AS267: Just How Close Was Al Gore to Being President?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Atheistically Speaking. This is episode 267 and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Joining me right now is someone named Andrew Torrez. I don't know, I'm not sure how he pronounces it, but Andrew, I'll just say Andrew. How you doing?

0:00:46 Andrew: Thomas, I'm great. Thanks for having me back.

0:00:49 Thomas: A guest that I and the listeners are likely quite familiar with. So last time we left a huge teaser, as you always do. You always leave a really interesting teaser for the next topic. Bush v. Gore. And this is going to be interesting because you'll know, listeners will know, I've been going back and forth, even on guest spots I've done, not just the one you're going to mention, but another one where we're talking about, you know, are people to blame if they vote third party to elect Trump, etc., etc. So all kinds of interesting stuff going on. And also, we've got a cool announcement for the end of this episode. So make sure you listen through to the end for a really cool announcement. But, at long last, let's go and talk about Bush v. Gore. What do you say?

0:01:36 Andrew: So first thing, I feel very passionately about this. I think if your listeners haven't heard your guest appearance along with Eli on the Gaytheist Manifesto, which is, it's now either the immediately prior one or two previous, where again, you were talking about President President Trump. You had a great episode here on Atheistically Speaking. I don't know what more you can do to, you know, sort of sound the alarm.

0:02:05 Thomas: Yeah, I've done all I can. And now that's why I'm bringing in the big guns. I'm bring you in.

0:02:07 Andrew: Right. Right, so You may have, I certainly have gotten into the argument that there is historical precedent for third parties influencing an election. And the clear example of that is the 2000 election of Bush versus Gore. And I thought it would be fun to kind of revisit that bit of history. A lot of people I find who are in the sort of Bernie or bust camp were, you know, in grade school in, you know, during the 2000 election and um I I lived that um so uh I remember it pretty vividly.

0:02:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:50 Thomas: I just remember endless jokes about hanging chads. Oh, so funny. We've got it. It's a recount. Oh, that's just that's all I remember. I'm only I was like 13, I think.

0:02:58 Andrew: Uh, At Yeah, And I'm gonna I'm gonna Tell You what hanging chads are and why they're important, um, yeah, no, and if that's not a teaser, I don't know what is, um, but, but before I blame, and let me make this very, very clear, I blame Nader voters. OK, I, I affirmatively blame anybody who voted for Ralph Nader in the 2000 election, even in, you know, states that didn't turn out to be close for reasons that that that we're going to get into.

0:03:15 Thomas: Oh, wow. Okay. Coming down hard line.

0:03:30 Thomas: Well, I don't want to throw you off, but do you blame them more? Like I made a point to say, so I went on a podcast called Wayward Atheist. So I might as well announce that here. I was going to announce it at the beginning or end or something, but check me out on Wayward atheists. If you want, we talked about this a lot, actually should be out, I think Wednesday. And I did make the point there that first and foremost, I do blame Bush voters, or in this case, Trump voters, like I do blame, like they are the ones getting that person elected. So are you blaming Nader's supporters even more than, all

0:03:32 Andrew: Yeah. OK. Oh, sure. Right. But but right. But those I mean, I that this would be a very interesting experiment to have anyone who is a patron of Atheistically Speaking, like me, you should be to to go to go into our patron, our patron only area. And if you're a Trump voter, I mean, don't we won't question you. We will not try and argue with you. But post, you know, I'm a Trump voter on the notes on this episode, because I think the answer. I mean I honestly think nobody might rise to that call.

0:04:13 Thomas: Right, round of applause.

0:04:35 Andrew: You might have zero listeners who are Trump voters. Um, and so yeah, I mean, it goes without saying, uh, people who are voting for Trump are wrong. People who voted for Bush were wrong, but uh, but I'm not trying to reach that right, like, I'm trying to each the and I think you're trying to reached the uh people who are very very closely aligned with us politically, uh, who are nevertheless, you know know, angry for good reasons, bad reasons, or, you know, indifferent reasons.

0:04:35 Thomas: Yeah, I think I maybe have like three. Yeah. Okay.

0:04:48 Thomas: Yeah. Right. And that's exactly what I said. I said, I'm trying, you know, if I could reach a Trump supporter, I would try. I just don't think that's happening. I think it's far more likely to reach somebody who, and I think what, what likely you're going to go on to say, and that I've kind of said as regards to, uh, I guess it would be Jill Stein or Gary Johnson voters or whatever is like, even under, I think the key is even under their sort of worldview and goals, it probably makes sense to vote Hillary. And I think that's the key. Like for a Trump voter under their worldview, it pro it makes sense about Trump. They're like, Like they probably, their goals are in line with that or that, you know, they believe that Hillary is the worst. But I bet there are people who are somewhere in there contradicting themselves. If we could really argue it out as to like, okay, what are going to be the consequences?

0:05:04 Andrew: Yeah.

0:05:52 Thomas: Why are you voting in the first place? All that kind of stuff. I bet we could find a contradiction. So that's kind of where I come from on it.

0:05:57 Andrew: Yeah, I think that's right. And this was something that just occurred to me a couple of days ago. But one of the things that was really frustrating to me in 2000 about George W. Bush was he ran on a very, very conservative platform in the primaries. He lined up the traditional base of conservative donors. He picked, you know, an arch conservative as his running mate, right? Everything in his circles was sort of hardcore conservative, which is pretty much what we got during his presidency. But he was kind of treated, I mean, he said, I'm the compassionate conservative. And he was sort of treated by the press as if he was far more centrist than he actually was.

0:06:43 Andrew: And that was as as somebody who, you know, was sort of left of center and looking at this going, this is not a race between, you know, a kind of just slightly right of center guy, this a race between somebody who, as far as we can tell, intends to govern from the hard right. The thing that occurred to me was Hillary Clinton is sort of our Democratic opposite of that. If you look at, again, you've mentioned the I Side With, I have linked a bunch of times, there's an article on 538. If you type into Google 538, Hillary Clinton is liberal, you will come up with it. There is an article on Daily Kos, you could do the same thing. But Hillary Clinton has amassed a, she's, she has amassed a consistently liberal voting record, uh and and she has run uh a very liberal campaign, she's taken very liberal policy positions. And they've moved sort of even further to the left after the primary.

0:07:37 Andrew: And she has not pivoted back to the center in the, in the general election. Right. Like the entirety of her pitch to moderates and conservatives right now is not, you'll agree with what I'm going to try and get done from a public policy perspective. It is rather, you know, I'm a grown up and I can be trusted with my finger on the nuclear button, which I think is I think that's the right way to pivot back to the center. But, but so my point on all of that is we actually have an advantage. I mean, if you're, if you're a partisan Democrat, all partisan Democrat, we actually have the advantage that usually the Republican candidates get.

