SIO192: Some Punditry, with Andrew Torrez

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 192, I'm your host Thomas Smith, and a couple things, first off, I just wanted to say I got a ton of response about the circumcision episode, I was a little on the fence, you know, it's a weird thing to talk about, of course, but I'm glad I did because it really seems like a lot of people liked it, a lot of people were happy about the change of mind that I eventually had, and I got, I think, almost zero negative feedback from it, So if there are a bunch of people who are super pro circumcision, they're either, I don't know, not listening or don't feel like, you know, writing in or calling in. But but thank you. I appreciate hearing from everybody. It was good to know that it it, you Know, resonated with you.

0:01:14 Thomas: And it's also nice to hear the encouragement. A lot of people were were again, I guess, congratulating me for having changed my mind. And yeah, thanks. I Appreciate it. I think I did make the right decision. And I'm glad that you agree. And so that was awesome. I OK, weird thing. I had a whole episode that I didn't publish last night. I just felt like I didn't quite get it right. You know, is continuing the voicemail segments. And I, you know, I thought there was some good stuff to it, but I just I don't know if it's the baby or what, but it just just felt a little like I couldn't quite put into words what I wanted to say correctly. And I didn't want to put out something that I wasn't happy with. I actually just didn't even put it out, as you noticed.

0:02:00 Thomas: And then what I did was I was kind of going back and forth figuring out what I want to do. And then I thought, oh, you know what? Maybe Andrew Torrez can help me with some of these voicemails that I just – it's regarding Democratic primary stuff and that kind of thing. That I just wasn't sure I was getting right into words. So I had Andrew on. I had him listen to these voicemails.

And then we had what turned out to be a very long discussion that I love about the 2020 primary, about a lot of stuff, about some election history, lots of great stuff. Because, you know, it's Andrew Torrez. It's always going to be great. It's always going to be insightful and full of knowledge. And I'm thinking, I think it's worth just doing this. Honestly, it is a full episode. It is worth it. It is great.

It is like a bonus OA, but with some punditry, which we try to keep to a minimum over on OA. Way. But I'm all for punditry here, as long as it's well-reasoned. And so, and I try to do that myself. So, what I'm going to, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to hit play on these voicemails here, because Andrew and I use them as a launching off point, and I want to make sure that the callers get credit, now, there's some audio problems, especially in the second one, so it's a little tough to hear, apologies for that, if you want to skip, you know, feel free, because we do try to bring up the issues on their own in the discussion, and only, I'm saying skip because, you know, it's hard to hear but I do want to give these callers credit, so I'm gonna hit play on these, and then when I come back, I will be joined by one P. Andrew Torrez.

0:03:30 Voicemail: Hi Thomas, this is Hal in Illinois. I was just listening to your latest voicemail show, and you got to the point where you were talking about the 2020 candidates, and you make a really good point when you're talking about Buttigieg vs. Warren, for example, and this is something that was like on the, I hadn't consciously processed it, but it was on the edge of my mind, like, you're right, he's a very smart person. I think he has the most most empathic rhetorical intelligence of anyone that I've seen on a political stage in my lifetime. And I think so he has that level of genius going for him that I would want to distinguish from our traditional mold for genius, as you're talking about.

0:04:18 Voicemail: And you're absolutely right that, you know, the more ascendant his candidacy gets, the more of a sexist shadow will be cast over the intelligence of people like Elizabeth Warren. And I think it's obviously really valuable for us to talk about that. Now, like full disclosure, I'm an atheist who's very enthusiastic about the Buttigieg candidacy, and there are a few unique reasons for that. They don't really bear some, and some of them don't bear on the sexism issue at all. But some of them do. And so, for example, I think that he would be the most effective political counterpoint to Donald Trump in terms of personality.

0:05:11 Voicemail: I think he would also be the most effective political counterpoint to Mike Pence. And the fact that he can hit both of those bases at once is pretty important. But more than that, I, I, I think he's capable of dividing Trump's evangelical base in a way that other candidates might not be able to do. Now, my dad voted for Donald Trump, and he was actually won over to Elizabeth Warren by the specificity of her wealth tax proposal, which is very interesting. And it goes back to what makes Warren such a deserving candidate. But the problem with the, I don't know, but I see, I think that Buttigieg might do something to fracture – I think he can break the link between the Christian right and the white nationalist right in a way that other candidates might only exacerbate.

Thanks, Alex. My name's Patrick. A couple of thoughts, just listen to the thing about impeachment. I totally agree that Trump should be impeached. However, I would suggest that that impeachment should be reserved until July of 2020, preferably on the 11th, for my birthday. The thought I have is that for the next 12 to 15 months, the Congress should do everything they can to investigate all the multiple lines of inquiry which have been opened by the Mueller crowd. The idea would be to examine all of his criminality, taxes, campaign violations, Stormy Daniels, the Inauguration Committee, gather information on all of that.

0:06:53 Voicemail: Then if you make referrals for impeachment in summer, then he can spend the entire post-convention time in a trial in the Senate, rather than having the candidates in the Democratic Party have to spend any of their time talking about Trump. They could spend all their time on a positive message, and Trump would have to spend all his time defending the trial that he was conducting in the Senate. That's it. The other thing I thought I would mention is about Pete Buttigieg. I thought that the way you had characterized him as a contrast to the women that were running a little off base. Listened to him on multiple podcasts. I think he has a really good message, but the more important thing is that most of the candidates for the Democratic Party use policy and not enough time spending on ideals. One of the more important things is they remember that you vote based on policy. They vote based upon how a candidate makes them feel.

0:08:04 Thomas: All right, so I brought in the big guns. P. Andrew Torrez Esquire is here. How are you doing, Andrew?

0:08:09 Andrew: I'm great, that's quite a compliment. Wouldn't I technically be a big gun, right? Like, I don't think I'm plural, but...

0:08:16 Thomas: Now, you've got, you, well, you're a big gun and then you're carrying a gun, which is your, which your legal knowledge is your gun. That's your weapon. It's not actually a gun. All right. Well, you know, we don't get to do as much punditry over on Opening Arguments, and it's probably for the best, you you know, do a little bit of it. But for the most part, it's more law. It's more technical. It is more factual than punditry, I think. But I thought it might be fun to do a little pundity because it is also interesting to me. And I have been really curious to know what your opinion of someone like Buttigieg is. As you may know, I played you a couple of voicemails from my listeners who seem to be pretty Buttigieg positive. And, I am actually not surprised. I I don't know that I would say he has a chance of winning necessarily.

0:08:19 Andrew: All right.

0:09:07 Thomas: I mean, everybody has a chance, but how do you see someone like Pete Buttigieg and first off, how are you feeling about his chances and then, you know, do you feel like the reaction is appropriate to his campaign? What are your thoughts?

