Right Now with Perry Bacon: These Democrats Have a Real Chance of Being President

Good afternoon. I'm Perry Bacon. I'm the host of the New York Public Show right now. I have two great guests today. Seth Maskeh, is a professor at University of Denver in political science.

Mark Smith is the director of the political reform program at New America. I know they both are switching projects going on, so Seth, talk about you've got a book and a sub-stack.

So tell everybody about what you're doing first.

Yeah, a couple of things going on. Just started a new sub-stack newsletter that's called the Smota's Report. That's SMOTUS, Seth Maskeh, of the United States. And you just had a big launch earlier this week. I'm looking for supporters, so I'm hoping people will be interested, but basically the focus

there is a lot about U.S. politics, parties, campaigns, and a lot of other things all with an eye toward the health of American democracy, which is obviously under a lot of strain right now. And on that topic, I have a book coming out next month called The Elephants in the Room.

The book is a look at how Republicans ended up nominating Donald Trump for a third consecutive time in 2024. How a lot of people in the party's leadership were actually quite uncomfortable with that decision, but had no way to move voters in a different direction. And Mark, talk about what political reform is.

It's still called that. I'm forgetting now. What's your question? Yeah, yeah. I mean, we have like layers.

And now there's like a section called Democratic Futures. I don't want to keep, I like a nice straightforward name like political reform, even though

“it always makes people say, well, how's that going?”

Yeah, we're still, we're doing our thing. I think we're putting out a lot of material right now about why proportional representation is a timely response, particularly with the Supreme Court ruling and Kalei, that really got to the Voting Rights Act. And there's suddenly like, we've been, we've been harping on this for years, but there's

suddenly a recognition of like, okay, maybe that is the answer. Now you're seeing it from journalists, from conservatives as well. So we're trying to kind of take advantage of that moment.

Just because even my nerd friends don't always know, explain what proportional representation

is very briefly. Well, proportional representation would be where you have a, let's say, we allow congressional districts to have multiple members of Congress, for example. So you might create one district in Georgia that has five members. And then voters would rank, like, a candidate who got maybe 25% of the vote would have

one of those congressional seats, depending on how it was allocated. And there's a super nerdy different ways of party list, things like that. I sometimes just kind of noddle along when people talk about those, the variation.

“But the essential idea is that, you know, you would create a model of representation”

that's proportional to the share of support that candidates and parties actually get. So that now, I mean, now we're moving in the complete opposite direction. You know, where Tennessee becomes a completely one party state, Florida's pushing that, you know, they're pushing that direction Republicans in California, you know, I mean, Donald Trump got more votes in California than any, any other state, and they're totally

represented elsewhere in the state, same with Democrats in Texas and Florida. So, proportional representation would change that, but and we're also enabled newer parties to kind of emerge on the scene, like if a green party, libertarian working families party, engaged in that system, they could have, you know, enough seats in Congress, enough seats in a state legislature to have some real leverage.

All right. So when I get to our topics today, which is 20 to 20 years, you know, it's starting little early. And it's a little light, a little light at the end of the year, Joe, so what I want to do is an exercise that I tell these guys about.

But anyway, you know, defining who is running exactly is always complicated, because people

are hiding their intentions or maybe running pretty pretending to rub and not really going to run. But we have one measure because it was that the national action network, which is the nonprofit group, Alice Charleston runs, had a conference about a month ago, and it sounds like Charleston invited people who we thought might raise a president, and 10 people showed

up.

“And so I think that's a good process for 10 people who are aggressively signaling, they”

are running. We'll talk about some others later, but so I want to go through these 10 with Mark and Seth, and I, and Seth, as he noticed, written about primaries, he was a great book by the 2020 Democratic primary, and Mark has actually done like the two of us work at a primary. He was a senior vice of a Bill Bradley back in 2000.

Very, that gives me very, very limited credibility and campaign that won zero primaries

Any young person who comes and you engage with, I have to do all the background. I mean, it was an interesting experience and I spent time in Iowa and New Hampshire, but you know, James Carville, I am not happy with that. And so what we're going to do is go through the 10 people who went into the sharp bit of it and talk about them and then talk about a few others.

So I'm going to start out and it'll be alphabetical, go to this list.

So the first person I've had is my governor actually is Andy Bissier, the governor of Kentucky.

And so what I want to do with these people is talk about what they're doing to position themselves, then talk about maybe what their strengths are and what their weaknesses are. And so Bissier, right up, Bissier, as you remember, kind of ran for Vice President in 2024 for about three weeks when Harris was choosing between him and Tim Walls and Shapiro. And so right after the election, what he did was he wrote this up in the New York Times

where he basically said, "I'm from Kentucky, I'm in a Trump state, but I won." And I also won while being pro LGBT and pro abortion rights and pretty liberal. And so I thought that was a signal that he was going to run as the sort of most progressive of the moderates, for like I've ever said, the most progressive of the sort of mainstream cannabis.

Since then, he's kind of went in a different direction, which is I would say he's kind

of just running is in the kind of moderates lane and we'll get into lanes in a second.

In the sense that pretty much every speech he gives and now he says it's thinking about how Democrats should not speak in faculty language and not use big words. President Obama said something similar this week, I find this, I roll and do thing. And I do think it's kind of a way to sort of signal you're not too left is you're poking at the group.

So I think mischievous kind of running what I would say, planning to try to run win the Biden 2020 primary vote, I think, which is sort of black and white moderates, is my sense of what he's trying to do. And so strings are, you know, this is a state with a Trump one by 33, 30 points in 2024. So mischievous has, by far, the strongest, the electability kind of credential way better

than Shapiro, this is a very rare state that he won. And the weakness is I think the big weakness I would say is, I don't love the phrase, attention economy has become kind of a cliche I think.

“But I do think in a primary where you have to raise money and break through in debates.”

