SIO196: The #DemDebate, Part 1

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 196. Ah, so much to say. So much to tell you folks. Well, first, a little housekeeping type stuff, background type stuff. Okay. It's been a little while. I've, uh, I don't know. Haven't done an episode. I don, I dunno, I'm not sure what's going on with me, but I saw these debates and I saw an opportunity because I want to talk about them. I'm excited about the debates. I am excited about the candidates, and I wanted to just get it out there as soon as I could. I've got pages of notes, four pages of note, which knowing me will factor in a little bit, but not as much as they should. The note taking to talking ratio usually makes me mad about how much time I took taking notes, but that's okay.

0:01:20 Thomas: It's all part of the process. As you can probably hear, the setup is a little little different. I It's of course it's late, um, for mental health purposes. I still had to play my scheduled hockey game because, you know, I'm barely hanging on mentally with this, uh, with this country and everything that's going on, and getting exercise is one of the few ways that I can, uh, still try to stay sane. So I had a hockey game scheduled for seven, the debate was at six, and so I had to watch it on DVR as, oh, that's not really even a thing anymore, I've got YouTube TV, I watched on YouTube TV late, and now everybody's in bed. The kids are in bed, the wife's in bed. I've got a slight buzz going, and I'm ready to talk about the debate. It couldn't be better, am I right?

0:02:07 Thomas: I don't know. I can't hear you. I only hear myself. So, let's get into it. I want to talk about some general things. First off, this is, I read this somewhere, and to my, my mind, I'm almost positive it's true, um, but I, I didn't, it's one of those things where I saw like a tweet and then couldn't find it later. I read that this was the first presidential debate with more than one woman on stage, and I cannot think of how that would be wrong.

I'm running back through the years and I can think of women, but I can't think of more than one on the stage at once, and that's both sad and inspiring at the same time, uh, three women on this debate stage, uh, that would be, of course, my favorite, um, who we'll get, we'll get to that, but, uh, my favorite, Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard, and Amy Klobuchar. There will be more women in tomorrow's debate, but that's, I mean, again, it's both cool, it's great that the Democratic Party is the one leading the way on diversity and inclusion and all that stuff. It's, it's great that that is my party. I don't know about you, but that's the party I belong to. But it's also, you know, it's a little sad that it's 2019 right now and it's the first time it's happened. But, you know, we got it. We're scrambling for what good news we can. That's, that's at least I am anyway. Let's see other, other, other notes. I saw an article about how the parties have moved around and shifted.

0:03:43 Thomas: You might have seen it, too. It came out this very day. I think, on the New York Times. It is called What Happened to America's Political Center of Gravity and it uses data. I mean, these things are, of course, a little imperfect, but it uses data from around the world. It's not just Americans, parties around the world, and it sets the current American Democratic Party and Republican Party in the context of world parties. And it was very interesting, very interesting. It also has a concept of a median party, which is, of course, some sort of middle. I know the median is different than the average, but, you know, it's like the whatever. It's the middle party out of all of them. And what is interesting is there's also a chart about how that has evolved.

0:04:29 Thomas: And this is the reason I'm bringing it up. It charts 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016. And it's judging it based on the documents that parties put out, the platforms. Forms. And again, admittedly, it's difficult to quantify. It's imperfect, but I think it's still meaningful. I believe it's still meaningful, and what it shows is a huge jump left in 2012 and 2016 for the Democratic Party. Now, the Republican Party of the United States is floating out there in right-wing, you know, nowhere land. I mean, it is so far right, the U.S. Republican Party. Of course, it's not the most right-wing party in the world. There are other worse parties, but it's a major party.

0:05:17 Thomas: Of the parties in power around the world, it might be the most right-wang. This will be news to almost no one. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is right around the median party. In fact, until 2016, when Hillary pushed it way left, well, I don't give Bernie credit, and the voters credit, of course, but Hillary listened to Bernie and the voters. It was pushed way left in 2016. And I bet if you were to chart this for 2020, just already based on this debate and the policy positions people are taking, I bet it's going to shoot so far left. And that's what we need to do. This is the interesting thing. The Democratic Party for eight years, for however long longer than that, it seems, has done this thing where it's like seeded the centrist argument or that's not right.

0:06:14 Thomas: What I'm trying to say is it's looked at the situation and said, OK, well, here's the compromise between the Republican Party and a hypothetical far left that is somewhere in the Democrats. Let's just adopt that compromise as our position. So it's almost like it's It's almost like negotiating a deal or something. They always talk about Trump and art of the deal, which isn't of course real or written by him, but it's like negotiating. A deal and saying, well, let's see, I want it for, you know, I don't want to pay $20. You want me to pay. $40. So my opening offer is going to be $30 to which of course the person's going to say, well, no, how about 40 or 35? You know, like it's seeding that already before fight.

0:07:01 Thomas: If we wanted a healthy political, um, I don't know, discourse and outcome, it might be that we need, we need to match the Republican polarity. You know, I mean, this is to say nothing, of course, of the actual, like, truth of where we should be. Now, I'm a far lefty, I'm progressive, I think the country should be way further left than it is, and, uh, and, and this debate, frankly, to bring it back to it. This debate excited me for that reason, because people are taking on positions, major contenders here. Well, there's like one, but people on the stage in this debate were taking on positions that are so much further left than the party used to be. And it makes me really happy. And I think that we know what the Republicans are. Now, some of you centrists, I don't know if you're listening, or some of you slight leftists, maybe you'll be scared of how far left the party wants to go.

0:07:55 Thomas: So, but I would just encourage you to look at this article and see how much room there is to move. We were to the right, Democrats, until 2016, were tothe right of the median party. So we were right of center when you take into account the world stage, all the parties in the world, you know, major political parties in the world. We were right-of-center. Why can't we be further left-of center? And then maybe you talk compromise.

When it's a real compromise between a super progressive position and whatever the Republicans want to do, then at least it's not horrible. Then we can at least maybe make some progress. Needless to say, I think the ideal situation is to, of course, elect an entirely blue government in every different branch and just pass a progressive agenda. Agenda. I think it would very quickly become mainstream because it's stuff that already pretty much everyone agrees on and it would be unambiguously good. It would break the power that money has on politics in several ways. And I think in some ways free up the politics. That's my theory. But I'm just to appeal to the centrists for now. Would it be so bad for you centrists if If we had a super far left party, and we already know the Republican Party is far right.

They're not budging. So would it be so bad to drive the Democratic Party further left? And so that compromise would actually be in the middle, if it were to even happen. I don't know that it can happen. I think Congress is fundamentally pretty broken. But there you go.

