Bill Kristol: A Blue Wave vs. the Toxic Red Tide

assuming it was a blowout LSU victory on Saturday night. That's why I didn't mention that because

I don't know what has happened yet. I don't know what's happened in the world. So, you know, if we got the cheeseburger from heaven or whatever, I don't know about it. So it is a great show. We're talking a little bit about the mid-terms and it's a retrospective on 94 in 2006. I think that you are going to really enjoy it. Also, remind you we got these events coming up. Take

“it's starting to go. So if you want to come join us at Laena, Columbia, Charlotte,”

the board.com/events and one last thing I'm after the pods over. Let me know what you think about kind of the retrospective part of this. I have another little brainchild for something that I think you guys might like that is in a similar vein and some interested in your thoughts. So you can, if you didn't like it, who's boring or whatever, you can let me know. So, I appreciate you guys very much. Have a great library. I stick around for Bill Crystal.

Hello and welcome to the board daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday. It's Labor Day and I have for you. Of course, Editor at Large Bill Crystal, we have a very special episode by popular demand. It's the Labor Day kickoff getting ready for the mid-terms and Bill and I on several episodes have been discussing the 2006 wave year that led to the Democrats taking the house in the Senate as well as some other mid-terms. And I have suggested

to kind of cheekily like maybe we should dedicate a full episode to that. And people are like, yes, please do, we want that. And so we're going to do it right now for Labor Day. It'll feel a little holiday bonus. So that's our good bill. Sounds good, so we'll do 2006 where you'll which is the least modern history. Then we'll go back to 1994 the ancient times before you were born and I could discuss what happened then. And then you also told me you wanted to just a little bit

on your first campaign, 1948. Thank you. Well, did I say you up? I said you up so well for that. I mentioned

“1948 and Marty Shastis week and that's why Tim is making a good time. Having a good time with that.”

I was not quite around yet. We also for the YouTube viewers and this board plus subscribers, we had a picture of me from 2006 in video of Bill 94. So you can go, we'll see what we look like. We're

both, we're both hands but never know. Before we do that, I thought it would be good just kind of

set the table with a little bit of just pure politician, some prognosticating, looking ahead to this year's midterm. And then we can talk about how our various experiences and past midterm sort of informed these projections. So I don't know what we need to do like a state by state. I'm kind of wondering what Bill, like your your big picture thoughts are as we sit here on Labor Day for how the November election will go and maybe specific states that they're catching your eye.

I thought it would be a big democratic year for quite a while. They've done nothing other than just the obvious facts. And the main fact being the Donald Trump's approval rating has got gone down steadily since he was inaugurated. And the approval rating of an incumbent president is a good predictor of what happens in a midterm election, especially when his party controls both has the Congress. So it is a referendum on, do you approve of what they've been doing for

two years? And more importantly, probably, do you want the Republican, especially when the Republican party in Congress is so attached to Trump? Do you want them to continue rubber staffing? What has been doing for the next few years? Or do you want to party to check him? That was very much

my experience as 2018, the last Trump midterm. And so I've always assumed Democrats had a pretty

good shot at a pretty good victory. And then as Trump got into the Iran war and decided to muck you around with tariffs some more, and inflation didn't go down and be made to generally seem disconnected from people's lives. And so forth, it gas prices went up. And by quite a lot, I thought a good year could become a very good year. And that's kind of for the Democrats. And that's kind of where I am. Yeah, so let's just do the house first. I'm I grew with you on all that on the

big picture. I'm a little bit of two minds at the house in the Senate. And it's a little bit because of the playing field. Like I do think that the Democrats are going to see big gains among Latina voters. So, you know, in the parts of the country where there are a lot of

“Latina's like Texas, we get that, that is maybe wrong and for the Senate. But I think that they're”

going to overperform there. There will be a lot of Trump backsliding. And I think the Prick Mouse occasions are wrong. A lot about what's happening in South Texas may be even South Florida. Some places like that. And so I expect the Democrats to even overperform in the house for that reason. And if you look at a lot of the projections right now and they'd silver, the Democrats need to win four seats to get to 18. A lot of these projections have them only

netting like eight seats or something. And ending like 22. And the reason for that is to one the cheating that Republicans did. The jury manager did work a little bit. That's going to offset some of the gains. That's one. And another reason for that is just this kind of, and you discuss this with, Oh, shoot. It was a Doug show. It was a Doug static. Doug static. Thank you. Doug

those six and ninety four and just have polarized. We are in the artist being districts and play. And there's been Jerry Mandarin before the cheating during Mandarin. There's regular old Jerry Mandarin. And so I see that and I recognize it. But man, I just look at the map and some of these places that cook for example has as leaning towards Republicans in South Texas. I mentioned in Eastern

“North Carolina in Colorado, a couple districts in Colorado, Florida. I think there'd be a”

bunch of surprises. We'll get into why. So I think that the Democrats could net as many as like 16 seats and end up at two, 30, which would be less than still those other waviors. We're going to talk about that more than what is being projected. So that's kind of where I'm at the house.

I'm less bullish on the Senate. We'll get to that in a second. What's your review on that?

Yeah, same on the house. I just think people are underestimating. They look at a district that's gone Republican the last few years. It's a Republican now called Republican plus six. Maybe a Republican plus eight because Trump might have been strong in 2024. And they underestimate that if the whole country moves, Trump won by a point and half, right? Yeah. Let's say the generic ends up plus eight. That is the Democrats win the national

house vote by eight, which seems to be so. That's the nine and a half point move. That means that a lot of districts that are Trump, you know, plus six seven eight are in play, right? In fact, not only a play, but you might even maybe should be almost favored to go Democratic. So I tend to think also that people are being a little too, what's sort of looking for

deterministic from the past in this respect and not understanding that when you get to a wave,

you know, districts toppled that were a little beyond the, you know, of course they can win this one because it's only plus two Republican or Republican or Republican or Republican's holding a seat to Harris actually won there. Some of those. So yeah, I'm sort of in the two, I've been saying just to be a little optimistic, just to pick the numbers round 235 to 200 in the house. Oh, wow. 235 making me seem cautious with my job is to make you. My job is to make you

seen, prudent, you know, reasonable. I just think it's in a district, I mean, I don't know, I end up pulling the loon isn't a close race in Florida. That's in the likely arc category on cook. The fifth Jeff Crank has been in this Colorado Springs seat forever. There's a lot of like sprawl into Colorado Springs and from the rest of Colorado, you know, it's like places like this

“start to fall. The middle seat, I've talked about a lot, Daytona Beach. I think that's potentially”

winnable. The Democrats have a strong candidate there, Bale Dalton. So I just think that they're

a lot of potentially getable dem seats in this kind of likely dem category. There's, there's the toss-up category, the lean category, than the likely. I think there's a lot of potential dem seats to pick up there. So we're in the same page, even if not the same number on the house. Here's my nervousness about the Senate. We talk about this in a lot, so people listen to especially pretty familiar with the playing field, but I'll just, I'll just lay it out. Democrats need

to pick up four to get to 51 and really they need to pick up five because John Federman's been acting pretty squirrely and I don't know. It's kind of one of those, Dan, if you do, Dan, if you're down to your Chuck Schumer, if you have 51, it's like either, you got to get past everything by John Federman or John Federman switches parties and puts it back at 50/50. So you really want to try to get to 52, which means you got to win five. Yeah, that's five. Yeah, that's five.

