Marvel, because I know you're a Marvel fan. What's your origin story? How did you get involved in politics? Because what I imagine is that I and other people know about you having seen all of your involvement in the state, but maybe our listeners and the average voter has not. And know what analogy that would be in the Marvel universe. I'm trying to think of one.
00:01:21
Speaker
um We'll think of ah ah one as we go, but can you tell us a little bit about your origin story? Sure, sure. and And thank you for indulging my campy nerdiness.
00:01:34
Speaker
ah You know me very well. We love campy nerdiness. We love it. Well, you're in luck. Stay tuned. ah um So I'm originally from San Antonio.
00:01:47
Speaker
ah Texan through and through, know, grew up as kind of a smart ass kid. And early on, was when I was young, i would get into these very robust arguments with ah my parents, not necessarily about me wanting to do things that teenagers like to do that get teenagers in trouble, but about ideas of policy and and the state of the world, et cetera. And I thought had it all figured out ah because my parents subscribed to basic cable and I had too much access to C-SPAN.
00:02:24
Speaker
So it got me into sort of politically minded ah sense of things early on as ah as a youth. At some point I thought I was going to be an historian.
00:02:35
Speaker
i ended up studying political science. And then after leaving school, I bumped around for bit to try to figure out exactly how i wanted to fit into politics. like i caught one of this candidate who was running for governor, I'm sorry, who was a governor rather, and was running for president named Howard Dean. And he was from the more progressive wing of the party. He said that he was running from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, I think was the language we used at the time.
00:03:05
Speaker
Can I interrupt you just for a moment and just say for for our younger listeners who have seen Chappelle's show, fascinating this is the who does the, yeah! know And it's really unfortunate because that's how he became kind of defined. But he's so much more of a substantive candidate. I want you to kind of explain why you were inspired by that campaign, because the more I've learned about him, the more I think he got a raw deal with that whole thing.
00:03:31
Speaker
Well, yeah, i mean, it's amazing that back in 2004, we thought it was disqualifying to be president. to utter a little yelp of enthusiasm on stage. And that single act was disqualifying.
00:03:46
Speaker
Little did we know that the bar would sink so, so, so much lower. But I was there that night, actually. and i was inspired, like a lot of young folks from across the country, to bus to Iowa, not to necessarily caucus, as I think was the slur at the time. All these kids are coming in and they're going hijack our caucuses and you know steal our election.
00:04:08
Speaker
But, ah you know, I was inspired to go outdoors and and ah frigid temperature for a San Antonio in Des Moines and make the case that, you know, there There has to be a way to capture greater attention for us as Democrats and and attention of the energetic cohorts of voters within our coalition.
00:04:32
Speaker
and That's what really attracted me to the governor, you know, his plain spokenness about the Iraq war, about the state of health care and and just.
Strategic Insights: 50-State and 254-County Strategies
00:04:43
Speaker
I hate this word, so I think we've been little overused at the moment, but take, you know, there was they didn't seem to be a lot of distance between what I was seeing from him on the screen and then what I imagined that he is like in in real life.
00:04:58
Speaker
ah So, yeah, boerb iowa was there on election night when he gave his famous speech. I remember being about 20 feet away from him.
00:05:09
Speaker
ah Earlier that night, we'd seen the results come in and we thought we were going to win the Iowa caucuses maybe two weeks before the election, three weeks before the election. And then it just plummets in the polls because the other candidates are like, there's no way heck we're going this guy become president of Raths.
00:05:25
Speaker
ah So the place is like a morgue, not literal morgue, but everyone's weeping, all these young people from across the country are uh thought they were going to win and we weren't uh so dean comes out and he turns the place into a party you know rolls up his sleeves and we're going to go here and go to washington and take back white house yeah and we're all like yes we're going to go to all these places they're to take back the way now yes um but uh i remember that night looking at the at the press riser and you had every major and cable news station represented
00:06:00
Speaker
And I think representing MSNBC at the time, maybe you've seen it, but I think MSNBC was Tucker Carlson. Must have been CNN. he's holding court. There all these progressives around him, you know, just saying, well, how dare you, blah, blah, blah. He's just swapping away, you know.
00:06:17
Speaker
And I get my chance up at that. And my question is, think, ah The cable news stations have already said it was the worst political concession speech in history. What do you think about that? And he said, well, I don't know if I'd go back to him. He's here to look at the streets. Well, 24 hours later, he's on cable. So long story to fast forward this little bit.
00:06:37
Speaker
so long story ah to to fast forward to slow that Came back home after going to a lot of these states, hoping that the campaign would reemerge, not.
00:06:49
Speaker
But ended up getting work in a congressional office in san Antonio. ah Ultimately, found my way into state legislative campaigns and to running some PACs, including our state House Caucus campaign operation.
00:07:07
Speaker
In the 2012 cycle, helped kick off Battleground Texas as the political director the next cycle. But probably my most formative political experience and within the infrastructure was working at the Texas Democratic Party for about six years and change, which I did from 2015 to start 2021.
00:07:26
Speaker
yeah but What I think is really interesting is that we started with Howard Dean. He obviously does not become the Democratic nominee 2004, but he doesn't give up in his spirit of wanting to go everywhere. The kind of enthusiasm that got him disqualified, he took right on into his next role, which was chair of the DNC.
00:07:48
Speaker
um I remember he he was a chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009, and people had a lot of opinions about what he called 50-state strategy.
00:07:59
Speaker
But I think is really relevant to what we're trying to talk about in this podcast, particularly um because at the closest person we've gotten to a statewide win is better. O'Rourke. And he had a 254 county strategy.
00:08:12
Speaker
Howard Dean had a 50 state strategy and from 2005 to 2009 was building up the infrastructure. And what happened in 2008, right? We won a bunch of states that,
00:08:26
Speaker
hadn't been on the map and we haven't won since really. so I mean, do you draw that same connection between someone who is really invested in the work long-term and not counting anybody out and seeing how that lesson can be applied to the state of Texas?
00:08:45
Speaker
Yeah. I want to be real cautious not to be reductive and say, you know A is cause B, but, I personally do see a through line here.
00:08:55
Speaker
I think that's right. It does two things when you have a 50 state strategy or, you know, 254 county strategy is better than 20, 18.
00:09:07
Speaker
ah You know, one, it's an investment in places where a dollar may count a little bit more. Right. And two, it is a living example of everybody matters.
00:09:19
Speaker
Right. would be also very clear, you know, if you're a candidate for a statewide office and let's say you announce November of the off so called off year, and you've got one year until the election day, you have a finite number of days.
00:09:36
Speaker
Right. So if you have 365 days, including presumably a day or two off, You have 254 counties. That is a major commitment, even if you knock out a couple of counties in the same trick.