0:09:34 Thomas: So anyway, back to the debate. When I saw that article, it was interesting, of course. And also when I saw this debate, it made me happy about if you if you continue this chart, this course that the Democratic Party has taken, I think I think in 2020 it's going to be way further left. And for me, that's a good thing. That's a Good Thing. All right. Let's see other thoughts here. You know, here's a random thing I got to bring up. This is just I have to bring it up. It's a stupid thing, but it was, it was gave me a chuckle. You know, I heard in a lot of the pre-debate coverage that, uh, it Was mainly about Biden actually. So we haven't gotten to Biden Biden's tomorrow, of course, but, uh It might apply to other candidates. Somebody, somebody, people keep saying, oh yeah, Biden is all noun, verb, Trump, noun,verb, Trump.

0:10:22 Thomas: And, uh Pedantic note. That doesn't make sense. I don't, unless there's a whole lot of sentences. They're like, Like, the dog ran to Trump. Like, what? Noun, verb, Trump. It's all Trump, verb something. Or like Trump and then the rest of the dependent class. Like, it's not noun, verb. That doesn't make any sense. Unless you're just saying I am better than Trump over and over. I'm going to beat Trump. Let's, I, but like, it is. It's not. Noun verb, trump. It's trump verb. Basically, it's trump is bad. Trump is doing this. Trump is do ing that. Trump is whatever. And it's just funny. It's a pedantic note, but it just made me chuckle because what are these noun-verb Trump lines? I was trying to come up with them. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy Trump, I think, because that's the only one that I can think of.

0:11:12 Thomas: But we didn't get much noun- verb Trump in this debate, or Trump-verb, I guess, is what I would say. Trump-led sentences, maybe, sentences starting with Trump. We didn't gets a whole lot of that. We got a little bit of it. I think, um, different candidates were more along those lines than others. Um, and, uh, another miscellaneous note, please don't zoom in so much on my candidates in HD. I don't need to, like, that's just a me thing. I don't need that closeness. I really don't. Like, most of these candidates are super old. It's HD. It's like that old Liz Lemon, uh...

On, uh... 30 Rock. Fantastic joke, it's probably in GIF form, uh, that you can look up right now, where she walks into the HD camera and it looks disgusting. It's, it's, um, we don't need it, we can stay a little zoomed in, I don't need to see all the pores and nose hairs of any given, I mean, bad teeth, of any giving, let's just back it up a little bit, is all I'm saying. We don't need it, it's not necessary. All right, just kidding. In seriousness, uh, here's what I want to say. I want to talk about this debate.

Now, I'm full, full disclosure, I have, uh, before this, I support Elizabeth Warren for president. She is my candidate. Uh, she was my candidate before this. And, but I want to say, I honestly was open to the field, and, uh, I was open, and here's what I was kind of open to. I, you know, I don't trust anybody really these days.

0:12:43 Thomas: And I was worried maybe Warren would just kind of blow it. You know, maybe she would come across as flat. Maybe people wouldn't find her inspiring. Maybe she wouldn't be a good public speaker, whatever, you know, like I, who knows? It's a tough, as we saw in this debate, it's a rough environment. Even people like Koff, Beto O'Rourke, who previously came across as inspiring, majestic, even leaders of men. I think Beto came across is really flat in this debate to me. I was thinking, I actually said to Lydia before the debate, I was like, Like, you know, I bet people are going to love Beto. He's just, he was so likable in his Senate run. And then I saw him and I was like, nah, he's too small for the stage. Not physically, of course, but he hasn't done enough for the stage, I don't think.

0:13:29 Thomas: I don't think he can say, I mean, he can point to policy, he can do this and that, but I just don't think he has the clout that a lot of these candidates have. And therefore, to me anyway, came across as a little small. But anyway, back to what I was saying. I love Warren. I've been blown away beyond my expectations for how she's performing. She's been the smartest candidate. She's been releasing the best policy. For me, the most policy. Other candidates are following her lead on policy. I think she's the most qualified. I think she's smartest. I think the best set up to do the work of being president. However, I just want to say that, like, if Warren's not your candidate, don't worry. Like, I want to, I want try to analyze this debate a little bit. And And there's lots of good things about the other candidates, and I can talk about a world in which I wasn't in love with Elizabeth Warren, you know, and hopefully I can, I can make some good points, or some points that might make you think or something.

0:14:26 Thomas: I don't, don't worry. This isn't just about Warren, or I, and I'm not going to be the kind of person who just brings up the hit pieces of each other candidate, because that's, unfortunately, I don't, it kind of feels like a lot of what, at least in the Twitter-verse, as they say, a lot of what liberal discourse has been. It's been, all right, I've got my candidate, now I'm going to find every crappily written, possibly badly sourced hit piece on the other candidates and talk about them like they're evil people.

And I know that's not everybody, but it's a lot, you know, it's, it's a lot of people, and the only candidate who I downright, is just a full disclosure, the only candid who I'd downright dislike is Joe Biden. I can't stand him. I think he has no business running for president. I don't think, he, people gave the, the injustice of it all, you remember when someone named Hillary Clinton was running for president, and all the memes and all the everything was always, why is she running? Oh, she's enraged and it's her time, that's what, but she's, that's, that's the only reason she's running.

It's her time. And the memes would say like, oh, it's my turn, and she'd be all mad. Like, I think that exact thing really applies to Biden. He has no business being there. There are plenty of candidates who aren't 700 years old, barely hanging on to it, um, who offer better policy and, uh, who are just as qualified, who are actually good at running, uh、, you know, who were progressive.

0:16:05 Thomas: He's just, to me, he, he He just has no business running. He, he, it just feels like he's running because he's got the name recognition to run. Like, that's what it feels like to me. And maybe that's how some of you felt about Hillary. Um, and okay, maybe I'm getting a taste of that, I guess, because I hate it, but I, I at least think that Hillary had amazing policy and was wonky.

And while maybe she didn't communicate that as well as a lot of people would have wanted, I don't care as much about that and I was I liked her agenda and I believed that she would work to accomplish that agenda, um, and I get none of those things from Biden. I get a lot of calm down everybody, uh, you know, business as usual, once we get rid of Trump, all this stuff that I just don't like. So that's the only person I don't like.

He wasn't on the stage of course tonight, so those are my disclosures. I've told you my allegiances, but I will say this, I will vote for any of these people, in the general, absolutely, 100%. Biden would be the one where I'd be like, this is almost not worth it, but still is worth it because Trump is evil. He's doing evil things. He is setting back the Supreme Court for a generation. That alone is what we need to be thinking about. That's it. I mean, it really is. Congress is broken. We can't count on power in both houses, in both chambers for very long. We just can't.

I mean, there's all these things I'd love to accomplish, and I can't wait to talk about some of them. But the fact is, we can't count on that. We can hope for it. We can try to make it happen. We can't account on it. What we can count on is the Supreme Court, and we can account on very young appointees, very young justices who are just hardline right-wingers that have been put in the court because we failed in 2016.