We have a very liberal candidate who is being treated as though she's a moderate centrist candidate of it, and I, I think we should treat that as a good thing instead of, you know, getting hung up over the fact that you, uh, know, she's sort of perceived as being, uh, you know, more centrist, and she occasionally uses, you know, more centist rhetoric. Like, it could be a lot worse.

And, and, you know, as we're going to find out from, uh, talking about some of the things that Al Gore did, like, it has been a lot less. So, so that's right, that's kind of why I care. But now let's time travel back to 2000. Let's

0:07:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:08:47 Andrew: Let's travel back. Yeah, actually, let's time travel back to 1999, so we still, we will still have the Y2K scare.

0:08:46 Thomas: To the year 2000. Party like it's

0:08:55 Andrew: Exactly.

0:08:55 Thomas: 1999. Okay.

0:08:56 Andrew: Which you probably never heard the actual song, right? Right.

0:08:59 Thomas: And then let me Know when we get to 2000, because I can do, "In the Year 2,000." And then we can do the, what was that? Conan's bit, it, I think, yeah.

0:09:09 Andrew: Yes. That was, yeah, there's great, like, first couple of seasons of Conan O'Brien, where he lit his desk on, on fire. That was spectacular.

0:09:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. So, We're in 1999, we're worried about Y2K, if You remember, I've talked about this on Comedy Shoeshine, not many people made it alive through Y2K, it was a horrible disaster, nearly most of the adult population was killed, but we'll, we'll have to not look at that angle of things, we'll just, we're just looking strictly at Bush v Core, yeah.

0:09:21 Andrew: Right. Yeah. We're worried about Y2K.

0:09:39 Andrew: Yeah. And we're, you know, doomsday prepping, you know, storing boxed meals in our garage. You're Al Gore's campaign manager. So first important question to you. Here's your question. You are Al Gore's campaign manager, and you have to decide whether you want Bill Clinton to be an important part of your re-election campaign. So what are some factors, what are Some things you might be thinking about? Yeah,

0:09:43 Thomas: Is Obviously the big thing is, uh, Monica Lewinsky and that sort of thing. And I do know, I have, I keep hearing that Obama will be the first time in like forever that the sitting president is doing some serious campaigning. So, ultimately, I know the answer, but I'm trying to think, let's see, I was young at the time, I was only 13, but I would say the... Now, but I do know he had a pretty high approval rating toward the end of his presidency. The economy was good, there's a budget surplus, I think, eventually, and so, I don't know, I would think it's tough. I guess if you're paranoid about the blowjob thing, if you really worried about that, then maybe you don't do it, but that's tough, I'm not sure.

0:10:53 Andrew: You're exactly right. Which is to say, the Gore campaign, I think, prioritized their qualitative research over the numbers. And they really bought into this idea of Clinton fatigue. Clinton was a year and a half removed from being impeached. And there was sort of this sense of, you know, this is kind of a looming disaster over us. But when you look at the numbers, Clinton's approval rating, if you look from June 1999 through the election, okay, and they actually get a bump after the election.

0:11:26 Thomas: I want to say it was like 65 or something. It wasn't pretty high.

0:11:32 Andrew: It was essentially 60 to 35, okay. His approval rating never dropped below 55. And his disapproval never went above 40, okay? And from that time period.

0:11:37 Thomas: Right. In his whole presidency or just that time period? Okay.

0:11:48 Andrew: Right. Yeah.

0:11:48 Thomas: Gotcha.

0:11:49 Andrew: So at the time in which you're looking, the snapshot of how voters feel about Clinton is a 25 point margin of positive feelings with over a hardcore 55 percent of the population always approving. And that number fluctuates from 55, 60, 61, 62. The disapproval always in the 30s, 37, 38, 39. There's one period where the closest it gets is 55 to 40. But basically, it's a plus 25 margin.

0:12:20 Thomas: Let me say this. If it's a good idea for Hillary to use Bill now, I would say it was a better idea for Gore to use Bill back then, because like as much as it shouldn't really make a difference, it is kind of weird when the big knock on Bill is that he, you know, had an affair, did all this stuff kind of. And that that affects Hillary. You know, that's right there with Hillary. Gore could make the argument that like, look, that has nothing to do with me. You know where, you know, you could you could imagine he's he's purely could come across and and just claim the good parts of the Clinton presidency and really have nothing to do with Clinton's misdeeds.

0:12:20 Andrew: Yeah.

0:13:06 Andrew: And Al Gore was a very active vice president. He had substantive responsibilities during the Clinton administration and could have very easily run on the things he did in the White House that were separate from having sexual encounters with interns. Terms. I would tell you by comparison, Obama's approval ratings right now are the highest that they have been in a year. And if you look at the Real Clear Politics average, they are 52 positive, 45 negative, right?

0:13:26 Thomas: Right. Oh, wow.

0:13:43 Andrew: So in other words, if it is the correct strategy, and I believe that it is, for Hillary Clinton to run on the continuation of the Obama legacy, right, Obama's approval ratings are a third, a fourth of the margin that Clinton had. I mean, it's been plus four, plus three, plus seven. He just, you know, a couple of months ago sort of cleared the 50% threshold. Hold um and and the important part is that that's enough right if you have if 52 percent of the population approves of the incumbent president right and the and and they're running for re-election they're probably going to win uh and so if you're you know running for the Obama third term or the Clinton third term um you know we did not have have uh the constitutional amendment prohibiting uh a president from running for more than two terms I believe that's a 23rd but uh that may be something I get called out on for being incorrect off the top of my head didn't have didn't plan To Answer That one Right Yeah, please let me know um But

0:13:54 Thomas: Yeah, if there's any lawyers listening, yeah. I don't know any amendment of any kind. I pride myself on having no idea. You know, when people were saying, oh, maybe the 19th Amendment people can do something about Trump, I was thinking, what is that? Is that people the who drink alcohol? Is that? Yeah, I don't know. Is that something about the state's rights or something? I don't know. Or is that going to factor in? No, I figured it out eventually. But I'm terrible with numbers like that. I don't know.

0:14:48 Andrew: Uh right Right Yeah That Was a right Yeah Um Mean the smart money would have have been on Clinton winning, on Bill Clinton winning re-election in 2000. So already, I think, and again, you know, I'm more of a data-driven guy than a qualitative guy. And I just, it was mind-boggling to me at the time that Gore seemed to buy into the narrative about Bill Bill Clinton that was being peddled by, you know, sort of emerging right-wing media news sources at the time.

0:15:16 Thomas: Right.

0:15:42 Thomas: Hmm. That he was sort of like kind of a curse on the campaign or something or just a bad. Yeah. No, that makes sense. So you're saying maybe mistake number one in some some ways. Like, chalk that up as, okay, I can buy that, certainly. It's a good argument, especially given that his approval was so much higher than Obama's is now. I had no idea. That's fascinating. Ooh, another decision. Awesome. Okay.