“Okay, so that means you have to protect Georgia, that seems safe at this point, and you have to”

protect Michigan, which seems, other people think is less safe than me. I think that's pretty safe at this point. Okay, then you go into the pickups. You've got North Carolina, it's the one that it seems like you're going to get that's one. You've got Maine, Susan Collins is tough. I think that that Maine is going to be a flip this year, but that's not a guarantee. Then you got to get two more to get to four, three more of Ohio, Iowa, Texas, Alaska,

three of those four, the best four, then after that you get into like Kansas, which you and I've talked about in Nebraska. It's an independent running Montana, it's an independent running forward, uh, maybe, you know, the map is tight. And a lot of those places you mentioned eight nine earlier, most of those places are 11 12 Trump states. You won't buy 11 or 12. I'm a little nervous that they end up running up into running a bunch of really close races and a bunch of

losing by three points, a lot of 51, 48 losses in those center races. If I sat here today and you forced me to choose to pronounce the cake, I do think that they get Ohio, was shared brown, and I kind of look at Texas in Alaska. I think I don't think they're going to get Iowa. That would be if you're just asking me today, you look at Texas in Alaska and I think those are pure coin flips and, you know, just to be cheery, I'd say they go with the Democrats, but I think that they're,

I think both of them right now are like really neck and neck. So it's kind of the state of play. You'd win both of those. If you, if you did win hold the same seats when North Carolina Maine, Ohio, Alaska and Texas, that does get you to 52 and a real majority that you can work with,

Faderman. There's really, there really aren't any. I guess that would be Paltola probably. You have a pretty cohesive Senate conference where you're just kind of dealing with Paltola, you know, working with Paltola, and who knows, in that case maybe Markowski dips, honestly.

“So I think that would become a state of play. What about you on the Senate?”

I mean, I basically agree and, you know, obviously predicting races that are basically 50, 50

is a fool's errand. So, I mean, there's some historical precedent, I guess you say, for when you get away, things tend to tip over to 51, 49 year direction. You know, I mean, that seems like that's can't mathematically, or scientifically be determined that way. It just happens feels that way, though, the, you know, whatever, the weird, you know, dynamics of these races. They do tend to tip one way or the other for some reason. And so I kind of think, you could split those, the big four,

two to two, which is sort of what you were suggesting might be the simple most likely outcome, but they could also go four zero either way, honestly. But if the wave continues, this is where it's so important, what happens late, and you know, whatever I told where aren't that important in the sense that I feel like we know 90%, 95% of what's going to happen already, and I'm exaggerating a little. Well, here we know a lot of what's going to happen in 2026. But that last delta, that last

did is awfully important if you're looking at four, but I would even say five, maybe six, very clear, I mean, Kansas was closer than I, I think in 2024, the presidential, they haven't democratic governor or saw like no one in Kansas is ever like, well, but it's very democratic, I think they're going to be crazy. So I kind of think that, I put that almost the same category as those other four, make it five, something else that'll be some surprise. Like the Democrats will

lose a state they were supposed to win, maybe Michigan in this case, but maybe Maine. And then still get the majority because Kansas and somewhere else will come through, you know what? I mean, that's sort of what happens to these in these years. If it's a dynamic wave like year, if it reverts a little bit, I think you said this on the last podcast, I'm going to does the wave continue a little bit in those last two months, or does it reverts to the,

to what's the expression we're looking for, reverts to the mean, you know, reverts to in the last two months. And that that makes all the difference. Does it go plus eight to kind of drift down to plus six, or does it go up to plus nine? You know, that just makes a big big difference in these close state center races. And that's a good tradition to 2006 because I do think that the scale of that way for the Democrats change based on what happened in October. And it went from what was going to

be a really really good year for the Democrats no doubt, kind of like this year, too, to a bunch of seats falling. And for these are Ansley, just kind of pulled this for me. If you kind of look at going back to that click, political report, which I referenced, and we love Amy Walter, and everything that they're doing there is really great at leaving, no, no sex, so it's Charlie Cook. You know, at the end, they looked at their own projections and saw like how many they got right,

and they got wrong. And in '06, there were a bunch in that kind of likely Republican category that we're surprising dropped at the end. It gets attributed to this October,

you know, kind of momentum for the Democrats. So we'll get to what happened in October in a second.

I just want to start on both years of the basic fact. So Democrats in '06 gained 30 seats in the house, which is more than we're both projecting for this time, but for the reasons we light out a lot because of jerrymandering, they gained six seats in the Senate. Right. Now there's not jerrymandering in the Senate. So that's more of an apples to apples situation, right? Like if you match the '06 number,

“you should get about six, which is kind of what we're talking about. That would get you to '53,”

if you, then that's really what your thing is, the sweep may be of Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, and Texas, or maybe you in three of those Amcans, and you get to six. So that was the 2006 year. Compared to this year, in both cases, the president's approval rating is above this current presence. W on election day of '06 is at 38 in Gallup, which is above where Trump is right now. It's 38.56. So that's a set of play. I'll give you guys some names, and then we'll do a

big picture to get your mind in the right time space. In the Senate, Claremma Cascal, like MSNL, Buddy, Beat Jim Talent, John Testerwins at your sherry to share it, brand of pizza Mike DeWine, so times of flat circle, in Ohio. I go on as a current governor, share it's back running. Sarah Strendrick, Santorum, goes down to Bob Casey. This was a devastating one for me personally. Shelled in White House to feed up Lincoln Chaffey.

The running joke on that campaign that year, because I was always like the housemoderate,

and it was like, we need to moderate more, we need to moderate more, and they called me a Lincoln Chaffey Republican in the campaign that year. And then Jim Webb defeated George Macaca Allen in 2006. And I was set to that year. I was working in Iowa. We'll put this picture up. For Jeff Lamb Birdy, he was running in Iowa 3, which is a Despect, challenging a vulnerable incumbent Leonard Boswell. So there it is. Whoa, look how much

I'm around looking. Man, thanks to our friends at one skin. My plan there, there was a

“political consultant that I knew. And it was just like, you should go to Iowa, you should meet”

the reporters. This is the first campaign I got to do PR. I was before that. I was just kind of a little low level assistant, funky field person. And on to be a comms person, I go to Iowa,

he's in line to be a presidential campaign manager, I'll hire you to be a dialogue person.