0:17:56 Thomas: We absolutely failed as a country. We failed. And that is, it's honestly, that alone, people always say, oh, it is not enough to not be Trump. No, sorry, you are wrong. It actually is. That alone is enough because that is what matters. That is what affects people. Every, almost every issue, almost ever issue comes down to a Supreme Court battle. And it lasts for decades. These people are going to be in those seats forever.

They are like 40, you know, they're gonna be, could be ruining our lives for 30, 40, 50 years. That matter, that it just, it just is what matters. I know it's, it's not the sexy thing to talk about. The best thing to talk about is the policy, I was an inspiration, blah blah blah, yeah, I get it, okay, I, I, we can talk about that for fun, but that's for fun. What actually matters is we need a Democrat for the court. That is number one.

Climate, you name it, climate change, uh, gerrymandering, the uh, the, the, the Muslim ban, the stuff at the board, like all this stuff, it comes down to the Supreme Court, even down to like impeachment stuff. And some of these battles around actually holding Trump and others accountable, it all comes downto the Supreme court. It's so important. And if we lose the Supreme courts for decades, we lose all these gerrymandering battles. By the way, incidentally, we also lose religious freedom. We also have crosses, 900,000 foot crosses being counted as as secular for some reason in the court, all this stuff, we lose it for generations. And when you lose gerrymandering, when you, rather, when you lose those cases, and when the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land says, no, it's okay, gerrymander, then the Republicans stay in power forever.

0:19:40 Thomas: It doesn't matter if you get your perfect candidate. Oh, finally, we've got the perfect, it'S Bernie Sanders, but he's taking a pill and he's 50 years younger and he yells even louder. Whatever, whoever your version of the perfect candidate is, it doesn't matter. We've been gerrymandered out of existence. Maybe you can possibly win a general election. You won't have Congress because of gerryandering. So it's fundamental. I can't believe how long I'm preambling. I guess that's something I tend to do, but I just wanted to lay all my cards on the table of how I'm thinking. And with that said, let's get to what was an interesting debate. So as you well know, I'm sure 20 frigging candidates on this debate stage, well, 10 tonight and 10 10 tomorrow. I think there's a total of like, I want to say 23 officially that are in it, but whatever.

0:20:26 Thomas: I mean, if they're not in the debate at this point, um, well, unless like a big name could enter, you know, like a Stacey Abrams or somebody and would likely, uh, catapult up to be on a debate stage, I imagine. But for now, these 20 are who I'm going to talk about in the 10 today. Here we go. Uh, Booker, Beto, Elizabeth Warren, Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar. Um, I wanted to to say Paul Ryan, but it's Tim Ryan, thank God. Although, yeah, Paul Ryan wasn't amazing, frankly. Tulsi Gabbard, Delaney, who I'm least familiar with and did the worst job, Bill de Blasio, and Inslee. Those are the candidates. I'll give some thoughts. First off, I want to say, this is weird.

0:21:13 Thomas: They said it was Random who was in the first day and the second And I believe, you know, I'm not really much of a conspiracy guy. I'm sure it's random. As such, how it was structured, Elizabeth Warren was far and away, far and way the contender of the night. Just a number. I am just talking, this is not my bias. This is in terms of the polling right now. Now, we've got Elizabeth Warren at 12.8, the next highest in the debate. And this is on the real clear politics average. Admittedly, you know, I'm not saying I'm not saying these polls are what matter forever, but this is what we're using to say who is on The Debate stage right now. And for, you know, that in the in the fundraising. But in terms of this debate, Biden and Sanders are the top two right now, and some polls have that a little, you know, some polls have Warren ahead of Sanders, but on the average right now, Sanders and Biden top two, and they're both tomorrow.

0:22:10 Thomas: Now, I guess that stands to reason. I mean, maybe you could have, if you designed it, you could've had the one and the three, you know, or something in one night, and then the two and the four. You could've tried to space it out a little better, but Warren was the top with 12.8% on average. The next candidate in tonight's debate that I just watched, the next highest was Beto at 3.3. I mean, that's quite a chasm.

Then, uh, Booker at 2.3, Klobuchar at like one, Gabbert at, you know, these are like less than one, Castro less than 1, Ryan at 0.6, jello brand at 0.5, Inslee at 0.4, Delaney at 0 4 I mean, this is just nothing, you know. I mean, it's, that's it's a wide field, a lot, lot of people are at basically nothing, so I mean, that's kind of how it's going to be until it, until it settles down a bit. But it, it did feel like, in terms of the draw, look of the draw, it, it didn't feel like it was Elizabeth Warren and a bunch of nobodies, for the most part. I mean, not literally, because, you know, Beto's and, you know, Booker's kind of fighting, but like they're not in the top, you know, the top. So let me, me put it this way.

Four of the top five are tomorrow, which seems harsh. You know, you got Biden, Sanders, Harris, and Buttigieg, who are your top five, and they're ahead by quite a bit of Beto, you know, 3.3 points. That's kind of weird to me, and it makes this feel like the JV debate. But nonetheless,

0:23:41 Thomas: The fact is, I was worried about that, but I don't know how much Because the way this debate is structured is two hours minus some commercials and technical difficulties.

0:23:56 Thomas: Sorry, I got it as a sound guy. I have to comment. They switched up the askers of questions, the moderators. They switched them up to a new, uh, two, I guess, and they obviously like within a second of this process, me as an audio guy, I was like, oh God, the old mics are still on, you can hear the old mics, are so it was kind of this faint chatter, you know, and they had to ask the question, re-ask it, and re-ask it, and re-ask it, and uh, you just wanted, like, Mbc, like, you got, you got professionals going on? How have they not instantly see that you needed to kill those mics? I mean, community theater that I've done would have killed those mics faster. Interesting. But anyway, that was funny. But minus all that, you've got barely time for anybody to talk.

0:24:45 Thomas: So for me, I don't think it's going to matter that much. Like, if you're worried about the candidates in tonight's debate being, being, I don't know, in some way handicapped by being in this first debate with, with lesser names, I think the nature of these 20-person royal rumbles is that, like, everybody's just kind of given their statement, you know, and there wasn't a whole lot of interaction. There was a little bit, um, my favorite, my favorite's got to be de Blasio, in true New Yorker fashion, just butted his way in a lot.

0:25:22 Thomas: You know, credit to him. I mean, he did what he needed to do, I guess, or tried to do what he need to do. But, but it turned out to be a lot of ready-made statements, a lot of short statements, not a whole lot of interaction, a little bit of interaction. You know, there could have been more, there Could have been more fireworks. I was personally, I was worried about a lesser candidate, you know, gambling on like attacking Warren in some way or going after another candidate in order to make some news. That didn't really happen. I mean, there was a couple things. And so if tomorrow follows the same pattern, which I kind of imagine it will, there's just 10 people, there're just so many for a stage, nevermind 20 in the two nights, that I think it won't matter too much.