0:15:44 Andrew: Right. Correct. All right. So next your major decision as the, as the as the

0:16:08 Thomas: I hope I can, is this like a Dungeons and Dragons? Do I get to win this campaign? Is that, how many points? We can, we'll

0:16:08 Andrew: Yeah, there's a, there's an 96 point ball rod waiting around the corner, which would be, which would Be hilarious. If you'd ever played Dungeons and Dragons, which we know you have not.

0:16:19 Thomas: See if I, it'll, it will, oh, okay. Yeah, no, I don't know.

0:16:24 Thomas: But I have watched Stranger Things, so does that count? Oh, you don't, you probably don't know. You need to.

0:16:28 Andrew: I'm about to. It's queued up. It

0:16:30 Thomas: Okay. Separate discussion. So, so we're, so I'm playing Dungeons and Campaigns and Campaign and Dragons, and I am trying to win. Can I win?

0:16:31 Andrew: Is queued up.

0:16:41 Thomas: Let's see. Choice number two. Here we go.

0:16:41 Andrew: Choice number two, you have to prepare and advise your candidate on whom to select as his vice presidential running lead. Now let me give you some factors that go into that. Your primary challenger was New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley He was a long-standing, he's a former

0:17:04 Thomas: Boy, I don't even know that name. That's, that's a bad sign.

0:17:08 Andrew: Professional basketball player. I believe he played for the Knicks and then ran for the Senate in New Jersey. Democracy was considered kind of a budget wunderkind in the 80s was Gary Hart's choice for his likely choice for his vice president had Gary Hart not sat with an attractive blonde woman on his lap on a boat called the Monkey Business, which is a fantastic story sunk his campaign. So, but by 2000, is kind of a jowly senator from New Jersey, sort of rock hard liberal, no longer, you know, I mean, it doesn't surprise me that you don't know who he is.

0:17:34 Thomas: Oh, wow.

0:17:55 Thomas: Right, right, right. Now, how, what was the margin of victory on the Primary? Was it Pretty

0:17:55 Andrew: Right. Yeah, your candidate, your candidate has gone through the entire primary season, but has won all 50 states. OK, Bradley stayed into the end, but these were mostly, you 65, 35. Some were 70, 30. Some were 60, 40. Right. Not close.

0:17:59 Thomas: Okay. Essentially. Not Close. Not Really Close. Yeah.

0:18:17 Andrew: Yeah. And I believe, right, that Gore won New Jersey. Right? Won Bradley's home state.

0:18:17 Thomas: Oh. Wow. I would have dropped out then.

0:18:25 Andrew: Yeah. But, and Bradley has attacked you from the left, has attacked your candidate from the left. And that was sort of where he positioned himself, a liberal alternative, uh, to Al Gore in the primaries. And now, uh... with that in mind, so you've had a long primary season. Uh... There's clearly some liberal real resentment, but not anywhere near the level of, know, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton.

0:18:47 Thomas: There weren't any, uh, Bradley or busters? Okay.

0:18:50 Andrew: Correct. Correct. And a large part of that is there just, there was not a lot of policy difference, right? I mean, I've described Al Gore as being, I think, the most progressive candidate that the Democrats have nominated since, you now, in 50 years. And I think that's true. And so what Bradley did was sort of run a little further to the left, but it was hard to draw, you know, policy distinctions because they weren't there, as opposed to, you know, there were some legitimate policy distictions that Sanders could and did draw vis-a-vis Hillary Clinton in the primaries. So with all that in mind, do you go? What kind of, and I don't expect you to be able to name names, but

0:18:58 Thomas: Okay.

0:19:08 Thomas: I was gonna say, I don't know any names. I like, uh,

0:19:33 Andrew: Yeah, and look, I'm not going to throw around New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and be like, let's go to an in-depth, no, no. No, no, no. But but what sort of things might you want, you know, as the sitting vice president and before that, a Tennessee senator? And I should add this, that the the liberal knock on Al Gore, I believe, comes from the fact that Bill Clinton ran for the presidency as a candidate of the a new Democrat. There was an institution called the Democratic Leadership Council, and Bill Clinton and Al Gore were both on it. And basically what that group argued was, we've watched traditional liberal Democratic candidates like George McGovern in 1972, Walter Mondale in 1984, and then Michael Dukakis in 1988, just get destroyed. And we think that if you continue to run classic liberal candidates for president, that just don't, the electorate does not support that on a national level. So what Democrats need to do is become more centrist, move more to the middle, give up on certain very unpopular political positions.

0:19:37 Thomas: Hmm.

0:20:29 Thomas: Can you Give me an example. That's interesting to hear what's example of a position that he thought maybe we need to soften on, or something?

0:20:52 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. So prior to 1980, prior to 1992, it was in the Democratic Party platform to abolish capital punishment. And that that position that was it was a big issue in the Dukakis campaign in 1988. 1988,

0:21:06 Thomas: Oh, okay. Oh, was that because of, what's his name? Lee Atwater or whatever? Ah, yeah. I know a little bit about that.

0:21:16 Andrew: Yes, yes, yes it was. Yeah, no, good, good. And there was a debate question that Michael Dukakis mishandled, very badly mishANDLED, that's one of these classic of video that I will often give as instruction on how not to answer questions. Essentially, he was asked the question by CNN's Bernard Shaw, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would would you still, you know, be opposed to the death penalty?

And then Michael Dukakis gave a, like, two-minute discussion of the statistics of recidivism rates about, you know, and it was just, you're like, literally every person on, and I was, you know, what, it was 1988, so I was 14 at the time watching this, and, you know, I had a better answer for him, and it wasn't, you know, right, I didn't have a wife to get raped and murdered, but, you know, it's very easy to say, like Like, well, of course. Right. And this is exactly what you know, why we have government and why it's not appropriate to take into account the emotional reactions of one person. But, you know. Whatever. But you've got to be a human being first. And he wasn't. So anyway.

0:22:04 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:22:27 Andrew: So DLC comes in and says, we can't have this anymore. And I should point out, by the way, that Al Gore also ran in 1988. He was endorsed by the New Republic, and he ran as the Southern centrist candidate in 1988, so there's sort of this legacy stuff of, we don't trust Al Gore because he's been a part of this, organization to push the Democrats to the right, Even though it worked and Clinton won two terms as a new Democrat, there was a sense of, you know, he's this kind of imposter, you know, Democrat in name only sort of thing. And his 1988 campaign in which he explicitly ran to the right of everybody else

0:22:18 Thomas: Gotcha. Okay. So, Clinton softened on, yeah, interesting.