“I was like, great, that's a great deal. And so he has looked like that was going to be”

George Allen, and then George Allen did a racial slur. The campaign trail kind of a weird one. Macaca, it's not like a common racial slur. And that was enough to crush him different simpler times than 2006. To think that that would be like an nowadays George Allen would go up with Republican voters after doing that. But he goes down and then that consultants are plugging from a cane and I sister and I'm plugging from a cane. So there is a six.

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Before I go through the full timeline, what is your, what are your big picture memories of six? Well, it's just on that. So I live then as I do now in Virginia. I do tour a challenge on some and thought well of him and it was a pretty good, it was a good governor and it's father. You've been a great reticonscoach. Obviously a nice, a very affable guy and a very good politician actually Jim Webb, I respect it. I knew him slightly too. He had been Reagan, Secretary of the Navy, I think,

and then a quick and protest over something. It was kind of an arrestable kind of old fashion, democratic hawks sort of and kind of a populist. We're going to hear out like, do you read like erotica? 'Cause he's an erotica guy. I can't remember which was that. I don't know, like that. I was a mystery of like the IRA, the Scott's Irish in America, fighting something. I don't know. He was like an amateur historian. He was a smart, very smart, is a smart guy. I think he's still

a smart guy. Yes, Jim Webb did write erotica. Okay. Well, I don't know if that helped. And so George Allen was, I'm going to say, I don't know what, mid-50. I mean, the height of his career had been governor, the end senator, as you say, a lot of the smart money was on him for president proud possibly in a way, Cheney was VP who wasn't going to rent a succeed. Well, obviously so quite open, raised in their public and side, as senator for Swingish state,

more Republican than the Democratic Unlike Navigated. But, you know, sort of representative state, and everyone liked Allen. And then, and Webb, we had a pretty good campaign, but I remember thinking in the summer, you know, I wonder if this could be cause, I mean, I've heard of some Delaware when he's like, because Webb was kind of an odd candidate, right? It was like the attractive 30-year-old, tell Amiko against the corrupt. And this was, everyone liked George Allen

“and he hadn't defended anyone much. And then the wave happened. That was part of it, I think.”

I think Virginia is a state because it's got a lot of, especially North of Virginia. Grace is susceptible to waves. That's it was later on in 2018 and so forth. You know, it was kind of a lot of upper-middle class, two-dent-to-politics voters who were like more had maybe voted for Bush in '04, had voted Republican at the Senate level and thought, "Well, man, this has gone really badly." So that helped. But then he did have this slur, which was crazy. So do you

remember the story? Of course, yeah. This young guy was a tracker. He went to, he's from Northern Virginia. He went to the same house on Went to T.J., he's a lulter. He had graduated and was 22 years old, I think. And Aaron and he seemed to get along fine, actually. But then he was bothering Allen, the trackers, you know, the guys who go around everywhere and try to record everything, and find you and so catch you and some stuff up. And this is pre-iPhone, but they got the little

McCock again." -Look at my cock over here. -Yeah, a little McCock over here.

“I mean, I think it's plausible that he didn't even know kind of what it meant. Like someone said”

it's bothering. He'd used this term about Indian, Indian, Americans, or Indian, Indian, you know, people from the South Asia. I don't know. Anyway, it became a big thing. And it kind of then,

he handled it very badly. That's my main memory. It didn't explain it. This is always the case with

often the case with these things, right? And then the wave just kind of carried Webb onto a hunt to a victory. But I remember, like, around now, saying to someone, "I guess Webb will be fine," right? And this person was older and had been around for 94 and for a couple of other digital elections, Reagan, A.D. I suppose. I said to me, "I don't know, Bill, you know, I want to wave." The stuff that looks shaky on Labor Day goes down. You know, that's sort of what it means to have a wave. And so that's my

memory of the Virginia situation. -I don't give the time of it just the House people anyway, just because it's kind of fun to go back in O.S.ex. So here are some of the Democratic winners that beat Republican incumbents. Gabby Giffords, the Jim Colby, Republican that year. Another race at a friend working on in Colorado, seven, Ed Pearl Mudderby, Bob O.Pres, start of Denver suburbs going blue. I've talked a lot about this race IWA2. I was working

on Iowa 3, which was the big race I already spent money. Nobody spent money on Iowa 2. Dave Webb, Zach, was a professor in Iowa. Literally, I should have went to look to see where it wasn't cooked. It had to have been, like, not lean or likely, but solid Republican. It was a solid Republican Jim Leach had been there a hundred years, moderate Republican, popular. He loses to Dave Webb's act. Minnesota won. You know, who won that one? In 2006? Tim Waltz. -Oh yeah. -Oh yeah.

-Kids and beats Gil Goodneck. Christian Jelibrand is that year. Fun for football fans. He

“threw their wins in that little North Carolina 11 district, which is the same when I think the”

Democrats could surprise. And again, this time, okay, here's the timeline of a 6.05. And I think this is part of what prompted this. We love this, like, just kind of our memories were different on, like, like, why did Bush get so impotual in this period of what happened? So I'm going to run to the timeline. We can kind of go through our memories of it. He's real like to get in in January.

And things working kind of good in Iraq, actually, they hold their first parliamentary elections.

I think that's the blue thumb election. -Yeah, right. That's January. A purple thumb sorry, as January of '05. But then, like, pretty much immediately after the counter, the insurgency, intensifies some IED suicide bombings. Then you get to August of '05. And this is the last month where a majority of Americans approve of Bush in the polls. And this is, like, mostly Iraq stuff, Sid Nishian, like, her big protest starts then August of '05. And then August 29th, Hurricane Katrina,

which is like now, basically a year ago, the same time. Obviously, everybody knows how to is there. My sleeper event of this time is October 3, the Harriet Myers nomination. Everyone looks to Katrina because it was like, where he got such bad PR, like in the media. And I do think that, like, you know, whatever, there's some swing voter types that I don't think there are a lot of Republican voters. So like, I'm bailing on Bush over his handling of Katrina. That doesn't feel right.

To me, there's some, you know, some of this kind of proto-populous right isolationists, right, we're unhappy with the war. And the Myers thing, he gets just full-aid and couldn't go

“to you and conservative media over this. You know, and I think this is where you start to get,”

maybe the Myers parallels like the Epstein files in a way. And it's in a weird way, because like

it upsets the base, right? And this for the base now is starting to get frustrated, followed the first year.