0:26:12 Thomas: I, I mean unless just the ratings poll, we'll see once the ratings all come out, whether, you know, if, if If tomorrow just absolutely swamps the first night, then I'll be a little bit worried about what that does for Elizabeth Warren. But I don't know. In some ways, that's a little offset by the fact that this was the first one. And speaking of which, I've been itching for a debate like this for two years because, yay, we're finally, guys, we'RE getting close. We'RE getting closer to the process of picking someone to run president against Donald Trump and getting rid of Donald Trump. We'RE getTING close. We'RE GETTING closer. We're not, I mean, we've got a long way to go, but we're getting there. This felt like, this reminded me of when the debate started in 2015, which that was a different time, but it feels nice.

0:26:58 Thomas: It feels good to be moving along in that process. So here's an interesting thing. In terms of who talked the most, I was almost going to track this myself and then I realized, oh, someone will figure this out and I can Google it in five seconds, save myself a lot of work. In terms of who talked the most, it was Cory Booker with 10.9 minutes and then Beto effing O'Rourke with 10 point three and then Elizabeth Warren with nine point three. And Elizabeth Warren, by the way, got the most probably the most directed attention, I think like that was she didn't she didn'T get herself into a lot of conversations, especially in the second hour. Hour. She was, she was very present in the first hour. In the second hour, I think she, she laid back a little bit or, I mean, she just, there's a lot of people.

0:27:45 Thomas: The funny thing is that I would have thought de Blasio got a lot more time because he butted it, but it just felt that way because he always butted in. But I think because he did that, they didn't call on him as much. So he's actually second to last. Inslee was last with five minutes. De BlasIO with 5.6, Delaney 6.6. Gabbard 6.6. Tulsi Gabbord was probably the, in my opinion, the most passive. Um, I, I think she let the questions come to her and she did, she did a good job with, with some of the questions, but she wasn't really trying to like butt in too much. Um. And, and Castro, I thing was, was very impressive. And I think that got him a little more time, maybe on the fly. You know, Going into this, numbers-wise, he's 0.8%.

0:28:35 Thomas: He's below most of them. But I think he kind of earned his time in a way. I think Booker earned his time. Beto, I can't really honestly tell you why he's second place in time. I don't even have an answer. I just watched it. I took copious notes. I don't know what we needed to hear from Beto so bad on, you know, like second most, and I don't even remember him butting in that much. I just felt like a lot of stuff was directed to him, you know, for example, the the only viewer question was directed to him of all people. It was like a foreign policy question, uh, about should we intervene in a genocide, and it's like, why, what, why are we asking the guy who didn't win the Texas Senate seat? It was weird, weird.

0:29:27 Thomas: I don't really know what they're thinking. Other note about this debate, boy, I didn't know this before, but I really don't like Chuck Todd. Gosh, I don'T remember disliking him before this, but I, you know, I DON'T watch cable news because I can't stand it, but he was, he was not the best questioner in my opinion. It's pretty, pretty annoying. Another interesting thing about the dynamics of this debate, it was almost like, you know, on opening arguments we did for fun a year or whatever ago, maybe two years ago at this point, I don't even remember, we did a mock draft for the presidential candidates. And in some ways, this is a little meta of a thought, but in some way this debate is kind of a draft in itself because as people will talk.

0:30:18 Thomas: They're very time limited. The moderators were pretty good at getting people to stop talking at 45 seconds or whatever it was. And so you obviously can't hit every single note or even any, you can hit like a couple notes, a couple key topics. Andso it was this interesting fantasy sports draft of like which topics that nobody's gotten to touch on yet. I made a lot lot of notes that were like, oh, that's the first time someone's brought up like trans rights, or that'sthefirsttimesomeonesbroughtupice, or thatsthefirsttomesomeones brought up, I don't know, Trump even actually took a minute for someone to bring up Trump. And it's just kind of interesting. The tactics, the game theory of this debate, I found fascinating. And here's what I'll say.

0:31:06 Thomas: Impressions from this. If I were to talk about who I think did the best with what they had, So I'm not talking about coming into this, they already had X support. Who made the most of where we are? You're in this situation, you're one of these people, how do you do from that point? And I'm signposting this because this is going to be a controversial answer. Answer. I think de Blasio maybe did the most with what he had. Now, do I think, do the thing where you ask yourself a question, do you think he's going to be the next president of the United States? Absolutely not. Dear God, I hope not.

0:31:49 Thomas: Do I even think, I'll ask myself some more questions while I'm at it, do you even think he is going to see an increase in the polls after this? Well, it wouldn't be hard to increase it. Let's see, uh, where is he, he is at 0.4 percent on the Real Clear Politics average, it wouldn't be hard to increase. So I think, I think betting on some amount of increase is, uh, playing with house money kind of, but, um, but I don't know. He did a good job. Here's what I think de Blasio did a great job of. I think he did did a good job of seeing what was happening, listening to what people were saying, finding the thing that people hadn't mentioned yet, or maybe the way, uh, people hadn't said something yet and, and just trampling in, in true New Yorker fashion and just be like, I'm going to talk now.

0:32:39 Thomas: And then the moderators don't really know how to handle that. They're like, okay, fine, uh, this guy wants to talk. And then he would say, like, look, nobody has said blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, we need to do this, you know, like, um, uh, so, so the first interaction, we're actually getting into the meat of it, and I'm wary of doing this because I'm not going to do a full play-by-play, even though I actually could, I have all the notes here, but that would be stupid because you could just watch the debate. Um, but the first interaction, they started off on, uh, first off, they kind of let people give their talking points. I mean, they, they started out with Elizabeth Warren. And they, basically the question was like, hey, talk about your thing where the economy doesn't work for the common people or whatever, you know, like pretty much give your normal pitch. And she was like, sure, I'll give my exact normal pitch, which, fine, you got to do that.

0:33:29 Thomas: And they got on the topic of like the tax brackets, and this was sort of after Warren. Somebody was asked, you now, what do you think about the tax bracket? I think they asked Beto for, again, for no reason. And I don't really understand why they focus on him so much. They said, what do you think? 70% tax bracket. You know, is that, is that what we're talking about? 70%?

And, uh, Beto annoyingly to me said, uh, 28, bump it up to 28, pump it up to 28. Isn't that back? Like not even where it was. I mean, we can, we can do better than that. Um, and Beto did his, uh, Spanish, in Spanish answer, which, that was interesting. You know, that was kind of cool. People were talking in Spanish all night. And I don't know if there's anyone, everyone listening who is like a native Spanish speaker, uh, or, you know, how do you find that? Do you like that? It seems cool. I don't have, I have no problem with it. Um, I mean, it's a little, it's a little odd, I guess, to kind of switch languages like when nobody, I, I donno, I mean, it's, its good, I, I feel like it should be, I, I guess what I'm saying is it should probably just be accessible to everybody.