0:09:23 Andrew: Yeah, so, I think... Boy, how do we kind of put all of this in? All of the arguments for Buttigieg that I hear are inspirational-driven, arguments, right. It is, uh, I love watching the guy, spirit. They're, they're the kind of the Obama arguments, right? I, I love watching this guy speak. I think, like, he's a really, you know, powerful at connecting with people. And then, and those sort of morph into like, and therefore, you know, he's going to, he's the best candidate to win and And so, so I, I guess I want to start with the idea that I think that's the wrong way to think about how to select our next Democratic nominee.

Right. Like it's the long way for a lot of reasons. But the biggest thing is that like we're not, we are not going in. Right, like this. This next election is not about like, it's not like Romney versus Obama. Right, where you know it's like it. It's the 2016 election was not fought on a single policy ground. Right. Like You cannot find, like, the only concrete positions that that Donald Trump took were either monstrous and enacted. Right. So trying to build the wall and passing a Muslim ban and nothing else, um, or right, were transparently not something that Trump was ever going to do, right? Like the, the, I'm gonna rebuild our infrastructure, right,

0:09:30 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:11:09 Andrew: That was just a lie, um, that

0:11:10 Thomas: Yeah and another category, things, things, populist things that he ended up doing the opposite of, so like tax cuts that are going to, oh, I'm gonna up the taxes on rich people, and then, uh, that didn't happen, so stuff like that, yeah.

0:11:11 Andrew: Yeah, yeah, right, But, but nobody, and, and, and Trump voters are impervious to that, right? Like, I mean, you could play, right, I mean the, the most glaring example of that is, you know, drain the swamp, and by drain the, the swamp, I mean populate the swamp with the swampiest swamp creatures who ever swamped, right? Like it, it, so it, running against Donald Trump is not going to be

0:11:39 Thomas: Yeah, dump into swamp in true, opening arguments fashion, it's drain the swamp, uh, drains and swamps, not guaranteed, you know, something like that, no. Drinking, yeah, yeah.

0:11:50 Andrew: Right, Yeah, exactly. Right, and, and they don't care, right? Like, it, they do not get like, if you point out, hey, when you said you voted for Trump to drain the swamp, and he installed Steven Mnuchin as Secretary of the Treasury, like, and that's a Goldman Sachs guy, like, they've already zoned out and, oh, you libtard, like you know, like.

0:12:01 Thomas: They don't care, yeah, Or they have some special rules that only apply to Trump. Well, he found the good swamp people that are good, they, he found that people the business knowledge, like anyone magically who Trump picked is not the member of the swamp class somehow. It's just special pleading, you can't really

0:12:17 Andrew: These right Yeah. Yeah, So, so when I put all that together, right, like, to me then this, this coming 2020 election is not about persuading, right, like people on the policy differences between the candidates, right, like it is about mobilizing to defeat a monster who has hijacked this country. The good news is, I think it's almost impossible to screw that up. It's not impossible, right, but it's right, But it's almost impossible, right, in the sense that, think about how Trump got elected. Trump got elected by having the Democratic presidential candidate with the highest negatives of any Democratic nominee in history, by having two separate info dumps from James, from James Comey, that came, that were strategically timed to to

0:12:54 Thomas: Yeah, it isn't very much not impossible, yeah.

0:13:27 Andrew: Bring Hillary down in the polls, yeah, right, and all of that, like it, Trump still wouldn't have won if not for Nate Silver and dem, and I'm 100% serious about this, right, like, and Democrat and Democrats believing that Wisconsin, Michigan, and and Minnesota were all deep blue states, right? And, and I've talked about this on OA, I talked about the uh, the the election post-mortem you and I did with Eli, which, um, that was

0:13:28 Thomas: A hack of the DNC and emails exposed, yeah, well, I don't know about really, I don's buy that I still

0:13:59 Andrew: Super cathartic and fun

0:13:59 Thomas: Don't get the Nate Silver thing, though, I mean, we know we've argued about this, but they were getting flack for saying Trump's chances were too high at a certain point in this election, wait,

0:14:01 Andrew: No, no, no, but but But crucially, identifying states that we know, we now have evidence, that we have evidence because we have evidence that Trump gave it to the Russians, and that, you know, and that specifically Paul Manafort shared this polling data with the Russians, but that they considered, that the Trump campaign considered Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan battleground states. And we know that the Clinton campaign did not, right? They fought in Pennsylvania, right? Which, you know, everybody knew was a battleground state. But, I mean, I did phone banking with Alex. I've talked about this in a bunch of places. And the Hillary campaign had me calling North Carolina, Florida, Arizona. I mean, just stupid, stupid states for us to be calling.

0:14:54 Andrew: We never made a call to anywhere in the the upper Midwest or the Rust Belt.

0:14:59 Thomas: Hold on, Florida is not a stupid state to be, be calling, is it? Yeah.

0:15:03 Andrew: It compared to the states in which Clinton lost. Right. Like, I mean, if if they had had an accurate reading of the fact that I mean like Hillary, I don't think ever visited Wisconsin. Right. Like it.

0:15:19 Thomas: But I just, I guess I wonder then, how is it that you're, it sounds like you're saying the morons in the Trump campaign somehow were, who we know there was so much incompetence involved, but they knew a bunch of stuff that the Clinton campaign wasn't wise to in in the polling, I how would that happen

0:15:20 Andrew: Absolutely.

0:15:36 Andrew: So and and I think I think. Yes. Yes. And I think part of the reason for that is that if you think about the people that Trump surrounded himself with, right, people like Steve Bannon are not good at any other thing. But but they're very, very good at, like, knowing how to mobilize hatred. Right. Right. And yeah.

0:15:58 Thomas: Yeah well okay So all this under the guise of, or guise up, all this, this under the category of things that contributed to a very, uh, what you're saying is a very, like, I don't know what the word is, but like a happenstance laden loss, a

0:16:13 Andrew: Yeah. If the next Democratic candidate like seriously, all you have to do, literally all you Have to do is replicate Hillary Clinton's votes, right, which it's very difficult to imagine a Democratic candidate polling fewer votes than Hillary Clinton.

0:16:17 Thomas: Very contingent loss.

0:16:29 Thomas: Mm-hmm.

0:16:29 Andrew: Right. And take 10% of the resources out of Florida and devote those to Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, like spend a second in those three states. Right. And that plus demographics. Right. And I've mentioned this on a way before. Right, for the difference between 2016 and 2020 is Trump voters proportionally will have died and 14 seriously and 14 to 17 year olds will be eligible to vote. They don't vote in, you know, people who are 14 to 17 in 2016 will then be 18 plus in 20 in 2020. And that alone is enough to get you the 60,000, the 70,000 vote difference in the three states that swung the election, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. You still you also have to hold on to Minnesota. That's that is literally the only other thing that a Democrat needs to

0:16:58 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Right. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. I think we could

0:17:29 Andrew: Do there.

0:17:29 Thomas: Couple That with there were, or, or at least we can compare that and think about it along with, with the other way. I mean, I think there will be a certain number of Republicans who stayed home because Trump was so awful, who, now that they've kind of normalized it and like, oh, the economy is doing well kind of thing, like they could be persuaded to go out and vote for Trump, and that they have seen the court appointments and they have see that he is going to be a good Republican in so many ways. So there could be numbers on that side, though.