0:23:10 Andrew: Lost, obviously. So with all that in mind, what are you thinking about for your vice president? So

0:23:16 Thomas: Boy, this is so tough, I, because I, I'll confess I don't understand how people pick vice presidents even now, like I couldn't tell you. It's, it's, I think it's realistically, it feels like it's way more based on shit that we don't know about than, than anything, uh, personally, that's how I feel, but maybe it's just because I'm ignorant, ignorant on the actual decisions being made, but like I wouldn't have been able to know why, you, Hillary picked a Cane or, I just don't know. I would say, but it's interesting because you called Gore the most progressive candidate in 50 years or whatever. So it's, it's interested that the knock on him is that he might secretly be more centrist or something or trying to pull it Republican. So I don't know. I suppose, I suppose if that is the, the main knock on him, you go with a typically, with a more liberal candidate that has, I, more of the traditional Democratic support and ideals or something.

0:24:12 Thomas: I'm not sure. Or you go with a level 48 paladin. Is that in Dungeons and Dragons? I don't know. One or the other.

0:24:20 Andrew: As it turns out, both of those were on Al Gore's shortlist. Now, the person you've just described is current Secretary of State John Kerry. John Kerry was a traditional, kind of unexciting, but longstanding, well-respected Democratic senator. He checked the box of somebody who Al Gore liked and worked with very closely. Doctrinaire liberal up and down on virtually every issue. I mean, in fact, he was sort of hurt as a candidate in 2004 because knowing that he was first in line to be the Democratic nominee in 2004, for. I mean, he just took a number of votes that were, in my view, politically, what he thought would be politically expedient, right? Like voting for the Iraq War, voting to authorize the USA Patriot Act, voting for Bush tax cuts and

0:24:21 Thomas: Oh. Okay. Interesting.

0:25:21 Andrew: Voting for No Child Left Behind. And, you know, it was just, it Was clear political cowardice. And if you remember anything about the 2004 election, Right. The main knock on on on John Kerry was that he was a flip flopper. Right. That he, you know, and he gave this again is another theme. Don't give weird convoluted answers in debates. But he gave us weird convoluted answer in a debate where he said, well, actually, I was I was against the funding of the troops before I was for it. And again, I'm just one of these that, I mean, literally, he said, I was against the $87 million before I voted for it. You know, it was a bizarre moment in electoral politics. But OK, so now assuming you've history Thomas as the Gore campaign chair in Dungeons

0:25:26 Thomas: Right.

0:25:35 Thomas: Well.

0:26:13 Thomas: We'll.

0:26:13 Andrew: And Campaigns, you've recommended that Al Gore pick John Kerry. And here's what I think the consequence of that would have been. Al Gore lost the state of New Hampshire by 7000 votes out of 560,000 votes cast. And New Hampshire not only borders Massachusetts, but the Boston, the New Hampshire media market is essentially the Boston market. Market. So the idea that John Kerry, who might otherwise not be all that interesting, maybe doesn't help you shore up your left flank, at minimum, it would be very, very difficult to persuade me that naming John Kerry as your vice president not have gotten Al Gore 7,000 votes in your election.

0:26:59 Thomas: Have to roll the dice to. See, yeah, like. Where, yeah, wow.

0:27:00 Andrew: Right. Yes. And well, and let's and so let's, let's talk about what Al Gore did. And I should say, as you probably know, Al Gore instead picked Joe Lieberman, who was at the time regarded as one of, rightly so, as one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate. He actually has a mixed record based on, you know, what, what you want to look at. But, but, but certainly turned out to be a hawk in the roll-up to the Iraq War, turned out the sort of a moralizer on religious and First Amendment issues, and was the most vocal Democrat criticizing President Bill Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky affair.

So basically doubling down on the first, uh, and I would add I think somewhat fairly, uh, a terrible campaigner, uh, utterly devoid of charisma. I mean, for, for all of the, like, Algors Or robot jokes that persist, uh, I mean, Joe Lieberman is worse. I mean, he just, in my view, you, you cannot, I cannot envision, uh, a worse candidate for the national stage than Joe Lieberman, and somebody who makes it worse in all of the areas where you, I think, correctly identified as problem areas.

0:27:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:19 Andrew: So, yeah, right.

0:28:18 Thomas: Well, I am one hell of a campaign manager, where as we're finding out now, I think you're helping me along quite a bit, but let's, so far, I'm winning this campaign. I'm, I'm just killing this campaign. Okay, how much do I get paid for this campaign, do I get a percent, how does it, how managers. Okay.

0:28:27 Andrew: Yeah. So now let me deflate that a little bit because, yeah. You are, in this case, you are Donna Brazil, so you have managed to parlay this into a career of punditry on CNN, and now you're the head of the DNC, so, uh, so good job.

0:28:46 Thomas: Oh, wow. She was behind the, what's her name? Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Wow.

0:28:49 Andrew: Yep. Yep. Yes. Yeah, so congratulations, and, and I am sure she got a six-figure salary

0:28:54 Thomas: And that's, and that's with losing. So if I win, man, sky's the limit. Yeah. Okay. Awesome.

0:28:55 Andrew: Right yeah exactly the the the sky is George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America. So now I'm going to deflate this a little bit because it's really, really easy to win with Gore in 2000. And the reason is because if you take away every other thing, it's important to remember, you need 270 electoral votes to win, right? Right? Because there are 538 total, you have 269, it's a split, and there are constitutional provisions that describe what happens there that we are not going into. I want credit for not going down that rabbit trail.

0:29:33 Thomas: Okay, good.

0:29:34 Andrew: But undisputed, Gore won 267. Now, if you go to Wikipedia, you'll see it says 266 because there was a faithless elector, and I could go into all that. That's another rabbit trail, uh, but he won 267 from the allocation from the states. He won the popular vote by half a million votes, 51 million to 50 and a half, sorry.

0:29:55 Thomas: Oh. I remember it.

0:29:56 Andrew: So in this scenario all he needs to do of the states that he won is get three more electoral votes. So where could he get those three electoral votes? Obviously we're going to talk, talk about Florida, because that was the uh situs of the lawsuit, that's what gave rise to Bush v. Gore. Florida has 25 electoral votes, though, so, you know, 22 of them are surplus, right? You don't need to win a state as big as Florida to win. Where could you have won? Well, we already talked about, he could have won in New Hampshire, right? He lost New Hamtshire by 7,000 votes out of 560,000 that were cast.

0:30:31 Thomas: Boy, Boy, if I were campaign manager, I might have been able to drum that up just, you know, using the podcast. Rock the podcast vote. We could swing that.

0:30:36 Andrew: Yeah, right. Or alternatively, I could point out that Ralph Nader got 22,000 votes in New Hampshire. So again, you can use some models. You can talk about, you know, what percentage of Nader voters are Gore voters, what percent are staying at home. But it's not hard with conservative assumptions to say, boy, those 22, 000 votes, you take half of them, half of of them would have swung New Hampshire and given us President Gore. So that's New Hampshire. Where else could Gore have won? He could have won West Virginia. West Virginia has five electoral votes and now Gore lost there by 40,000 votes out of 650,000 voters that were cast. It's a bigger margin. Why am I saying West Virginia?

