The Search for an Exciting Moderate

- Welcome to Podsade of America, I'm John Favreau. On today's show, writer and founder

“of the slow-boring newsletter, Madaglaces.”

We've got a lot of people on the show making the case for why the Democratic Party should move to the left and a lot of progressive candidates who represent that direction. We've also had plenty of people, including us,

critique the Democratic establishment. We haven't really had someone on at least in a while, make a full-throated case for a center-left politics that emphasizes moderation. I know that probably sounds exciting

and not at all annoying to many of you. Matt recently wrote a piece titled, "How The Center Left Can Come Back In 2028."

It's based in part on a series of critical tough questions

that Nate Silver recently posed to the center-left. I found both Nate's questions and Matt's response really useful in understanding where folks like Matt are coming from and what they're looking for from the party in 2028 and beyond.

I also had plenty of questions of my own, so I invited Matt on to see if he had some answers. And he did. We talked about how important issue positions are in a presidential primary, the role of charisma

in the ability to get attention. Why Democrats have lost in recent elections and who on the current bench might be able to win in 2028? It was a great conversation and we will get to it in a moment before we do.

Please consider becoming a paying subscriber to friends of the pod. Subscribers unlock ad-free episodes

of all their favorite cricket pods,

including Pods Av America. All our great subscriber-only newsletters and exclusive subscriber-only podcasts like Pods Av America only friends and polar coaster with Dan Fyfer.

“Plus, becoming a subscriber is the best way”

to support your favorite pro-democracy, independent media company. Head on over to cricket.com/friends to subscribe. Matt, welcome to Pods Av America. Really good to be here. So I wanted to talk about the factional debate

within the Democratic Party over how to actually win some national elections and thought, who better to do that with than the online-left's favorite pundit, who can faithfully represent the views of the neolib's shill faction?

And I think a good place to start is with your recent piece about how the center-left can come back in 2028, where one big answer is that the center-left needs a 2028 presidential primary campaign that articulates its critique of the status quo.

Before we get to the critique itself, why presidential campaign? You know, I think something we see in politics is that political parties are really defined by their presidential campaigns

and by their leadership. Everybody, I mean, you, me, people with all different kinds of ideological viewpoints are frustrated about where Democrats are at now and they'd want them to be clearer

and have a better message. But realistically, there's just not that much the Chuck Schumer and how King Jeffries can do. Your hurting cats on Capitol Hill, its presidential campaigns, Donald Trump comes in, he wins the nomination,

it totally redefines what the Republican Party is about, you know, for good and for ill. And that's what's gonna happen in 28. Right, there's gonna be a contest. Somebody is gonna win it.

That person will be the leader. What Democrats stand for is gonna be, you know, largely whatever it is that person stands for. And until then, you know, you try to have good candidates in the key races.

You hope they win. Everyone's gonna have some who they like more than others, but it's like it's gonna be a mess. - Yeah, I thought about that after the 2025 off-year elections

when everyone had this like Goldilocks view of it where they're like, well, you know, you had some more center-left moderate candidates winning in some places and Mamdoni wins in New York. And so it's all great.

We don't have to fight that much. It's like, well, yeah, it's easier to do in a midterm or set of off-year elections than a presidential election. That's where the rubber hits the road.

So you make clear that this center-left critique is a critique of what you call the Clinton Biden Harris Schumer status quo. How would you describe that status quo and what is your critique of it?

“- Sure, you know, so I think there's been”

some pretty dramatic left-word moves

in the Democratic Party since Barack Obama's second term.

And this has not been like the left, quote unquote Bernie Sanders, his people, taking the party over. It's been establishment stewardship, but they've shifted on a lot of different things.

Some of the minor, some of the big, I mean, I think a notable one that I write about in the piece is education policy, where without really like a huge, rancorist debate about it, ideas about performance pay for teachers,

ideas about supporting high performing charter schools that, you know, the Obama White House of Champion,

And so the party just sort of went in the other direction.

And then we had, you know, a lot of discussion about this around COVID and school closures and different things there, but Democrats had an identity as a party of reform of the public sector that has sort of gone away in that regard.

Democrats have also shifted a lot on immigration over the past 10 to 15 years, right? There's been all this stuff about asylum that came up during the Biden presidency. Just wasn't really an issue that people were thinking

that much about during the Obama presidency. There was this kind of very specific focus on trying to get a path to citizenship for people who've been here for a long time, new things came up.

Democrats have gone through a number of cycles around crime

and criminal justice reforms since that time,

but have been sort of seen in some circles is very soft on crime.

“I think left-wing Democrats have started to see”

that this is a problem, everyone has sort of walked back, defunding police, things like that since then. But there's been this kind of, and then on economic policy, there's been a shift. Again, it was a shift in the Biden administration

to these kind of much more Elizabeth Warren like positions about the role of business, its relationship to the state. It used to be a view that Democrats were a party that was going to make rich people pay higher taxes,

and that was going to be a non-starter for a lot of rich people in the country. But for people who could stand that, who could say,

you know what, I'm going to pay more under the Democrats,

I'm going to contribute to the common will, I'm going to help the poor, whatever. You know, I'm still going to be treated like respectfully, as if business is a a lot of both thing to do with your career, and there's been shifts on both sides

of that, much more contentious relationship between the Democratic Party and the technology industry, but really the Democratic Party and the business world writ large. - So, I take your point that the party

has definitely shifted, left-word on a number of issues, and I can just speak from experience because oftentimes when this gets debated, I can remember when I was in the White House around the Obama campaign, and we did race to the top,

and we talked about teacher pay, and we talked about immigration in the context of, we're a nation of immigrants, but we're also a nation of laws, and you know, now people in the right, just like playback Obama clips from 2008,

where he's talking about border security. So, I get that, how do we know people's negative view of the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party's, sort of losing some elections, some big ones, is due primarily to specific issue positions

and not a number of other factors, you know, general perception of elitism, corruption, weakness, however you define it, right? There's a whole bunch of different potential factors in these losses.

“- You know, I think all this stuff is in the mix, obviously,”

and to an extent it connects to people at, such like Institute, did a really interesting series of polls about corruption. You know, people are very concerned about corruption. They think the political establishment is very corrupt,

but they asked like, do you consider X, Y, and Z thing corrupt? And, you know, it was like trading on insider stock information, definitely corrupt, but people also said it was corrupt when politicians do things to sort of curry favor with social elites that aren't what the public wants, right?