0:18:00 Andrew: There there could be. I I suspect that that stay at home Republican is largely anecdotal. And the reason that I suspect I suspect that is because I look at the results in Utah. Right. Like, I mean, Utah was supposed to be ground central for the never Trump movement. Yeah. And

0:18:17 Thomas: Gary Johnson. It is going be Gary Johnson's moment.

0:18:20 Andrew: Yeah. And and it wasn't right. Trump won handily. And so it, I, I suspect phenomenon is overstated. All of that is is just to say that like if we were mobilizing, like if this were 2004, for example, I could get the idea that you would want to get behind a Buddha judge, right? Because you would say, okay, you've got a polarizing president, but you've got somebody who has, right, some appeal despite, you know, George W. Bush having a very, very conservative first term and not running on that. Right. He was still somebody that had appeal across party lines to independents. Right, to people who were less conservative than his policies.

0:18:24 Thomas: Yeah, I

0:19:11 Andrew: I don't see Trump having that appeal. And so I don't see when, when I first look at who I want to be the Democratic nominee, my number one priority is not finding the person that I think is the most electable or will most appeal to folks. My number one priority is finding the person that I think is going to be the most competent at restoring this country and fixing the mess that we have, yep.

0:19:34 Thomas: Agree with you. However, I think you and I are in a minority because when they did some polling on this, like people want, when you ask people, what's the thing that's most important to you? They say a candidate who can beat Trump. And I guess I'm having, I've been kind of struggling with this, trying to answer these kinds of questions. You know, oh, well, you got to remember that, for example, people don't vote based on policy. They vote on other stuff. So like, that's why, you know, Buttigieg or somebody like that might be better. I want to bracket this for a second and mention that the one thing that I was positive on, on the Buttigieg thing, because mostly the Buttigieg phenomenon and the Beto phenomenon in terms of being a presidential candidate has just pissed me off because of, I just think it's such a slap in the face to the qualified women who are running that we're, we're finding people who haven't won statewide election to, like, you know, it would be unheard of for a mayor of a tiny town to win a presidential elect. That's never happened.

0:19:39 Andrew: Right.

0:20:35 Andrew: Pete

0:20:35 Thomas: And it would.

0:20:36 Andrew: Pete Budichudge manages a tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere that is twice the size of Catonsville and you've never heard of Catonsville.

0:20:40 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. So I have a hard time. I have hard time expressing how frustrating that is, especially with the open wounds of the misogyny and sexism of, of 2016, to be like, oh, I know the answer, let's do this unprecedented thing to step over the extremely qualified Elizabeth Warren because we're finding other ways to mean that we should, you know, electability and all that. So, but I guess what I'm having a hard time putting into words that maybe your extremely logical, brilliant mind can help me with is, it almost seems maybe a little like circular to say, I want to vote for the person who's going to get the most votes or something, thing, because like your job shouldn't be that, right? I mean, your job, a, you, I don't know that you know that, and b, even if you did, the person who's capable of getting the most votes will already get the most voters, I don't know, something about it, I can't put into, who

0:21:37 Andrew: You definitely know. I think that that's 100% right. So a couple of things. Number one, the last time the Democratic Party explicitly made that choice, said we want the person that we think is the most electable, was in 2004. Right. That was the entire rationale for the John Kerry campaign was, hey, look, I get it. I know John Kerry voted for the Iraq war and he voted for the Bush tax cuts and he noted for no child left behind and like those are the signature accomplishments of the end and for the USA Patriot Act right like and those four things is pretty much all Bush did in his first term and so it's really really hard to get up and like make a contrast with the incumbent president when you voted for his entire agenda and yet

0:22:06 Thomas: Was the more productive progressive candidate in that, and I wasn't as in touch in 2004, so who was the person who lost out Howard Dean, okay gotcha so

0:22:28 Andrew: Right Right. Yeah. Howard Howard Dean was the more progressive candidate. Right. And and the Democratic candidate, the Democratic establishment, like converged to destroy Howard Dean. Right. Like so, you know, in a way that I've mentioned this before, but like the the Bernie Sanders supporters.

0:22:49 Thomas: You don't think the scream was what did it, you don't think the scream was what did it

0:22:51 Andrew: Huh? Look, the scream happened. The reason that the scream happened is because the moment there was anything that played into the narrative of, well, this guy is just not fit to be president and it's a phenomenon, it's going to fade, the scream got as much play on MSNBC as it did on Fox News. Right. Like because the entire Democratic Party establishment was out to destroy Howard Dean. And I would point out, right, the screen happened just while we were bracketing the screen. Like what happened was Howard Dean finished a narrow third in Iowa. Right. It was disappointing after being leading in the polls for pretty much the entire run up to the Iowa caucuses. And what he was doing was rallying his troops.

0:23:50 Andrew: Right. Afterwards. And it just had to do with like the way in which he was miked. Right, like people.

0:23:58 Andrew: So absolutely. Like people, political reporters who were there were like, yeah, this this made this speech made total sense in the context of like having a rally where you don't have a lapel mic.

0:23:57 Thomas: Oh in fairness, it was ridiculous oh yeah it's not that the speech didn't make sense it's just was kind of funny sounding, that's all, it was funny sound, yeah it stopped, it's I'm not saying it's disqualifying has nothing to do with, yeah, he made

0:24:11 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Exactly right. Like that's where we are. Right? Right. We we we destroyed a presidential candidate because his method of saying, hey, guys, like we got it. We got New Hampshire in a couple of days. Let's get out there. And like that sounded goofy. Like literally that was that was the result of it.

0:24:24 Thomas: A funny sound yeah no I agree I agree, it, but it was very goofy, I'm just saying the scream was, yeah but anyway so you're saying the last time we tried the electability thing, uh it didn't work

0:24:34 Andrew: Right. Yeah. Yeah, no, no. I don't disagree with that. My my point is the last time we tried the electability thing, it absolutely backfired in a spectacular way by nominating somebody who, who, while being perceived as being more mainstream by Democratic primary voters, turned out to be the worst presidential campaigner in modern history. And that counts Michael Dukakis, who thought it was fun to ride around in a tank with an oversized novelty helmet on. Like it's.

0:25:05 Thomas: That's so interesting, I didn't, I didn't remember, because now I have nothing but positive feelings about Carrie, after I thought he was a great secretary of state, uh but he just wasn't a good campaigner, you're say, yeah

0:25:12 Andrew: Yeah. So the the George W. Bush released the Swift boat ads. Right. Right. And so. So all of this revisiting 2004 here.

0:25:20 Thomas: I kind of remember that you can yeah exactly, you can skip if you want, but yeah

0:25:26 Andrew: But no, no. But it's, you know, we'll do it. It's fun. Like the everything that went into the Kerry campaign was designed to be strategic and it all backfired spectacularly. Right. So it was like, OK, we're post 9-11. So like Democrats also have to be strong on national security because reasons. Um, and so, right. So John Kerry, like he was, uh, you know, he, he served in Vietnam. He was a war hero. So he showed up like literally his DNC convention nomination speech featured him saluting to the camera and going, I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty.