But here might be a little too, he's a nice guy, might be a little too dull to put it bluntly to sort of break out there. So that's kind of my assessment, Mark, what do you think? Yeah, I think that bit is right, I mean, it's a little bit like sort of Michael Bennett in 2020 in terms of personality, you know, just not super in my exposure to you, obviously,

I'd infinitely more exposure. I did think it was fascinating how unabashed he was about, you know, trans rights and other issues and not occupying that really socially conservative lane, which I think actually in terms of the democratic electorate or even of people willing to vote for Democrats in November, I don't think that really exists.

So I thought that was really smart, I mean, like you, I'm a little tired of the scolding. I have a, I said yesterday in response to Obama's thing about not using faculty language.

I don't think the problem is the Democrats use big words.

“I think it's that they kind of construct these complicated logics in the common shop that”

are like, for the cost of the war, we could be providing you healthcare and, you know, because they're like, we have to pivot to what we think people care about. Instead of just saying, hey, this war is really stupid, you know, and I think that was sometimes the problem with Kamala Harris in language, too. It wasn't faculty language.

You know, she's not talking about, you know, your board you. She's, she's just gets tangled in these logical things that they get enough. So I'm a little annoyed about that, but, you know, and as far as, I mean, he's telling a story about his electability, but he's not showing it. I mean, he's the classic kind of candidate who easily could, you know, can get elected governor of Kentucky, but could

jump into a Senate race and lose 60, 40, you know, there's a, there's a whole litany of people of people with that kind of history, much less of presidential race. So somehow, yes, to actually show that as well as telling it, I think, to stay up to date

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So, well, first of all, Mark, let me join you on the being annoyed by what Obama's--it's

the first Obama is literally a law professor, and constructs these very beautiful, or innate speeches, and one twice, but majority votes. But just on this, on this, on Bashir, he strikes me as just like someone you were talking about, Perry, like the pure electability candidate. And electability is, of course, as we've written about this very fraught area, and it overlaps with a lot of other things, including assumptions about race, and how people

“people vote in assumptions that you need to white-handed if it's really going to win. I think”

that's highly suspect conclusions. But, obviously, this is someone whose main appeal is that

he can win in a red state. And he's more so than any of the other sort of electability

candidates. For people who just really don't care what the Democrats stands for, just want to make sure the Republican doesn't get the White House. Yeah, you can see the appeal for someone like that. I can't help thinking that at least some of that is due to the fact that Kentucky has odd year elections. And I just, you know, wonder, would he win in, you know, would he win that race if it was during a presidential election where Donald Trump was running?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure he does. But, you know, it's a claim, it'll get him some attention. I think we've often seen some version of this candidate in the past that can think of was

a shwiker in Montana, who's really who's main appeal to Democrats was that he's a Democrat

who won in Montana. It doesn't really necessarily go anywhere, because there's not that

“many people. Oh, no, I think it's, I think it's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but, yeah, I mean,”

we'll see how that goes for him. But I think you're right. There's, there's limits to how far this can take him. And next person is Cory Booker, Seth, let you leave in our conversation about Cory Booker. Uh, Cory Booker is an interesting guy. He's, you think he's sort of ran well in 2020. That is he, he had a lot of the right marks. There was, you know, if you think it terms of like lanes, he's potentially the candidate who could win a lot of black support,

but also reach out to a lot of white voters. That year black voters were already really in the tank for Joe Biden, who on pure electability concerns. Maybe Booker would have a better shot at this time around. He's, he's interesting in that, you know, he's, sometimes runs kind of moderately kind of mainstream, but is able to sort of project a lot of, you know, sort of striding passion against some of the things Trump is doing. He had the, the 25-hour

filibuster, I'm sure no one remembers it anymore, but he could, he could bring that up. Also for what it's, you know, it's worth he, he got married late last year. Um, you know, the, the last time he ran for president was right around the time he announced his relationship with Rosario Dawson, you know, that sort of his signal that he's running. Um, but, uh, he's, he's, he's interesting in the sense he's kind of a combination of really strong, principled stances and some like, you know,

some feel good internet bablam, and I don't know if he's ever sort of hit the quite the right note in there, but, you know, he's, he's obviously well known. He's well-liked by a lot in the

“party. He's got a shot at being a real player here. Mark. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean,”

he's very, I, I, I feel like he might have passed his cellby date a little bit. He's, I mean, he's capable of being very inspiring. I'm just not feeling like he has the thread right now. He's, you know, he jumped on that stupid thing about cutting taxes for everybody, um, that along with Katie Porter and a couple others, um, that was really just kind of a bad thing, um, with, you know, no taxes if your household is less than $100,000 or something like that, which really given

what we're going to need to do in terms of taxes means we're just going to kind of grind it out more on, on, on the sort of middle-rich, unless we're willing to really go after the billionaires. So anyway, that gets into the policy complexity. There's probably not the biggest thing that plays, I feel like Booker has one strength. He's, he's a kind of like, uh, he's kind of like, uh, one of those politicians who kind of goes anywhere and talks to anybody in the way that, like,

Momsani is. And I think there's just real value in that right now. And in, not like parsing out, micro-targeting, but just getting in there and showing up in an unfriendly audience and listening, I feel like he's got a little of that gift. Um, my health. Oh, next is Pete Buttigieg. So I'll let you start Mark. Um, I, I'm not sure where to go on that. I mean, he's clearly like, just like,

he has real credentials now, which he's in a maker of South Bend was not. Um, and I think he's super

impressive. I don't, I mean, weaknesses are maybe, maybe seems a little too slick. Maybe we'll never

fully appeal to the left, you know, as a sort of former McKinsey guy. Um, maybe there's just an internal resistance. People will say being gay as a weakness. I just not going to be a weakness in a democratic primary. And again, probably not with that population of people who are willing to vote for Democrats at all. So that does, that's not a, you know, aside from just the justice of it, and that doesn't concern me at all. I, I don't know, I'll be interested to see where he goes.