00:09:49
Speaker
So I do think there was a strategic question about time spent, but the benefit of it, the uplift of it, is that you know you can go to the Democratic Convention, as Beto did in 2018, and ask, hey, where are you from?
00:10:02
Speaker
To the largest state convention in the country, ah which happens to be the Texas Democratic Convention. And everyone just shouts out where they're from. And you can say, I've been there, which I think may have been the best line of that of that speech. right And that that is it is a hard one point.
00:10:21
Speaker
And again, you do have to sort of balance things out in terms of how to use your time strategically. I think it's a it's a meaningful. Well, can i ask you mentioned that you had spent a lot of time in the party sort of infrastructure?
00:10:34
Speaker
What are all the roles that you had? Because as I remember, you were the deputy executive director at the end. So you rose up pretty high. what How did you start? Like, where did you what were all the different roles you got?
00:10:47
Speaker
Why you in the party specifically because I wanted to work on a project, which did have not existed part of the time and really didn't exist in very many state parties across the country.
00:10:59
Speaker
And that was to recruit candidates to run for hyper local offices, city council, school boards, community college district trustee.
00:11:12
Speaker
And these are technically, of course, nonpartisan positions in Texas. But if we're looking to build a broad base of support, urban, suburban and rural across all backgrounds, having some measure of support from a party organization, i think is important.
00:11:31
Speaker
It's to the point about what Governor Dean did as chair.
00:11:37
Speaker
Political parties can be a little bit of a black box. You don't really know what it does. It's really easy to. I still don't know what it does. but said and That's true for really involved people like Kate and I. But I mean, especially for the audience members who they're not political activists. You know, they don't really consume political media all that often.
00:11:58
Speaker
i mean, we're going to have to really break it down, like try to come at this like an elementary school teacher. Right. Like really break it down for us. Well, I'll dig into it. I'll dig into it. Uh, firstly, just to wrap up this point, know, I, cause I think this important, whatever the party does, and it varies depending upon your state, depending upon the timing and depending upon, campaign finance laws in your state and lot of other things. and We can get into that some, but one of the most important things that a party organization should do is to deliver some value that people can feel.
00:12:35
Speaker
Right. The candidates can feel that volunteers, organizers, your your whole broad apparatus of people who are part of a broader progressive movement, even some of those who don't necessarily want to stamp the Democratic Party.
00:12:48
Speaker
on their card. They don't want to have a Democrat on their forehead if they're running in a conservative place, for instance. Or maybe they're progressive and they've determined that you know they ah having ah a bit of a distinction is is important for reason that they determine.
00:13:05
Speaker
um But you know the party apparatus should be there provide support. That's the way that we always looked at it. So some point, it at some point And just sort of zooming out a little bit.
00:13:20
Speaker
I think we are currently living under an authoritarian government. Uh, as the federal level for sure, but it's not new to Texans because we've been under, de you know, at least quasi authoritarian government.
00:13:32
Speaker
For years, so now we have multiple layers ah authoritarianism stack. The way out, uh, as I see it is.
00:13:43
Speaker
through some political means and that means that the opposition party has to perform i don't see a way for democrats to win if everyone hates the party right because republicans hate the party and the democrats hate the party and independents are looking you know to try to figure out which way to go or not affiliated people are looking and they're like well even those people hate them over there they hate themselves over there so I'll affiliate with that. Right. I think that's what we're seeing in the polls with the party polling at record levels.
00:14:15
Speaker
Right. So finding ways to deliver value was was really important.
Evolving Strategies in the Texas Democratic Party
00:14:21
Speaker
And, you know, I'm proud of what am. I'm im a I don't say this to be modest. I say this to be factual on a small note in a very extended list of people who are a part of building really great team that i'm I'm proud to been a part Yeah, I mean, you were there when we got within two points.
00:14:46
Speaker
I mean, we got within two points. And I think it was a time in which we thought we are trending purple. We're going a flip the state. And I think you have the best perspective for me and understanding where we've been, because I don't know how I can understand where to go forward if I don't understand how we've gotten here.
00:15:02
Speaker
And you've been so involved, especially within the infrastructure of the party, that it helps me understand, and hopefully our listeners, like what we need to do next. like Have we progressed? Have we regressed?
00:15:13
Speaker
Where were we 10 years ago compared to now? and i Because if you just look at the data, it seems like we've taken several steps backwards. And maybe that... is a causation or correlation with your departure with the party, Cliff.
00:15:29
Speaker
Or, ah you know, you were there at the top. um But can you give us that sense? Like, is there room to say there has been progress within maybe infrastructure or do we still have a you know ways to go?
00:15:42
Speaker
and So I'll tell you about my time at the party. And I'm and mindful that, look, you know, when you work at a party organization, you're a steward. of an institution that existed long before and mean, i long after.
00:15:58
Speaker
so i'm I'm mindful about, you know, I don't want to backseat drive too much. right My time has come. but is It is gone. ah So, you know, I'll speak to my time there.
00:16:12
Speaker
when When I joined the party, it was because there was a bit of a mindset and this was under crystal perkins crystal k perkins at the time manny garcia was was our also part of our senior leadership team and these became very good friends uh manny is now business partner he rose to become executive director before we left i was a deputy executive director uh tark dhaufik who is our communications uh our communications team at the time is now a business partner so it's you know there there were some really tight bonds that formed from that. And randomly, i just talked to Crystal on the phone right before this call, a completely different matter.
00:16:51
Speaker
ah A little bit of a side note, I guess, but I joined because the party had taken this approach of building up a ah talent base, building up the talent pool, and was open to to doing things a little bit differently in order to accomplish that.
00:17:09
Speaker
uh know the party cannot just be a handful of staff and some headquarters somewhere you know if that's the party then we're screwed the party is i i would argue millions and millions of texans i think arguably over half of texans who could vote to you know could participate in vote uh if we inspire them to vote i think that is really the party but the party organization itself ah you know it has to be able to develop and grow to achieve mobilizing the party in full uh and it took years to do that i'll go back actually a second before i joined the party in 2014 and this was the second election cycle of gilberto you know sort of former chair ah and it was if i'm sure as you recall uh a very terrible year electorally for democrats a lot of headwinds coming our way
00:18:05
Speaker
um our friends and wonderful human being, Wendy Davis, you know, was our champion, top of the ticket. And, you know, through, I would say no fault of hers, you know, we had, we had led it at a pretty significant margin.
00:18:20
Speaker
Right. um That said, the party is an organization that year. Take advantage of lot of a sudden interest in Texas that was, i think, larger than it had been in previous cycles in part because there was some national folkss who were kind of poking around in Texas organizations like Texas. and That was a part of at the time.