Like maybe there needs to be a Spanish language debate or an English debate, or, or whatever, like the secondary audio thing. It seems a little pandering. I think people are hammering on Beto for pandering, which I don't know. I, maybe we could use a little pandering in some ways, you know, like, is it

0:35:00 Thomas: So bad to pander to underrepresented people? I don'T think so. Um, so it was cool. I don't know. II'd be curious for people's thoughts on that.

0:35:09 Thomas: It's a little weird to see a super white guy trying to speak Spanish well, and I think he did an okay job, but what are you going to do? Anyway, the point is, it got on this tax bracket stuff, and then what de Blasio did was he heard a few people give these answers. I think if I'm counting, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven people went before de Blosio on this, so which puts him almost last, and he just butts in and he says, look, yes, let's tax the 70 tax rate, free college, breakup corporations. He kind of sees the moment of like, why are you guys being a little soft about this? I'm gonna barge in here and say, yeah, we should be the the party of the working man, 70 tax right on the wealthy, screw this. You know, and uh, I, so controversial as it it may seem, I'm not a de Blasio fan, and it seems to me that no one is.

0:36:06 Thomas: I don't, New York doesn't like him. The voters so far that have been polled barely like him, but, like, I think tactically he did a good job of finding that thing, that maybe that way of saying something, or that topic, or that exact talking point that people hadn't yet hit, and butting in and doing so in a way that's, it's like, "Hey, I can't believe no one's," blah, blah, blah, which, I don't know, it might be effective. I'm not, I'm not sure. But to me, it seemed like doing a lot with what he had. The other person who I think did really well. Now, of course, you know that I like Elizabeth Warren. I think she did great. That's going to be my opinion. So, you know, but if you disagree, I think that Julian Castro did really well.

0:36:53 Thomas: I think he was very impressive. I would be fine with him as president. I think he's somebody that everybody talk about, talks about as a vice president. Uh, I think because of like the fact that he doesn't hold off. I don't know. There's, he makes a good vice president for several reasons, uh, according to pundits and, uh. I see it. I get it. He, that, that could be good. I'd be happy with him as president too. We'll see if his numbers improve. Who knows? You never know. Um, this may be a personal thing for me. I think Cory Booker did really well. I don't know what it is. Cory Booker is the ultimate candidate for me that I just don't get why he doesn't seem to catch on. It's weird.

0:37:38 Thomas: Like he just, to me on paper, he's got everything. And I even like listening to him talk. You know, he, he has a little bit of, I'm trying to, I'm just grasping at like superficial reasons maybe to account for why people don't like him. I mean, he had a little bit of a deer in the headlights look, I guess. Like, is that what it is? Is it, there's something about it. I, you know, I, I don't think it's cause he's black.

I mean it's someone like Kamala Harris is, is doing fine in the polls. I don'T know. Um, for some reason, despite the fact that he has a great story where he, he's the only one who lives in like a crap community because that's his constituency and he's the only one who was like, yeah, I had people killed by, uh, by gunfire. Just the other uh month here people I knew uh great story a great guy I like cory booker I uh I'd be happy with him as president but he really just won't catch on I don't it's it's weird I've watched it for a couple years now of really liking this guy and thinking oh he's got a he's got a great personal story he's pretty compelling speaker not catching on talk the most I don'T know how he pulled that off he talked the most I'M NOT REALLY SURE HOW HE HOW HE DID THAT UM BUT I THINK he performed pretty well.

I'm seeing people saying that they didn't like it, but I don't know how to account for that. I mean, it's the same way that I can't account for why people just don't support him in general. Like maybe whatever that is, is also leading to people to say, oh, he didn't do great. I thought he had some great points. So that's interesting. Let's see. Who else do I think did well.

0:39:15 Thomas: I think Tulsi Gabbard did pretty well for what she had. There's things about the LGBT stuff for her with me. It just something's weird about it. The stuff with Syria. I don't know. There's some weird stuff about her. I also know people who really, really like her and I'm, you know, I'm looking forward to learning more about her." I think she had good ready answers for for stuff. I think she picked her moments really well. She, when they were talking about military conflict, she of course has the best military background in terms, you know, she, uh, signed up after nine 11, she went in and fought and she's very anti-war and she staking out a clear claim. I think for let's get out of these places. We don't need to be in these places in the middle East.

0:40:03 Thomas: Our troops don't needs to be there. Let's stop doing this. You know, very antiwar. Uh, There are a lot of people, a lot of liberals, a lot of far lefties who respect that a lot. I respect her story. You know, I'm I think she was very ready for the LGBT question. And if I'm being honest, I mean, she gave an answer that I can't help but accept because it's my story, too. You know? She said, well, I was raised in a in a conservative household and I so I had some views that I no longer have. But, you know, know, I served with LGBT people and I would lay down my life for them just as they would for me. You know, she was ready for it because obviously I think it's a, it's, uh, you know, people are going to be ready hopefully for the, for the major criticisms of their candidacies.

0:40:50 Thomas: And I mean, that's an, that's an answer that I can't really argue with. I mean, of course, I'm, I'm just a straight dude. So I, you know, it, it's, it's probably easier for me to say, you know, "Oh, that sounds reasonable to me." But at the same time, I mean, that, that is my story too, too. You know, I've told the story on my evolution with that.

I won't repeat it, but being raised in a Fox News household in a small town that was very homophobic, you know, I had very homrophobic views, you know, for a lot of my life, and I'm super thankful that I grew out of them. And if that's her, too, then it's hard for me to be able to criticize her too much for that, but okay, back into the flow of the debate a little bit, I, I think I'm already talked for so long. Um, I would say that, uh, trying to find daylight between the candidates, I think, is something that the moderators were certainly trying to do. It's something that I think any logical voter would want to do. They'd, they'd want to know, okay, if I'm trying to differentiate, differentiate between these people, and I'm, I don't want to be just superficial, I don't want to go just based, you, based on how cool Tulsi Gabbard's little hair thing was, that she looks like that X-Men person.

I'm not a nerd, I don't remember. Not Storm. The one that touches people and they die or something. That one. Anyway, if you don't want to be that person and just judging based on that, you want to differentiate between these candidates. And the first, I think, clash was, they said, who would abolish private health care in favor of some sort of government health care?

0:42:28 Thomas: And it was actually only Elizabeth Warren and de Blasio who raised their hands. And this is one of those things where, going back to what I said at the beginning of this, where a lot of people, a lot of liberals have picked their candidate. And maybe, who knows, some of these maybe bad faith Russian bots, for all I know. But they've picked their candid and then they're trying to find those hit pieces to say that every other candidate is literal crap and they're evil and all that stuff. This will be one of those little things where, while my candidate that I support, Elizabeth Warren, was one of the ones that said, "Get rid of private health care."