So, uh, he drops out of the of the 2020 race, like the the morning after the South Carolina primary. I think about five minutes later, he planned to run in 2021. I mean, I think, um,

it's a, I think it was always a 20, oh, you're right. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Yes,

but it's important to remember just when he was running back then. I mean, he was a kid and he did shockingly well in that race. I mean, obviously he didn't come that close to toppling Biden, but he was a real presence. He stayed in till roughly, you know, the bitter end. He was very good at the baits. Um, and I think as we've seen since then, probably his main strength as a candidate is going on Fox News, like he is very good at speaking to conservatives and speaking to conservative

voters, um, in a way that just makes it, it just sounds very common sense to articulate, you know, you know, center left, uh, set of policies and beliefs, and he just is completely unflappable about that.

“I think that's an important skill. Um, so I, I don't underestimate his, his skills as a campaigner.”

Also, the fact that he's actually, he did some campaign last year in Iowa, um, which, you know,

is not going to be one of the Democrats first states, but he wanted to show up there anywhere.

Um, you know, he's pretty ambitious about this, and, uh, he'll, you know, he'll be a major day. You know, the thing that came out in 2020 was a lot to be about whether he was a strong candidate with black voters, and you do have to do it with black voters with the primary, but I think we should suspend that Joe Biden as Mark was saying what are what he does was saying was a very strong candidate with black voters for a variety of reasons. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, who are black,

didn't do well among black voters gets to me. So I think I was a spin that I don't think he has, I think the, I think he's, I like the question I would have is that you have a bunch kind of saying, um, I'm electable based on like P, as a P does a P does a good job going on Fox News. He has a good, he has, his, his approval ratings are pretty good among Republicans. That's it. Shapiro and Bashir were able to say, I've actually won a Republican vote, so Pete really can't say that.

“Yet it's all theoretical for him, but I think he's got a good case. He's got good charisma.”

I remember what you all said. Uh, yeah, that's awesome. There's also a different generation of black leadership, even since 2020, right? I mean, back then everything ran through Jim Cobert, you know, really old, you know, there's like four new black senators like also Brooks and Lisa Rochester, you know, it's just a different, it's just a different world of black politics. Um, next person, um, let's start, uh, Rubin Gallagher was there. I didn't really think about

it or 20, 28 until recently, but I think he is kind of exploring the waters. What are you thinking about Rubin Gallagher? In case you don't know, the Senator from Arizona? Yeah, it's an interesting candidate. He said kind of a range of stances like he was considered, you know, far more to the left before he ran for Senate. Um, and I think now is, again, candid, who's made appeals that he can win in a swing state. Um, also potentially stands to, you know, as a Latino candidate, stands to win back

some of the Latinos that, that sort of, uh, you know, went, went over Donald Trump's way in 2024. Think that that may be happening without his help. Um, but he, he does stand to benefit from that. It's notable that when he ran for Senate in Arizona in 2024, he ran seven points ahead of Kamala Harris. It's pretty good. It does seem to have, yeah, that's, that's pretty solid. It has some, um, you know, some, some cashier in that way and, you know, some ability to run strongly in those states.

“Yeah, I mean, I think the same. I mean, he's one of a bunch of candidates who seem to be sort of”

jump experimenting a bit and moving from point to point and he's also been kind of more sympathetic to the administration on immigration, enforcement than some of the others, which also, you know, funny way is part of his appeal to Latino voters, you know, it's super complicated way. Um, uh, I think he's toned down some of that a little bit. Um, I, yeah, I'm sort of

when you lift up the blanket over his relationship with Eric's well, well, I don't, you know, or his own. I mean, I'd be, it's one of those, you want to, you want to, you want to really good background book. One thing I would say is, um, he's like, like, like, Booker and Pete have been on the national stage for a while. It'll be hard for them to sort of change their views on much. Guy, you can kind of make it up as he goes along on some level. I think he, if he wants to

look like a flip flop or as much as we don't really know his message about him, right? And now he's usually running kind of populist economics. He's talking about big companies being broken up. He's also been more conservative on immigration. He says the parties too won't. So there might be an opening for somebody who's more on the left on economics and on the right on kind of political

“social issues, I think though, that's what the, kind of,matic places crowd would like. So I think”

that's an interesting play, kind of potential play. I will, the next person is Kamala Harris. And so,

I think that's more, uh, as always, I actually marked all of these are the Kamala Harris.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, I was a little surprised when I saw how well she does in polls, but really shouldn't be because that's just like the classic, you know, everyone has a weird, like every year Ted Kennedy would be, you know, at the very top of the polls, Al Gore for a while, people like that. Um, I just, I mean, I, I like her a lot. I thought she ran about as good a campaign as she could. Um, but I just don't think that democratic parties

can have confidence in her. You know, even, even giving, even understanding how much she was screwed by Joe Biden, um, as he has a, she has a problem. Is that, she also has a, I mean, she doesn't have a little bit of a communications problem. She does get kind of kind of, um, and again, it's not faculty land language. It's just like making things too complicated. And two nuanced and trying to appeal to what people seem to want to hear rather than just say

much cheat things, um, or even just seeming like she's saying what she think, like Pete Buttigieg,

certainly always seems like he's saying what he thinks, even if it's all comes out of it.

Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. You know, um, I just don't really have that confident. And it's too bad because I think, you know, she was given a tireless job, a thankless job, and she did it as well as she could. So, um, yeah, it's interesting, this, this belief has fallen down a little bit on the Republican side, but for Democrats, there's been this very long standing belief that you only really get one shot at the brass ring.