So that's like a very expansive view of corruption, where like, if you're afraid of getting canceled or something, so you're doing this, you know, that could be corrupt in some people's eyes. You also might see that as weak, you know,

I don't think you want to be weak, I think, again, to the point of why presidential campaigns matter, moderate members of Congress are almost all people who are representing districts, the Donald Trump one. I think those people are, in some ways,

the Democrats MVPs, but they are not MVPs when it comes to like big partisan controversies, because that's not how you hold down a red house seat. You kind of like duck those fights, and that does look weak to people in the base,

and that's not what they want, right? In a presidential campaign, you can do what Donald Trump did on Medicare and Social Security, you can do what President Obama did on education issues, which is you can reposition to the center,

unselect things, well, also being like a strong voice

“for your party, and it's side on certain kinds of key issues.”

But, you know, I do think that issues matter to people, like it's not a coincidence that in 2012, Democrats had all these great ads, lambasting, Mitt Romney's Medicare plan, and then Donald Trump comes along, and he's like,

I'm not going to do that Medicare plan, right? Now, 90% of the people who voted for Obama in 2012, vote for Hillary in 2016,

now they got a Republican who's like, you know what?

I'm not going to do that. So, you know, you go around the country, right? Like, not that many people are swing voters.

“It's a small population, but I think there are people there, right?”

Who are looking at, you know, these questions about who should plan women sports teams, and they really do care about that issue, and it upsets them that Democrats have the position that they don't agree with.

And that's a different, I mean, that was not an issue that we talked about really 10, 15 years ago, but I remember in 2008 when that campaign was happening, and Obama and all Democrats everywhere said that marriages between a man and a woman, and that's not what I believed,

and I know lots of the younger people who worked on those campaigns, that's not what they believed. I don't know what the principles themselves believe privately, but I think everyone kind of understood at that point in time, that it was going to be the job of someone else

to like persuade the voters that are more forward-thinking progressive view was correct, and that the politicians were going to, you know, try to get to yes with the electorate, that it was, it was tough enough to be opposing these constitutional amendments and other kinds of things

that would have completely closed the door and equality.

“And so, some of what's happened is I think just a lesson”

of a pragmatic spirit that Trump is so terrible, it makes people feel like, well, if he can get away with so much, like, we should be able to get away with undisciplined behavior, but that's just, like, that's not really how it works. You know, it's like, if he's really terrible,

we need to take this really seriously. [music playing] - Pots of America is brought to you by Helix. - Boy is sleep important. - It's a bit so important. - Older you get the more you realize the wisdom of that.

- That's right. - Um, and Helix knows how to help there. - Yeah. - Because they have the most comfortable, best mattresses. - I love my most mattress. - Don Lux. - Don Lux. - They're great. - Great.

How do you know which mattress is right for you? Take the Helix sleep quiz, and it will match you with the perfect mattress based on your personal preferences and sleep needs. They have over 20 mattress models, so you can find the perfect model for you. Helix delivers your mattress right to your door with free shipping in the US.

The happy with Helix guarantee offers a risk-free customer first experience design

to ensure you're completely satisfied with your new mattress, so you can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. Plus, Helix offers a hundred and twenty-night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty. At least parents live in Maine, we were just there for a week, and they needed to upgrade their mattresses in the, because they were at their very old in their, in their house.

And so, got some Helix mattresses, and boy did everyone sleep well. - Yeah. - Everyone was, we were just the kids. - Great. We were so happy with the Helix mattresses, and Helix was just, uh, they were great. You know, they just shipped them right there out of the box, boom, mattresses. Go to Helixleep.com/cricketfor27% off-site-wide.

Helixleep.com/cricketfor27% off-site-wide. Helixleep.com/cricket. - Pots of America is brought to you by A-corns. Today's budget is what it is, but tomorrow, that's up to you. A-corns is designed to help you effortlessly grow your savings,

and their potential screen shows you exactly what your money can do over time. A-corns is easy. You can sign up in minutes and start automatically investing your spare money, even if all you've got is spare change. A-corn grows with you, whether you're just starting out or thinking about settling down.

A-corn supports your big and small goals across every life stage. The A-corns potential screen shows you the power of compounding and how your money could grow over time. Plus, you can quickly adjust how much you're investing every day, week or a month, to make sure you're building towards your goals.

A-corn is on one, no more finance apps, cluttering up your phone. With A-corns, you can invest, save, and give your money a chance to grow in one trusted place. I was over at a friend's house, I haven't dinner with a family, and their son had his bar mitzva.

And he was like, I want to learn, he's wanted to learn how to invest. He's thinking about how to do that. And he was learning about how the compound interest would really help them if you're still on such a young age. So I think he's going to do great.

You can, and about the point is dear to the senior, again, beat by a 13-year-old. Don't let yourself get beat by that by a 13-year-old. Sign up now, and A-corns will boost your new account with a $5 bonus investment.

Join the over 14 million all-time customers who have already saved

the invested over $27 billion with A-corns. Head to A-corns.com/cricket or download the A-corns app to get started. Paid non-client endorsement compensation provides incentive depositively promote A-corns, tier 2 compensation provided, potential subject to various factors, such as customers' accounts, age, and investment settings does not include A-corns fees, results do not predict or represent

the performance of any A-corns portfolio, investment results will vary, investing involves risk. A-corns advisors LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor,

“the important disclosures at acornst.com/cricket. It is true that a majority of voters, especially”

voters in the states we need to win, routinely tell pollsters, including, especially in the most recent

at least in the New York Times poll, more people think the Democratic Party is too far left, than they think the Republican Party is too far right. Great. Not great. Though, importantly, in all six of the states where they polled the six Senate states that are a pickup opportunities for Democrats, voters were less likely to describe the Democratic candidate as too far left than they were the Democratic Party itself. Do you attribute that to specific moderate positions taken

by Mary Peltola, Josh Turk, Sherrod Brown, Roy Cooper, James Telerico, and I don't know about all of their positions on everything, but it doesn't seem like, at least I know enough, like Sherrod's been around long enough, it doesn't seem like they have moderated on any of the issues where you might think the Democrats need to moderate on. Well, it's a little evolved, right? So, Taric and Peltola have both sort of said that they want to support their

states oil and gas industries, which would be a very hot take in national Democratic Party politics,

“I think it's kind of a no brain or an Alaska in Texas. And, you know, that's good. We're just”

all kind of getting to a place of pragmatism, and stuff like that. Roy Cooper, you know, he's been in statewide office in North Carolina for a long, long, long time, has a distinctive relationship with the voters there. I think they see him as moderate at least because he's held office for a long time. There's this Republican Supermajority in the legislature. So, we don't really know, but what it is, he would have done if he was empowered.

Josh Turk and Iowa, you know, he really had a hard fought primary, Elizabeth Warren and others were supporting his opponent. He killed and represented an Obama to Trump, you know, switching,

district in the state legislature there. I don't know anything about Iowa. I've never been there.