00:18:41
Speaker
Uh, yeah, so all of this interest is coming in in Texas and that allowed the state party to balloon in size. bigger than it had been and in my career, right? Which started in, let's say 2015, right? So a little over 10 years before then. So you have all of these staff. Now, i wouldn't say that the party was operating on all cylinders quite yet, but at the end of that cycle, we had sort of stretched with the starts a concept of what the party might deliver.
00:19:16
Speaker
and when new leadership came in crystal and the 2016 election cycle many as a deputy i for some reason i don't want the title political director because i really wanted to focus on the local support program so i made up some title that can probably even tell you now that was very attuned to the local but ended up just doing all candidates so ended up being political director all the same um but you know as a senior leadership team um we set a marker for what we wanted to accomplish in the election cycle and in 2016 you know the presidential campaign was not going to put us top of the list uh we were not gonna you know get investment in any by any major national committee uh so our goal was a single digit state you know our goal was to go from a 20 point margin in 2014 and say we're a single digit state we're fundamentally a single digit state
00:20:12
Speaker
in 2016 and blessedly history bore that out. But did lose Texas, of course, but lost it with the margin of want to say 9.6% so we were a single digit state.
00:20:25
Speaker
So the question is, how can you grow upon that? How can you build upon that? When you have a good tailwind and you know it's going to be a pretty decent election cycle, then how do you turn up the volume and maximize all your wins?
Impact of the 2018 Election Cycle
00:20:40
Speaker
Well, you do it by the start of or soon after the 2016 election by hosting webinar for anyone who might want to run for office, even if it's hyper local offices that are nonpartisan.
00:20:51
Speaker
We had a thousand people in a GoToWebinar. That's before the big Zoom era. So we're still using GoToMeeting GoToWebinar. What did y'all do without Zoom? I don't know how you could do that.
00:21:04
Speaker
the the same thing that we do without uh google maps then texts and all the things that i don't know how we lived with uh you know back in the day ah ah but but somehow we managed and we did get a record number of people on this call and then we knew like something is up right so how do we talk of texas and still you know do in a way that is credible uh and where we landed was and declaring that this is going to be the best midterm election of our lifetimes, which we thought was put out in the research, put out in our conversations with people, some it's just gut and intuition.
00:21:43
Speaker
And we are fortunate to that a lot of other people have that same impression, including not just, of course, Beto O'Rourke, but ah my coler and Valdez, who stepped up to run for governor when when others had not.
00:22:01
Speaker
ah Justin Nelson, who also came in with a very narrow margin under the rapid point margin, ah narrow statewide, if not federal level. And then crucially, ah bunch of folks who decided, maybe I'm working for the federal government, but I can't be a part of this administration. I'm going to come up and run for Congress.
00:22:22
Speaker
Or they decided I'm going to run for the state house. And we filled the ballot every congressional seat contested, all the state Senate seats contested, 90% plus of the state house seats contested hitting record marks across the the board as the candidate recruitment person, as much as I'd love to take credit for it. I say my co-pilot of recruitment was Donald J. Trump at the time.
00:22:45
Speaker
It really helped motivate a lot of people to to show up with their name on the dotted line. And all of that was important because Texas is too big for any one individual to carry it.
Importance of Data and Technology in Elections
00:22:57
Speaker
ah Some may, a lot of folks add a lot of, you know, oomph to the ticket. ah But it is still a patchwork quilt of support.
00:23:09
Speaker
You know, we still needed a robust Harris County coordinated effort that ensures that folks like Lena Hidalgo and that every want to say 17 African-American judges, women judges are elected in that year. you know, we need a column already who ran in Congressional District 32 at the time, probably the most robust state, robust congressional volunteer field effort in the state, if not the country. And then a lot of others went far behind. we go car and in the Fort Bend area who was calling with ah scores and scores of voters into
00:23:48
Speaker
the most one most linguistically diverse districts in the state for sure and one of the most in the country outside of probably New York in calling and talking to people in their native languages.
00:23:59
Speaker
You know we had my friend out Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones running in her first congressional race after her historic career in federal service and now San Antonio Mayor my dear little Tao. So and yeah my buddy James Tallarico flipped around Rock District. 2018, I think we all kind of understand was the high watermark for Texas Democrats.
00:24:18
Speaker
But I want to push back on sort of the framing of Kate's question, just gently, ah to suggest that I think that there are positive signs of progress. I mean, in 2018, which we all acknowledge was just gangbusters year for Texas Democrats,
00:24:35
Speaker
Lupe, you know, God love her here in Dallas County, uh, did not do very well in her campaign against Greg Abbott at the same time. Like you mentioned, three people came within three points.
00:24:46
Speaker
Uh, Even comparing a great cycle like 2018 to a terrible cycle in 2022, Beto still improved that governor's race slot performance from 2018 to 2022. He lost by 10.9 points, which did not feel good.
00:25:06
Speaker
But again, Lupe lost by 13.3.
00:25:10
Speaker
So that's progress. We want to talk about even from Mitt Romney to ah to Donald Trump in this last election. We've narrowed the gap from there.
00:25:20
Speaker
um And people forget, but you know Biden came within like six points, like five point something points in 2020. Usually when you talk about a state coming within five points, that's that's a battleground, right? And c Cliff, since you used to work at Battleground Texas and I got one of my my first paid political roles there, you you know I think we both have that ah sort of mindset of like, Texas is only going to be a battleground state when we treat it like one, right?
00:25:49
Speaker
And so ah when you think back to... Everything good that has happened and everything bad that has happened, what were those kind of key moments where ah we were we were treating it like a battleground state and the in the right kind of way? And what were the missed opportunities?
00:26:06
Speaker
but did what What did we do wrong? Because we're not going to be able to fix it, this longstanding curse, if we can't diagnose where our efforts have fallen short. So how do you see that?
00:26:19
Speaker
Well, at a kind of esoteric level, I do think it is important to acknowledge the idea of treating Texas like a battleground state. ah This is, and I want to get to through through with it, you know, like a clap to make Tinkerbell come back to life kind of thing.
00:26:36
Speaker
But, you know, not above it. but If that's what we need to do, i um I'm ready to clap. Yeah. Well, then hurt. Right. um Yeah. If you start off the election cycle with the presumption that you're going to lose, then you're almost certainly going to be correct. Like we're not going to stumble our way into a win.
00:26:56
Speaker
And Yes, that that is at some level, you know, what's in our hearts, you know, I feel like the coach and Rudy, I don't haven't seen that movie in a long time. So I don't know if that's a good reference, but you know, watch every year I'm a Notre Dame grad, you know, like I, yeah, Rudy, we even mentioned this with Kendall in our episode with him. So, yeah.