Okay, John Murther then first calls for withdrawal in November, a scooter Libby indictment, so now you get into some some controversies there. That is, that's October. And then the Abram off-law being scandals December. So, oh, five was a rough year. Lots happening there for Bush. Not a ton, then. And oh, six happening. I mean, Iraq keeps getting worse. There's approval ratings. You can't go down a little bit. Gas prices arise a little bit to me. There's the gas

price issue. It's a parallel to this issue. And then really, you know, kind of nothing of note as far as like scandals or whatever until October, until a month out. And Bush's numbers are low, but they really, if the bottom falls out, October, late September, October 1st, we're what the Mark Fully page scandal happens. Mark Fully was sending inappropriate texts to young male pages. He resigns. House Republican leadership had covered it up. One of the House Republican

leaders that covered it up, pedophile, Denny Haastart, didn't know that at the time. Republicans circle the wagons around him. I remember this ruined the last month that we came pain for my candidate, Jeffrey and Bertie. It's like every interview, you know, what do you think about this? Like, we do go to a local news interview. We'd want to talk about whatever, you know, national security and the clip that they'd show and the local news is whatever

is response to was to Mark Fully, you know, sending messages to teenagers. So, deaths in a

to death two days before the midterms. I forgot. And that's a final breath of optimism. Maybe but now November 7th was the bloat and then in November, a thromb shelter signs. So, note what is not there is much economy talk. Gas prices were up a little bit and you point that to the war so it's a little bit of a parallel to now. But inflation was 2.5% in those sex, like math. I mean, standard, you're looking for unemployment rate was low, economy's pretty good.

And in 2006. So, this is a lot of foreign policy, scandal, disappointing the base. You know, wanting to have a check looking like things are out of control. That's kind of my overview. But what jumped out to you on that timeline? No, it sounds absolutely right in front of some of those things. As you spoke, I was thinking to myself, the economy wasn't that bad, no 506. And so, all the talk about it's all kitchen table, you know, it's all businesses.

So, I don't know, yes sort of, somewhat. It wasn't great, as I recall, we didn't know '07 and '08 was coming, right? I mean, I don't think that other people felt that way, didn't feel ominous or anything. It's just, the only two tiny points I'd make is

“Harriet Meyer, I think it has slight, this is not crazy. It's a little bit like Trump”

with the ballroom or something like that. In a sense that it was blushing, indulging his personal like shoes, his counsel from back in Texas, and then he made a right-out counsel. And he didn't have the normal qualifications for Supreme Court justice. I mean, and so, a little bit like Trump just, you know, feeling like, I'm not going to just go with the kind of normal practices of the president. I'm going to put my personal friend in there. I'm maybe exaggerating

that. I don't know how much hurt anyway. But feels a little bit away. And just a quick one, Myers, I just don't expand on the absolute thing. To me, it's like obviously poor Harriet Myers is still alive. So I'm not, I'm not like comparing you. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. To me, it's a comparison. It's like, midterms are different than presidential and several effects. But one of them is like, turn out as important in both, but turn out like really matters.

Like, turn out as a little bit more important. And so depressing your base matters. And I do think

it did. It happens that you're coming off of the first summer. It's the fall the first year.

There are other things to be worried about. And then it's like, what we want to do to follow. Like, one of the things we cared about being the Republican-based magazine base. This time is like to deal with this Epstein issue. Like, you said you were going to do it. We wanted you to do it.

“And I think that the Republican base at that time in Essex was like, we want good Supreme Court”

justices. Like, this is our stand-in for social issues. Like, this will be care about the court. You ran on the court, ran on anti-game marriage stuff, whatever. And it's like, okay, we wanted you to do, we don't want another suitor. Like, this was a big thing then. And it's like, okay, and now you're just like, oh, you're going to give it to your friend. You know, I'm asking things horrifying. I want you to do these young women. But like, in just the way of kind of letting down of something

that they expected. No, I think that's well. That's a good point. I think it's, I mean,

he began, if you look at this, the second term by saying, let's prioritize social security.

Now it's an issue. It's probably reasonable. It's back to a lot of ways. We reasonable that. No, and the think tanks loved it, because sort of things, he had not mentioned it to my knowledge training, the entire campaign. And it had this weird. And I remember saying, I will say, that's kind of like you're on war. One of the few things it is. One of the few things I got right at the early honored fox. I was on the fox Sunday around table, if he went to every week then. And I said,

February, this is going to fail. I mean, he has not, the country is not ready for this. He has prepared for it. It's such an easy issue for the Dems, the screaming yell about social security. It's like there, they go to issue was back then, even more than it is now. You know, protect the social security, they'll gamble it away in the stock market. He's just rewarding his rich stock market friends. The idea was not a crazy idea. And you can make it. That's a really good idea.

And what have been wonderful? Well, we're going to watch better places of the other side right now. But okay, whatever. Right. We're all our savings that are in our arrays and far away in case

“probably ended up growing fast and social security, whatever. But anyway, but I think it is like”

this little like 20% or something like 10% of your 20% going for memory. That was a good idea. The Demics didn't excellent job of attacking it. The Republicans weren't ready to defend it, because they wanted to even talk about it. It's sort of got popped out of the treasury department. I don't know, sometimes February is like, and so I remember early on saying this is a political it's going to damage them. And it had that same character though of, hey, we re-elected you.

We sort of thought you were better than the other. It kind of likes the direction you were going more or less. They weren't through the levitating. But you know, and we wanted you to kind of do more stuff in long those lines, maybe. And it was just the surprise that kind of will fund this, if I think will fund this a bit hurt. And as you said, this little more like Iran, it was exactly the piece of promise not to do it. So that was not quite like no more forever wars. But it's a little

like just where the hell where that come from. So I think it did some damage. It was like a candidate right. Right. It didn't. Yeah, that's good. It didn't hurt Bush in the sense that people left him.

But I think it prevented from having any momentum at the beginning of a second term. And the

other part just make what you make about this is a smaller pod. What is about two thirds usually is to turn out in an off midterm elections, what two thirds that are presidential sometimes even less, which does mean almost by definition that what the bases of each party think matter more,

of your of Republicans, like, or whatever, or Democrat, you're going to win. You're going to have a good idea. Because it's, you don't get all those other voters in the middle who are kind of diluting

“as it were the true believers. And so the best thing you can have going for you is you persuade some”

people. That's good. And then you turn out your base big time. And then you depress the other, something that the other party does is usually isn't something you do in the opposition to press it's base. So in 26 just to bring it back to the festival one second, that would be if people are

if you're yated by things Democrats are if you're yated by a million things Trump have done

and correctly. And they'll turn out there's some swingish voters who don't like particular policies. And he's got a little crazy. I can't maybe you should check them, not support him. Yeah, and right this economy. Yeah, that's good. And then some Republican voters who still will probably vote Republican to 2028 still think of themselves as a Republican, but just, you know, I don't know, just stay home. So you get the Democratic turn out up and the Republican turn out

down. If you can get that both of those happening at the same time in an electorate that's too fair as a size of residential electorate. That's where again, that 2024 number plus 11's a little misleading. But some of that plus 11 for Trump in Iowa in Kansas in Ohio are those