I don't like to represent myself as an expert, but it did seem like it was the more moderate

“choice in a contested primary. You know, a chairbrown is, I think, the interesting one. I mean,”

I'm old enough to remember in 2006, when he was like this progressive dream candidate, we'd emerge. And like, that was a different era in Ohio, right? Like, everything was very different back then. You know, he, you know, Obama's first term. He really clashed with the White House over some energy stuff, religious steel industry, things like that. In Biden's term, he was much more kind of a good soldier. Got along with everybody. Maybe not the best idea in a state that

Trump won by six points. So, I don't know. You know, exactly where he's going to come down there. Some of it, though, is that, you know, when you have a specific individual candidate, they can try to communicate who they are rather than being like a caricature, right? And so,

that is always the power of individual candidates, particularly individual candidates who,

unlike late-stage Joe Biden, can, like, actually speak and engage with people.

“Yeah, that's what I was going to say, because I do think that the focus on positions and issue positions,”

which I do think voters care about, I would not dismiss that. But it is one of many factors, because a lot of the people you just talked about, it seems like they have an image of being more moderate, partly because of vibes that they put off because of their bio, because of who they are, how they communicate. I mean, Roy Cooper is an interesting one, too, because he ran for governor and won that race, partly the bathroom bill in North Carolina at the time. Now,

we're talking about trends issues around sports teams and gender affirming care. But back then, it was a bathroom bill and he was able to win in 2016. Yeah, it's pretty tough here, despite being very vocal on that issue at the time. And you do wonder then, is the reason that Roy Cooper's doing so well and people think he's more moderate, is it other factors aside from the actual positions he's taken? Well, you know, I think that there's a, there's a

ball thing to this, right? So, you know, governor Cooper was always sort of positioned himself as a champion

of economic growth in North Carolina and of sort of modernization and bringing business in. This is whole kind of, you know, new South tradition that Bill Clinton was part of that he's part of that Andy Bashir is part of. The, the bathroom bill controversy at the time that that was raging, right? It was related to that. Part of the case he was making was, you know, this is going to hurt us in the convention business. This is going to hurt us in attracting financial

services jobs from New York, things like that. And this is where, you know, there's issues, positions, there's vibes, there's communications, and it sort of comes together because if you can explain what you're doing in a way that connects to things that your constituents care about, that's much better than if you're kind of duck and cover all the time, right? Like can you engage

everybody votes for politicians who they agree with about some stuff and disagree with about other

stuff. If they feel like, well, this is a political party that wants to cancel me over disagreements, versus that can respect the idea of differences of opinion, but things that all things considered, you know, my healthcare plan is really important. Right? Those are not different issues,

“positions, but it's a little bit more than just vibes. Like I think we saw, but before, before we're”

in platinum, exited the race under a cloud of scandal, you know, we were putting to the test, the idea that just sort of a pure vibes, candidacy could sort of transform the demographic structure, the electorate, and I think the polls were saying that that wasn't working, that he was going to beat

Susan Collins until scandals took him down, but this is a state that Kamala won, it's a state

that Biden won, it's a state that Hillary won, he was winning based on educated people in coastal towns, kind of same old, same old, because his his issue positions were actually very, very standard, even though he had this really interesting persona, I think we both met, he was very charismatic in person, like like a cool guy, then maybe not so cool, but you know, ultimately, if you're going to persuade people who haven't been voting for you to vote for you, you've got to give them something,

“right? Like, yeah, some some reason to think that you're deaf. And this is the case with so many of”

these races is that there's so many different variables that it's hard to pin something down, because it's like, I realize that the left wants to believe that Graham Platner and his race could have like, you know, won him a bunch of non-college-educated white voters and sort of pick that

lock that we've Democrats been trying to pick for the last 20 years. I never really thought that

was the case, but I did think that his charisma was a big factor there. I saw you right a couple of times that one of the reasons he might have been seen as not as left as the Democratic Party as a whole is because of his position on guns. But then I was like, did that many people in Maine really knew? Do they all know what his position of guns was? Because he didn't talk about it a lot. It was like a big, it was only a big part of his campaign. And I do, I wonder if his style

in charisma may have made up for some of the, either, well, in his case, both the scandals, the early, the scandals early on. And the, you know, the further left issue positions like Medicare for All abolish ice and his position on Israel. Like, I wonder if his persona helped with his perception? Well, I guess part of the point I was trying to make in my 20, 20 apes is that the things that the establishment and the kind of more progressive people have been arguing about

are actually mostly not the issues that it seems like swing voters disagree with Democrats about, right? So like on Israel, the mass public has become quite skeptical of the U.S. Israel relationship. Obviously, that's a very fraught issue. And there's like, oh, wait, somebody wants to go further, you know, no matter what position you take. But there's like big room in the public eye for revisiting where Democrats have been on that. Medicare for All, you know, we've been talking about for

10 years, like pulling on that is all over the map, depending on what you ask. But people have pretty progressive ideas about healthcare. You know, like the voters believe that if people get sick, they should be able to see the doctor. And so, you know, you can, you can kind of go places on that. At the same time, you know, something I, I wrote about is, um, kind of like racial targeting of programs is quite unpopular with white people in particular who, you know, want programs to benefit them,

uh, rather than other people, which is pretty easy to understand, not really something the left in the establishment disagree about against, like interestingly, Obama in 2008 on the campaign trail, you know, made some real waves by suggesting that he wanted to revisit some of that and

“question, you know, do his daughters need special advantage over low-income white kids, right?”

That'd be a very hot take, uh, to put forward. It was a hot take when he did it, obviously, he had some, uh, personal qualities that, uh, gave him a little bit more space on those kind of things. But those are statements that make people think, huh, you know, maybe I need to give a given new look, um, to somebody who's out there. And I think you're right, you know, Platner didn't really talk much about the guns thing. We don't know how that would have gone as a general election,

right? But, you know, different things pop at different kinds of times. But I do think that's successful politicians usually put something on the table to make you think, oh, this guy's different,

but it still matters what the content is because if what we see is like, oh, that's different,

that's an idea I've never heard before. And I hate it. Like, that's not good, right? Like,

you know, you don't want to get attention for terrible ideas that everyone hates. The empathy point you made earlier, and I, I wonder if you read a Brian Boydler's piece today, where he sort of wrote about this as well, it's like the sort of the need to show empathy of a democratic politician to show empathy can kind of sort of bridge some of these divides, and these, and these disagreements between factions and the party. The Obama thing made me think,

so yeah, he would, he would go out and talk about like maybe what we really need is class-based affirmative action and not just race-based affirmative action. And then he would also make the point

that when people say, okay, well, then race doesn't matter. It's all about class. He would say,

well, no, I mean, you know, I'm, I'm bi-racial, but when I hail a cab and the cab keeps going, it's, I'm, I'm black to that cab. Absolutely. You know, and I do wonder if it is a question of Democrats, or a lot of the Democratic candidates we've seen, not quite having the, the skills to explain their positioning, and also explain it in a way where people who may be against the position they take can at least understand where they're coming from, and because the politician showed some

empathy for their position, as well as the position of the people that that politician landed on,