00:27:19
Speaker
we we kind of we kind of have to root for ourselves. you know We have to shout Rudy, even when we don't think we're necessarily the the strongest player on the field or you know where the other team has some built-in advantages or some atmospheric headwinds are coming our way ah just because the national climate.
00:27:40
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, you you have to believe you're going to win the race until you've objectively lost the race. yeah Yeah, Hope and Change won Indiana, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina in 2008, right? There you go. There you go. We didn't foreclose on the possibility of winning early on.
00:27:56
Speaker
great So I do think that's important. At a structural level, and this gets back into sort of the black box of what the party and the infrastructure does. But there are some some nuts and bolts pieces that I'm all for looking at these things innovatively. You know i do think this is a period of of massive change in how people interact with media, how people interact with politics.
00:28:21
Speaker
And I do think the parties have to adapt. But thinking about what I what I view as looking across all the the tasks, the strategies and jobs, let's say that a party has to do.
00:28:35
Speaker
And those and it's really, really nice that a party does, especially in a state like Texas, where we don't have a statewide candidate or statewide elected official with an infrastructure. We don't have a lot of national dollars come in and it'd be the cavalry.
00:28:48
Speaker
You know, what do we have to do to fire out all cylinders? And, you know, I think, ah you know, Texas 2020 is a good ah case study and what a party might do when it's doing a a whole bunch of stuff.
00:29:05
Speaker
um First and foremost, data is a key part of the party's offerings, and it's that sort of the strategic framework of a lot of work that gets done. You know, a party.
00:29:22
Speaker
I'm sorry, I didn't pause this a little bit. The thing that a party has to do, you got to host a primary, it got to host a convention. You know, there's some administrative and compliant things compliance things that you need to do ah just ensure that candidates appear the ballot. Right.
00:29:38
Speaker
Beyond that, it if you veer into What's nice for a party to do, it may be necessary for the infrastructure, but you know by law, party doesn't necessarily have to do that. It's just really nice for the party to do it. ah Data is a huge, huge piece. I'll put that top on the list. um you know We were fortunate, and as we evolved the state party from 2014, rather, when team ballooned in size we i want a mark of
00:30:09
Speaker
single digits to 2018, best midterm and always reinforcing that this is the highest leverage state in which to do politics. There's this line that we kind of popularized that if you save Texas, you save the country, save the world.
00:30:26
Speaker
You know, by changing Texas, it does necessarily change. uh american politics it changes everything right so that's even more true starting in 2030 right when we get four or five new congressional seats close to your portion then absolutely so yeah absolutely it is if it has been true before it is uh at least 40 percent truer whatever the percentage is um So we we use that, going to call it a hype cycle, and this this idea that Texas is a place to be excited about, that we're doing really cool shit at the party organization.
00:31:07
Speaker
ah Parties may have seemed to some kind of older affairs and yet old and busted versus new hotness, and there's all kinds of new, you know, newfangled organizations that crop up and they're all, everything fits together, right?
00:31:20
Speaker
And it's not... a knock on anything that is not part of the party organization, but the party is a critical piece of it and ain't going anywhere. So we thought there was a ah moral obligation for it to be as good as it could possibly be.
00:31:35
Speaker
ah So what all could a party do above and beyond the basics? On the data front, we had great data staff before 2014 and before, but in the 2016 cycle, we had our first
00:31:56
Speaker
we had our first like actual want, join our team, you know, our first actual, like, I mean, I can do field math. I can all kinds of miraculous things and Excel to calculate numbers for doors.
00:32:11
Speaker
I should not be a in native director. ah I personally should not be a CTO or anything like that. But we're able to bring in someone who had a high degree of experience And then the next cycle, ah the person another person joined who had not just data experience, but deep organizational,
00:32:31
Speaker
and deep experience and knowledge and just managing organizations. I mean, she Lauren Pulley, who became our data director in the 2018 cycle and ultimately our CTO before moving up to the DNC where she is now, truly upskilled our organization across the board And then herself attracted extraordinary talent who wanted to be part of. Unambiguously, the best data team in any state party in the country.
00:33:02
Speaker
Can i um interject here? Because as a candidate, i think this is a great point, especially that Alex is making about where we've been as a party and what we've done to progress.
00:33:13
Speaker
And I know as a candidate, I got access to the data that we had for the voter file. Right. And I think that's what you're tap talking about. And we get into this with ah Christian Carranza, who the listeners hopefully will heard from already.
00:33:26
Speaker
But we know when we knock on a door, somebody is voted a general election. They voted in a primary election. This is all public data, so we're not stealing it, but it's data that we know more about to be able to turn out those voters and remind them to vote and hopefully persuade them.
00:33:42
Speaker
And I know that as a candidate, I just called up the Texas Democratic Party, paid a small fee, and I got access to this enormous amount of data that I then can help give to my volunteers. Precinct chairs have access to this data so they know what their precinct is like, like who's voting in their precinct.
00:34:01
Speaker
And so I think that is a great example of where we've been in the past decade and what we still have and can build on top of. Yeah, and if you're if you're hearing this and you're thinking, wait, how do people have my data? I don't know if I like the i idea people have my data.
00:34:13
Speaker
To be clear, no one knows who you voted for, just that you showed up and voted in that election. Whether you voted in a Democratic primary or Republican primary, that's public. And whether you showed up to vote at the general election.
00:34:25
Speaker
Who you voted for is completely secret. that That is absolutely right. ah The only public bits of the information that any, you know, that are public are, you your name and your address and i believe your your age.
00:34:43
Speaker
But and then whether or not you vote in a Democratic primary Republican primary runoff election or general election or an office, whatever the case may be, that's public.
00:34:53
Speaker
I think it's important to share this. you know and who There's one thing that we don't know for certain in Texas, and it's because of our history of highly racialized voter election or I'm sorry, election management in this state.
00:35:11
Speaker
um But we don't register by party in Texas. Do in other states. I'll the lawyers opine a little bit more about that and why. um
00:35:24
Speaker
um ah But to be brief on it, you know and for myself, you know it it gets a little hard to figure out like who you're supposed to talk to. right like If you're going door to door, in some cases early in the election, you might want to talk to a whole bunch of people who might not necessarily agree with you, but as you get closer to the election and time is scarce, you want to really concentrate on the people who need to hear from Because they'll be the first to say, well, no one came and knocked on my door, ah you know, to hear the issues that I cared about a couple months before the election.
00:35:54
Speaker
there's a lot of number crunching that goes on. And often that's done at the national level through outside vendors. In Texas, we brought all of that in-house because Texas is weird. We're five different states mashed up into one.