If you, if you run for president and then lose, the party's not interested to you in any, any more. That, you know, they haven't, haven't gone with previous losers since Adly Stevenson in 56.

“So, I think that'll be, um, that'll be an important tradition for a lot of Democrats.”

I think there's a real mix within the Democratic Party about just why she lost in 24. I think there's a fair number of people in the party who say, look, that was just going to be a tough year no matter who the candidate was. Um, people are angry about the economy. We got a lot of the blame as the incumbent party. And I think a good many also who feel like she underperformed. It had something to do with the way she campaigned or who she was. Um, and that is just,

that's going to work against her. Um, and I, I think that'll, that'll really hamper her. I'm honestly surprised she's still considering it. Um, I can certainly understand you get the taste of it. You want to run, but, um, generally, uh, we saw this without a board, as I'm extent, we've seen this with other candidates where they express some interest in trying to run again and get sort of politely nudged out. So, I've been surprised. Okay. So, what I expected

to hear us to do was to pretend to be a real president for a long time, that makes your book

“sales go up, makes you see more relevant. And that's, that's why I assume is going on stills.”

Like she's going to pretend to run, but in early 27, she'll magically decide not to run when

she was never really intending to run the whole time. That's my assumption. That says her book

was a little bit more critical of Biden than I expected. And she's been in that and she's been a little bit more pro-Palestinian than I expected. I think she's trying some of the moves she's made are the ones you would take if you're trying to address your previous problems and actually run again. So, I think that is the one place where I've been surprised. And but ultimately, like I said, like Mark said, these polls are kind of just reflecting name ID, she would have a hard time winning

and there'd be a very tough race for her. I'm going to move to Mark Kelly, which is another person who I would not have guessed after the election. He was kind of in the VP list too a little bit. And I'll lead about with Mark Kelly, which is the case he's got is like again, a lot of we're talking about is he's won a hard swing state in Arizona as a place where also Harris lost. And so I think that's the appeal of him, that's the string. He's also like done a pretty good job

of like getting him like Trump is attacked him personally a couple of times and he's sort of like made

that helps. So I think he's got some personal credentials as sort of the sort of the

“white electable white man who can beat Trump or BJD fans. I think he's got that. The weaknesses are,”

I'll be honest, I'm not totally sure I know what Mark Kelly's voice sounds like. And when I think that I mean that I'm not sure that he's like made much of an impression as a senator, he sort of he also sort of semi-arrant for VP when Harris got the nomination and didn't make much of an impression either. And so I'm just, I'm not, he won Arizona, but I'm still actually not as sure he's done an impressive opalitis. Either one of you. Yeah, so I agree with you Kelly in some ways is kind

of like a clear electability candidate and that he's proven he can win in a swing state and do well there. And also I agree it helps him that he's eventually, you know, a martyr of the Trump

administration that he's been, you know, not just insulted, but like they've actually tried to

court marshal him and prosecute him and Trump essentially accused him of treason. So he's got that.

“And I think there is, you know, among some Democrats, I don't know if you wouldn't call it a”

lame or anything like that, but there kind of a good pitch candidate is someone who does it have particularly stride in stances, but also a peer position as fairly combative fighter, someone who's willing to stand up for his party and push back strongly on on some of Trump's excesses. I think he's been very good on that front. But yeah, I agree with you, not, you know, we don't know much about his voice. I don't know how much that really matters. But, you know, not necessarily like well-known

well-loved dynamic candidate. No way. I mean, I've heard his voice. It's deep. There's a little bit more of, like, the sheer, I think has a little bit of a slightly unimposing voice. Not that we should get into stuff like that. But, yeah, I mean, I think part of it with Kelly too is he, you know, if you take that illicit slot, can think about there's a fight or fold as the divide among Democrats, everybody's going to be on the fight side. But he sort of doesn't have to prove it. He doesn't have to

over emphasize it because it's all right there. So he can just do other, he can sort of do other things,

“which I think might be an answer. But who knows? Interesting that there's two states,”

we just talked about two senators from Arizona, and then there's two senators from Georgia, all both relatively new, who also are potential, can't be kind of interesting that both those swing states have produced real national stars already. So next person is Rol Kahn. I think the sort of, he's obviously running to be the sort of the, the running for the burning vote, he's taking every progressive stand, every issue from abolish ice to humor, should

resign to, there's a genocide in Gaza. These draws sincerely help, use them, sure. But also, he's sort of running in the, in that progressive lane trying to inherit the burning vote. So I think the, the strength of that is like there is clearly a part of the party that wants that kind of candidate. I think he's, I think he'll, in some ways, people we've talked about, he has a very distinct part of the, like you're thinking of he can appeal to him in a way that

ugly we've talked about, are all fighting for the same voters on some levels. I think he's got that. weaknesses are, I just don't think he's got, he's a house member, he's got really low name ID, give me hard to break out of that. If AOC runs, it could be really hard for him to win,

many progressive votes. I don't know, she's running or not. And also, like, ultimately,

my senses that the progressive block of the party, well, you know, well, being closer to where my own views are is not a majority. And so having those dances might not be the right way with the nomination. So, but he's, he's done a good job getting out that he's also willing to do an interview everywhere. I mean, he is everywhere. And just a credit to him as well. So Mark. Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I feel like I don't really understand Rho Khan a very well, despite kind of

observing him for a long time. And I think there's, you know, there's a question, is the, is the Bernie, I mean, Bernie has been a dominant figure for the last several elections in a way that we don't really appreciate was that about his positions or was it something unique to Bernie? And I don't think we really know, but I think just adopting his positions doesn't really do it. But you've also touched on, it's funny we didn't, you mentioned in relation to Kamala Harris,

and obviously in relation to Kana, you know, Democrats' relationship to Israel is going to be a very, very significant kind of dividing laying. And I'm not sure, I mean, that's moving really, really fast. And I'd rather be on the proposed, you're just a cold political terms, not just peripheral terms. It'd be better to be on the more proposed any inside of that. But there's going to be a lot of donors and a lot of elected who are going to be very resistant, you know, that's choosing

look like two years from now, is it? I don't know. So another important divide within the Democratic

party right now is what do we do with tech billionaires, right? I mean, this is a population with a lot of money. It's become increasingly influential and it's swung very hard right in recent years. As the congressman representing Silicon Valley, he's one of the few Democrats who, you know, tech folks are actually still pretty comfortable with, he can sort of, he can speak to that crowd, he can get