“their, their same beliefs. Yeah, and I mean, I think this is, you know, this is where I think the”

substance of the positions and the communications methods sort of come together, right? And so,

you know, both Biden and Harris and Clinton for all sort of different reasons, but none of them were really kind of like sit down and gab at length kind of politicians who made you feel like they could explain in sort of some level of nuance what it was they really thought about these different kinds of issues, and that hurts you, right? Because like this is a big diverse country you end up with two political parties, two candidates down there. You're trying to assemble a

somewhat messy coalition, and there's going to have to be some like fuzzing of these issues, there's going to have to be some outreach to the middle, but you've got to get people on the left on board. I mean, look at this primary happening in Michigan, right? It's very bitter. Somebody's going to win, someone is going to lose. They're going to need to get the people who voted for the other person to come vote for them, which is going to mean whoever wins that is going

to have to redescribe whatever it is they were saying about Israel or whatever else in a way that is at least acceptable to the other person's voters and like that's hard, right? I mean that's the real art of politics. I as a journalist, I I observed that this occurs and that the good politicians do it, but I do feel like there has been a I remember when Harris was campaigning with Liz Cheney and there was a lot of like people from the left were like this is terrible like how can

you work with Liz Cheney and then conversely Harris wasn't like moving toward Liz Cheney's

“positions and any kind of issues, right? And so I think that wound up being a real kind of like”

dead zone version of like trying to see more moderate but not actually making anybody like her better but raising these different kinds of questions and it was just challenging I think for her to convey to people exactly what she was trying to say about this like why should somebody who was more conservative than Kamal Harris vote for her anyway because that's clearly what that was meant to convey, right? Like that was the purpose of them being up on stage but it's like it's a hard argument

to make. I mean I don't have a big difficulty making the cases say like Trump like he's corrupt January 6 but like also I just don't agree with him like he's cutting health care, he's doing tax cuts for the rich like these aren't things that I agree with but she wanted to make a pitch to people like my father-in-law who's like pretty conservative but also really doesn't like Trump you know

“and he I think he voted for Harris at the end of the day and then he votes for Greg Abbott down”

ballot but there's all these people out there who are conflicted and you do have to come up with some way to build a bridge to them that also you know conveys to progressives that like if Democrats win the election progressive public policy is going to happen. So you're running the presidential campaign of your your dream Democrat who's willing to emphasize moderation. What moderate stances are you telling them to emphasize where the Democratic party's position is

most out of step with even its own voters on high salants issues right which are issues voters

we just talked about sort of affirmative action supreme court has now ruled on using race as a

factor in in college admissions doesn't seem like that is going to be a hot button issue in 2028 and so you could argue that just just purely on a political level moderating on that in a sort of a allowed way probably out yeah and also can feel a little inauthentic and

“an opportunistic you know so what do you think are the big ones so I you know I think there's like”

a few different buckets here but immigration is a big one right because people are there's a big backlash against what ISIS been doing all Democrats are going to give voice to that etc etc but this continues to be one of Donald Trump's strong issue areas and you see that in polling of even Democrats there's real concern about reopening sort of the gates to people seeking asylum now this is not worth like I am at personally I'm like quite left on immigration but I can see the numbers here

right and you need to convey to people both that there's going to be a meaningful recalibration from what Trump is doing but also that like we have heard what people were saying during the Biden administration and are not going to rerun that experience I think that's like a big one I think some of these trans issues are not that salient with the public but they get brought up a lot

“by Republicans yet to be prepared to answer questions about them and I think you have to be prepared”

to go into some level of nuance because you want to convey like real empathy real support for people's rights but also to understand I think that like there is a set of sex segregated spaces where most Americans want you know biology is defined by chromosomes to be the controlling factor there I think you have to at least throw a bone to the median voter on this kind of topic when you're dressing it and then I think there's this set of things education as I think the most prominent

of them but can you show people that Democrats understand that like voter support the social safety net voter support public services voter support taxing the wealthy but also voters want to see change and reform in the state in the government that when doge was first rolled out people were really excited about it right and it like it all went to shit but the idea of like I am willing to take on the stakeholders inside the bureaucracy and do something good like that means a lot

to people in terms of like what are their doubts about democratic party governance you know when people live in the Midwest and they think about California New York right they think maybe a nice place to live if you're like incredibly wealthy but they don't think

what they've really got there is like an incredible balance of taxes and quality public services

right it's like the weather is amazing in California the culture and nightlife in New York is fantastic but people look at those higher taxes and they're like well look what are you getting for that money right and and people who live in those states like that you're in California right yeah yeah I mean it's like California's amazing but none of the Californians are now are like the thing that is amazing about California is that the high levels of taxes that I pay

is like really paying off in my day to day life right and and like we know that between ourselves

“and you know that is something that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama I think both tried to give”

voice to even as they tried to give healthcare EITC other things to help the needy Pots of America is brought to you by our place our place makes beautiful high performance kitchen where design to make home cooking simpler and more enjoyable everything is designed to be multifunctional so you're not crowding your kitchen with pans and appliances that can only perform one task since day one our place's cookware has been made without forever chemicals and it's

always third party tested to meet global safety standards the wonder oven pro is an eight in one air

fryer toaster oven that preheat 60% faster than a traditional oven and cooks up to 40% faster so meals actually happen quicker it air fries roasts bakes toasts reheats proofs dehydrates and broils all in one compact footprint in every cooking surface is made without forever chemicals it's especially great for quick meals reheating leftovers crispy things up or nights when you don't want to turn on the full oven I'm getting one of these wonder pro what a wonder I'm getting

one of these wonder oven pro's it's on the it's on the way wow I'm going to use it because

oh I just have a toaster oven like an idiot just you wait just like a like a like a

“dunce like a dummy is wonder oven pro I think you can do you can make potatoes in it”