00:36:07
Speaker
A national model just doesn't work as well for us here. So in 2018, know, we brought on an in-house modeler who continued to update our targeting models as there were more conversations being had of people with people at the doors and saying, well, what are the messages that are really resonating out with folks and and who's who's moving in our direction and can we figure out why?
00:36:28
Speaker
And can we predict who might else move in our direction? if we and make sure that we have a conversation with those folks. All right. So Cliff, I feel like something really helpful takeaway that everybody could could benefit from where you're just talking about with the voter file.
00:36:43
Speaker
Confirm for me if this is true. If you vote on the first day of early voting, you're removed from the list that candidates are going to go and knock on your door and talk to you because they don't need to waste their time. They need to go talk to the people who still haven't voted.
00:36:55
Speaker
Is this true? and should this motivate people to go vote on the first day of early voting? You have found a hack.
00:37:06
Speaker
It's a great life hack, great democracy hack there. Absolutely. if few ah Every candidate is going to be looking to talk to lee who needs to come out and vote still. So if you come out and vote early, ah it happens a lot faster than it used to. We should know within 24 hours whether or not you voted in pretty much every county in Texas.
00:37:26
Speaker
Every campaign should update all of their outreach lists and pull you off the emails or the least the text messages, the door knocks, the phone calls, all of these things that we're getting bombarded with at the end of the campaign.
00:37:38
Speaker
Now, if you are getting bombarded, though, that is a sign that something is working. Right. We can talk about the tactics that need to evolve, 100% related to evolve. But that is a sign of life from a campaign.
00:37:51
Speaker
But yes, we will make sure that we we divert those efforts elsewhere. If you vote early. So no promises on the text messages.
Challenges and Solutions for Texas Democrats
00:38:00
Speaker
The text messages may take a little while for people to update.
00:38:03
Speaker
but I know, I feel like there's some quantum mania or something, you know, that... the loophole that we can create ah to get us out of that that, the multiverse where we get all the text messages every day, which speaking of, I want to ask the question, if we're on a timeline as Texas Democrats in the Marvel universe, are we at Endgame yet or are we still back at like Thor 1? Like what do we we got ahead of us?
00:38:30
Speaker
How are we going to take down Thanos? What do we got to do? Where are we at? Well, my gut is that wherever we are in the however many movies it took to get to avengers endgame uh thanos is coming thanos is here so so we really ought accelerate uh to to get to the point where we've got a fully built out team i guess you'd ask who would i be in the marvel cinematic universe i think i'm probably nick fury like i don't think i have any special
00:39:05
Speaker
gifts myself. You're recruiting, you're in behind the scenes. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not I'm not the one that I'm Morpheus. Right. I can I can recruit people that run for things. Right.
00:39:16
Speaker
and And that's. Yeah. to To make some franchises there. ah But that that's absolutely right. Like we, you know, when a party is operating on all fronts, you have the best voter protection director that you have in the country, as we did in 2020. You have the best data team.
00:39:35
Speaker
ah You have the strongest county party outreach team, candidate outreach team, organizing, which had to pivot entirely to digital organizing. You know, we even had extraordinary and convention convention team, which is not really seen as is a the key thing for most normal people to be involved in Texas again. It is the largest convention in the country.
00:39:57
Speaker
But we had to pivot on a dime because there was another incident that happens. We we all got little quality time with our living rooms and zooms in 2020. So we had to pivot and one point where.
00:40:12
Speaker
co-planning an in-person convention at san antonio than a virtual convention that had never been done before ah where the dnc was in our slack messages and signal messages to track and sort of figure out how you do this thing right um so you can't do that without a quality team this we have too many freaking people in this beloved state.
00:40:38
Speaker
And it takes an extraordinary number, not a huge number. By the time we wrapped in 2020, we had about 250 people on the payroll. But you know you have a core team of, I forget exactly how much, but 40, 50 people.
00:40:54
Speaker
It takes a ah large number of people who are truly committed. This is hard, grueling, often thankless work. And you you have to outperform. You you can't just come in.
00:41:07
Speaker
No disrespect to some of our other friends who are running other state parties across the country. You can't be par. You have to be the best. It's Texas. It's the most bedeviling political problem in the country.
00:41:19
Speaker
You know single party control of one state, either side, any any state, either party. Texas has the longest streak right now with full Republican dominance.
00:41:31
Speaker
So if we're going to get our way out of that mire, we can't just be good. We have to be the best. And we've we've got to kind of build back up to that. So when you were talking about just having top talent, especially you refer to a quant, right?
00:41:46
Speaker
Help the audience understand what that allows you to do, like functionally. Like, what does that look like in terms of what the party is able to accomplish, um as opposed to having someone who's just kind of good at math and Excel?
00:41:58
Speaker
Yeah. Great question. So at the baseline level, you're maintaining the database that every candidate who you know pays a modest fee, which we always kept low. We never raised it during our time.
00:42:14
Speaker
ah My business partner now, Manny Garcia, in my time at the party and the chairman. And in many cases, we lowered it. but You pay a modest fee, you get access to the list of voters within your district and the platform that you can use to pull those lists into call sheets, into knock lists, into text messaging lists, et etc.
00:42:38
Speaker
That's at the basic level. That's ah called the Voter Activation Network. It's a nationally available tool for Democrats across the country. When you advance to the next tier, now you're doing model building.
00:42:52
Speaker
Now you have ah a Texas-specific model that predicts two things. The likelihood that you are to come out and vote from zero, not at all, to 100, absolutely. So that way you can really focus in on people who are maybe a little less likely to come out and vote and unless they hear from somebody.
00:43:10
Speaker
And that's called your turnout model. Then a partisanship model where you're again going from zero to a hundred in a probabilistic way where you're, uh, or, you're determining, you know, zero, not necessarily populistic rate, I'm sorry, but a rank order way, zero, you're unlikely to come out and vote for a Democrat. If you do vote in a hundred, you're absolutely going to come out vote for a Democrat.
00:43:35
Speaker
And that can be attuned to voting for candidate. It can be a team voting for state party, and national party, a bunch of other things. We did it for Texas, for Texas Democrats. So let us do a few things, you know, identify the people who maybe need a little bit of a nudge ah to come out and support a Democrat and then to come out at all.
00:43:54
Speaker
Right. So that's another sort of tier of support going beyond that. a You know, we produced. dossiers essentially for every candidate profiles for any candidate who wanted it for every district we could do any district that's partisan so congressional state senate state house county commissioner countywide of course and that profile gave you certain goals that we would ask you to reach as a candidate some candidates are running and very upside down districts for democrats
00:44:31
Speaker
You know, if you're in a district that's 20 percent Democratic and you're running against a Republican who's been there for however long, you know, this there was real structural disadvantage. And candidly, you're just unlikely to win that district.