“support from that crowd, which I think cuts both ways, right? I think that makes him in some ways”

look like a stronger, you know, general election candidate, someone who could have access to that money and that support. He seems pro-business of pro-innovation in a certain way too. Right. But at the same time, like that might make him a little toxic to a fair amount of folks on the left who like

really want to push back on AI and want to push back on, just on, you know, tech's role in politics,

right now. Let me follow what I mean, Mark said. Well, Mark, make your point, then I'll ask. No, I mean, I think that I think that he can also make a pitch as like a guy who understands AI, and if we think AI is going to be this big world-changing challenge, which maybe it is, maybe it isn't, you know, he gets it. And I think he can, I think, again, I think he can play both sides of that. As he kind of has in his career, like he was originally just a Silicon Valley candidate,

challenging a very old established member of Congress, whose name I don't remember anymore. But, you know, I think the tech side is interesting. Mark, this is something about the idea being that

“Bernie Sanders won those votes, not generic progressive X. So I think that's an important distinction.”

That said, we, we have a lot of, we have a lot of evidence that in primaries, there's some number

of kind of progressive people. So we think that numbers like, so you're saying there's a gap between the people who vote for any progressive and the people who vote for Bernie Sanders, you think there's a big gap or a small gap or just a gap to consider. I just think they're different. I just think like, being Bernie Sanders is connected with people in a way that was not just the bundle of his positions.

And, you know, I mean, there is that phenomenon of supposed Trump Sanders voters, you know, I don't know how much of that there is, but you can get, I mean, both of them have a very, especially original Trump. They have a very non-polit, it means hard to imagine, you know, the guys in the chair of the Senate budget committee, but these still, you know,

“there's a very non-politician appeal. I mean, I think sometimes,”

like Mombani's progress, sometimes that progressiveism has an appeal, just because it's coherent, it doesn't happen to be your world view, but it's a world view. And it's coming from somewhere, and it's not just telling you what you want to hear. Okay. Next person is Westmore. I want you to say that in part, because I know less, less about Westmore than I said, so I hope you've studied them a little bit. Westmore.

I was going to say, I don't know that much about him either. I mean, he's also someone, in some ways, like the opposite of Mark Kelly, in that he is a very good public speaker, and he is very engaging. He gets people very passionate. He's good at going on a wide range of TV shows and venues and just, and, you know, I think just speaking very inspirationally. I don't have a sense of how well-loved he is generally among Democrats. He's from Maryland,

which isn't a particularly competitive state. And he's still pretty young, as far as I understand. But, you know, it'd be an interesting candidate to watch, and I think an enjoyable one to watch, as he, you know, develops his speaking. Mark. Yeah, I mean, again, I mean, I live 500 feet from the Maryland border, but that doesn't like anything. He's not super visible even in my world. He's super impressive. I mean, you know, he could turn out to be almost like a bombine

in the way he connects with people, but, but I don't really have any any idea. I mean, there's some sort of complicated questions about his personal background that could be, you know, in some ways, but I mean, just military service, right? He's only what he did with the military service. Yeah. Yeah. But I didn't, you know, I tried to figure that out one evening, and I couldn't even figure out what this actual tragedy is. Oh, I wonder what I would say of like,

both, not a series, I'm too much, but both Harris, Booker, Westmore, have not, I don't not just black, but I have fairly similar ideologies. They're not left is they're not hardcore moderates. And so I want to only one of them, and maybe zero them are going to do will. So I have I'd be so I'm just curious. That seems to me, I think all their, all their plans are going to be win some white moderates, win some white progressives, and do really well in the heavily

black states in the South. That plan has worked for Joe Biden in Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

That's funny. They all three also have kind of like academic backgrounds or, you know,

“Westmore's mother worked at the NEKC foundation at Baltimore. I think Booker, I can't remember what,”

I mean, Booker is definitely from an upper middle class family or middle class family. I can't remember what. It's common with dad, with the professor. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, J.D. Pritzker. I do know about anybody. Well, let's start Mark. J.D. Pritzker. Uh, you know, I just think he's been, you know, he's managed to be super popular as Governor of Illinois, which is quite an accomplishment given

that state's history. He seems to just always hit the right note in relation to Trump.

I just, I mean, I think he could be a very formidable candidate. He, he, he, again, he's one of those who seems like he's just saying what he thinks. Um, with a little bit of, uh, I got all the money in the world. So I can say what I think attitude, which, you know, doesn't, doesn't really hurt. I, I don't know, I mean, ups, lots of potential. Well, one question I want to ask you, Mark, specifically like, Steyer is having this problem in California, uh, with minor shedding is

progressives do, he's getting the most left-wing positions. Progressives are nervous about supporting a billionaire. Sounds like that's maybe a barrier to Senator War and our Bernie Sanders endorsing you. Like, and will Pritzker, Pritzker is trying to appeal to, maybe not the hardest level, but certainly it progressive part of the party is being a billionaire

“and here I'm going to be disqualifying. I'm a scary to be there. Well, first, first, I think being”

an inherited billionaire, like FDR, it's probably less of a problem than, yeah, it's the whole tie at hotels and all that. You know, I guess he's involved in the business, but it's really, really not. His and his family story is really actually very tragic and very, very moving. So I feel like that's different from Steyer who was sort of in this private equity business for most of his well-life, and Steyer's also actually doing really well. I mean,

it's no surprise that Warren doesn't endorse him, because she's still got her student in the race, you know. So, um, I'm not, I'm really curious how this will play on the, you know, the sort of suspicion of billionaires divide in the Democratic Party right now, because I think there are fair number of people, particularly in Illinois, who are just saying, yeah, he's a plutocrat, but he's our plutocrat, um, and he seems to be playing that he handles that pretty well.