0:31:24 Andrew: People listening to this now are thinking, you know, West Virginia, I think Barack Obama got like 38% of the vote in West Virginia what the hell are you been talking about. In 2000, West Virginia was one of the most reliable core Democratic states that there were. West Virginia Was one of only 10 states to vote for Michael Dukakis in 1988. West Virginia as close a state as any East Coast state was for Walter Mondale, who got That shut out everywhere except Minnesota in 1984. West Virginia then obviously voted for Clinton twice. So it is a reliably Democratic state at this point in time. And the fact that Bush won there was due to the fact that Gore had no campaign infrastructure in West Virginia.

0:32:10 Andrew: Karl Rove and the Bush campaign very perceptively realized that changing demographics on the ground might make that a more amenable statement.

0:32:20 Thomas: Was this the closest friggin election in history? Was there ever a closer one? This is insane how close this one.

0:32:26 Andrew: Well, I mean, a good answer to that is 1876, Samuel Tilden and Rutherford v. Hayes, which would require a lot to go through. Maybe we'll do that on another podcast. It's really, really... I mean...

0:32:38 Thomas: Now, how many votes did Nader get in 1876, though?

0:32:41 Andrew: Yeah, Ralph Nader was only 34 then, them. So, you know, right.

0:32:46 Thomas: So not quite old enough to run for president? Is that? Yeah, I gotcha.

0:32:48 Andrew: Yeah, it was a year shy. So but that's West Virginia. Could you gin up 40,000 votes out of 650,000 in West Virginia? How about in Arkansas? Arkansas at the time was six electoral votes. It is, as you might imagine, Bill Clinton's home state. And Gore lost by 50,000 votes out of almost a million. Nader got 13,000 in Arkansas, so not enough to swing it, but certainly enough to chip into that margin. And I would point out that Arkansas went for Clinton by 17 points in 1996 and by 18 points in 1992.

0:32:51 Thomas: Okay, right. Right.

0:33:24 Thomas: So mistake one could have helped that.

0:33:25 Andrew: So yeah, Do you think, even if you're not convinced that Bill Clinton is going to help you, maybe sending him to his home state, where he was still immensely popular in 2000, would have helped? That's six electoral votes. And again, all these, as long as it's more than three, you don't need Florida. None of this would have mattered. And finally, there's Al Gore's home state, Tennessee, which is 11 electoral votes, and he lost by 80,000 votes out of over 2 million votes that were cast. Nader got 20,000 voters in Tennessee.

So I point all those out, number one, to illustrate some of the ground failings of the Gore campaign, but number two, when people are talking about, "Oh, in this election, oh well I live in Wisconsin," or I live in Georgia or I live in or Iowa, and this state has been blue or has been red for the past three elections, and so it doesn't really matter if I vote third party. Those assumptions, even if we have good, reliable polling, and we certainly have more polling now than we did in 2000, it's not safe. They're not safe assumptions to make. But you have no idea, you I mean, I think I made this comment to Noah, who, you know, recently moved from Georgia to Pennsylvania and said, you Know, my vote's going to matter now. And I said, Look, like, your vote could have mattered

0:34:57 Andrew: In Georgia, you may still matter in Georgia. And it may matter because, yeah, I agree.

0:34:42 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, vote in both states. Man,

0:35:04 Andrew: Because you just, it's very, very difficult to predict. Certainly, I would say impossible to predict in August how states are going to align. And, you know, I'm listing these things now where, you West Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee are not close to being what we think of as toss up states now. But, you know, but they were, you know, 16 years ago.

0:35:25 Thomas: This is so interesting. And my biggest fear is if the polls start to go, look, oh, it's inevitable Hillary's going to win, and then people just don't show up. I mean, that's my biggest fear, that the voters are just like, ah, we got this.

0:35:36 Andrew: Yeah, well, and that's why I mentioned right now, like the real clear politics average is Clinton plus six and a half. If that drops to Clinton plus three, then it is a toss-up election. You might say it's 55-45 Clinton, but there is a strong electoral path for Trump if it is Clinton plus 3 nationally. Uh, and um, we have seen in in 2012, uh, in debate number one, uh, the polls moved four percent on the basis of that first debate, moved four per cent towards Mit Romney on the basis of the first debate, uh, yeah, which you know was sort of, you know, widely considered to be a disastrous uh a disastrous performance by

0:35:51 Thomas: Yeah? Really? Boy, that

0:36:24 Andrew: Obama and a great performance

0:36:24 Thomas: Is funny. Funny. I have no memory of that. I guess I wasn't really paying attention that much back then as I just, I don't know, maybe I didn't care as much about politics, but why was it such a disaster in three words in no time?

0:36:26 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

0:36:37 Andrew: Yeah. So Obama was perceived as being kind of low energy and not trying that hard. Mitt Romney, it was his sort of first time on the national stage. He emphasized a lot of kind of centrist policy positions. And I think that there's a sort of snowballing effect, right? Like the press are not interested in covering how big a blowout is X going to be. But the best way to sort of keep people, keep eyeballs glued to MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, whatever, is by saying, oh, you know, this is a nail biter. It's going to be close. You know, keep paying attention. And so I think there's... there's always going to Be that built in elasticity of, you Know, prior to the first debate in September, it sort of looked like Obama was going to run away with it, which was the end result. I mean, you know, 332 electoral votes is a strong, if not, landslide victory.

0:36:41 Thomas: Huh? Yeah. But that's so interesting because my only memory of it, again, I, I think I just didn't think Mitt had a chance and I didn'T really pay attention, didn'T care much back Then, but my, my main memory is toward the end, Romney just looking I don't know if robot is the right thing, but looking like he didn't even know what to do. He just was kind of neutral on everything. I thought he was low energy and Obama was more dynamic, but it's interesting that in the first debate it was the other way around.

0:37:35 Andrew: Yeah, yeah. Go back to 2000. Let's go Back to Election Night. What happened? And what happened is Gore has 267 electoral votes based on the math.

0:38:15 Thomas: Hmm. Clinched, right? Those are confirmed.

0:38:17 Andrew: Correct. Okay. OK, Bush has two hundred and forty six clenched. OK, and at about early in the evening. So we don't, we don't necessarily have those totals yet. Early in the in the evening, every network calls Florida for Al Gore based on exit polls at about 8 p.m., right, soon after the polls close, uh, and exit polls, I think you know what they are, that is basically a a random sampling of people, uh, that come out from having voted, and a polling organization to say, so if you don't mind answering an exit poll, who did you vote for, and then based on those numbers they look at the numbers, they look at some of the early patterns, uh, to make sure that those confirm their numbers and they say, okay, based on our exit polling, uh, in Florida, they said, based on exit, exit poll, and Al Gore wins the state.