0:43:08 Thomas: Objectively speaking, my interest is in people having health care and people being able to afford it and not being charged a ton. Um, if the best way to accomplish that ended up being keeping some amount, like a small amount of private insurance, you know, not completely giving rid of getting rid of that system. It's something that like, I'm open to that, you know, and, and I think I'm not going to look at it in these all or nothing disqualifying terms. I'm going to say that it's just a lot of the discourse. I see, oh, they want, they won't, they're in the pocket of the insurance because they want to whatever. No, I mean, a lot of people had good answers on that question. They said, you know, Beto, for example, said, I support, you know, Medicare, not for all though.

0:43:59 Thomas: I support Medicare for anyone who wants it. And then if people have good insurance, because I don't know, their union has bargained for good private insurance or whatever, then they can keep that, you know, okay. I mean does that make him evil? Does that make any of these people evil? Who said, I just don't think we need to do that absolutism. Now, having said that, my candidate could beat up your candidate. No, Elizabeth Warren wants to get rid of it because the very function of insurance, and I thought she had a great answer on this, the very function of insurance is to make money off of this thing. And this has been my philosophy actually before I even knew about these plans. And by the way, I'll bracket this.

0:44:44 Thomas: They didn't really get into anything other than Medicare for all, which I think is interesting. That's, um, for, for anyone who's more of a wonky healthcare person, which admittedly I'm not an expert, but you know, I've, I'm consumed some, some, some, uh, some many podcasts on the matter. You know, it's not as though that's the only like healthcare for all option is Medicare for, you know what I'm saying? But it, But it's interesting that in this debate that did seem to be the framing. It was like, are you Medicare for all or do you want to retain some level of private health care companies? You know, it's, it's interesting to me that that's the debate. There wasn't anybody who said, no, I want health care for all, but via this other means, you know, some other, like not Medicare, like some other system, you know.

0:45:37 Thomas: It was just interesting. Anyway, what was I saying? So I've, I actually do have this belief. I believe that insurance is a perfect thing for the government to do because the very business model of insurance is having money. Like that is literally it. Here's the business model. Do you have a ton of money? You do? Okay. Now you can be in the business of using that money and using math, you know, using a predictive you know, statistics and all this stuff, which, uh, which somebody invented that, by the way, I've heard a podcast on that.

Somebody invented this like insurance adjustee thing where you can like predict who does what, and they made zillions of dollars and spawned the, uh... the insurance industry. Anyway, the point is the whole, you know... In America, we talk about innovation and all that kind of stuff. Insurance is not that. Insurance says you have money, therefore you get get to make money on people who don't have money. That's really it. It's we have a ton of money so we can protect you if you lose something. And mathematically, when you get a bunch of people involved, they say, okay, what are the odds that something's going to happen to you?

Well, we've got all this data that shows exactly what those odds are and what that amount will be. So we're going to charge you a tiny bit more on average than that or a lot more on average than that. Now, to you, it will feel like a bargain because, hey, I'm paying a little bit per month, but it's protecting me from that $100,000 medical bill or whatever it's going to be.

0:47:16 Thomas: And statistically, to the insurance company that just has a zillion dollars, they're like, well, you know, not too many people get that $100,000 medical bill that we have to pay. And meanwhile, if they do, we can argue about it and try to not pay the providers. And we can And trick people and trick doctors into filling out the wrong forms and giving up. Like this really happens. I worked in a medical office and their business model, insurance company's business model is trying to trick people into not having to pay them pretty much. And also using the math to make money mathematically by having money. That's the perfect thing for government to do in my book. Now I'm open to arguments. You know, there might be, oh, the government's not good, et cetera, et cetera. I don't, insurance seems so easy to me.

0:48:03 Thomas: The government is the thing that has all the money, you know, like the government is, is the entity where we're all like, okay, we're comfortable putting a certain amount of money into that. And then we get things out of it. And insurance is perfect for that because we should all bear that risk pretty equally. We should all bare the, the shared risk of, you know, is some random horrible health thing going to happen to you or I or whoever, my kid or your kid, you now, with the exception of, I don't know, I guess smoking is something where it's like, should non-smokers pay for smokers? We can quibble on some minor things, but one thing's for sure, it doesn't help any of us except insurance company executives to have insurance companies making money on us with this.

0:48:49 Thomas: We'd have a government system that's just like, well, we'll cut out the profit motive and just do it on cost. We don't, what are we doing to ourselves? Why do we need, what do we feel, do you feel like you get a better insurance product because these companies exist? Like that would be the typical right-wing spiel would be like, well, the competition does so much better than the government. I don't know, is anybody happy with their insurance, like, ever? I mean, it's almost never. And I think, I think the government could do a better job without the needing the profit motive, and that would save us so much money collectively, um, so that's my view. Sorry for that, that's Candidate Thomas Smith. And it just so happens that Warren, though, she's way smarter than me, knows more about it, roughly speaking, said something like that, which is insurance companies are extracting tens of billions of dollars just in profit alone, um, that we don't need to be paying them.

0:49:48 Thomas: So she's against that. So there's some daylight there, but I just want to say that if your chosen candidate thinks maybe we shouldn't eliminate private insurance right away, or maybe we can do some combination to get people health coverage. In my book, it's not disqualifying as long as they are campaigning hard on everybody should have actual healthcare, not quote unquote access to healthcare, the fake BS right-wing line where actually you just have way too expensive healthcare that you can't even use. As long as that's what they're, if they're going for actual affordable healthcare for all, you know, I'll go, I've cut them a break.

0:50:33 Thomas: Let's see, what else? You know, there's a lot of debate, a lot of yelling about this repealing section 1325.

0:50:42 Thomas: That's another one where I would, um, maybe I'll ask Andrew Torrez about this. Um, and maybe, maybe it is the way to go. It seemed like Julian Castro made some hay out of this issue. Said like, no, this, this differentiates me from the other candidates. I want to get rid of this 1325, oh, sorry, I should introduce this. This was when we were talking about child separation, Julian Castro says this statute is unnecessary. It makes this crossing of the border a criminal thing when it should just be a civil thing. And, uh, you know, it sounds right to me. Um, I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds like he made, he made something out of that. You know, like he, he, despite the fact that I think every candidate on that stage, I'm pretty sure is way to the left of Trump on separating families.

0:51:36 Thomas: You know, I got, I'm, I'm not worried about any of these candidates, um, being like Trump or, or, or continuing the status quo, but like he, he got on top of that issue. That's, that's great. Um, so that, that was interesting. Next big topic, they talked about the Iran deal.