Like, he doesn't run from that. He just, you know, he's saying like, this gives me the freedom to say

“some things that others can't, and he's been, I think, quite good at that. He has been way more”

outspoken than most prominent Democrats from the beginning of Trump's second term, and specifically

calling out ice activities, you know, when the, you know, threatening Chicago, things like that, and he's sort of the one just, just, at least, you know, rhetorically standing up very strongly in those circumstances. So, I think that gives him some legitimate, legitimate credential, like I agree with Mark, I think he could be a formidable candidate. Well, do you say earlier, Mark, there's like the fight Canada, one of you all said basically,

there's a, there's a kind of person who's like, there's a person who's in the fighting, and not necessarily in the positions. Like, I don't know a priest who's for the wealth tax, or for, um, Medicare, for all, and I don't think he's probably likely to be on the sort of most policy-lipped, but I do think in the sort of, he's fighting on the social issues. He's, but he has actually barely good on transgender rights, um, ice, the things that I,

those sort of less social issues, he's actually very strong on. Yeah, yeah. It just hurts for me to believe that Medicare for all is going to be the thing we're going to be fighting. Oh, I'm using a quote, it's incredibly good news. You know, I can't even, yeah, Kevin, what will I have gone through? So, final questions with us, Sharpen event, and something we've kind of referred to a little bit already,

set, uh, Josh Shapiro. Um, man, I wish it had been my line there, and someone referred to him as Barack Obama, which I think is such a great line. Um, like he's just, he's, at very skilled public speaker, he's, you know, a lot of people see him as Obama-like presence, but also Jewish, and also can win

Pennsylvania. He was obviously like, I think, a very close second in the vice presidential

sweepstakes in 2024, um, and who knows what would have happened if he'd been the choice. I think it would have probably been the same result. Um, the fact that he is literally a victim of political violence, uh, that his house was attacked and, and, and Burr, um, he really touches on, uh, you know, I think that's a selling point for him among Democrats, but the fact his, he's got a complex set of stances on his real, um, I think he's been, you know, he's been generally much more sympathetic to

his real than a lot of other prominent politicians. I think he sort of sensed the wind changing

lot for him. I mean, that will be the first issue people want to ask him about, simply for being

outspoken on and for being Jewish, um, and we'll, uh, it'll just be an extra challenge for him. Well, yeah, I, I agree with all that. I don't have any strong views about your period. I did think I found Shapiro's like little digs at Harris to be sort of, to be sort of unseemly, you know,

“but whatever. I think he might be the most willing of the people we've named to sort of,”

I think he might actually attack the left of the more aggressive way the other people will, he does seem that he seems much more anchored in sort of moderate politics and Pennsylvania's, and not as on Israel, at least he's too. So I'll be sure, as it comes down to him and booth his years or something like that. I'd be curious if there was any body, but I think that he might be suffer from the bebody, but Shapiro on the sort of progressive end. So that's the one,

see, you can get past that, but it but Biden is between a good job being progressive, friendly enough to where people were fine with him, and I don't know if Shapiro can pull that off, but we'll see. Well, not, not if Israel remains a central issue. And if he takes his current stand out, I would say, yeah, um, let's do two more people, and then I'll go round and I would sort of brought it out. So the,

“we've mentioned, uh, I think the person that we have a mentioned yet who, I think it's scheduling”

conflict and didn't come to New York is Gavin Newsom who is very clearly, obviously, thinking of any president. So, uh, Seth, talk about Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom. So, um, in some ways, I've seen this among some people on the left that he kind of rubbs him the wrong way, but also, um, he's been, I think, a success in California. I think importantly, a lot of Democrats have talked pretty harsh stuff about Donald Trump over the last year and a half.

Gavin Newsom is one of the few who can actually claim to have achieved something, right? He actually, like, pushed back on redistricting. He engineered a redistricting in California to counter what Trump pushed for in Texas and essentially neutralize that. Um, and I think that shows, okay, he's someone even, you know, in the party that is not in the majority nationwide, he is capable of doing some real actions and, and changing national politics to a good degree.

“And I, I think, deserves some credit for that. Uh, beyond that, I have no idea what, what his appeal”

will be like. Um, he's obviously, he sort of loves being pugnacious. He loves doing lots of TV,

um, never probably help him. Um, but he'll always be sort of, you know, confounded by the fact that

I think a lot of people just worry, uh, a California is not going to be electable nationwide. Um, of course, you know, well, they tried with Kamala Harris, but, you know, all of the different set of circumstances there. Mark. Yeah. Well, Ronald Reagan would have something to say about that. It wasn't a difference, but yeah. Yeah. No, I know, I know. Um, yeah, I mean, I have, I have trouble getting past just a kind of personal version to give a new

son. Um, and, and I'll, and I'll cop to that. I think he's been, he's too slick looking. He doesn't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I just, something, it's just something about his, his man or whatever. Um, obviously, yes, he has been a good governor and the redistricting was great and

he's basically continued a line of policies, you know, that start with Jerry Brown, um,

that that have really helped California kind of stand out from the country in many ways. But, um, I mean, what I notice is he's, it's just this, you know, intensive experimentation, which I sort of, you know, there's like the period where he was like tweeting in Donald Trump's voice, you know, and, and as if that would be funny. And then there was a period where he was going on every, you know, right wing podcast that he could find or, or, you know, um, you know,