Right. Right. Never minding that that's an inherently dumb thing for a Democrat to be doing to begin with. But the idea, and, and John Kerry, like, was the value of his military service was he came home and was a vociferous anti-war critic. Right. And had the credentials, like, this is what launched him to first the Congress and the Senate, was to come home and go, hey, I fought in Vietnam. Right. I'm not just a hippie, like what. But like, I fought over there and it's a bad war and we shouldn't be in it. Right.

So to then kind of change that into all of a sudden, you know, I'm like a retired admiral reporting for duty, was a weird and stupid thing to do to begin with. And what Karl Rove did was instantly attack that. Right. Ran the swift boat veterans for truth, which were other soldiers, who shockingly, it's not hard, when a soldier comes home and runs for Congress on a liberal platform and critiques the war,

0:26:10 Thomas: You

0:27:06 Andrew: It's not hard to find soldiers who are going to be critical of it. Right. So they found people who served with John Kerry who cast doubt on his military service record. And, and then this is the important thing, the Kerry campaign did not respond to the swift boat ads literally for a month, like John Kerry took off like two weeks to go on vacation in the middle of the presidential election, and it still was very, very close, right? Like it came down to the state of Ohio

0:27:25 Thomas: Can't do that well he had to do some uh water skiing, right, was that him, a windsurfing yeah, sorry yeah

0:27:37 Andrew: Yeah, he did. He went windsurfing, which was another fantastic ad that was used to play against him, as it was incredibly easy to portray John Kerry as a serial flip flopper and, you know, just sort of riding the winds of, you, wherever. And right. And so here he is, you know, in knowing that the Republican playbook, you know, the 21st century is, oh, those elitist Democratic snobs. And he's wearing a full body surfing suit and he's windsurfing. I mean, like, not, not if he were eating an arugula and quinoa salad, could he have looked more elitist you know, yeah no

0:28:19 Thomas: So I I would say back, going back to what we're trying to discuss, though, I would say the Carry equivalent right now, closest thing to me, wouldn't really be Buttigieg, though, it would be it would Biden I would think, and so like for this argument might be a little different, to be like, Buttigieg is likely going to be, once, once he figures out what in the world his policy is. Uh, no, that's unfair. I mean, he's got some policy, but he's, he's very clearly not, you know, centered around policy. Um, it's likely going to be quite progressive, uh, but like, so it's not exactly the, like, centrist, gonna reach across the aisle kind of candidacy. It's more the, well, he is inspirational, and, and so therefore he'll inspire more people in the general.

0:28:30 Andrew: It would be Biden, it would absolutely be Biden right so I, I I guess, but a lot of stuff there. So number one, agreed, Biden is the Kerry analog, and I think just as bad for, you know, for all the reasons that we just talked about. But the lesson to me from the Kerry camp, from the Carrie nomination, is not just John Kerry was a, a terrible candidate, but it, it is direct evidential support for the proposition you were stating, which is, hmm, maybe Democratic primary voters and Democratic Party elites are not the best at guessing who's going to be the most electable general election candidate, right? Like, that's what I would say, like they, they all thought like, oh, yeah, no, like John Kerry's gonna be great

0:29:40 Thomas: Well, I think we're all, yeah, and we're all on board with not trusting the, I don't think anybody's in danger of trusting the elites too much in 2020, you know, like I think, but now it's like here, what's frustrating me is trying to think about in real terms, this is probably going to sound stupid, but really, if you try to think about it, I think it's actually a very difficult problem. In real terms, what voters actually make the difference in a presidential election? Because overwhelmingly, so many voters are already in the bag either way. I mean, it's been probably more so on the right. They're way more focused. They already know who they're going to vote for, and they already know that they are are going to vote. And on the left, though, too, as well, I mean, the biggest predictor of who you're going to vot for is your party. I mean everything else

0:29:47 Andrew: Yeah Yeah, right. Fair.

0:30:37 Andrew: Yeah, I

0:30:38 Thomas: Aside, that's far and away that will determine who you vote for. So it's like this weird thing where we're running a race and we're trying to speak to everybody, but also we kind of know that there's like a specific voter who hasn't necessarily made up their mind or they might be independent, they might not be, or it's voters who might need to be talked into showing up. So like it's so it's weird to think in those terms that if you were really trying to make an argument for, OK, sorry, Elizabeth Warren supporters. Yes. Even if we acknowledge like that's the best person for the job in terms of having all the policy solutions, being the best candidate, being that the most technocratic, all that stuff. We need the the the candidate who will move those marginal voters in.

0:31:28 Thomas: And by the way, in the right places too, like it has to be in the right states. And I just feel like that's nearly an impossible task for a primary voter to try to think ahead to that, you know, like, it's impossible. There's no way you could know the right answer to that question for 2020 in the general, after a bunch of stuff happens that you don't know, ahead of time is going to happen for you to make a decision as a primary voter, not based on who the best candidate is, but who's going to have the chance to move those whoever those marginal voters end up being.

0:32:02 Andrew: Couldn't agree more with that. And and and the way in which I would I would phrase it and maybe modify it is is is like this. Um, you can look back through my Facebook feed. Um, when the Republican primary narrowed down to Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, I, and this was, you know, oh, it was going on at the time. Right. And so, um, or no, this was this was pre-OA.

0:32:04 Thomas: Yeah.

0:32:33 Thomas: It might have been a little just before it, yeah, yeah.

0:32:34 Andrew: Right? Yeah. Yeah. It was it was just before OA. Uh, but I think I had done one SIO. Anyway. And I said unequivocally. Right. As between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, you want the nominee to be Ted Cruz. Right? And the reason for that is that and all my, you know, yes, you as in a Democrat.

0:32:55 Thomas: Do You mean you as in a Democrat, or the you're talking to Okay. Yeah.

0:32:58 Andrew: Right, I was speaking to my liberal friends, right, who were all like, oh, great. It'll be Trump. And, you Trump's a complete lunatic and moron and he'll be easiest to beat. And I said, no, Trump has the highest variance of all of the candidates in the election. Cruz has the lowest variance, right? Like, you know, the people who are not going to vote for Ted Cruz and there's nothing that Ted Cruz can convince, you can do to convince those people to vote for him. So absolutely. Like as between Trump and Cruz, you want the lowest variants guy in an election where the underlying demographics support the Democratic candidate. I still think that is the case. And so to the extent that you are trying to predict electability, I think the specifics of that are a fool's errand. But I think if you look to the underlying dynamics, I would say, again, I want the same thing. I want a candidate with the lowest possible variance on both sides. You're up against Trump now. I want the Democratic candidate with the lowest possible variance because I.

0:32:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:33:15 Thomas: How You, sorry, how are you defining variance? I I guess, I don't, how are measuring that?