I should not internet potatoes how about that in the bear fire baked no no no no no you're gonna make some fries crisp them up you know upgrade your kitchen with our place today visit from our place dot com slash cricket and use code cricket for 10% off site wide that's r-o-m-o-u-r-p-l-a-c-e dot com slash c-r-o-k-e-d and use code cricket for 10% off site wide with 100-day trial you can try it completely risk free positive america is brought to you by zipper

cruder it would be nice if there was way to offload some of the you know daily tasks that can

be a bit boring sometimes and so I'm always looking for ways to do that you know and we all have

time saving hacks for everyday life but if you're a business owner how can you save time hiring with zipper cruder there you go zipper cruder has new powerful matching technology that quickly that's you see the most interested qualified candidates first so you can save time by meeting the right people faster candidates can also tell you in their own words by their interested in your job no wonder zipper cruders the number one rated hiring site based on g2 we've used zipper

who to hear a cricket to hire people and it's it's made a huge difference to incentivize the process helps you find great people and everything about having a company is about having the right people everything else the secondary to that is surrounded by a bunch of things in morons you're not gonna have a great day at work I don't care I don't care I don't care how good your product is you may have a good product now you're not not for long now with these morons

go get yourself some zipper cruder you gotta get some zipper cruder to fix up your widgets and you know anyway zipper cruder save time in meet great candidates sooner four out of five

employers you post on zipper cruder get a qualified candidate within the first day try it for free

zipper cruder dot com slash cricket dot com slash cricket meet your match on zipper cruder part of the the challenge we're landing on here is um that nuance and sort of thoughtful explanations don't uh first of all people aren't as good at at giving them show and and so there's a skill level with politicians that we talked about and even if you are skilled there's just the ability to get that message out right and so people see ice abuses and you know you've got people

even like built crystal now every time there's an ice story is tweeting abolish ice of all shades right and I get it because you you feel this absolute fury and frustration for what they're doing and look I could make an argument that yes ice is relatively a relatively new organization and that we could put immigration enforcement back at you know some parts of it at dhs and dhoj and we could do the bureaucratic hard everything and um and I and I am someone who's comfortable

saying um yes we still need immigration enforcement obviously um but if you just say abolish ice of course abolish immigration and custom enforcement makes a lot of people think oh well then you

don't want immigration enforcement anymore when the reality is like if I was a democratic president

I'd go and I was heading into office after this yeah I would fire most of the people in ice

“because I think they've hired a bunch of unqualified psychopaths um I would still want”

immigration enforcement somehow but it is it takes a while to explain all of that you know and absolutely and I just wonder how that I wonder how that plays out in a democratic presidential primary yeah I mean on the one hand yes nuance is hard on the other hand I don't think it's actually that hard to say we need to totally revamp how ice works or even abolish it whatever but we need a secure border um James tell Riko had this line and he's like we've got to have like

a door with a beautiful well-bath and also a lot right and that's like a good you know metaphor right so he's smart but it's not impossible to come up with these kind of formulas but I actually think is a little bit harder you know for people who are down ballot and maybe even for presidential candidates is navigating the kind of interest group mine field you know where there's a lot of stakeholders who have very specific things that they want you to say and politicians get these kind of

memos from their staff you know they're like don't say this do you say that don't say this do you say that right and they're they're really nervous right they're trying to navigate in this really precise way like I don't want to lose this endorsement I don't want to you know get score down on something else like this and it makes it hard for them to talk like people like

“we all know democrats in our lives um who are much more nuanced I think than the members of”

congress who we see on our televisions and it's because they're not under the same kind of pressure and the same kind of scrutiny to sort of talk in like a relaxed somewhat normal way about things but it takes courage I mean this is why again I mean I look to presidential campaigns

probably gonna lose right like it it's just it's hard it's hard to win and I think a lot of the

best presidential candidates are people who started off as real underdogs right I mean again that's the thing that trump and obama having comet right it took a certain amount of courage to even launch those campaigns and to work on them and to do it um that last three times democrats have kind of had this this sort of like overdog nominee who was like handed down by the weight of the past and that's not great because people who are taking that path just they're incentive is

toward being cautious all the time yeah and you come across as a really cautious really calculating person rather than somebody who was like I'm gonna take my shot you know and I'm gonna I'm gonna speak from the heart and and no politician is ever like truly authentic truly truly speaking from the heart but there is a difference between someone who's like I'm gonna go for it and someone who's like well this is coming my way so I'm gonna not fuck it up at one point um you you write that a

center left candidate who is quote charismatic and skilled at contemporary social media can talk above the groups directly to voters totally agree but you mentioned obama is sort of coming up as an underdog and getting attention and everyone else has sort of been handed down like how many democratic politicians can you name in the last decade who've been able to command national attention with a message of disciplined moderation well I know I mean you know most of the

people who've come up and have commanded attention have been very left wing you know and I think that's a big part of the reason why the whole discourse keeps getting sort of dragged to the left uh younger people are just more left wing uh you know and particularly within the democratic party so you have your AOCs you have among Donnie's and these are the people who shown real flair for communication skills I think you have also seen from both of them you know impulses

toward AOC had this whole bit about like how we need to de-regulate sunscreen essentially right um and Mabdani as some like small business kind of thing and and stuff that he's doing that impresses people so this stuff can work for different kinds of politicians with different

“kinds of ethosies also you know branding I think actually is not what matters most I mean”

Obama in 2008 I think was understood as the progressive sort of choice and that primary primarily because of Iraq you know which was was really really important to people at that time so you look back and you say well he was actually the one who was like taking on teachers unions um he was the one who actually had more support from sort of like Wall Street and finance he was the preferred candidate of a lot of the red state members of Congress at that time um he uh he tacked of the

center and affirmative action um all these other kinds of things but at the time like progressives really liked him because he was the one who said like this war is really fucked up and you know

that is the advantage of taking a position that is vindicated by time you know it's like always good

to have like good judgment on the substance of questions and so I think anyone including people who are sort of understood today to be progressive could also move to the center on these kind of issues that we've been talking about because when I talk to really left-wing people I'm like what are they fired up about it's like not actually the things that the public has

“the biggest doubts for Democrats about I think if you want to be a medicare for all candidate”

there's like real problems of program design that you sort of need to confront but it's not a political problem in the way that the sense that you want to open the borders is you know abolish ice maybe not a slogan I would advise people to go with but if you can convey the idea that abolishing ice doesn't mean reopening to millions of new asylum seekers like that could be totally fine maybe it's easier actually to moderate on aspects of immigration if you have this

left-wing slogan rather than if you're coming at a backwards like I'm not totally sure you know

how that that needle needs to be threaded ultimately I just think that you have to give voters some

level of reassurance about their biggest doubts about Democrats especially if you're going to say we're going to have a whole new approach to Israel we're going to we're going to take on the vested interests in the healthcare system like you're not going to pull that off while also