00:44:44
Speaker
But you might still be in a state house seat, which you know may not be a target, but it's still one hundred and fiftyth of the state. So we need to maximize democratic support.
00:44:56
Speaker
And you're the most compelling democratic messenger in that district. It's not going be I live in Austin. and I'm from San Antonio. What do I have to say to someone who's running in Texarkana or Abilene or wherever, right?
00:45:07
Speaker
You hear from someone local. That's a representative of the Democratic Party. It's not someone nationally or Nancy Pelosi or whatever. You know, and these folks, it's to your local person. So what are some goals for them? How many voters can you register?
00:45:19
Speaker
And where generally do they live? How many people are eligible to vote by mail in Texas if you're 65 or you have a disability, you can vote by mail. If you're going to be out of county at that time, that's little harder to predict.
00:45:34
Speaker
But here's our general estimate of of those folks who could. ah Who are the people who are in that list of folks that we need to identify, whether they support Democrats or Republicans?
00:45:46
Speaker
and It's not even persuasion necessarily, it's identification. right so And here's a list of people you can text. Here's basically a roadmap to maximize democratic support in your district. And if there's a path of 50% plus one or majority in that district, fantastic. That's a run to win district.
00:46:04
Speaker
If there's not, that's a run to build district. And they're both important. And we need to support both. And the data team that we had, the sophistication of it, allowed us to be able to produce this kind of guidance for any candidate who wanted And last thing I'll say, this is a little less, at no maybe a little higher level, 30,000 foot, but there are a lot of political players in this whole mix, right? There are organizations who are well-funded, who have the whole theory of the case.
00:46:35
Speaker
And sometimes they agree with the party and sometimes they don't. You have national groups who kind of dip in and dip out, right? When you have a really strong data team at the party, it also gives you a lot of strategic trust among partners.
00:46:51
Speaker
And that allows us to be more cohesive and coordinated as a whole. Right. According to the extent that you can compliantly coordinate by law. Right. But if and where you can, people should say, you know what?
00:47:04
Speaker
The path that's been outlined by the party makes sense for me. need to draw my home, my my own path and maybe it runs counter or maybe it's duplicative of what the party is doing or what others are doing.
00:47:17
Speaker
But I have a general sight on what's happening in the whole puzzle, this jigsaw puzzle of all the one third of congressional seats that are contested the one third of state house seats and the county programs that are running.
00:47:31
Speaker
And now we can look at the jigsaw puzzle as a whole and fill in gaps and make sure that we maximize our lift. You can't do that unless you have really smart, very deeply trusted data teams.
00:47:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's that's really insightful, and I think it can be really beneficial to understand where all the pieces on the board are as you're trying to play this really complicated game.
Mobilizing Non-Voters and Messaging Strategies
00:47:53
Speaker
um But I do wonder, um in addition to that, if there is some necessary playing...
00:48:02
Speaker
outside of what is known. And I think about this anecdote about the Barack Obama-Iowa win that surprised everybody. um My memory of it, because I was a senior in high school, Sherman High School, intern for the Obama campaign.
00:48:19
Speaker
Not a very popular position, actually, in Sherman, Texas. um But in Iowa, my understanding was that Barack Obama was polling third, right? that he was behind John Edwards, who had invested tons of money in scoping out all the data to the point where they knew like what magazines every voter read, ah what kind of soda they drank.
00:48:46
Speaker
They knew everything there was to know about every voter in Iowa. And that Barack Obama just found and turned out so many people who had never voted before at all that he will not only came in second, but he won Iowa and changed the entire narrative of the race.
00:49:04
Speaker
And so I wonder sometimes if we get kind of stuck thinking about what's possible based on what we know, instead of wondering, what about this huge slice of people who are registered to vote already, but don't show up and vote? Mm-hmm.
00:49:22
Speaker
like when I always love the the graphics that Michael Lee puts together at the Brennan Center. It says blue, red, but then here's this giant green slice that's registered but doesn't doesn't vote.
00:49:36
Speaker
So um kind of going back to the beginning of the podcast, like the Rudy chant, the hope, ah how do we build that into the party's DNA to where Texas isn't this – losing mindset group of people who have decided that the outside of the race that we're going to lose.
00:49:58
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Well, how do we get rid of the loser stink? Um, that, uh, yeah, we may have acquired me picked up along the way.
00:50:09
Speaker
So I've got a couple hot takes. I'm gonna weave all this together. ah this is my personal gut. Um, There's a lot of debate right now in the Democratic Party about whether Democrats along the spectrum, some spectrum to the left, to the right or center or whatever you want to call it.
00:50:28
Speaker
There's a lot of oxygen ah energy that's spent in this great debate. um I call a lot of this, not to say that there shouldn't be some retrospection and there's not room for it, but there's a lot of very public debate about this.
00:50:45
Speaker
I call this the meta message. and If you think about the party as all of the messaging entities associated with us.
00:50:56
Speaker
So that's the elected officials, the candidates, the party leaders themselves, ah like basic chairs and county chairs, ah volunteers, ah operatives.
00:51:09
Speaker
Let's throw in the 501C4 progressive apparatus, the c three aligned civic apparatus that Coates is a bit more progressive. Pundits on TV.
00:51:21
Speaker
The output from all of these things, all these entities are what people are experiencing. And that really disambiguate between Democratic Party, this group, that group, whatever.
00:51:32
Speaker
It's just sort of the left maybe they don't even have a name for it It's just those folks, right? When you look at the output from that megaphone that I just described, a percentage of it is spent critiquing the remainder of the output of that megaphone.
00:51:51
Speaker
Right. So what percentage of all of the stuff that we talk about um cable news and political conversations at the dinner table, all of that is spent saying what about what Democrats ought to do?
00:52:04
Speaker
Well, what I think we ought to do is this, right? right So I call that the meta message. And you really got to be deep in the weeds to care about the meta message. Right. Like we care about them by the meta message.
00:52:17
Speaker
Normal people, earlier i don't know what you're talking about. And why are you, I mean, it's, it is the most obsessive form of navel gazing. Right. And it really contributes to the whole idea that we don't even like ourselves.
00:52:31
Speaker
So why would I join this, this team? A party lowercase p implies a good time, right? It doesn't sound like a good time. We're not a good hang. Right. So one, I would say, um, I think the meta message is, is actually destructive.
00:52:49
Speaker
uh again it's not to suggest that there shouldn't be any critiques of anyone we with all of them the party apparatus but there's been a lot of attention paid recently on the concept of attention on the attention economy and it is a scarce commodity is a scarce gift is a currency of life and if someone gives you their attention then you should really do something very special with something worthwhile And what we often do is spend the hard-won attention that's harder by the moment to capture, right? Like Netflix knows this. they They know that their competition is video games and sports and any way that you spend your waking hours, right?