the looks, maxors and stuff like that. Um, I, I just feel like, which is funny as he said, as that, um, that might be part of my version. I mean, I kind of respect that sort of try anything approach right now to American politics. Do I think that's probably a good idea, but it totally reinforces the, the idea that this is a guy who stands for nothing. Yes. I think I was going to say something like that, too. He's like, he's done pretty well this last year. Like, he started off with

the Limey-Hefty band and my podcast that got a huge backlash. He was in Danny became superpartisan, Trump is terrible, and even, you know, fighting him, there were just redistricting we talked about. He is reading the room, and I think he seems to adapt in a certain way. That's a skill, like, no, we're saying it made me, he has no core. So electability is going to be so obvious. Don't make it so obvious what you're doing. I think about electability is like, so my friends

in like, pendant world, we sort of study, you know, who did better in Arizona, then Kamala, who did better in Michigan, and what on where there's what else score is tallity, Lee Morris might be score is in the debate. I can't remember the term now, but anyway,

though, the thing is the war stories and some of these guys come up with. Anyhow,

“that's how my nerd friends think. My prison real life think any white guy is more”

electable than me, not white guy. And I didn't get a new some silhouette guy, and so I think he's going to do, he might do better than a list of slacking on electability. Unfortunately, only because he is a man, and she is, and I think that's not a good way to see the world, but I do think we might be entering a phase where Democrats have ran into women, those two in both laws, and they're made, we may have to wait 20 years to have another female nominee,

and like, that advantage is someone like Newson, who's like a loud mouth-white guy. And so the other person is, uh, AOC, and I'll let Mark start with who he was thinking about.

No, it's, that's only the second woman we've talked about. Yes, AOC, you're right.

We've only talked about Harrison, and now we'll talk about AOC a little bit. I don't know. I am just a big fan of, I mean, a big fan of AOC, but also I've just like, just rot. Don't wing, just go. I mean, which in some ways is what Obama did.

“I would love to, I think it'll be fascinating if she did it. She's an extraordinary communicator.”

She knows, she knows when to hold back from the farthest left, you know, people expect her to be a little further out than she is. She's just got, you know, grounding in common sense and can sort of talk to people and explain things in ways that make sense to them. I'd, I'd love to see you try it. Yeah, I mean, I especially ask you, you sort of said,

"Can they can this are different and so on?" I would argue pretty much everyone who bought it from

Sanders is when he would vote for, vote for AOC and pretty much no one who didn't vote for Sanders would vote for. We have a replay in a certain sense and I think that when this one where I say the lanes do seem clear and the AOC have an art time seeing or breaking out of the, the Bernie vote, but maybe that I'm curious what you think about that. Yeah, I think I disagree with that on two sides. I mean, there is a sort of certain kind of Bernie vote that was a,

that was a little more like a Trump vote. There was a certain kind of like why, you know, more or less working class, you know, the kind of Graham Platner type, right? And that's very

“different from AOC's appeal. And I think I think there'll be a lot of feeling like if you see,”

if you see AOC over a period of time, I'm going to feel like, "Okay, I kind of heard about her, I thought she was a little nuts, but she makes perfect sense." I mean, I think she, I think her, I think she could go well beyond the Bernie constituency. So AOC, I mean, it's remarkable. She's still so young, right? I think 36 right now, to barely eligible to run for president. She is, you know, has been for almost a decade now, a lightning rod for the Democratic party.

Like, she is this sort of avatar of everything Republicans hate about the Democrats. And she's actually played that role pretty well. I think it's really useful to have someone like that in the house, Nancy Pelosi played that role for many years. I would generally caution against nominating your lightning rod for president. I think Hillary Clinton ran into some problems for that reason as well. She could probably pull it off. Honestly, she is, I think one of the smartest

strategists in the Democratic party right now. And she's just, she's very gifted with that. I think she could also have a very substantial role in the house leadership going forward. If she wanted that career, I don't know that she does. But, you know, she just, she has, she just knows what she's doing there and could really be, I think, an impressive legislative leader going forward. So I would sort of hate to lose her in the house for a presidential run. But it would also like, I agree with Mark.

Like, there's a certain sense of, well, let's just see what happens. It would be an interesting race to, to follow. Just how, whether, whether she could make that sell to people outside New York. So we covered the club. I was going to cover. So now I'm going to, I won't ask you a question about AOC. Do you think since you run against Schumer and would, would she be in a stronger position if she does run against Schumer or if Schumer retires? Schumer's behavior. I'm not getting a next stop

because that would be 20, 28 also. So my perception is that Schumer is acting like someone who's going to retire after, who's not going to run into the turns. And so at that point, I don't AOC would be able to better chance winning Senate, obviously. I don't think the Wall Street crowd's going to be eager to have Senator AOC. So it's not going to be a cakewalk either. And so I anticipate her running for the Senate. That's kind of what I think. There's an open seat, but you know,

potentially open seat there. You become a Senator and you sort of wait out and then run president later. That's kind of what I expect. But if we're in a attention economy and we're in a place where

talked about. And so that's kind of where I would. And I think when I ask you your question

“about her appeal, I think she would do worse with maybe the Graham Plattener vote. I actually”

would do better with the sort of young Latinos and African Americans compared to what sand is at the 2020, 2020, 2020, just to hear that, obviously. So all right. So my round Robin, and I'm now, this is a, this is an end. We're going to end here by just saying, I'm going to give a list of a bunch of people. And if you guys are interested in any of them, we can talk through them. We're just bringing them up. So Ron and Daniel is going everywhere and doing pretty much everything. I don't

know who's going to vote for him. I'm certainly not going to Christmas Murphy has been earlier. I think he's because Merri really made a name for himself. Alyssa Slotkin has went to New Hampshire

and done some of the hinting about running. Stephen Colbert, pretty much announced himself to Barack