0:38:18 Thomas: OK.

0:39:09 Thomas: Right. And we saw this in the primaries where it was confusing. Some people called fraud, you know, when Clinton was declared a winner with zero percent of the votes reporting. Well, is a complex calculation and statistical analysis done by what we would hope would be, you with not really a dog in the fight, someone just trying to report the results as soon as they can. And it could be, you it be with 0% reporting or it could be with, you know, not until 100% reporting or something if it's close enough. But if they're, but presumably they must have gathered that statistically it was, it was a powerful enough result for Gore in Florida early.

0:39:51 Andrew: Exactly. And I would add that, you know, when you see something come in now, because they've changed a little bit, like how the media cover exit polls has changed as a result of what I'm about to tell you. So right now, when you see the result come in with 0%, that means the exit polls are showing a 20, 30, 40 point margin, And as soon as you see one representative precinct, you know that has a couple thousand people in it, and the margin is 20, 30, 40 points, you say, you Know what? That confirms what we saw with exit polling.

0:40:05 Thomas: Yeah, huge margin.

0:40:30 Andrew: We're going to call the race for Al Gore. In 2000, threshold was much lower. And so Gore had a good lead. Exit polls were confirmed by the early precincts that came in. Every network called Florida for Gore. As the night went on, Bush started running ahead and running well ahead of the exit polls in the panhandle of Florida, in the more conservative areas throughout the state of Florida. And was chipping into this Gore lead that had been built up, and doing so in a way that threatened the exit poll models.

0:41:11 Andrew: So by 10 p.m., Fox News was the first organization to do this, although I don't think there's any kind of Michael Moore-level conspiracy here. I think they just were more motivated. They were Paying closer attention to the numbers on the ground. And they went back to their decision desk and they undeclared Florida. They took it off of— there was no coordination of blue and red at this time. The reason we think of blue states now and red states is because of NBC's use of blue for the Democrat and red for the Republican in the 2000 race. In fact, most networks used it the other way around, but so they took off the blue Florida and put it back to the undecided grid at and then they waited for more results to come in. And at 2 a.m., Fox News call, and I should point out, I said Fox News was first to undeclare, all the other networks, then undeclay. They all followed.

0:41:24 Thomas: You're right.

0:42:11 Thomas: Well,

0:42:11 Andrew: Right, so all of these decision desks looking at the numbers said, where the exit polls are not matching the actual results on the ground, we got to get more data. So now we're waiting until 2 a.m. Now we have 267 to 245, 246, and Florida's 25 are the only votes that are out. And at 2 a.m., Fox News says Florida's going to Bush and that's it, that's the election. And other networks did the same. I don't know if every network.

0:42:43 Thomas: How does, So how does... Oh, that math checks out. I thought it was still short, but that's all. Oh.

0:42:43 Andrew: Yeah. That, that. Is that. Gets that, gets him to 271, right? Yeah.

0:42:48 Thomas: Okay. Oh. Right. Okay, yeah, 270.

0:42:51 Andrew: Just. Just. Over the finish line, literally one, one electoral vote over the place. But now we have the opposite problem, which is that precincts were out in three counties, Broward County, Miami-Dade County, and Palm Beach County. And those are heavily Democratic areas. And this is a long-standing political technique that really dates back to the 1950s. And once you know this, this is a fun tip for election watching. I wish I'd shared this while primaries were still going on, because it totally changes how you watch primary results coming in. But both sides, precinct workers have a political affiliation, but precincts themselves have both, typically, have both Republicans and Democrats who are poll watchers, right?

0:42:51 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm. Okay. Sure.

0:43:43 Andrew: So you can't fudge numbers anymore. And I don't want to say that no fraud occurs, and I do not want to go down that route because I don't want to grab that whole Thing. Right. But what you can do from a strategic campaign management point is when you know an area is very likely to be overwhelmingly in your favor, you can slow down how those totals get reported. Right. You can tell your precinct workers, hey, count these a little more slowly. You can say, let's go back and triple count this and triple check this. Let me make sure I've got this right. Oh, it looks like I made an error here. I need to go back. You can slow down how they go about reporting their numbers and effectively delay the reporting in the areas that favor you the most. And the reason you used to do this is because there would be precincts that weren't monitored in a bipartisan way.

0:43:50 Thomas: Oh. Wow.

0:44:41 Andrew: And basically, whoever got to go last had the advantage of knowing how many, in a close election, had the disadvantage of knowing knowing how many votes behind they were, and you could creatively find new vote totals. And that, I think the outright fraud is a lot less today, but the tradition of holding back your core precincts and waiting for the other side to release theirs is a time-honored political strategy and So the Democrats had done this, uh, and so by, uh, 2 a.m., you've got all of this new data from the conservative panhandle, much more sparse, sparsely popular, right? So, so lower overall votes, even though they're coming in 70 to 30 for Bush, you know, not that many people live there as opposed to the, you know, millions of people who live in Miami. But you have lots of precincts in these three Democratic areas that haven't reported at all.

And again, the modeling is sort of less sophisticated back then. You see 98% of the vote is in, you know, 98% of the precinct are in, and Bush has a 2% lead. And so at 2 a.m., Fox News and then other networks call Florida for Bush. There is serious internal discussion. And Al Gore makes a concession call.

0:44:56 Thomas: Huh. Yeah.

0:46:02 Andrew: He does not go out on the air. He is stopped at the last minute by a staffer who tackles him, if some reports are to be believed. No, seriously.

0:46:10 Thomas: That was, oh, okay, that's so funny because I'm, I'm wondering with what you've sort of alluded to in in Gore's actions, I'm wondering what in the world was going on in his head, it really sounds Like he didn't want to be, be president sometimes, but, but now, but you've confirmed that further, but who knows?

0:46:23 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So by 4.30 in the morning now, after Gore has called George W. Bush to concede, but before he's gone on national television to conceded, the precincts from Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach County come in and the networks all undeclare Florida again. They take it back from from red and put it gray on the map. The final day, election day, the next morning, reports a Bush lead that fluctuates between about 300 and 900 votes out of 5 million that were cast, and they eventually settle on a lead, a Bush lead of 537, and that is a 0.001 percent margin.

0:46:47 Thomas: Huh? Gosh, incredible.

0:47:15 Andrew: And Florida has a state law that requires a machine recount, you got to run the voting machines again, of all votes, uh, that are within a half a percent, so this is one one-thousandth of a percent, that's obviously within half a, yeah, and and so basically, uh, I don't know, in California do you, do you do all electronic voting, or do you have paper ballots?