00:53:31
Speaker
The private sector gets this, that attention. We're trying to capture in a little bit of it and optimize it so that we can flip and convert it into a book, right? Through advertising or whatever. If and when we're able to capture it,
00:53:43
Speaker
If we waste it or spend a considerable amount of our time wasting it with just self-loathing and self-flagellation, it doesn't really endear people to us.
00:53:56
Speaker
You know, well, you might hate me, but I hate me, too. well that doesn't make the other person hate me less. so So I think that's a huge, huge waste. And I think we should dial down the the meta message considerably and focus on actual communicating and what the message is.
00:54:15
Speaker
But the people decide, right? Like there are a bazillion kinds of candidates who are I'm hoping are going to be running. And I think they're going to be a lot of incumbents getting primary challenges. I think they're going to be a thousand flowers blooming.
00:54:28
Speaker
their messengers across varying social networks, Twitter, Substack, yeah if you want to read something in depth. What I do personally is if I don't like a take, i don't think it really makes lot of sense.
00:54:42
Speaker
I just don't promote it. And if I do like something, then I circulate it. so I'm contributing to crowding out the message that I think is a little less productive through my actions. And if we all agree as Democrats,
00:54:56
Speaker
then the message that is the most resonant is going to be the one that that lifts it that that rises to the top is the last thing i'll say i think it's important because i don't think people are moderate per se not the way that we envision i don't think centrist you know i think very few people are looking at all of the issues let's say you're running for state legislature now they're looking at the varying committees you know dozens of standing committees in the House on all of the various issues and say, okay, veterans affairs insurance, yeah it public education, higher education, ah international it's trade, et cetera.
00:55:38
Speaker
Where does this candidate stand across all these issues? going to make a chart and then I'll just come down to whichever one makes the most sense for me. No one does it. It's like gut level of like, I think this person's looking out for me. They seem to kind of like get who am. Maybe that's some share life experience.
00:55:52
Speaker
Yeah. Right. So don't think people are moderate or ideological in that way. I think they're largely just, you know, just not paying a whole lot of attention and haven't really fleshed out kind of what they think. And I think that is, as you described, that a lot of people who are registered who maybe don't vote because like it seems like a whole rigmarole. There's lot of people fighting. I don't get it.
00:56:13
Speaker
I'm intimidated by it. It's a lot to understand. Right. So how can we just put forward enough messaging? And I use message as a verb, which is something I dissuade people from doing. Right.
00:56:27
Speaker
ah But but how can we put out enough communication? to catch someone's attention, to just convey, hey, you know, there's a lot of issues out there, but I know you really care about this.
00:56:39
Speaker
I clocked that. That's important to you. Therefore, it's important to me. what we're going to about it. And let's just be in touch. And I'm compelling enough for you to tune into my next thing that that I host. I think that's our our goal and our campaigns really should be oriented on that framework.
00:56:55
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking if we were to give an action item to Texans, because I think A lot of what our podcast is about is giving transparency and answers to people. Like everyone's asking me, Kate, what can I do? What's the plan? Is there a plan?
00:57:08
Speaker
like, I don't know. I'm trying to figure that out. That's why I'm starting this podcast. And I was thinking if I were to add something, it would be, we all need some amount of messaging discipline that like to your point that we need to hone in on what we can offer to people and not just as you're saying, navel gazing. And I also think in that vein, it's the, know,
00:57:28
Speaker
pointing the finger at the other side and saying how hypo hypocritical the other side is? Like, because the other side will just point it right back and say, well, your guy was hypocritical too. And it just keeps, you know, going back and forth. And ah my thought is we need some amount of discipline and messaging to say, this is what we stand for as Democrats. what This is what we can offer you ah going forward.
00:57:47
Speaker
So do you have any other action items like that, that you would say, okay, Texas, this is what you this is what I would recommend you do right now? Kate, I'm so glad you said that because I feel like that's exactly where I was going with it was what Cliff said was such a good word that we all need to hear sometimes, especially as Texas Democrats, is that rather than engaging in the meta message, people who are being downers and just constantly negative about what's wrong is like, don't don't feed the algorithm with your comment on that, right?
00:58:21
Speaker
Don't share their content. Like, let's focus on the positive. Let's focus on the joy. Let's focus on the progress that we have made. Like, we have made a lot of progress, and this is going to be a great, great cycle for Texas Democrats.
00:58:36
Speaker
And if someone wants to have a conversation by themselves about how, you know, Texas Democrats are doomed to failure, they can go have that off by themselves. We don't need to we don't need to help them with that at all. But yes, Cliff, if you have any other kind of takeaway action items, ah please ah lay them on us. so Uh, if there is a, to go back to our Marvel Cinematic Universe metaphor, uh, if there's one I want to show right now, I think it's Ant-Man.
00:59:02
Speaker
You know, I, I think our solution is more Ant-Man than Hulk, you know? Um, look, we got some great folks running statewide. I like some, being in the party, it's so unusual because course you got your feelings and thoughts about folks, but you administer the primary. So you to always be, you know, assiduously neutral.
00:59:22
Speaker
And now for the first time in a very long time, I get to have opinions about things. So got, ah but um yeah, yeah it's it's a new world.
00:59:33
Speaker
But ah yeah, great folks at the top of the ticket. ah I still think it it comes down to people who represent the party so local folks. People are unashamed to be affiliated with the Democrat.
00:59:50
Speaker
You know, like I get it, like some people are joiners. don't want to I want to join a thing, you know, and that but that's OK. I mean, I honestly I think it it can be a A practical decision.
01:00:08
Speaker
and and shared as such, look, you know I got. some areas of agreement, I got us some areas of disagreement. I don't know if I'd full out call myself a Democrat, but here's why i'm going to be voting for these Democratic candidates.
01:00:21
Speaker
And here's why, you know, um you know, I, I accept and I think we should wholeheartedly accept folks who are at that place within our coalition, ah whether it's because they are more progressive, because they're more conservative.
01:00:37
Speaker
um but we need vocal instances the problem we have is volume right now it's not that we don't have that someone is not uttering a good message as a democrat somewhere like to at this very moment there's some democrat in some place in the united states of america is delivering like a pitch perfect message for that audience that he's talking to or she's talking okay um um You know, we, we, we just need to turn up the volume.
01:01:11
Speaker
You can have a ah perfect song. But if the volume is too low, then what does it matter? You know, we're, we're a little bit of a tree fall in the forest falling in the forest of meta message right now. So adopt a candidate, uh, adopt a candidate at any level.