0:34:05 Andrew: So, yeah, by by variance, I mean the like the the the delta between that that candidates highest ceiling and lowest floor. Right. Right. So if you look at it and go, yeah, well, boy, Buttigieg, and I really want us to get to your caller who's like, I think he could split the evangelical base because couldn't couldn't disagree more with that.

0:34:07 Thomas: Okay. Yeah.

0:34:31 Thomas: Same here.

0:34:31 Andrew: I think we're going to be on the same page on that. But but whatever. Suppose you say that. Right. Suppose You say, OK, like he's a really, really strong Christian. He clearly is. Right? Right. And so maybe he's going to peel off some of those. So, you know, maybe Buttigieg's ceiling is, you know, 59% or whatever. That would be huge. But but let's say that it is. Right. But then you'd also have to say, OK, well, what's his floor? Right. And of course

0:34:55 Thomas: I could imagine it being pretty damn low with the fact that he's he would be the least qualified in some senses ever to run to be a major candidate. Besides, oh, sorry, secondly, Donald Trump, obviously, least qualified of all time.

0:34:59 Andrew: It is, yeah, correct.

0:35:07 Thomas: Uh, well, but then I just, maybe I just made the counter argument, if Trump can win then everything's out the window, but we're not Republicans.

0:35:13 Andrew: Sure. But my argument is not that Buttigiez

0:35:16 Thomas: So yeah, that right? Right.

0:35:16 Andrew: Can't. Well, My argument is, if you are looking at the underlying demographics, you to to not assess the downside risk of somebody who has never run statewide, let alone nationwide.

0:35:32 Thomas: Yeah. I think he did lose something. Didn't he run? He lost a statewide election, right?

0:35:40 Andrew: I know he tried to he tried To run for DNC chair and then and pulled out of that. But I

0:35:46 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I'll check it while you're talking. I thought he had tried to run for something and statewide and had lost. I'll double check. Either way.

0:35:49 Andrew: Yeah, I don't think so. But I if I'm wrong, I'm I'm right.

0:36:00 Thomas: Eitherway, your point, your points. Stands.

0:36:00 Andrew: Yeah. Look, he's it. It is. I mean, in that way, like at least Beto has run statewide in Texas. Right. And

0:36:12 Thomas: Oh, well, okay. It's, it's because he was, uh, he ran for state treasurer and lost to the Republican. So statewide, but not maybe, maybe that's misleading because it wasn't like he ran for Senate or a governor or something, but, uh. But that was, and he didn't win. He did not win. Yeah. He got 37.5% of the vote. So that's a really bad outcome, but I guess he is in.

0:36:25 Andrew: It wasn't like he won. That's that's bad, even for a Democrat in Indiana. Right? Like, again, I mean seriously, I don't know. When was that race? OK, well, in fairness, then to Buttigieg, 2010 was the Republican wave election. Right.

0:36:39 Thomas: Yeah. Uh, 2010, it's been a while Yeah, and Not only that, he would have been uh, 30 years old 29.

0:36:53 Andrew: Yeah. Twelve. Twelve at the time. Yeah, but but what I was going to say is right. We're saying, you know, he comes from a, you know, garbage hinterlands red state, but like Barack Obama won Indiana in 2008, right? So I, it's Indiana is not Kentucky, Indiana is not, you know, yes, it's home to Mike Pence and uh and all sorts of horrible. But like, you know, let's put it into context.

0:36:54 Thomas: Yeah, Huh. Yeah, Alabama, we can, yeah, yeah, and we can take a second on the idea of him splitting the evangelicals, which I find, I think, if anybody is going to not do that, it will be somebody uh, a gay man who, you know, like I get that he talks the talk of Christianity and all that, but like, if I were to bet who's going to pull more evangelicals, you know, any of the other, literally any of the other Democrats who talk about prayer and do the thing you do, where it's all my faith is blah, blah, blah. And some of them, some number of them anywhere from zero to a hundred percent of it mean it, but still they do that versus the guy who, yes, he talks a big, you you know, a lot about Christianity and he's, he seems to be making a point to, to try to do that, but he's gay, he's

0:37:24 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, it

0:38:08 Thomas: A gay man. Gay, gay people are not popular with the GOP, with the, with the evangelicals.

0:38:14 Andrew: Is. The entirety of the evangelical movement right now is organized around denying LGBTQ rights, right? I mean, like, seriously, that is their organizing principle. And I agree with that. But I would add, I've made this comment before, we learned that the religious right was a political movement first and a religious movement not at all in 2012 when Franklin Graham scrubbed every reference to Mormonism as a cult from his website, right? Right. Like that was an evangelical Christians lined up to put the Mormon in the White House, despite literally 150 years of no, Mormons aren't Christians. Right. Like it's a, it's a dangerous cult, and Jesus and Satan are brothers.

And, you know, God lives on planet Kolob. And, you know, like it. It. It was astonishing to me. Right. Because I looked at it and I kind of thought like, oh, this, so this will be a neat thing to tell. Right. Right. Like when, when Romney got the nomination, I was looking at that going, oh, this is this going to be a neat thing to test in the general election. Right. Because maybe it will fracture. Right. Obama is not because remember, Obama was supposed to have that, too. Right, like he was going to win over evangelicals. And and in his 2008 race, you know, and and

0:38:21 Thomas: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, right.

0:39:35 Andrew: And I think, yeah,

0:39:35 Thomas: And they decided that despite all the evidence that he was, that Obama is a Christian and he, you know he's attended church all his life and all all that. They decided he was a Muslim. So like, right.

0:39:44 Andrew: Right. Right. And and yeah. And so, yeah, evangelical religious right is a political movement. They will line up behind Donald Trump again, even though Donald Trump is very clearly an atheist. Right. Like, I mean, Penn Jillette has said so on his show. Well, he he's I should I should put with the asterisk on it. He is he is said without saying. Right. But it's clear if you've listened.

0:40:00 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree. And I had the same experience, I guess, because I didn't learn from 2012 because I wasn't paying attention as much. I thought one of the reasons that I believed Hillary was going to win in a landslide was all it takes is like one percent for a landslide. You know, like all it take is a few percent of Republicans to be like, I just will stay home. I'm not I didn't think that all Republicans were And, you know, they're going to see the error of their way. I just thought he's so awful. There's got to be enough of them. They're like, oh, I can't pull the lever for this awful man. And I just was wrong. And I think a lot of that is evangelicals. It's also, you Know, things have been put in the partisan frame now and being just being a Republican or a Democrat, just, it really does decide what 90% of the vote. Like it just, It decides a large quantity percentage of the votes.

0:40:14 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:38 Andrew: Nope. Yeah. Yep.

0:40:59 Andrew: Yep. Yep, I, I, yep, I totally agree. And, and so the other thing that I think, like, I, I've served on a number of boards with, you know, charitable organizations with, like, strongly religious right, social justice left, uh, religious folks, right, um, some of them Catholic. Some of them, you know, inner city black and Hispanic churches and things like that. Right. Like, and those. Right, like it. I know that the caller was also identified as a Christian. Um, so I'm going to say, like, I think atheists are really, really bad in thinking, like, oh, yeah, well, this guy's, you know, talks religious, so maybe other people who talk religious, like, will like it. Right, like, Christian evangelical conservatives have their own internal code language that they use to communicate with each other And It

0:41:57 Thomas: Yeah. That's why none of the Democrat version of that, none of, none of the democratic faith talk works at all with them.