0:47:31 Thomas: I would say that qualifies. Yeah. I, I,

0:47:39 Andrew: Excellent.

0:47:39 Thomas: I vote by mail, so I don't know. I have no idea, yeah.

0:47:41 Andrew: Okay. Maryland still has a large number of elections where we use paper ballots. And in 2000, in Florida, all of the ballots, even though they are in some counties, you put the paper ballot into a machine to punch it. In others, you know, you kind of hand fill out the ovals and punch up all the circles. And you use tabulating machines that go through that are kind of like the old punch card readers. If that's a reference. Wow, I'm surprised you got that reference.

0:48:09 Thomas: It's like, like for taking a test or something where you, yeah. Yeah. Scantron yeah.

0:48:12 Andrew: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like a Scantron thing. Right. And so, uh, they read all of the votes. Um, and that, uh. Also helps confirm the 537 number. But the machines are not capable of picking up a number of ballots where voters have made mistakes, but they've made mistakes that are nevertheless still legal votes. And so

0:48:35 Thomas: All right. Oh. I was just going to ask, what is the legality of that, what it, yeah. Go ahead, right.

0:48:44 Andrew: The question is, is, does a vote count only if you have fully complied with the rules that were set forth in your precinct? Or does a vot count when you intend to vote for George W. Bush or Al Gore?

0:48:56 Thomas: When it, yeah. When it's clear that that's who your vote was. Wow. Interesting question.

0:49:03 Andrew: Yeah. And for some reason, you don't know why the machine is kicking it out. And there are a couple of different ways in which the machine was kicking it it out. But I think that discussion is going to have to wait for episode two.

0:49:20 Thomas: Man. Cannot believe how the time has flown by. This is the most interesting story because it's, gosh, what a crazy occurrence. So I don't really remember. I mean, I remember what happened, roughly speaking, but I don't remember election night too clearly. I had just started high school. I I had a lot going on. And so were you just out of your damn mind back then? What was, I mean, was this all just completely like, what is going on here? You know, what was the feeling at the time following along?

0:49:57 Andrew: Yeah, I was at a friend's house and we stayed up until 4.30 in the morning. I called out of work the next day. I was a young associate at Covington and Burling. And it was, I mean, we did not know who the president president was going to be on election night. I mean, it was just sort of a, you know, a crazy result.

0:50:15 Thomas: President. Yeah. Wow. Incredible. So that is going to have to wait for part two. Everything, the end, everything that happened, that's all going to have to wait for part two. Now, here's the thing about part two, it's not going to be on Atheistically Speaking. Minds blown. Everybody just collapsed. Hold on, you know what, I should have told people to sit down. You know when you tell, are you sitting down? Darn it. Okay, maybe I can cut that in. Are you sitting Down?

0:50:46 Thomas: It's Now that you're sitting down, Andrew, you've got an exciting announcement.

0:50:46 Andrew: Yeah

0:50:50 Clip: That's right. So Thomas and I are launching a brand new podcast called Opening Arguments. If you enjoy these segments that we have done together, I think you're going to love what we're going do in Opening Argument. Essentially, we are going to take on a popular legal topic every week or every two weeks, depending, we're take the same approach that we have had in all of my appearances on Atheistically Speaking so far, which is to say we're going to try and inform you. We're going to tell you what our biases are up front, but we want to give you the legal background so you can go off whenever someone is wrong on the internet and win the argument because you know more than they do.

0:51:34 Thomas: We're doing a new podcast! I'm sorry, I couldn't contain my excitement. New podcast! Now, so many people, you know one thing we maybe should just quickly mention? So many people said, yes, do it, legally speaking. And that was what we were going to do. But I hired a lawyer to tell me that that name's been taken and we should just come up with a new name. So that's what we did. So a lot of people suggested, legally speaking, just wanted to mention we weren't able to take that great suggestion.

0:51:35 Clip: I am, I'm equally excited.

0:52:03 Clip: But I will tell you, we have something almost as good, which is that our Patreon page to launch opening arguments is patreon.com/law.

0:52:15 Thomas: That is pretty good.

0:52:16 Clip: Yeah, even Patreon thinks that the only legal podcast you need, in fact, the only thing you need to know about the law at all is to listen to opening arguments. So I

0:52:27 Thomas: I think we should. Let's play the intro. Let'S play the Intro and let people give people a taste of what the podcast is going to sound like.

0:52:29 Clip: Oh, oh, absolutely.

0:53:38 Clip: That intro. Uh, and

0:53:42 Thomas: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I always forget to mention it, but I do do all the music for my podcasts, and I did that as well. And it was fun, and the quotes are the greatest, and I love it. So, I'm really glad that we have that intro. Now, and what we also have, I've found my very own belted lawyer. So we've got a lawyer who wears a belt. This is not, that's not just something that happens in Hollywood.

0:54:03 Clip: Yeah.

0:54:05 Thomas: I've been informed, that was one of the the pre-qualifications for going into the podcast, I asked Andrew, well, do you wear a belt? And he said, yes. So he's that fancy of a lawyer.

0:54:15 Clip: And Uh, and you get unfettered access to me, uh, to Thomas's great question. In fact, Thomas, why don't you tell them some of the fun things that we have planned for opening our gates?

0:54:26 Thomas: Yeah, definitely. We've got some very interesting. That's one of the reasons that I'm so excited to do this project is that I, there could be no no end to the number of times that I would have Andrew on Atheistically Speaking. And in fact, that's what would keep happening. We'd keep getting people saying, oh, bring on Andrew on for this. Oh, bring Andrew on for this, and then it was like, well, then that would be the whole show, and it wouldn't be Atheisticly Speaking anymore. It would be opening arguments, which is a fantastic idea. Here are some of the topics we've got planned. What does separation of church and state mean? How does that happen? What does that mean? What about RFRA? We could do Andrew could probably tell us everything we ever wanted to know on RFRA. Abortion and the legality of that. Can that ever be rolled back?

0:55:12 Thomas: Roe v. Wade, all that stuff. Capital punishment, public school vouchers. Let's see. Citizens United. Oh, here's a cool one. This could be a series for all we know. The founding fathers, what were their religious beliefs? How did that impact the framing and all that? Like, what is the truth behind all that equal protection? Oh, there's also a satanic temple lawsuit that I that Andrew has sold to me as a topic. I don't know anything about it, but I can't wait. He says it's it's an incredibly convoluted and weird case that I can'T wait to hear about. So we've got more than enough topics to last us a lifetime already. Ready. And that's just now. I'm assuming time is going to carry on into the future, I think, if the past is any indication.

0:56:00 Thomas: And so I think there's going to be just more and more topics that come up that are in the news that atheists or non-atheists might want to know about and learning more about them. That's why I love Andrew as a guest so much, because there's so so many misconceptions, and it's so easy to just have the complete wrong idea about the law. Cough, David Smalley. Uncough. So that's going to be really cool.