“voters who will not vote this time. Correct. So yeah, I think it was, I apologize to”

over it as one of the data people I saw in social media was putting this out and they're like, well, what if what if the electorate in Iowa is actually only a plus five like that's the right way to put it. Yeah, I mean, right. Yeah. It's like it's a plus 11 Trump state, but the turn because of the depressed turnout and the increase on the Democratic side, then all of a sudden, you know, can't get enough independent voters to get there across the line. And I think that, you know,

the Harriet Myers thing, which is why I wanted to talk about it was part of that depressing the Republican wayside net all of that. I think Iraq was part of that as well. Like we are seeing that this time on both on both sides. And to me, this is why I'm kind of even an 18 again, because of the nature of the map, a jury me and during and how we're, you know, a big part of the 18 gains for the Democrats or 18 gains for about this kind of realignment to the suburbs for the Democrats

and places that, you know, you Republican just knew well because of Trump. And so they did better there. But like the Trump base was still pretty excited in 18. So I do think that was a little different. So that's probably the one I'm more bullish and think that Democrats are going to overperform their polls. So anything else there and Katrina is something that everybody talks about when they kind of reflect back on that time. Obviously, I mean, of course, like your normal ones,

of course, and you know, such a traumatic and visual event and, you know, then there's the W, the fly over and, you know, Kanye saying W doesn't care about black people. And so like there's all this, I don't, I don't know. I'm maybe I'm, I, this is counter-conventional wisdom, but I think that that ended up actually mattering less than the economic stuff that scant the Abramoff and and, and page scandals and then Myers. But where are you on that? People have the sense that

the Iraq War wasn't being fought well, whatever the justification, the moral case for it almost might have been. I think Katrina made it more plausible to say they're kind of, you know, they push sold himself, it's competence, toughness, but also competent, but not just toughness kind of confidence, condoliserize serious people colon power. It was, you know, grown-ups administration.

And suddenly, like she's the rock war, they didn't power leaves, of course, after the first term,

and suddenly grown-ups little less grown-ups in charge, and they Katrina total just screw up, just in terms of execution, obviously, as well. So they talked about it and handled it. Without Iraq, Katrina makes wouldn't have made as much difference in without Katrina, Iraq would have maybe, but they felt that they came together in a pretty bad way. And then the scant just, you know, you don't really want incompetence and some bad policies and scantals all happening

at the same time. Yeah. And you're right at such a security. I, I, I over looked at, I mean, that was another key inflection point. November eight, wrong shoulder signs. Do is that, is that kind of a relic of an older time, or somebody has to fall on the sword, or is that, oh, do we possibly get a Hague-Sath resignation this November?

“Yeah. I remember that at the time I was very anti-rimand so that called on it to be fired”

after the victory in November '04. So I thought he had missed my hand as to rock, and it could get a fresh start and prevent things from getting worse. They kept from spelled KC. Things got worse over the next few years. I think Bush planned to fire him for months, but just felt you somehow couldn't do it until after the election. I don't, to this day, understand why you thought, what? No, it's a mistake.

What did the better to do in September? I mean, I don't know what, but somehow it was like some weird, I don't know, you can't do it. Or honestly, after the Mark Foley scandal and retrospect. Gosh, we need to get drove on here or something. Was there ever meeting, you know, to do this? Was there a meeting about that? It's like it wouldn't,

wouldn't firing when I was told to be a better news story than talking about, you know, Congressman Dittle and Teens, things like it. I'll say in slight defense of Bush, which I'm done quite a while, but I have the sense, and I, I mean, I saw a bunch of a few times in those, and that's a contirm of this.

First time I never saw him because I was a McCain guy, but second term, I was a supporter of the war,

magazine editor, types, things like that. And he, he really did care about the troops.

“He was cared about the morale, and I think one, I remember one point having a weird argument with him,”

where I think a, I don't know, I don't know how to run salt exactly, but it's something about

acknowledging they'd make mistakes in the first three years of the war, in terms of the strategy.

And he said, I can't do that. And it'll make people feel like they're, they'll love one's died in vain somehow, and I just need to suck it up, and I'll take the hit. I understand people think I was wrong, but I just, I can't say to people, it was a kind of weird, I don't think he's right, psychologically, exactly, but on the other hand, I sort of respect, he thought a lot about that. And so I think maybe he thought just dumping rounds for where would have looked

like he was doing it to help in the midterms, was like we broke into political. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He should have done it. He should have done it. He was kind of like an honor and principal guy, whatever you think about him, and it's almost like he did, like that stuff did matter to him.

Interesting. Okay. Well, there's 2006. God willing. I mean, a 30-seat house gain, that would be

the dream. But that's even better than your eye. It's a little better than my projection. I have a 240, 240, too. Something like that. That'd be exciting. Yeah. Okay. Let's move to 1994. This is the classic year. People talk about when they talk about waves. I was in short pants back then. It was just after my last democratic vote that I had done before Trump came around, which was actually the central. My last democratic votes were 92 in the school election. I voted for Bill Clinton

and bet my grandmother $1 on it. It was very proud that she sent me the dollar. You know, then I started to get red pills there later in the middle school. And then I did vote against our own lieutenant governor candidate in 2004 race. I was in turning on because he was such a dick. But that's that's neither here nor there. Those are my two other democratic votes.

“94. I really found out that I don't remember anything. When I was told later on, I've got a lot”

of stuff. So we'll see if other people agree. I knew the gist about the fact that it was a big way. 54 house scenes see it's gained. New house majority was 230 to 204 then. So that Republicans were coming out of a big hole. I should have mentioned this in '06 because this is what I was in in Waviors. In neither year did an incumbent of the party that was doing the waving loose. So no Republicans lost in the house or Senate 94 or in 2006. Because of the redistricting

mid-cycle this time, there will be some exceptions this time. But to me, that is again where I kind of fall on Michigan, Georgia. I was just like, when you're in a wave, the people that are in incumbents are in the incumbent party usually stays through. So 54 house seats gained for Republicans defeated 34 democratic incumbents. They gained eight Senate seats. New Senate majority was 52, 48. The total house popular vote. This shows you a different things are. It was only 53% in

favor of Republicans. Isn't that amazing? It's only got 53%. I mean, it'd be squeaking out of five

vote majority probably. Those are kind of the facts. I mean, the most interesting anecdote like the two things I knew about '94 were big waves and contract with America and the contract with America was unveiled and everyone listening to this to gas bill might know. So I'm not going to quiz him. When do you think it was? The answer? September 27, 1994, not three. The contract for the American came out like right now, like three weeks before the election, which goes to show you

the Democrats could still do something. And maybe this is a little bit of, I don't know, my view just learning that now as I look at it and it just maybe completely changed my whole thinking about Gingrich and the strategy. It was just like, Gingrich might have just like jumped in front of a parade.