0:42:06 Andrew: Never.

0:42:06 Thomas: That never works.

0:42:06 Andrew: Works. Because, because they get, and, and I listen to some of this because I'm a masochist, and, you know, because I, I do work with the puzzle folks, but, like, you know, it, it, they give sermons and lectures and conferences on how to recognize, like, true Christians and fake Christians, right, and they, and they will tell you, well, you know, anybody who puts works ahead of faith, you know, means that they're not really preaching the gospel, because it's all supposed to just be, you know, your, your faith.

And, and, like, and you're listening to it, and and I recognize that I'm not understanding all the nuances of it, because, right, they're not talking to me, they're talking to each other, but I'm also recognizing that this is, uh, it's a, it's a language that, I mean, it's like a secret handshake, you know, where they're like, oh, uh, you're coming up to shake my hand, uh, but you didn't put your knuckle into my palm, so you're You're not a member of the group. And, and I don't, there is no chance in my, that, that, that he will pull any noticeable percentage of evangelical voters for the reasons that you said. Right. Like if it were a five percent shift. Right. We, we would have seen that. Like, how could evangelicals line up and vote for the Mormon? Right. How could they line up and vote for the three time divorced, philandering atheist? Right. And the answer is

0:42:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. That he will pull any sort of meaningful amount. Yeah, I agree.

0:43:31 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:31 Andrew: It's a political movement, not a not a religious movement.

0:43:33 Thomas: Totally agree. I also, another thing in terms of trying to make these calculations as a voter, I think another thing I'm struggling to, to try to find the right words for, maybe, maybe you can help me out, but may, or maybe I'll just have it. We'll see, uh, is either, either option here, like whether or not you're voting for, oh, purely who would be the best. Like if I had a magic wand and I could make anyone president, am I going to vote for who would be best once they are in that position and would be the best for the country? Or am I, amI trying to factor in like who has the best chance of winning, you know, which it's, I'm not saying it's ridiculous to want to factor that in. I mean, If we somehow had perfect information and you and I, we use our limited use time machine and we figure out that if we nominate Warren, she's going to lose.

0:43:34 Andrew: Yep.

0:44:21 Thomas: And if we dominate, I'll even say Biden, he's going to win. If we knew that that was the case, then yeah, I would say, okay, we need to nominate Biden as much as that sucks because winning is better than losing. But we don't have that time machine, unfortunately, and we can't make those 100% perfect knowledge things. So like any any route you take is going to involve persuasion, you know, so like if if I believe that, say, you know, if I come to have a belief that, well, we'll start with me. I believe Elizabeth Warren is the best for the job. That's going to take persuading. We have to persuade people that that's true. You know, it's just a fact. We're going to have to persuade some number of voters. We'll see once the debates are going and all that, that there will be persuasion involved. Involved. Or if I were one of these callers and I thought, okay, yeah, maybe she's the best, but Buttigieg is actually, he has the best chance or somebody has the Best Chance of Winning. You're going to have to persuade that too. Like you're going have

0:44:30 Andrew: Yep, agreed. Agreed. Agreged.

0:45:18 Andrew: Yeah.

0:45:18 Thomas: To persuade Democratic primary voters that he has The Best Chance Of Winning and so I guess my feeling is if either thing involves persuading large quantities of people about something, why don't we pick the option that just involves persuading 80,000 people in swing states that Elizabeth Warren is the best for, for the job. You know what I mean? Like either way, we're doing a bunch of heavy lifting and persuading. And so for me, it kind of all cancels out to like, why don't we just pick who we think is going to be the best president? Because we can't, you know, either way it's persuasion and either way we don't have the perfect information about it. So that's how I feel. Did I, I don't know if I got that all around.

0:45:36 Andrew: Yep I like I like that a lot because I've been I've I've been struggling with the same thing. Right. Like it was how I began with with saying, "Look, I get people who are pro Buttigieg, but I think they're sort of relitigating the last election. And I don't think we should be trying to pick based on who's the most electable for all the reasons that, you know, we've spent half an hour talking about." And so I want, if you believe that a competently run Democratic campaign is going to retake the White House, right? Which, that's what I believe. Right. Then. Yeah. Right, what I want to do in the primary is I want to find the person that I think is going to do the best job in office. And I did, write like you. I mean, you know, I've made no secret of my love of Elizabeth Warren.

0:45:57 Thomas: Yeah.

0:46:48 Andrew: Right boot booted judge is is probably would rank dead last on my list. Right. Like because not I

0:46:54 Thomas: I'd, I'd like him over Biden personally, but, but they

0:46:57 Andrew: In terms of as president. Rightly. All we're talking about is ability to get ability to to get policies that I like put into place. Right? Joe Biden, it is eminently more qualified, right? Like, like, has a demonstrated history of executing, uh, sometimes smart strategies, sometimes terrible strategies, um, at, at the federal level. Um, he's been vice president, so, right, he's overseen large-scale executive agencies, right, like, yeah.

0:47:05 Thomas: Are in office. Yeah.

0:47:33 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, except we can see that he still hasn't learned his lesson from that because he thinks that once Trump is out of office, then the Republicans are just going to work with us. Like, I don't know how. Did you see that? Like, how in the world could he think that after eight years? Was he not paying attention during the Obama years?

0:47:49 Andrew: I, I, I think that's part of the Biden brand. And look, like, I, I don't, I'm not saying, I want to be very, very clear, because I don't want this to to to come out of, uh, of context. If we were doing the ranked choice voting, right, like, I know Liz Warren is my number one, I am not saying Buddha judge would be my number last, right, like he, he would not, right? Right. I am saying, if you ask me who I think, because there's a complex of factors that go into, right, nominating somebody to be president, right? But I'm saying that I think he has the highest risk of not delivering on the stuff that I want while in office. And I think that those risks come from a couple of different sources, right? Right. So the first is just competence, right? And, and I've made this analogy back to Obama's first term, right?

Like, if imagine, and again, I voted for Obama over Hillary Clinton in 2008 in the primaries. Imagine if Hillary Clinton had been elected president in 2008 and delivered a 60 vote filibuster proof majority in the Senate and Democratic majority in the House.

0:48:12 Thomas: Yeah.

0:49:07 Andrew: Like, you cannot tell me she would she would have done more with that in a year and a half that then Barack Obama did. It's virtually impossible to have done less. Right. Like and that.

0:49:18 Thomas: Well, I know about that. I mean, he got Obamacare and the bailout.

0:49:23 Andrew: But but all of the political capital was spent on the bailout, which shouldn't have required costing any political capital at all. And Obamacare, you know, we lost the public option. And, you Know, it was just.

0:49:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. That's interesting. I really wonder how it would have gone with Hillary.