“alienating you know 60% of the population around cultural issues right like if you want to”

say we're going to like have this populist anchor then I think you just have to follow the logic of that in like a compelling way and say look if you can agree with me that healthcare should be

plastic straw right like because because we're focused on the healthcare thing versus this sort of

laundry list politics where it's like you know I got this for the healthcare I got this for the child care I've got this on the plastic straws I've got this on the immigration I've got this on the asylum this on criminal justice like that's a hard way to do politics. I am intrigued by your advice on on candidates offering policy plans which is don't do that. That's right so like you know you're asked how do you get to universal healthcare and you say it depends

on the composition of Congress what are you going to bet the deficit we need to text rich people and cut wasteful spending but then not a lot of more detail. I mean the answers those answers certainly have the virtue of being true right like of course this all depends on Congress

and all kinds of other circumstances that you can't predict in the heat of a campaign in a campaign

as the primary goes on with the imaginary candidate we're talking about here is it possible to dodge questions and attacks from your opponents about having no plans and it does seem like that was part of like Kamala Harris's vagueness was part of sort of the negative coverage she received. Yeah so one thing is like with all this plan stuff I'm trying to hold myself accountable a little bit because I was part of a wave of young at the time journalists who were really like we

got to see plans from these presidential candidates and in retrospect it's like I wonder why we were so demanding of that because that's not how the government works right and like we all know that and so this is kind of there was this faux sophistication coming from me and from some of my colleagues but I mean specifically from me as well to be demanding all this

“detail from people and I think that if you can give real answers that may sense that both journalists”

and voters will understand actually that like the micro details of tax policy are written by congress and that the directionality of tax policy is like a numbers game right like if we have a teeny tiny majority it's going to be hard to do very much but if we're a big majority we'll do a lot and you try to say what kinds of things you want to do you know with Harris right I mean she was in this weird position where she was the vice president for an incumbent administration

she was saying I mean I remember the first time when she was doing a little rally and she said

like we're not going back and I was like yeah you know like I love that line right because people really wanted both change but also not Donald Trump right and so she seemed to convey that but then she got the question like well in what way is this change but not Donald Trump and she didn't have a great answer the great thing about being a Democrat running when a Republican is president is that you don't you don't have that same complicated question right it's like change

that's not Donald Trump is just like yeah elected Democrat right and then people do want to know something like what does that mean what are you going to do how are you going to govern differently

“and I'm not saying that you should dodge that question I mean again implicit in all of this is”

that like yeah like rich people's taxes will go up we're going to spend more money on subsidizing people's health care we're going to however we characterize what we're doing with ice it's like fewer people are going to be getting arrested in the interior of American cities and then hopefully we can also say but there's going to be a very secure border you know we're going to keep fighting crime we're going to make crime even lower than it is now you know something like that but do we

really need to have this like 17 point plan like we had in the 2020 primary again thinking about about 2008 right there were all these articles written about different candidates health care plans and like a bomb us plan didn't have mandate right and then he won the primary and then he won the election and then Congress did want to do the mandate so the mandate happened but then in like the rule writing in HSS it got watered down a little bit then there was like unrelated implementation

problems but then actually it was going pretty well and like people liked Obamacare but then the mandate got repealed and then that maybe it didn't it's like so tedious and in retrospect I mean it sure must have been a huge pain in your ass and it wasn't mine like what like why do we spend so much time talking about this the challenge here is is it a reason that these policy plans are developed if then the context of our primary is to be used as a political cudgel against your

“opponents because you're running in a primary and the truth is most of you have the same general”

position on most of the same issues and you want to differentiate yourself from the other primary candidates and so you put out a plan that is bolder and more ambitious which is either it's more expensive or probably harder to achieve than the other candidates so that you can get

way than the mandate in 2020 when I don't know how many of those debates ended up being just a

conversation not even a conversation just a debate about Medicare for all and whose Medicare for all plan was the best when then Joe Biden won and what did you like barely expanded anything

“yeah but I mean some subsidies and that is one where I think it is important to remind people”

that like Joe Biden won that primary right after that huge shit show that actually his message of like I'm just going to beat Donald Trump was like pretty compelling actually to democratic primary voters and he is not the single most like silver tongue person in the universe certainly not a master vertical video or whatever else it is so I do think that there's like ways for younger

politicians to tap into some of what worked for him there right in terms of like keeping the

focus I'm like what do Democrats really care about and it's beating Trump it's not just beating Trump right I think Democrats care a lot about health care and I think Democrats are quite exercised about some of the cruelty of these immigration enforcement actions and if you can hit those three buttons in some kind of way and convince people that you're going to take action on those

“issues like you could be I think conceivably pretty flexible on some other things if people believed”

that it was in pursuit of accomplishing these important goals the Biden thing is interesting though because I think I don't see a lot of evidence that Biden ended up winning that primary because he steaked out more moderate positions than the rest of the field in many ways he sort of chased them on some of these issues he he I think half raises hands on on raises hand on decriminalizing the border on that one and I think that he probably what helped him is he had universal

name ID he was Barack Obama's vice president and so he sort of had a bit of Obama halo and then it was there was no one else left by the time it was just he and Bernie right well and he did really well in the the head to head match up polling against Trump right I mean that you know people Democrats these days you know read the New York Times uh when Nate Cone tells them that like a Elizabeth Warren is really unpopular and people like Joe Biden like that made a big difference

it did yeah he just goes back to my the challenge I keep thinking about is like Joe Biden Hillary Clinton Kamala Harris because she was just you know installed last minute these are all people that their name ID came from virtue of them being political dynasties or someone else's vice president or and and the incentives to become nationally known and get attention I feel like point towards language that is bolder more ambitious geared towards conflict sometimes hyperbolic

and I'm trying to picture the um the candidate who practices discipline moderation who is

“sort of breaks out and these like I mean you know I think about like an Andy Beshear right like”

an amazing track record electoral record in Kentucky and still like a pretty mainstream

Democrat not like super conservative but like I'm trying to picture Andy Beshear and if you know I've seen him give some interviews I've interviewed him myself like really break it out in a crowded primary with a message that's going to capture people and that that's the I feel like we have a lot of center left candidates who may be electorally viable but are not very good at getting attention and then we have a lot of progressive candidates who are very good

at getting attention and may not be electorally viable in swing states you know so right so you know some of this like yes right um part of the deal with someone my governor was here is that he's very disciplined which I think is good for him winning elections at Kentucky but it also denudes him of a certain amount of pizzazz right they could potentially be out there like one of the things that I think was interesting about about platinum wasn't just like the

positions that he took but that he seemed very like anything might happen in this interview right and that kind of kinetic energy is unusual in experienced politicians because the way you kind of get to be almost a presidential contender is usually by being like quite controlled you know and like come and you climb the state party ladder you make the right kind of people like you and then suddenly you find yourself in a crowded presidential primary field and like the challenge

like Ruben Gaigo who has through many twists and turns in his career found himself as kind of like a

moderate swing state senator but just a couple years ago was like the progressive challenger to Chris and Cinema and before that was like the young guy in the state legislature who was trying to muscle and pastora out of a house seat right and he has a little bit more of the the looseness that kind of gets you attention but is unusual in all kinds of politicians we're seeing it more with left-wing politicians because they've been challenging incumbents right only like a slightly

crazy person runs against an entrenched house incumbent most of the people who do that lose but a couple of them win and then then your AOC right because you took on this sort of suicide

one primary you don't see as many people like that in the moderate lane but I think it's it's

possible right because it's about trying to be interesting and like trying to break through and it is also about having the right issue positions you know I mean so many people who are who care about electoral pragmatism I think really like Josh Shapiro right because he's doing