This was, honestly, it wasn't that interesting of an issue to me, because it's, it's one of those where it's like, yeah, obviously what Trump is doing is effing stupid, like just not doing that is such a step up. But I will say this, tactically speaking, I think, uh, Cory Booker did a smart thing here, because what the moderator asked was like, everybody raise your hand if you would want to get back in the 2015 Iran deal, and everybody raised their hand, because I think everybody recognizes that that was, while a flawed deal, was was good and was, uh, keeping us safer and all that. And Booker did something I think was smart, which was he didn't raise his hand, so therefore, and maybe this is one of the reasons why he got so much time, uh, might have been a smart, just smart tactics on his part, uh, therefore he got another 45 seconds to say why he disagreed with everyone on stage.

And what he said was essentially, oh yeah, it was a good deal for the the time, but you know, we can improve and like negotiate a better deal, which, like, obviously all of them think that, you know? But like, I just thought that was smart.

That was a, that was a sharp debate tactic, I think, was to, was just to seize the chance to get more talking time and say, yeah, you know, uh, it was a good deal that Obama and, and company, uh, arranged there, but it was flawed in some ways and, let's improve upon it.

0:53:10 Thomas: It's hard to, you know, it's hard. It was hard to argue with that. Like that's just, that's, that's going to be a pretty universally accepted thing, and he got a chance to be the only one talking and saying that, so that, that was smart. Well, I'm looking at the time, I've already gone way longer than I wanted to go, um, you know. Okay, a lot of the remaining stuff comes down to the question of what do you do with Mitch McConnell. That was honestly, and you know, there's some other stuff in there, but, but that was a major topic. There was gun reform. I will say this quickly on gun reform, that we didn't get a whole lot of like firm policy. You know, we got a little bit. Elizabeth Warren, I think, had a great answer on it.

0:53:57 Thomas: I just think she finds a way to both not get too specific, but also not say nothing. Like, I mean, cause you can definitely, it annoys me when candidates say nothing, and you know, nobody's perfect, from time to time politicians have to do a little bit of a dodge where they say, well, we want to bring people together and there's bubble, you know? Say some little platitude that kind of gets them out of a sticky situation. Every politician is going to do that a little bit.

I think she has just a great balance of putting just enough actual policy words in there, which are tied to real policies that she has on her website and that she's actually thought about, but she doesn't try to like bore people with it too much, you know, she, she, she peppers it in just enough. And she talked about treating gun violence as a national health emergency, and she made the case well, and, and I, I was convinced, even though, you know, she didn't, she talked about universal background checks, banning weapons of war, and actually doing research, which is a big topic that I've talked about before on the show, because we're, we're not even able to do basic research on gun violence and what would actually work. So I thought it was a perfect answer. It wasn't too far into the weeds, but it wasn't nothing, like it had tangible actions.

And, uh, you know, that, that's about as good as you could do in a 45 second answer. Um, so I thought that was good, but let's, I guess I'll, I'll try to, uh, end here, cause I can't believe I've talked this long already, but, um, try to end here with this general thing on McConnell. Now, the first answer that somebody gave, I'm trying to think of who it was, this idea that, like, what are you going to do with a gun rack?

0:55:40 Thomas: No, sorry, Waynesboro reference. What are you gonna do if McConnell is still in there? Like, how are you gong to get anything done? How are you goign to get your justices passed? All that kind of thing. And somebody came right out and said, you know what? We're going to win the Senate. And we're going to win every branch of government in 2020.

0:56:01 Thomas: And so I'm conflicted on this. I know that politically there's things you have to say. And if it were me on that stage or something, if it was like truth serum politician, I kind of wish someone would just say, and to their credit, somebody did kind of say this. I'm trying to find it in my notes, I'm scrambling, I'll see if I find it. But someone did say we need to campaign in these states to make sure whoever the nominee is needs to campaign in these swing states, make sure we win Senate seats. I like that answer, because we do need to do that. And that is at least something that's a tangible thing. But in my mind, it's like, some of this is on the voters, you know, like a lot.

0:56:47 Thomas: Yes, the general election candidate does make a difference. But like, in 2014, we let the Senate remain Republican. And that was catastrophic. And we had Obama at the top of the, well, I mean, it wasn't a general election, but he was the leader of the party still. We had all kinds of things he still could have gotten done with a Democratic Congress, and we didn't give it to him. And it's a failing of our party in some way or another. I don't know. I mean I tend to be mad at voters about this, but ultimately nothing's anybody's fault. Ultimately there's reasons for all of this, but like, as voters, we need to do everything we can, as politicians, we need to everything we can. And the simple fact is, what frustrates me about this so much, the simple fact is if we don't win the Senate, almost nothing is going to happen.

0:57:39 Thomas: Now, a lot of damage control can happen, and that's good. And it's better than nothing. A lot of damaged control, undoing executive actions, because a lot of what Trump has done is executive actions, because despite controlling the Senate, you know, all every branch of government for two whole years, they passed one horrendous tax bill and that's about it. Um, but most of the damage he's done has been through executive action, and that has ups and downs.

I mean, Obama had to utilize that a lot because Congress wouldn't do anything for him. Uh, and, but you know, it can be undone just as fast, but the truth is, everybody listening, we need to elect a Democratic Senate, and it's tough, because of structural issues, you know, the just the way our system is set up, it just, the Senate just favors these red states, you know, states with two people and a couple cows in them, they get two full senators, and it is rough. And one of the questions was, well, you know, I think I mentioned it, but there was, how do you get your agenda passed. You know, someone did bring up the filibuster, credit to that person. I'm, I'm cool with that, getting rid of that.

If, if that helps, as long as we have 51 senators, then yeah, get rid of the stupid filibustering and pass our entire agenda, because that's what, that's where we are. That's what we have to do now. But if the question is, what if we don't take back the Senate?

Do you think Mitch McConnell, the question was, do we'll Mitch McConnell seat your Supreme Court pick, and what nobody had the guts to say, and and honestly it might not be smart to say, but what nobody said was, no, he's not going to, and

0:59:21 Thomas: That but that's the truth. I mean, I, I don't know, maybe, is is it too defeatist? Like, maybe it looks as a candidate, it looks too defeatist to say something like that. Like, maybe you have to just say, "Oh no, I'll show, I'll walk in there, I'll grab him by his turtle shell and I'll say, hey, you, you know, like, yeah, but I know you're full of crap," you know, like. I get maybe a bunch of voters won't, maybe that's what it is. You just, you got to sound like you have a plan, even when you just, that you can't. The, the fact is, if we do not take control of the Senate, we can stop a lot of damage, but that's about it. We can't pass jack s, we, we just won't be able to. Everybody out there with your pie in the sky, pie in the sky?