“Total is already happening. So anyway, Bill, take the floor. I think it was good because it gave”

Republicans a chance to say we're not just running against Clinton. We have a positive agenda. The agenda itself was mostly silly if you look at the 10 points and a lot of it was for free minor and some procedural stuff. And what I've termed a lot of stuff that wasn't going to happen, you know, and a couple of semi-series things, including, I think producing the, you know, radio growth of Medicare or something, which got them in such trouble a year later when they

actually got in the fight with Clinton. So that was sort of a not as important. It was helpful at the end, this is allowed to all these candidates. Well, there's lots of stupid stuff in here. You're right. Yeah, not totally. I mean, number of house committees. Right. It was really, I remember looking at at the time, I had nothing to do with it. And I knew, I was pretty involved in some of the fighting in '94, I'd been fighting against Clinton. But yeah, I remember thinking, oh, come on. But it did

help a little guitarist. I'm sorry. I have to read all of them. Actually, it helped by like half a point. It was not important. It would have had, they would have been a way of anyway in '94, but go ahead and read it. Yeah. Please, because again, I don't, my memory, this was totally wrong. Okay. Eight major reforms. It's like, it's literally nothing. Require all laws that apply to the rest of the country, also apply to Congress. I don't even know what that's. What is that? It's like banking privileges

audit, auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste fraud and abuse. Great.

Cut the number of house committees. Limit the terms of all committee chairs. Band the casting of proxy voting in committee, require committee meetings to be open to the public, require a three-fist majority to pass a tax increase, guarantee an honest accounting of the federal budget by implementing zero baseline budgeting. There's the fiscal responsibility act. This is balanced, budget, truth and sensing. So there are, there are additional other 500-hour per child tax credit.

So there are, you know, some job and wages stuff. But no, that was just the congressional accountability point of it. And then a citizen legislature act, which is a term limit to your efforts. I mean, they were trying to capitalize and they did on the anti-income, but anti. There was some congressional scandals. Some of them real, some of them slightly fake. I mean, they, I don't know, they had some like bank, they could use. It was just a banking thing. They weren't like ripping off

the taxpayer. But they got a little bit, I don't know, it was nice. They got cheated. If you had to the little congressional bank, you got, I don't know what, you could float your check for a week or something. It wasn't like dealing with your local branch bank where they were not so nice to you. Anyway, there are these minor scandals, the pretty wider retrospect that happened. Jim Wright had been forced out as earlier as speaker. I mean, there was the Democrats were

vaguely tainted with congressional scandals having been there forever, Ross and Kalsky, right, committee chairs who had been in, and they were no terminal of its time for committee

“chairs. They'd been there for 10, 20 years. They'd been in Congress 30, 40 years. So I think that”

that was the, the part of it you read, the accountability is really pretty small ball, but it, it captured a little bit. They ran, I'd say this is one analogy. So they did run against the status quo in a pretty big way. Now, how could they do that? So let me just go back to 94 for one second. If you want, I mean, it's just, it was different from 2006 or for that matter, 2010 or 2018, which were sort of waves in many ways. If you went within the context of the modern

series, the Democrats had controlled the house for 40 years. They had controlled the Senate for 34 of the preceding 40 years except for that six year stretch in the first six years of Reagan. Congress was democratic. I came to Washington at 85. That was how it was. Republicans had won the presidency, Eisenhower eight years, then the Kennedy Johnson, Nixon eight years, then Carter four, then Bush Reagan Bush for 12 years. How did Reagan not take a house? He took the Senate. He took

the Senate in 18. Yeah. Yeah. The house was sort of, because those seven seats were still democratic.

“That's one thing that happened in 94. 34, I believe, Democratic and Columbus lost. That's pretty”

amazing in 94. And about half of them were in southern seats where they'd been there forever,

and then finally, people just decided, well, I was very nice. You've done a great job at job, bringing pork to this district for 25 years, but you know what, with like someone who's actually a concerto like us, and not part of this Hillary Clinton, health care, bill Clinton, pro god knows. You know, I mean, there was a kind of a certain cultural caricature of the dams with Clinton, especially and the, you know, really tried to capitalize on that. So it was a big change in that respect.

I mean, when I was studying politics, I think, first got into it. The presidency was often Republican. The Congress was democratic. And the house was really democratic. It was the, it was the bulwark of, you know, old Democratic power, powerful committee chairs, roasting cow skater, all these characters, and then obviously in speakers and so forth. And when you'd started to say two years out, you know, we can win the house. People just thought, well, now that's not going

to happen. And one reason they thought that as an at least, there was no real precursor to this. 1990, it'd been a mediocre year for them for Republicans. So that off year election. It didn't lose much for it. It didn't pick up much 92, two years before Bush had gotten 38% of the vote. Bush had gotten 54% in 88. The Republican party was an utter disarray. You know, the incumbent Republican president had gone from 54 to 38% and that's probably a

pro thing. But still, it's not really just mean that the house Republicans end up being Bush plaster per hour, but like pretty close. Yeah, yeah, pretty close. And yeah, then with a differential turnout sort of thing there, too. Yeah. So they expected a buy September 94, but no one expected it in early 93. When dude started to say this, people thought you're crazy. The house has been 40 years. That's two generations of political operas I can do. Why? There were people in Washington

who would come as very young people to work in hell or in the executive branch, and literally

had never, of course, seen a Republican majority just seem to think in comprehensively. Even the

“center had only been that one six year period. So I think the degree of surprise was, and of just”

novelty of what was happening really can't be over estimated. It just felt so different from these more modern swings, which once you have one of them, then you have another one right, 2006, 2010, okay. Well, that's another just kind of counterwave. You know, it didn't feel like that. Clinton was in the low 40s. He wasn't that unpopular, though. And then we weren't fighting some terrible war. They've been some really minor scandals. Well, white water was beginning to bubble

up and all this, but I don't know. It was funny how people turned against them, though. I mean, how much they did. But having said that a lot of it was catching up to what had happened. I mean,

Tom Foley, the Speaker of the House, who lost. I think maybe the only time, or one of the very

few times, the Speaker's lost, the victim of his own seat. You know, had a district in eastern Washington,

“I believe, which was becoming quite conservative. It's not Seattle. You know, it's like,”

and he'd been there forever, and they loved him, and he'd, you know, guide us a speaker, or before that, as majority leader brought a ton of pork there and all. And it didn't matter. They wanted to sort of a Republican. You know, this was the end of old interest group pork barrel politics. I think in some ways, in the beginning of modern ideological parties, ideological waves. And that respect, he really was a precursor of what we were going to see for federal worse. Maybe

mostly worse over the next three decades. So that's, my memory is just what a surprise it was, not at the very end. Though, I think I was on stuff on, I don't know, some show. I think it was

me the press, maybe, or with Stephanopoulos, who was then the White House spokesman, and I was

running this little project for the Republican future. But I had become sort of prominent as a critic of Clinton and a Republican strategist. You know, it's great how you could be given a Republican had one like one failed Senate campaign. It'd been Quills Chief of Staff and a presidential campaign. We got covered in, but I nonetheless got to call myself for a Republican strategist and get that guy on the TV. And as a Republican strategist, I said, we're holding some of them in both houses.