“incredibly well in the critical swing state and I think that's really important it's also true”

that you know when he like speaks from the heart in a way that is moderate and compelling and makes you think like okay like disguise for real he tends to be talking about israel issue in a way that like it's just public opinion is not on his side you know and like that's that's the tough one like you can't you can't win by being moderate on something where everything's going the other way now that being said like he has done some stuff in the state that is heterodox on energy

he's done stuff in the state that is heterodox on education I think maybe if he talked more about those things that convict you know delivers the same kind of electoral pragmatism but also actually connects more with things that Democrats themselves have mixed feelings about you know about like how are these systems operating are we shaking them up are we governing well in our blue states these kinds of things but there's no getting around the fact that politics is hard

Pots of America is brought to you by Sundays is your dog a picky eater it's surprisingly stressful you wish they could tell you the problem maybe if they could your dog would say they know the difference

“between processed brown pellets in real food I think my dog would say that Sunday starts with 80%”

plus all natural meats and then add superfoods like kale ginger and blueberries no fillers no nutritional blends no chemicals just simple complete nutrition and Sunday's just launched a brand new fish recipe it's made with 80% hole in minced fish including eco friendly invasive carp source from american rivers for a naturally rich flavor in fact did you know that many dogs naturally prefer fish flavors so Sunday's fish recipe is especially great for picky eaters and again

those damn carp out of the water get the carp out invasive carp source from our own rivers plus it's passing with these carp still they're crazy I know I've this was a this is an issue in Barack Obama Senate office back in 2005 right because he's Asian carp crazy plus it's packed with omega 3 fatty acids that help support healthy skin shiny coats joints and brain function it's complete and balanced nutrition for all life stages Leo loves Sunday's for dogs we just

we took him to to main and so it was very easy to travel with Sunday's for dogs just poured in the

bowl and then he like ran right to the bowl and was very excited as he always is because he's a picky eater

make the switch to Sundays go right now to sendays for dogs dot com slash cricket and get 50% off your first order or you can use code cricket a checkout that's 50% off your first order at sendays for dogs dot com slash cricket sendays for dogs dot com slash cricket or use code cricket a checkout Josh appears another one where it's like it's the the the center left uh there he is there's often a lot of like this candidate is so great on paper and look at their electoral track record

and you know Josh appears going to have a fantastic story to tell about that and a very very

“important state um and look at how he's navigated the coalitions and approval rating all that kind of”

stuff and then it's not it's not just like I don't want to say it's a lack of charisma but it's what is the story that you're telling about why you're running and why you're different from everyone else and it is that story cohesive and compelling versus cherry picking issues where you can say see this is why I'm different than the the national democratic party and a little more moderate and the thing that you hate about the national democratic party is it's not the thing that you are

gonna hate about me um which can again really risk sounding like you read a polling memo yeah although we also depends what people in our line of work decide that we are interested

personally are very interested in um left wing reformist politics in New York City where they live and so things that happen in that vein get a lot of coverage um I don't think that's it's not like wrong for people to be very passionate about politics in the city that they live in I wish more people actually cared about the politics in the city with the event but it's distortionary in terms of like our understanding of national politics and like what's it all

“about right and something that you know I try to do that I think everybody has to try to do is”

exercise some discipline and responsibility for ourselves that the most important races coming up in

November are in Ohio they're in Iowa they're in Texas Alaska North Carolina I have some personal connection to Texas through my wife's family I have some personal connection to Maine where I am physically present right now I don't have any connection to Iowa in Ohio but like I care a lot about the future of the country so it's incumbent on me to like learn to care about these states right um Rob Sand is clearly doing something in Iowa that is compelling to people who used to vote

for Democrats and stopped voting for Democrats and they like Rob Sand and so I'm trying to like I'm trying to get it you know like he's he's pretty charismatic you know he's an interesting guy

yeah it pays that there's something different about him but it's not targeted at me you know and

“like that's that's why he's running in Iowa like that's what's good about it I will say you're right”

that everyone needs to take responsibility for in in the media and the professional class like for what they emphasize and what they talk about I will speak as someone runs a media company who like we try to have everyone on yeah and a lot of this is the attention that the person ends up commanding with audiences right like we we've talked to mom Donnie a bunch of times very popular right not just with our audience but like those clips traveled beyond our audience right and we will have you

know Kate Connelly who's in a much more important to the future of the country district to win

when she's in town and who knows maybe it'll also be an incredibly viral clip but our experience has been

a lot of these candidates we're in really important races that we had up talking to like it doesn't go anywhere because people are like well I don't really want to I don't know how it's excited about that and that's not going to stop us from doing it we'll keep doing it but eventually you want and especially you want this is a candidate on a campaign you want your message to reach the low information voters and unfortunately the stuff that gets to the low information voters to people who don't

pay his close attention to all this has to be stuff that goes viral you know and that's that's the trick and this is a I mean a huge frustration that I have with a lot of the more moderate Democrats is that they don't even want to try a lot of time right that their attitude is look nationalizing things is bad for me I do better if there's kind of less of a giant media glare on me what I want to do is be well enough known among super high-attentioned people that I can raise money yeah

I then I want to talk to my local television station about my local issues and I get why people come to that conclusion and I think it's the advice that they're getting from the D triple C from the DSCC and it works within the kind of four walls of what it's designed to achieve but then all these same people also come around to me and they're like oh my god I'm so frustrated people think the only Democrats in the country are AOC and Mamdaani and it's like well because they do the interviews

right and like they'll go on your show they'll go on Fox they'll you know when some of it is like you can be more devil-maker in a safe district and it's it's a little bit of a loaded playing field but also you know life's not fair as we they they tell us not to tell our 11 year old that you're