1:00:09 Thomas: Whatever it is. Whatever the phrase is. With your lofty goals, which I share. But all of that means nothing without the Senate. It just, there's just no chance. There's no chance! We won't even fix the Supreme Court problem without the Senate because he won't ever, McConnell will not ever let a Democratic nominee and he'd go through if he can help it. He just won't. That's the truth. So a lot of the end of the debate for me was a little frustrating because that's the true, but no one's going to say that. They're all going to, well, I'm, I have reached across the aisle and I know compromise, you know, whatever. All right. Yeah, sure. You're really going to get that one. Um, no, Obama tried it with Merrick Garland, a centrist of all centrist, not even that liberal. And it didn't work.

1:01:03 Thomas: It's realize they have that power, they're never giving it up unless we vote them out. That's the only way. All right, in closing, just for fun, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to rank these candidates. This is not based on their performances, it's everything. Um, I already told you who I thought did particularly well. Now I'm just going to tell you, if, if I was waving my magic wand, here's the order in which I, this is, it's close, it's not a hundred percent, but just for fund, and you can tell me where your list diverges from mine, we can talk about it, we can argue about it, we can have fun. That's kind of the idea. Here's where I am: Warren on top, 100%. This is again, this is not, oh, who's gonna beat Trump, who will appeal to the heartland? No, this is who do I want to be president.

1:01:49 Thomas: Warren, I actually, this is a tough one for a second for me. I'm kind of thinking Cory Booker for a second. You know, I just, I really like him. I think he's got, he's got a lot of great views. He's got, you know, I would love to see another black president. I think that his awareness and obviously an experience with racial issues makes him able to tackle the, you know, he's going to do a lot on those issues that I care a lot about and he lives it. You know, it's close, but he's my second, second. I like Julian Castro a lot. He really impressed me. I have him as third. Fourth is a weird one. This might surprise some people. I'm going to go with Inslee.

1:02:35 Thomas: His whole thing, his little deal, for anybody who's not familiar, is that climate change is his number one issue. Now, here's the thing. I think that's not a horrible tactic. Not a horrible technique. In this field, in this crowded field, In this day and age, with how bad climate change is, that's not a bad idea to be like, I'm the climate change guy. Here's the problem. He's, he doesn't do that good of a job at it. Like he, he's not like Al Gore, you know, he doesn't really make, you know, like, am I crazy? He doesn't, he doesn't make it, make me feel like he's running that. You know, like he, it just feels like he... Yeah, I'm saying climate change is my number one issue, but like, I don't, he doesn't really do a lot to communicate how bad it is, what we need to do, you know, at least in this debate and, and, in other places, he could be a lot better at that, but because I really do fear climate change, I think it's a major issue.

1:03:34 Thomas: He's fourth. And I also think he's done really good stuff in his state. Um, I thank you. He's, he presents worse than he is, I think, as a, as a candidate for me. So he's my fourth. Tulsi, see, Gabbard, I have right in the middle. I, there's just a few, there's... there's things I really, really like about her, and then a few questionable things that I, I'm looking forward to seeing how they develop. Um, but she, she would be, she would do some good, I think. Next for me is Klobuchar. Klobuchar is a little too much in the centrist lane for me. I, but I still do believe that she wants to make good things happen. I think she's just running more centrist to try to appeal to certain people, and like that's, you sort of have to find a lane and go with it, you know, like if you, if you're not doing, and maybe that's just her, it might just be her. Um, so, I, I like Klobuchar, but you know, I'm not in like with her, I'm, you know, she's a little centrist, but she'd be six. It looks like, uh, Ryan,

1:04:34 Thomas: Was not impressive to me. I, that was, I hadn't really, I'd heard him before, but I hadn't seen him. Um, not impressive visually, not good, great, a great speaker. Um, you know, I'm sure he'd be fine. Uh, his, his closing statement had some planned alliteration.

It was like the, we need to fight for the teacher in Texas and the waitress in Wisconsin, and uh, I didn't write down the third one, it's too fast, but, I, maybe the, uh, astronaut in Alabama, I don't know, it's something like, uh, the home maker in Hawaii, I don't know, uh, but he had some planned alliteration that that just doesn't, I don't think that's where we are as a voting public right now. I really don't.

You know, like, that that might have worked in like the 1920s or something, and maybe it worked up into the yesterday, I don't know, it just doesn' t feel like where we are. Like, I don't, I don't think my generation, certainly, I just don't think we like that stuff, it doesn't work, but I, who knows, I could be wrong. Um, next for me is Beto. Uh, yeah, I just, I'm, you know, I'm sure if I magic wanted him to being president, he would have some good, good ish policy and, you know, this platform, I just, he's, he's not, he's not a president. He's non-presidential material for me.

Uh, de Blasio, uh, you know, de Blasio's perhaps should be higher, weirdly, but like everybody hates him. There's, he doesn't, he does not doing, I worry about a mismatch between what he says and what he does, because he hasn't done all these things for New York that he planned on doing.

1:06:16 Thomas: They, the people want him to do. He hasn't fixed a lot of major problems. His own supporters hate, you know, his own, the people who voted for him hate him in New New York, like it just, his own constituency rather. So that worries me. I worry, like, I like a lot of what he said, actually came out, uh, very progressive on a lot of these things, but I worry about actual follow through because of that. And then finally, Delaney, who was, uh...

I don't know, he just was not impressive to me. He was the least impressive. Maybe, maybe he deserved, like if I were to try to to separate, like, presentation, speaking, and an argument from like what they actually would do, maybe he would be a little better in terms of what good he would actually do, but, but he's very unimpressive, and his final words were about, you know, oh, real solutions, not impossible promises. Um, it's just not where Democrats are, I don't think. I, I, I think you look, you you put forth. Going back to what I said in the very beginning of the show, let's jump to the left where we want to be. And then if we have to come down to earth a little bit, okay, to get something done, maybe. But starting by conceding and then shifting to the right to hope it works out, people are done with that, I think.

I think people on the left don't want to do that anymore. I think the people that I talk to, who knows, again, I don't know if this is representative, that's the impression I get. So that's my list. Tell me what your list is. You can yell at me because I don't like your

1:07:51 Thomas: Favorite candidate or something. I want to emphasize all these people would be great. Um, they would be better than Trump, I will vote for any of them. Uh, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow, so thank you so much for listening. Hey, if you got something out of this episode, please share it, please share it, uh, and please pledge on patreon.com/seriouspod. That is the way to make the show keep happening. It really is. And again, if you can't pledge, I get it, but share it out. Thank you so much to my supporters on Patreon for making this show happen. And my supporters who are still on the website, you are equally awesome. Thank you, folks. And I might see it, I might do another one of these tomorrow. If I get good response, I'm planning on doing it tomorrow. If everybody's like, oh, Thomas, I hated this, then I won't do it. But I'm, I'm planning on, on talking about tomorrow's debate as well. So I will see you then.