0:49:40 Andrew: It. It we would not have had, uh, and and and add this,, right, this is in Obama's second term, right, many of the regulations that, like, the reason we talked about the Congressional Review Act, uh, was because many of the crucial regulations that came out of the Obama administration came out of the last, like, nine months of the Obama administration, and so they were tied up in they were disapproved of using the Congressional Review Act once Trump took over. Right. All of those things. Again, would somebody who had more than like a hat? Hi, puppy. Would somebody who had more than a half term of experience in the Senate, you know, have had done a better job administratively, given the reins of presidential power? Like, I think they would.

0:50:29 Thomas: That's so interesting that you feel that way. I just feel like it was more determined by the obstructionist Republicans than anything. I think they just made it impossible. I don't think we live in a world, in a country where you're going to reach across the aisle. I mean, if anything, it's more cynicism that we needed, if anything. And I don't know if Hillary necessarily had that, but we need, that's why I want somebody now who's not Biden. I want somebody who is cynical enough to know that you aren't getting Republicans. And so don't even just just don't think in terms of that.

Just, you know, and more of it. Honestly, most of it depends on whether or not we we take Congress. So that's another thing I wish people would consider when it comes to like, oh, I won't vote for the Democrat if it's Biden, blah, blah. Like, keep in mind that there's a high probability that and this This was what my Facebook post the other week was about, which is if we don't take back the Senate somehow, which we really might not. Like, I don't know what the percentage is right now. They've got the 538 tracker that I'm sure you love.

0:50:36 Andrew: Yeah, I, I agree. But, you Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:51:36 Thomas: But, like, if we do not take back Congress, there is going to be almost no difference between these presidents. Do you agree with that?

0:51:42 Andrew: Well, again, executive agencies are a huge difference.

0:51:45 Thomas: No, there it is. But, no, I mean difference between among our Democratic candidates is what I'm saying. So like, granted that we, let's say there's just a hypothetical, we never have complete control of Congress in the next, say, from 2020 to 2024, the marginal difference between our different Democratic candidates is going to be very, very slim. What do you think?

0:51:46 Andrew: Right. Mm hmm. You go. Got it. Got to get. Yeah,

0:52:11 Thomas: Do you agree? Yeah, I mean, There's, I think that all of them will undo a lot, most of the harmful Trump stuff. No, I still would want Elizabeth Warren, somebody who is going to get down into the technical details of, of, by the way, that's maybe even more of an argument for Elizabeth Warren because you need somebody who's going to figure out how to manipulate every single possible lever of power that, that her experience and her just genuine genius of, you know, knowing how stuff works would, would be a big help on.

0:52:11 Andrew: I agree with that. Yeah it.

0:52:41 Andrew: Yeah so if if as as I believe the likelihood of Democrats recapturing the Senate is low it doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Uh, but, but it's it's low, right?

0:52:51 Thomas: Oh no, we should definitely try. Yep. That's all. Of course we agree. Both agree on that. Low.

0:52:56 Andrew: Like we gotta win three seats and hold on to Doug Jones in Alabama, um, and that's, that's again, as I'm fond of pointing out, right, yeah, um, it, it, look, in the last Democratic wave election, we won negative two seats in the Senate, so, like, like, going to three is hard. We can do it. But, you know, that's going to require, you know, massive, massive levels of Democratic turnout. If that doesn't happen, then, and if you believe that the power that any Democratic president is then going to wield is going to be through executive agencies, is going to be administratively, that further emphasizes the need for somebody that has some kind of, uh, executive experience beyond running a tiny little hamlet in the middle of nowhere, um, and and and then, like, you know, I add on to it, like, what, right, what does I,

0:53:03 Thomas: So, and I hear there's a rising Republican pedophile star that's going to take him out. Exactly.

0:54:03 Andrew: Know, right, of, of, of defined candidates, for, for good and for ill, right? Look, I love almost everything that Buddha Judge has said in his campaign ads, I, I really do, right? But, but, but there are questions that I don't really know the answer to, right? Like, I don't know what Buttigieg is going to do in terms of foreign policy, right.

Like, when I read, I pulled up on his website, this is, he's got a paragraph on foreign policy and it says this, we need to fundamentally rethink our foreign policy to help America lead and shape a better world for our future. That's a meaningless sentence. The next president will have to restore American credibility on the world stage and establish a new and higher standard for the deployment of U.S. military force. That should be forces, but OK. It's time to put an end to endless war and focus on how to best use America's strengths to address future threats, including climate security, as a key basis for diplomacy. OK, I get that. Right.

And I and I get, get that Pete is committed to reinventing institutions of international engagement to address 21st century challenges and opportunities, and reversing the rise of authoritarianism abroad while revitalizing democratic capitalism and our democracy at home. That's it. So, I don't know, so does that mean that a Buddha Judge presidency would withdraw all of our troops right, I mean, would, would we have drone strikes, right? Like, I, I, I want to know, like, where do you stand on zero casualty warfare? Where do you stand on drone strikes? Where do you understand on troops on the ground in the Middle East? Right. And and I don't know. And I don't think we have a good basis of predicting, you know, I

0:55:24 Thomas: Withdraw the troops from Afghanistan. Yeah.

0:55:43 Thomas: You know, yeah. You know what I wish a candidate would do? And maybe I've missed it. I don't know if they, yeah, there's, there're so many issues. There's so much to talk about. So obviously it's going take a while to get to, but I wish someone would campaign on funding the shit out of the State Department. You know, someone someone saying like, OK, we've seen how awful it is when you got the State Department and how much of our security is reliant on that kind of work. You know, I think Republicans are fundamentally wrong, especially Trump, if they think our safety and security is best guaranteed by buying more weapons rather than having massive networks networks of intelligence and diplomacy, like those are the things that actually do a better job of keeping us safe. And it would be interesting to see somebody mention that and talk about that.

0:56:32 Thomas: You know, it's not, I'm for defunding, you know, the military to a certain extent, but I'm actually, I would love to increase funding to the State Department and stuff like that. So that's just a side note. But yeah, I take your point.

0:56:45 Andrew: I agree. And so, right. Let's be fair. I pulled up Elizabeth Warren's foreign policy page. Right. It's longer. I can't read all of it. But but again, notice the difference. Warren Warren says a strong military should act as a deterrent so that most of the time we won't have to to use it. We must continue to be vigilant about the threat of terrorism, but it's time to bring our troops home and make sure they get the support and benefits they've earned. We should also leverage all the tools of our national power, not just our military might. That means cutting our bloated defense budget and ending the stranglehold of defense contractors on our military policy.

0:57:18 Andrew: It means reinvesting in diplomacy and standing with our allies to advance our shared interests. It means new solutions to new global challenges from cybersecurity to the existential threat posed by climate change. Our strength abroad is generated here at home. Policies that undermine my working families in this country a road or strengthen the world. It's time for foreign policy that works for all Americans, not just wealthy elites. Okay, that in fairness that that's fluff at the bottom too, but

0:57:17 Thomas: Yes, Please, Yeah, in fairness, a certain amount of fluff for sure, but quite a bit more specifics. She has a plan for that.