“not supposed to waste kids with that message anymore but I think it's an important point fundamentally”

it's like it is harder to be in a swing district it just is you know that the playing field is loaded against you but like you've got to try right you've got to try to be interesting you've got to try to say look you know if you look at vincentic gazzales and we're equals again paris and Don Davis and Kate Connelly and Tom Swazzy that there actually is something that we all have in common we're not all just like local people who are focused on our issues here right that like they because they

raisers like there's a group of moderate Democrats but they need to give some voice to like

what do we think who are we why are we the good people and I give incredible credit to Bernie Sanders

who has been tireless about trying to promote politicians who he likes and I hear so many other Democrats and they're mad that Bernie is promoting these people and that the people who they like aren't getting promoted but it's like well who's going to promote them other than you yeah that's

“that's what actually bothers me a lot is that they they look at the in surging candidates on”

the left and the in sort of the progressive outsiders with like umbridge that's like the main feeling like how dare you and my candidate works really hard and has been just do you know this is sort of like the Haley's even stuff has gotten better I think the argument that people are making for her but originally it was like well she's been there just working hard and give her credit for being there and working hard and it's like okay I'm sure that's true if you know her but like

voters don't know that and so they're going to need a different kind of story there well and also I I know so many Democrats who want her to win this primary but who don't want to fly to Michigan and campaign with her because it'll be embarrassing if they stand with her and she loses but it'll be embarrassing to Bernie if I do loses and like he doesn't he has the can't you know he he's doing the work right and there's no there's no alternative to that in politics

and that's like part of my message to the more moderate Democrats out there is like don't just give up hope but also don't just assume that we can keep endlessly staving off the left and you know pulling more rabbits out of the hat like somebody's got to run a campaign somebody's got to make the case you've got to actually like articulate some daring positions on the issues and if

“people yell at you you have to explain why they're wrong and like you got to go on crooked and you”

probably got to go on Hassan Piker and you know do some interviews and people who don't agree with

you and stand your ground and that's because that's how it's always been you know there's no there's

no like magic trick look I know people have said it's not the the issue that lost for the election but the the ad that Kamala Harris dealt with about gender affirming care for undocumented immigrant prisoners and you know the campaign was like oh we tested all the responses and their responses didn't do anything and so we decided like not to talk about it at all and I just I don't think that may be true in terms of testing the ads but I think the candidate has to be able

to tell a story about why they supported that why they've changed their mind if they have changed their mind that that is acceptable to voters right like I don't think ducking these issues or just trying to hide from them is it is not a an effective strategy on a presidential campaign level like some of the I remember Jonathan Martin wrote a piece of wild back was like

Democrats aren't focusing at all on maybe some of the most important Senate races like they don't

get national attention like Roy Cooper or and it's like well Roy Cooper probably doesn't want a lot of attention on his race because he has enough money he has race quite a bit of money he's ahead and so what is Roy Cooper care for all talking about Roy Cooper's race he probably doesn't probably rather us not but you can't do that under presidential primary and the challenges you're going to get a bunch of moderates in the presidential primary that don't know how to sort of

make that argument and get that level of attention though the one person I've been thinking about this whole time and I thought about when I read your piece of the first time is wrong like

“wrong will be this person right yeah I mean I mean wrong is I think doing the right stuff you know”

he is getting attention to himself people know his name etc you know if I could um puppet master everything I would say look is like a retread from the Obama White House from like White House who is ambassador to Japan who if he does gain some traction in the primary we're going to be re-litigating like on McDonald like that's not like I would love for Rome to take a step back and to mentor somebody else yeah you know what I mean because clearly there is a demand for fresh

faces and new voices and like we can all everybody can see that right and you know what this is part of why I'm excited about Judge Turek and James Tolerico is like these are younger politicians they are not part of the old kind of mess I think they are kind of media savvy and and no stuff and they're not from the left wing of the party they're just also not handed down by the establishment

world need to make room for other people and promote them or help them rather than saying look

“the same cohort that was telling you in 2016 like don't listen to Bernie we know how to win”

and then they didn't win and now we're 10 years into that and it's not a healthy dynamic last question on this so who do you like in 28 as a as a potential candidate who could carry this message sure you know what I tell people is like we know the universe of statewide

elected officials in the critical swing states right it's Kelly and Geigo in Arizona it's

Whitmore and Michigan it's Shapiro and Pennsylvania there's some of you like Tony Evers is too old Katie Hobbes seems like I kind of like her but it seems like she totally refuses to do press of any kind yeah um like someone who's who's not gonna run uh John Fetterman is like not gonna be a leading contender I think we could say uh but like we we know this universe of candidates and the question is which of them is going to try to go beyond like you were saying right

“they're gonna stand up and think about like I know how to win in the swing states you should vote”

for me this is the most practical thing to do I kind of agree with that it's also just not that

compelling right and so who's gonna say I know how to win in the swing states and the way I did it is that I said and then you gotta say the thing right you know like like you have to actually go say something and something that I have noticed is that a lot of these people depending on what audience they're talking to they sometimes want to undersell the amount of ideological heterodoxy that they've displayed in their campaigns because the easiest way to raise money

if you're running for reelection in Kentucky it's kind of tell like liberal donors and coastal

cities like I'm a magician you know I just like one in Kentucky because I've got a cool accent

but like Andy Beshear rejected a Sierra Club endorsement and he got the United Mine Workers who have stopped endorsing Democrats and national politics to endorse him and that's because like he has a position on the use of coal that like I don't really agree with but that people in Kentucky do agree with and that's like that's the truth about how Andy Beshear wins votes in Kentucky then other people don't have I don't think you could sell that to a national Democratic primary

electorate because it's like Kentucky is too right way right it's it's too far but there's stuff you can say in the Midwest or in Arizona or in Georgia but like you got to give people the real talk about like what did you say Rafael Warnock what did you say John Ossoff to the local audience is in Georgia and say it to a national audience and a lot of the time you know you'll find with these people it's border security it's some kind of political reform and it is some effort to indicate

“that you're not like woke like whatever it is exactly that means to people but I think something like”

you know you are not going to be so obsessed with identity politics that you can't just like help everybody on their own terms right and that's the message Obama used is the message Bill Clinton used I think we kind of like know what they're like unifying this is a diverse country but we're all in it together I mean you're you know brilliant speech writer like you know how to do these things but only certain people can sell it because politics is hard hope we find one soon

Madaglase is thank you so much for for joining positive America as is a great conversation thank you thanks a madaglase is for coming on Tommy love it and I will be back in your feed on Tuesday positive America is a crooked media production our show is produced by Austin Fisher saw Rubin McKenna Roberts and Ferris Safari with re-chirling Elijah Cone and Adrian Hill our team includes Matt to Groat then have code Jordan Cantor Charlotte Landis Carol Pelevi David tolls Mia Kalman Ryan Young and Naomi single

our staff is probably unionized with the writer's guild of America East