Obama the other day. That was funny. I think there might be room for outside a person and he's going to be an employee soon. John Ossoff is getting a lot of buzz in Georgia. I think Raphael Warnock would also be a pretty good candidate as well. And then Gretchen Whitmer is a two-term governor

“of a swing stage. He kind of is not, I feel like she wants to run. But I think it's relevant that”

she's a two-term governor of a state. And we might, the gender thing we talked earlier might apply to her. But anybody, any of those you guys want to talk about or anything else you want to mention about this process is written in the end here. Well, I think I guess I think Murphy's interesting to me. But you know, when you think about somebody like him, a lot will depend on

like if the Democrats take the Senate, he's he'll have a, you know, he's really good at

some of the oversight stuff and some, you know, he's on good committee. I mean, he'll he'll be able to elevate his profile enormously. And that's a variable we haven't talked about. The Democrats don't in the Senate. And the only one, the only side with subpoena power is the house. Then you could see that's where Rokana or AOC could really, really, really have a huge impact. So, yeah, I'm I'm just similar feelings of that ramen manual just because I still don't understand

how he has won some elections before because like we talked about this is sort of being that candidate who has relatively moderate stances, but is seen as a fighter like his whole thing is pure belligerence, right? And some, and a fair amount of that is directed against the Trump administration and that would help him, but it's also kind of against everyone. I don't think that I don't think he'll win a lot of friends nationally among Democrats there. But, you know,

it would be an entertaining one to watch. And so in that sense, I look forward to it. Any dark course among either the people I named or anybody else that you all think we should name in this conversation? I think I think Osoff is undervalued as a candidate here. Like, you know, right now he's been making a pretty good name for himself. He's done a lot of national media lately and he's honed, I think, a very strong message. Arguably, that's just a way to raise

money nationally for his Senate reelection bid. But it wouldn't surprise me if he was thinking seriously about a presidential run in 28, maybe in 32, maybe he's thinking about being a VP candidate. But, you know, I know one who's one two Senate races, I'd say, automatically puts themselves in the presidential material category. And he's he's getting the name recognition for it. Yeah, I think that that's the only one I would name of the ones that you named. That's the one I

would point to. And also, you know, it's not just like what you candidates think they're going to do.

“It's like people coming to them and saying, you should do this. And that could be donors,”

it could be other leaders. I feel like there's a little bit of that. I mean, I'm, I feel like I'm seeing people say that not necessarily people with that level of influence. But, and it's certainly happened for Obama, you know, when Harry Reid said, you should do this. It's not just in his own head. So I think the encouragement that different candidates are going to get will matter a lot. The last question, people are saying this is a very wide open race. So he, I mean,

he asked it in this in this way. Have we, do you think we even named the Democratic nominee on this in this discussion? Do you think one of the, we've named it given about 20 people? Do you think this is so wide open that even we have not missed the, among the 20, or do you think it's wide open, but within a certain range of people we've discussed here? We have probably named the nominee, but I agree. It's also, it is wide open in a way that it

hasn't been in a very long time. There is no obvious heir apparent. The, you know, the last president and vice president are, you know, went out and kind of an unpopular way. And, and it's not clear who, who they would even be supporting at this point, if it came down to that. One thing I think

senator, um, a year from now. And yeah, he'd be a first-term senator, but he's the sort of come from

“nowhere populist. Um, and that's the teleureka, the better part, the answer to this question,”

then Graham Platner, if that just was what you're going? Possibly. Oh, what, tell me coming out, we in. He's on this lower chest. Well, no, he could, he could win too, but, yeah, but suddenly Platner could be like the big sensation that everyone's got their eyes on who can win over some conservative voters. And, you know, the, the Nazi tattoo business might get sort of lost in the, in the noise there. Um, but yeah, I mean, he, you know, he would not be that much less

experience, say, than Barack Obama was when he first ran for president. Well, Barack Obama had

whatever he was in the sentence they legislated. The mark to be that he could be named the person

“on this or not. I, you know, I think, oh, it's our we have. I don't think it's, I don't think”

Platner would, I wouldn't, I would think it's more likely that people's just trying to imitate Platner, you know, so Josh, your own start stalking like Platner without the Nazi tension. All right, then it is that he's the candidate, but I also think, you know, it's so much terrible stuff could happen in the next two years that could totally scramble things. And somebody could emerge either out of Congress or out of, you know, a courageous stand they take within the,

you know, in the military or something like that, who suddenly appears on the stage. I don't know. It's a, it's a, it's not like the last two years of the Bush administration where we just sort of floated down stream into disaster. It's just going to be much more dramatic. And with that, we'll close this off. Thank you guys for joining me. We'll tell if I tell everybody where they can find your work, Mark and then Seth, where they can find you on social media on

and on websites and other things like that. Well, I've got the new america.org. Go to the political reform program. We're putting out a bunch of stuff recently, some of which I've written, some of which my colleagues have written. I'm on blue skies and Schmidt 9, and I do post on substack occasionally. I've got a bunch of drafts sitting there, so maybe they'll go up soon. And then Seth, you're going to be doing a lot of stuff. I was talking about the sub a little bit

up the book stuff. Yeah, so I'll definitely, you can always find me on substack.

My, again, the name of the newsletter is the smoothest report. You can find that at smoothest SMOTUS.substack.com. And yeah, I also have this book coming out next month, called The Elephants in the Room. It's about the Republican nomination of Donald Trump in 24 and how the party got to that point. So I'll be doing a number of events to the, to the extent

“I can to promote the book. And you can watch for that. There's also a link to buy it if you want to”

pre order it on my substack site. Great conversation. Good to see you guys. And thanks for joining. Okay, right. It's talking about you.