0:57:38 Andrew: Sure, yeah, and and and So right, so I can read that and go, Okay, I I know, right, more specifically how Elizabeth Warren is going to react to, right, foreign policy challenges in the Middle East than I do about Pete Buttigieg. And I deliberately picked foreign policy, right? Like, because, you know, I could have picked, you know, a dozen areas, right, you've got the, she's got a plan for that, right.

0:58:01 Thomas: Right, Yeah, Because Anything else, Elizabeth Warren Would Have Had The Clear You

0:58:13 Andrew: Like, yeah, I, right

0:58:13 Thomas: Pick The One area that she hasn't emphasized just to help him out as much as you could. Yeah, Again, that is why I overwhelmingly right now support Elizabeth Warren. She just, I just, she's just thought through so many of these things in such a great way. Um, I've taken enough of your time, Andrew. Uh, I don't know if there was anything pending that you want to make sure to to get to before we call it. Um, any thoughts you you didn't get to finish or things you wanted To Chime In on,

0:58:38 Andrew: Now, this is, this is, you like stretching on the sofa and going, oh, look at the time, Andrew, it's been great having you Over, but you don't have to go home but you can't crash here

0:58:42 Thomas: No, No, No, I I said it would only keep you no, you've you've doubled the amount of time that I claimed I would keep you, so that's Not that it at all. Uh, no, this is fun. I think we we should keep doing this as the primary season continues. Um, I, because I, I love talking about it and I, you know, again, I think you would agree that like, obviously if it comes down to any of these people versus Trump, we're going to be voting for any of this candidates happily. I mean, I I'm going to be very, very sad if it's Biden personally. He's my last pick by a million. That's just me. I think he, I can, we just not have an 80 year old person be president. Seriously, seriously, can we just, is it me? I mean, can we get some representation for a slightly, is there any other job in the world where you want the 80 year old over the, I don't know, even 50 year old? Whatever.

0:58:48 Andrew: Right, uh, yeah, I I I agree, I agree with that. Uh, I agree with, I I'm very bearish on, uh, on Joe Biden. And it's so weird that like the guy who has spectacularly crashed and burned, I mean, you know, finished in single digits in every presidential presidential campaign in which he's run, is viewed as like the electable guy, the guy who had to like, again, great line. Right. Like when I think it was Brian Williams, you know, delivered the like, you are said to be a gaffe machine. Do you have the discipline to be president? And he looked in the camera and was like, yes. Right, right. It was a good Biden moment.

0:59:50 Thomas: I know. Twice before. Yeah, I know, yeah,

1:00:24 Andrew: It That was good, too. But but yeah, like the the the Biden phenomenon is is is weird.

1:00:31 Thomas: I was worried at first,

1:00:32 Andrew: I don't get it.

1:00:32 Thomas: But I'm not as, once he, you know, I just don't, I don't think he's gonna do it, but who knows? You never know

1:00:33 Andrew: No, I I don' t either. And but but yes. So we've been bashing on on Buttigieg. If if Buttigieg is the nominee, I will donate money to Pete Buttigiez. I will work for Pete Buttigez. I will look as hard as I can to get Pete Buttiguez elected the next president of the United States. It's I just don't think it will be so

1:00:38 Thomas: Yeah, for sure I'm curious, you know, separate yeah I agree, separate your uh, separate what we both agree that we want to happen, I'm serious. What if you had to be forced to make a bet, a sizable bet, maybe something on the on the line of who will actually get it granted? We are low information, this is very speculative. Who do you, who do think is likeliest right now? Like, do, do you think it's Warren? Or I mean, I just, I worry about her poll numbers. I feel like it'll change, but what 538 keeps bringing up that worries me is the fact that she didn't win by very much in her Senate election, not as much as she should have in 2018, I guess it was, and she has pretty high name recognition, name ID, and not that much support. So, I don't know. I worry about that, but who would you bet on if you had to?

1:01:48 Andrew: Boy, I mean it's, it's such a hard question. I, I'm gonna take the easy way out and say I would still bet on Warren, and the way in which I analyze it is kind of by, I know 538 does something similar to this, you know, you sort of group candidates into lanes. Right. And so it to me, like the the lane that that Warren is in right now is the sitting senator, like qualified lane.

1:02:06 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

1:02:21 Andrew: Like and it is Warren and Kamala Harris and and Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar are sort of all in that land, you know, and look, Biden was a vice president. Right. So he he kind of belongs in that. And it is natural at this stage that like that those candidates other than I mean, the kind of weirdness around Biden. But like it's natural that those candidates are just less interesting to write pieces on than Buttigieg and Beto and, you know, and people who are totally, you Know, Andrew Yang and, You know, And just just people that aren't known at all on the national stage. So I'm not surprised. And and and I think like

1:02:26 Thomas: Exactly. Yeah. Hmm. Did

1:03:12 Andrew: My intuition is that Elizabeth Warren is probably everybody's second choice. Right. Like, I mean, when you when I talk to I've got a friend who's I like still a diehard, you know, Bernie bro. And I'm using that not disparagingly, although I'm happy to use it disparaging.

1:03:12 Thomas: You cut out? Yeah.

1:03:32 Andrew: Proud wearer of the label. And he's like, yeah, well, you know, Warren's my second choice. Right. Like, I think a lot of people feel that way. And oh,

1:03:40 Thomas: Yeah, I'm I'm encouraged by how just she's she's outperforming my expectations, honestly, like I'm just amazed that with the impeachment stuff, she came out ahead and was just had the the best take with the Fox News thing the other day with the policies. Season. I think that'll add up.

1:03:55 Andrew: Man, the statement on the Fox News town hall was just I mean, she did it on Twitter. Right? Like, Like, I can't I can'T do a lightning round in 17 minutes per question. And like in, you know, 280 characters, she was what she did to link to tweet. So but 500 characters, he was like, yeah, Fox News is a propaganda arm that gives a platform to white nationalists. And I'm happy to do town halls, but I'm not happy to give them cover with their advertisers by pretending like they are something other than they're not. And I want to keep the pressure. Like, how brilliant was That, oh God, yeah.

1:03:58 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

1:04:15 Thomas: Hate for profit. Yeah. I Agree. But I would say, if I had to answer that same question I put to you, I would actually bet on Kamala Harris, because she's occupying a similar lane and has way higher numbers right now. And I think that's who, I think, personally, I think I would bet on if I had to bet right now. Now, I'm gonna do everything I can to make it be Warren, because I like Warren a little bit better. But I like Harris and, you know, we'll see how it goes. But all right, those guesses aside, we can update our guesses later. But thanks for hopping on to SIO, Andrew. I really appreciate it. And thanks for helping me think through some of this stuff. And hopefully that answered the listener questions, or at least gave everybody a lot to think about.

1:05:12 Andrew: Yeah. I had a lot of fun. This was, this is great, Thomas. Yeah. Sure.