0:56:27 Clip: So I want to add something and this might embarrass Thomas a little bit, but it's it's really personal and important to me. And that is that Thomas has really taken me in and made me a part of his online family and introduced me to all of you as part of the Atheistically Speaking audience, and I just want to implore you that if you are already an Atheistically Speaking patron and you're tapped out at your current level of support and you know, look, I know not everybody can support not all of the podcasts that they want to listen to, but if you were there, please, please maintain your current support for Atheistically Speaking.

0:57:17 Clip: If we, it would just, it would not be viable. It would not be fair to Thomas at all. If people are cannibalizing their support from what is, I mean, I think the best discussion show for atheists and by atheists that's out there. I don't think anything else is really close in that format. He's done amazing work. He's had fantastic guests. Last couple of episodes have just really been a great reminder of Thomas's commitment to going out and seeking professionals in their field to talk about topics that, as far as I know, are not covered on any other atheist podcast. He works super hard. He let me in to meet new people.

0:58:05 Clip: And if you can support both shows, that would be great. And I think our patron goals are really, really modest. I think we're going to get there. If you're thinking about, you know, having to choose, please choose Atheistically Speaking. Please continue to support what Thomas has done. It's really important to

0:58:23 Thomas: Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I'll say if people don't want to support me, but do want to sport opening arguments, that's fine with me. I just hope people don' t move. Because I was doing a back of the envelope calculation. It's like, hmm, more work, half the pledge. Not good for me. I think people understand that, but I really appreciate that. That, that, that means a lot to me and I'm sure we'll be fine. I think that this project is, is absolutely so, it's such a good idea that I just, I cannot imagine, uh, that it won't get the support. So one thing we should talk about is we'll talk about the patreon.com/law, because as you guys know, a podcast is a ton of work, um, not complaining.

I never want some complaining about it because it's, it'S great. It's also really rewarding and, you know, people support it, but it is a ton of work. So if the support isn't there, you know, we don't want to, we're going to kind of scale the project with how much demand there is. And that's a cool thing that Patreon allows us to do. So we've got, I'll just tell you how it scales up.

0:58:32 Clip: Yeah. And

0:59:27 Thomas: We figure we get to a hundred dollars on patreon.com/law. Then it will, we'll do a 30 minute episode every other week. And if that's all we get, that's okay. That's fine. That'll still be really cool. But if people really come out and support it, at 200, we'll do four episodes. We'll do weekly episode rather. And then at 300, that's where we will start to answer a listener question for as long as people keep submitting listener questions. And at 400, we will bump up our 30-minute show to an hour show every week. And that has the advantage of not so many multi-parters because you can imagine with With just Bush v. Gore, that could have been four parts of a half hour show. But once if people are really demanding it, if people really like what we're doing, we'll bump up to an hour every week and that will allow us to get through these just incredible stories.

1:00:22 Thomas: That's my favorite thing is just the kind of the storytelling aspect of it. We'll be able to get more of that out to you at a faster output. And then at $500, this is my favorite goal. Guys, you need to hear this. $500 a month, or sorry, an episode, we will do a monthly bonus episode for patrons only. Now here's the thing, it's not just your normal episode, it's nicht just, well, we're doing another topic, no, we're going to do a fun little thing where it's kind of like we're ripping off God-awful movies, but honestly I did it on F This Podcast before, God-lawful movies, so I'll just say I'm ripping off myself, but they do it better, but anyway, we're gonna take a movie that's like a, that has some legal component. And Andrew will poke holes in all the terrible legal misconceptions.

1:01:08 Thomas: And I get to just make regular jokes because people heard me on GAM and I think that was people like those episodes. So that was a really cool idea Andrew had that I think is the greatest thing. So if we get to 500, we're going to have that monthly bonus episode for patrons that will essentially be like GAM or like Mystery Science Theater, but with a legal spin on it. I can't, I really hope we get to that because that's going to be hilarious.

1:01:28 Clip: We have ideas beyond the 500 mark. So if, uh, we blow through our goals, and I, I'm cautiously optimistic that we can do that, uh, we will put up a whole new set of stretch goals, and it will be a lot of fun, and hopefully you'll be there with us. Yep. Yep.

1:01:46 Thomas: There's always places to go.

1:01:47 Clip: Uh. We, we have great rewards too, right? Right.

1:01:48 Thomas: Yeah. Absolutely I let's let's all I don't want to go through all of it'll take too long here. But yeah, we have I would say go to patreon.com/law. Check it out. The goals are great. Andrew put most of this together and it was perfect. I had very few, very few notes because I was like, wow, this is one of the other benefits of having a teaming up with a lawyer is Andrew's a great writer. So this is just a well done Patreon. So be sure to check it out. But it scales up. The more you give, the more cool bonus perks you get. For example, one example is you'll get to pick like the audio clips you heard in the intro song. You might get to pick new audio clips for the intro sound at a certain level.

1:02:33 Clip: There are so many good audio clips to choose from. I, I highly recommend the uh hyper chicken lawyer from Futurama, one of my favorites. Oh,

1:02:36 Thomas: There's some good ones. There's a, at three dollars an episode we answer any question you have on any one topic, and you'll get to hear that on the air. There's... There's uh, there's all kinds of cool stuff. I, it's a little too long to go into here, uh, but definitely go to patreon.com/law, check it out. I, so here's what I'll say, um, part two, check out part two of Bush, Bush v. Gore, that's not, once again, Bush v Gore 2, not going to be available on Atheistically Speaking. Now, it will be available to my patrons as sort of a, just to, you know, what is it, like, tide you over? It's kind of to link the two shows. And then future episodes are just going to available on the Opening Arguments Patreon. And the podcast is not going be on iTunes for a while. So that's to encourage, like, that to encourage the Patreon support because the episodes will will be patron only for until we launch the feed, which will not be immediately, just so you guys know.

1:03:39 Thomas: But I'll make an announcement when we launch opening arguments on iTunes and all that. You'll know when it happens. So I think that's all I've got. Anything else you've got, Andrew?

1:03:47 Clip: Follow uh, follow Opening Arguments on Twitter, uh, follow us on Facebook, and we look forward to uh putting out all these uh all these uh episodes.

1:03:55 Thomas: It's really cool. I couldn't be more excited. All right. We've gone long, but we've talked about a lot of good stuff. I'm super excited for Bush v. Gore part two. I want to hear who won, But no, not just that, because it's really cool. So check that out. Head over to patreon.com/law. Get part two right now. All right, that's it for, I guess, Bush Vigor part one. And for my show, I'll just sign out with you. How about that, Andrew? How about we sign out? See you later, listeners.

1:04:25 Clip: Right, Goodbye, and see you next time on Opening Arguments.