And everyone just, like, Stephanopoulos, of course, even said that wouldn't happen because he was working for Clinton. But actually, the people there, I can't really guess who's rostered probably, were like, I've come out, Bill, I mean, really. I mean, maybe take up seats, sharp, win both houses. Yeah, that's something we, it's hard to recapture the degree of, of surprise and kind of novelty about what was, what was happening. Interesting. There, again, not a economically challenging time.

Get economy. And 94, you mentioned a couple of scandals. I mean, some of these Clinton, you know, the white water you mentioned, the cattle futures, like some, like that stuff was being investigated as in the news. But like, you know, I mean, nothing at all like this. I mean, the thing that people

“point to is the fails healthcare plan. So I think you're kind of looking at two things, really,”

one. And that's, since it's like, Bill, it's feeling that the administration was not competent. Maybe that's the Katrina parallel. But like, it's just, well, they're not going about their business well. And then I do think that there's this kind of demographic like, you know, these sort of populist right people are aligning with the Republicans and some of the races. So they're, you know, white people are aligning with their Republicans. But talk about you are involved in the healthcare

stuff. Like, what was, was this just kind of like a big government? Little government was this, is this a feeling that Bill betrayed his voters, because they thought he was going to focus on other stuff, he ends up focusing on this. Like, how do you, how do you judge that? I mean, I think a little about both. I think it was a big government thing. It was, I mean, Hillary's plant plan was pretty big credit for it. But it was a pretty big overhaul. The system

wasn't really like Obamacare, which, you know, at the end of the day was insurers for 30 million

people who couldn't otherwise buy it as an individual markets. It was a complicated plan. It was a big deal Obamacare. But, Hillary's thing really was embracing pushing people into HMOs. Again, I can't remember

“honestly the details. But it was, it was a bigger overhaul. It was huge who plough. Hillary,”

big speech around Labor Day or year before in '93. Hillary Clinton testified to Congress as the first lady. He put his wife in charge of the task force to devise this. It all had a slight, you know, she's more polarizing than him. She's much more of a thing than that. You know, some of this is an acidity. But also just like culturally, he's governor of Arkansas, you know, she comes off as very liberal and like putting that up first. As a policy thing

is like more of a signal that like, no, this is not a DLC governor of Arkansas. Right, she was more liberal and it was the inside baseball, his wife in charge, and moderates who had voted for Clinton, which there were, you know, some obviously some Bush voters, maybe eight who had deserted Bush, not all, somewhat to progress, somewhat to Clinton. They thought welfare reform. That was the kind of signature DLC moderate democratic. We're willing to take on the welfare state and we're going to

reform welfare and, you know, it'll be a tough tougher on welfare, such a big issue for Reagan, you just have a Democrats over it. And putting health care ahead of welfare was as became symbolically very important as he's gone to the left. He's betrayed his moderates supporters. And they have some truth to that and so on. And that kid's kind of been a weird way. That is depressing the democratic vote. But not in the way we were talking about an O6 and this year because it's not depressing

the base vote, right, because they were supremely mostly for that. But it's depressing this kind of other part of the coalition, the Southern Democrats, the world, the more populist to Democrats, you know, that, that we're thinking it was going to be something different. Yes, I think that's right. And then the health care proposal was sort of funny because, I don't know, they thought they could get Bob Dole and moderate establishment public assembly board. Those people had often been in

favor of reforming health care in that direction as Ron Romney was later on, right, and with Obama, you know, sort of precursor of Obama care. And there was a lot of talk about compromise and

health care system was not that broken. There was no health care crisis. That was memo that I wrote and we sort of argued to Republicans that she's just tanked off. And that was a contrarian review. I will say in most people with you, yet killed if you just don't do nothing. You can't do nothing. There's a health care problem. Republicans have lost the 91 special Senate election in Pennsylvania over health care. That was Carval's first great upset victory against Thornberg.

And so Clinton talked a lot about it in 92. This wasn't a case. It wasn't a case where he was doing something he hadn't said he wouldn't do, but the big government character of in the Hillary

“character of it, I think. And so whatever the Democrats and Republicans ended up going in the”

do nothing, just say no position on health care. And the one inside I had was, if you ask people and poll, this is the thing about polling and it shows why people shouldn't take poll. It shouldn't take one polling result to care too seriously or too literally. Two thirds, three quarters of Americans wanted health care overhaul. Two three quarters of Americans were unhappy with the health care system. Three quarters of Americans had gripes with the insurance companies or you can say whatever that cost obviously

stuff. The say two thirds of or three quarters of Americans like their own health insurance. That's because they mostly work for businesses and corporations that provided decent health insurance. And so they didn't have to see there's any great need if you were working for a general electric or a Coca-Cola, you know, you're health insurance is adequate, you're a big university, big state government. And so and I sort of had the insight that the Republicans should run on

that second half, that second poll result. He's endangering your health insurance that you're satisfied with. And there's a way as we've seen this in a lot of public policy areas, both from the right and the left, right, the status quo is easier to defend than to say let's risk everything by overturning overturning the whole thing. And, you know, maybe you won't get insurance for your employer, but we got a better idea in mind. It's done. It's done up by this fancy think tank,

and Hillary Clinton's got to work down for you. And we were able to caricature it, honestly, in that way, pretty successfully, I think. Well, we talked about the October surprise in '06 and in 1984 Clinton tried to drop and October surprise to protect himself. But I don't know that it lay on dead. Let's watch. When we started the healthcare. And they said it was secret to them. But that's not true. We met with

them in advance. We even offered to work with them on drafting a bill. We were told, no, you go ahead and put your bill in and we'll put our bill in and then we'll work. They announced on a approach where more than half of the Republican senators supported universal coverage. The bill

never came, but the time came to talk about the bill. There were zero senators from the Republican

party on that. And by the way, then they released the memo of their strategist Bill Crystal.