01:01:27
Speaker
You know, I love local campaigns. If I'm a first time volunteer, i always encourage someone to do If I'm a first time candidate, my biggest piece of advice is to get get a list of voters, go door to door.
Advice for First-Time Candidates
01:01:38
Speaker
You might want to pull the most extreme voters based on the model. on the other side because I'm mindful of comfort and safety and you don't want to be, you know, going around terrifying. It's so fun when somebody hates you at the door. It's great.
01:01:55
Speaker
So real real quick before we lose the thread, is the Ant-Man connection that we're going to be giving our PIM particles to amplify the Pitch Perfect messages? Are small Ant-Man or big Ant-Man? We're not giant Man. Wait, we are Ant-Man here. So we are assembling...
01:02:13
Speaker
every would often overlooked, thought to be too small to make a difference campaign and candidate out there. And the assemblage of them are powerful. It seems little, as I'm saying this, I feel corny as I'm saying this, but I genuinely believe that There's something called the uptick effect.
01:02:38
Speaker
and If you're running for local office, you're out there knocking doors, perhaps the hiring folks at the ballot are not personally knocking a door, making a personal connection with someone, spending 20 minutes at the door.
01:02:50
Speaker
When that person, my candidate leaves, the voters tells their spouse or whatnot, hey, can you believe that somebody's running for office came and talked to me for 20 minutes? I don't know what I believe, but I'm gonna go vote for that person because they asked me.
01:03:02
Speaker
rich And yeah you you know you've you've run for office and you've talked to voters at the door. you know That is a meaningful, big experience for people to experience their democracy and action in that way.
01:03:17
Speaker
right So I think doing that writ large, You know, I'm for knocking more doors. I'm for in-person over virtual. Not that virtual isn't important.
01:03:29
Speaker
This idea that culture is downstream or politics is downstream of culture, which is attributed to Andrew Breitbart, but I think probably more ah associated with more progressive minded folks.
01:03:42
Speaker
um I think there's some truth to that. And we do have to communicate across all channels. We don't have the luxury of picking one thing over another. I'm sorry, we have to do it all. the the The only solution is all of the above.
01:03:54
Speaker
ah But I don't want to neglect starting early. There's no time to, there's no time at the present. Starting early, talking to people face to face, in small gatherings, in house parties, at the door.
01:04:11
Speaker
Again, if I'm a candidate running it for the first time, i'd tell people, take the 10% most uber uber mother faults. Maybe it doesn't make sense to talk to those folks, but talk to literally everyone else and just go and say, look, I'm considering running for office.
01:04:28
Speaker
I got opinions on stuff, happy to talk about it, but I'm curious about what you think. What do you care about? You know, you're running for the state house, where you're going to hear about that pop. Right? and some other candidate might come by and give people a civics lesson. That's actually a city council person. That's that what you're supposed to do. But you're listening to what you actually care about and what do you actually need, big or small.
01:04:49
Speaker
and So I encourage every candidate, you got to poll and do all these things, try to understand the electorate. You get a fingertip feel, not just of what people care about, because they tell you about how they talk about it.
01:04:59
Speaker
And I don't think there's anything that really compares to that. So that's one big piece of advice for for first off candidate, but adopt a da ah local campaign. if If you've not done it before, the local learn, the more you'll get to experience.
Cliff's Future Outlook and Storytelling in Politics
01:05:12
Speaker
and And the difference that you'll make because, you know, the statewide candidates have tons of volunteers and money, but the local school board or city council member or like me running for state house, I don't have, you know, I had my parents and cousins and, you know, you can make a huge difference on a local campaign. And I know because I i did it, but yeah.
01:05:34
Speaker
right, Cliff, we've had you for long enough. I'm so grateful for you. And I always feel better when I talk to you. You're the person I call every time I've got a big ah thing that I'm doing and I need some advice.
01:05:45
Speaker
You've been there for me always. i really appreciate you, friend. and But um well yeah i don't know if Alex has any more questions, but i the way I've always have been ending this is just asking you,
01:05:57
Speaker
you know If people want to follow what you care about or you online, I know you're not a big social media guy, but if they want to follow you, where do they find you? And then also, other than Marvel watching, what do you got going on outside of politics?
01:06:10
Speaker
What I have going on outside of politics? um Well, first, this is a little bit, as I say, not as I do situation, because I encourage people to talk across all their channels and to communicate.
01:06:21
Speaker
And I'm not and just, I'm just not built that way. I'm not a big ah Instagram or Facebook or et cetera. But if there's one social and platform that use, it's LinkedIn.
01:06:33
Speaker
I got a lot of friends who are in this community who are often looking for positions. So I'm trying to lift those up as much as possible and the work of my friends as well. So that's one of the most active at Cliff Walker on LinkedIn.
01:06:46
Speaker
um I'm on the others, but I'm not active, so heads up. linkk is completely I think it's completely fitting that the Nick Fury of Texas Democratic politics says, find me on LinkedIn. um gonna I'm going to be assembling a team of talent, and that's where the talent gathers, okay?
01:07:06
Speaker
think that's great. um I'm giving all my secrets. um The thing I'm excited about is last week, the Seeker Strategies team, my company, we launched a new sister company called Seeker Studios, soft launch.
01:07:21
Speaker
ah So we screened a movie by a dear friend of ours who's also a filmmaker A movie be called The Portrait a Postman, the story of everyone's familiar with Hermes, luxury brand.
01:07:33
Speaker
Hermes is famous for its three foot scarves, true very designer. There's one American designer in the history of Hermes, and it happens to be and African-American postman who lives in Waco, Texas.
01:07:48
Speaker
So it's a movie about his story, and it's fascinating. So he hosted this event. ah We rented out the State Theater in downtown Austin. Had a couple of hundred of our best friends come by and.
01:08:00
Speaker
Launch what's going to be the start of a production studio for documentaries about Texas, the stories that often go untold. ah Setting aside the meta message focused on, on really putting a spotlight on.
01:08:14
Speaker
On people who, who others can see their stories and feel motivated to act. Yeah, I'm excited about that. That's so great. Congrats. Thank you. And thank you for having me. This has been a ah great time. Another Marvel line. I could do this all day. ah but ah That's right. well I could do this all day. Nice one. I like it. All right. Well, that ends this episode. Thank you, Cliff.
01:08:38
Speaker
We will see you all next week. And God bless Texas. You can follow us on all socials at Mission Texas Podcast. Email us at missiontexaspodcast at gmail.com.
01:08:50
Speaker
This episode is edited by Juan Jose Flores. Our music bumper is by Adam Pickerel, and our cover art is by Tino Sohn.