“He wasn't even ashamed to release the memo and say, you must not cooperate on healthcare,”

because if the middle class ever gets security about healthcare, they'll probably support the Democrats again, whereas if we keep them all torn up and upset and angry, we can either keep them home or get them to vote for us. So I want, let me just say this, I want more than anything to have a bipartisan effort. He's going to do. He also has a different clip. I saw just the text of where he tried to go after you in the final days, because you came out against farm subsidies, which is

anti-farmor welfare bill. That was on the tarmac in Iowa five days, that I remember like why it was kind of a son. And this is pre-cable, really. I mean, this was Larry King CNN. It was the one cable that was like the one political show basically that anyone watched. Yeah, and then that was two

days before election day, I think, where he was kind of amazing. Yeah, I'm their top political

strategist. I was running this little 12, 14 person, you know, little, so quasi-fing tank, they're a project for the public of future. I was not really the top Republican strategist, where it's nice that President Clinton thought you were talking, Newcology? Yeah, that's true, no, I was involved. But anyway, that was a funny moment. But so the dynamics were pretty different

“on us. I think in all these different respects, historical character at 40 years in the house,”

this, the novel, the fact that a lot of it was history catching up to the Southern Democrats, the fact that Clinton hadn't done it, it was more that he, they had tried to do something that scared people, and that we were, honestly, helped scare people about. That's all what did him in. So, and I do think in this respect to double back, I think 2006 is more, is more of a similar situation. 94 was kind of a 94 was the end of an era. It was an important election, just a little

different from the kind of a normal reaction against the incumbent president. And it's an only

as 94 also shows something that oh, six dozen, which is it doesn't, it's not always a precursor

of what happens next. If you're a Democrat and you look at, oh, six, and you think that this is going to be like, oh, six, yeah, what's the good news? The next, they went the presidential election by seven rate points two years later. So, hey, it's great. Double header to a six and a way to pick up a lot of more seats. 94 was great. And then Clinton probably won a reelection by seven rate points is something in '96. So, kind of a good cautionary tale there that you can do well in a

midterm. Yeah, it is. It also six is also more comparably, even though this is non-subsquint terms, you know, the second midterm in '06 versus the first one in '94. There's a very, there's

94 lesson as, and some of this is just things outside of strategist hands, right? Like,

“this is just the kind of changing, tectonic plates of politics and trends and media and it's global,”

it's not stuff that's happening here, it's having another countries. But like, if you look at that number that, you know, the Democrats had before in '92 that included these other parts of a country, like, if they want to get to, you know, a place where, like, they're, they're really advancing like permanent policy changes and big policy changes. It's like, people that want progressives along big policy changes should want this to most, right? It's like,

there has to be a way to reconnect with these, you know, parts of the country that they've lost. Like, they had managed this coalition from, like, FDR through LBJ, like, all the way through

Tipo Niel, like, all the way to Bill Clinton's first term and it finally collapsed, like, but it's

fucking a half century, right, where it's very different ideological and demographics of people in the coalition and at the sorting of the parties that started '94 has been very bad for the Democrats and it might be feel unfair and asymmetric and I hear JVL whining about it already, but like,

“if the Democrats want a governing majority, like, they do need, like, a more diverse coalition,”

like they had before '94. And, you know, then they lost the house in '94 at the loss at the state loss for 12 years, people, you know, and then they got it back by doing exactly what you just said, right? Roman manual recruited a lot of candidates for the house and then specific candidates appeared on their own who disordered from the Social Attributes. Tests, tests, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing,

testing, you know, six and whining and the Democrats and then they held those seats and increased them in a way with Obama, which is a little more complicated, but they had the advantage of a mess of financial crisis, obviously. Even Tim Walsh, like, think of the different kind of race of Tim Walsh runs and it was six from how he runs as common as VP. And he runs a very moderate kind of rural farmer, teacher guy, that's Minnesota one, but you know, look, they went in Kentucky

that year. I already mentioned Heath Schuler, Redneck kind of football player, whining in North Carolina,

“two Texas seats, they'd be, oh well, you'd mentioned how, um, fully lost, delay lost in,”

in that oh six year, um, in Texas too, took on a mull Nick Lampson. That's a good jeopardy

trivia question. I would have never been all to pull that, but, you know, three Indiana seats.

So like that's, that's the way back. Okay, what do we forget? 1948 and the 1948 last time. I mentioned that in Warnish Hospital, I was trying to make the point that Mike Johnson, such a wet noodle, as we said in the headline of the piece, and it said a couple of idiotic things about how, we don't really even view on anything. You know, if PTEC, I trust PTECs, I trust the Secretary of War, I trust Trump, but I'm not good. I don't know what to think about the Iran War,

why I'm just sick of the House. And I do think they should pummel the Republicans. I try to think what's the, true when pummeled the Republican Congress, the 80th Congress, as the do nothing Congress, who's in combat press, they run a free election. The do nothing Congress had failed to pass any legislation that he wanted, including on health care. And suddenly, the things, uh, any, a fame lessly hit them as they do nothing. Congress, and one of the famous comeback victory, obviously,

against Tom Dooye in 1948. And the Democrats, this was a different era, right, with, with more party switching, and less, you know, less followers, Democrats picked up 75 seats in 1948 in the House, and, and, and took the Senate. And so, that was a wave, uh, with Truman Beating Dooye, and in combat press, I said, doesn't really, it's press after years, it doesn't quite compare with what we've been talking about. So, what's the equivalent of the do nothing

Congress, I mean, the Republican Congress, I was kind of more like a rubber stamp Congress, I guess, and maybe it's a better term, some look at the cover. So, rubber stamp and do nothing. Well, that's another two weeks. There is another two weeks on a very good point. Who gets this much of education speaking about health care, you know, my health care, and issue, all these guys get a free health care without working. I mentioned, kind of, what kind of health care

is system C on that. You know, we don't even know what's happening. They're not even working. It's crazy how little they've worked. I do think calling it a, yeah, rubber stamp and do nothing Congress, that's not how it's set up in a way for the democratic challenges. They should run it. They got to run against Trump, but they also have to run against the Republican Congress as a enabling Trump, and it's doing nothing to check Trump and will check Trump, but also making

it worse in some ways, it makes sense. That's the better in which members of Congress and want to find a quote of truth when using do nothing. Congress came across just this, some speed, you used it all the time. Of course, you just get some speech you gave somewhere. And in the stomach speech, the two issues on which you most complaints that the Republican Congress did nothing are health care and housing, housing prices. Isn't that amazing? Health care.

And so, and he also throws it in inflation, actually, so I feel like the Democrats, they're looking

around for the message. They always have the internalist internal handring about the message.

They should go read Harry Truman's speeches from 1948. They're excellent. They're economically

big shots. But the, but Truman also, of course, was a cold warrior in a middle American guy.

“He wasn't some lefty kind of called, you know, cultural stuff. So I feel like this should”

run as Harry Truman for the next two months. That's a great place to leave it. Bill Crystal. I appreciate

you. I hope everybody enjoyed a little holiday pod content. And we'll be back tomorrow. We got a double

“header. We got another guy tomorrow that is very keen on this kind of he's tired of this talk about”

the Democrats like getting the 52 cents. It's like, why not 60? Why not 58? So we'll talk to him about

how the Democrats get that down tomorrow. And we got one of my buddies coming on the show. It's going

“to be a good one. Bill Crystal. Thanks so much for other. We'll see you next week. Great. Thanks.”

The Board Daily has brought to you. Thanks for the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzley Skipper, and with video editing by Dante de Chico and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.