The Dispatch Podcast - Rise of the Vote Bots

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

What does the Fetterman-Oz debate reveal about the media? Will the isolationist horseshoe in Congress have an effect on Putin? And are we ready for Kevin’s theory of political cooties? Join Sarah, David, Steve, and Kevin as they embark on the penultimate round of midterms punditry. Show Notes: -The New York Times on the new campaign press aides -The Dispatch is coming to Chicago Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isiger, joined by Steve Hayes, David French, and the new and improved, Kevin Williamson. We are going to run through the three states that this may all come down to for control of the Senate, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. This is going to be a pretty midterm focused podcast. If we have some time at the end, though, we will definitely catch up on Ukraine. Let's dive right in. Kevin, which state do you think is most interesting right now? I thought we did not worth your time at the end. So, you know, I'm always looking for for bright spots here. And I found one, actually, in Pennsylvania, which is that apparently both. Fetterman and Oz in their polling have found that they are low enthusiasm candidates, that their voters are going to vote for them, but they're not really very excited to vote for

them. And that's the best news I've really heard all the election, because I'm anti-enthusiasm in politics. I'm anti-excitement. I'm certainly anti-enthusiasm when it comes to these two yokels. So that is a good one. But in terms of the races that are actually pretty interesting, I think probably, I think Nevada is an interesting. state. It's got interesting, weird politics. And so, you know, Pennsylvania is very much a race of our time, I think. Georgia is always kind of Georgia, but I think the Nevada race is actually sort of sort of interesting in its way. Steve, why do you think it's coming down to these three states? And certainly, that's not to say that we couldn't have some surprises along the way.

Or, for instance, Republicans could win all three of these states and that actually on the day after the midterms, we're going to be talking about Washington or something if this really is a huge wave election. But in terms of just who controls the Senate, if that is a close call, it looks like it'll be moving in, frankly, two states that were generally presumed to be a light, if not darker shade of blue, and then one state that was presumed to be a pretty dark shade of red. These aren't the swing states that your mama grew up with? I mean, these are not the swing states that we would have thought they might be 10, 12 years ago, right? For exactly the reasons you suggest.

I mean, I think there are different dynamics at play in each of these states against this backdrop of this tremendously favorable issue environment for Republicans. You look at the right track, wrong track numbers, which pollsters use to determine how the electorate feels. about how things are going. And depending on your poll, it's 2764. People think the country is heading in the wrong direction, setting in the wrong direction under Democrat control. And Democrats appear poised to be punished for that. So in a sense, it's not surprising that in those two blue states, those two light blue or bluish states, Republicans would be overperforming. it is sort of surprising that in that context, Georgia's as close as it is. I think you have to have a pretty awful Republican candidate for Georgia to be as close as it is. And I think if there

were a more traditional standard Republican who would appeal to people beyond the sort of Trumpy run base of the Republican Party, you'd likely see a Republican candidate in Georgia winning and winning by a pretty good margin. I don't think these things would be that close. I think if you look at the dynamics in the individual states, as Kevin said, you know, Pennsylvania is kind of what we deserve at this moment, right? Carricature candidates in some respects who are, where the election I think is playing out in some ways, not as we would have expected because I don't think, you know,

at the beginning of the contest, people wouldn't have predicted the stroke. that Federman had, but it's, these are, this is a base election. People are reverting to their, sort of their, their, their natural tendencies and, and we're likely to see a relatively close outcome there. I think in Nevada that the story is a little bit different. I talked to some people who have been involved in the Nevada race recently, both on the Republican side and the Democratic side. And their criticism of Senator Cortez-Mastio is that she has, not done the kinds of things that you need to do over the course of her term to keep in touch with her constituents and in particular the Democratic core groups. She's not been sort of a

constant presence at town hall. She's not done the kinds of regular schedule of meetings that you'd expect from somebody who's ambitious and wants to continue to grow. She ran the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee a couple years ago. And people say that she was focused more on national politics, international profile than she was on doing what she is at home. And she may be paying for that right now. That's why that race is as close as it is. Each of those races, by the way, according to the real clear politics average, within a point. So these are sort of the three tightest, I think. One thing about Nevada, if you don't mind by interrupting for a second, that thing's worth pointing out, is that it's a tough one for the Democrats this

time of year because it's a state where the Democrats are very heavily reliant on a private sector labor union. And unlike in California, where the labor unions that are powerful all public sector in Nevada, the big powerful labor union is in the tourism business. And it is very, very vulnerable to economic swings. And so they're going to be a lot less excited about going to bat for Democrats this year than say, your public sector unions in the rest of the country will be. David, keeping this philosophical for a second. You wrote a whole whole book about the sorting mechanisms of Americans. And what if Steve is wrong? What if, in fact, Pennsylvania is not a close election in the end? And that while I know we're not going to have a sort of

1984 Mondale situation happening in Pennsylvania, but what if that debate actually really moved numbers. And you have a substantial split-ticket vote in a state like Pennsylvania, in states like Georgia and New Hampshire, where voters are willing to say, yep, I'm voting for the Republican Chris Sununu for governor, and I'm voting for the Democrat Maggie Hassan for Senate. How does that fit into your book, your thesis, the sorting? Well, I think you have to look at how extreme things have to get before we start talking about substantial split-ticket voting.

So if you're looking at Georgia, for example, what does it take to have substantial split-ticket voting in Georgia? It takes, okay, you have Brian Kemp on one side, a capable, conventional Republican governor. Incombing. Very important part of this. And then what causes split-ticketing here?

Huh, let's see. Wild conspiracy theories, evidence of possible impairment as a result of a career football threatening allegations you threaten your wife with a gun your ex-wife with a gun now two allegations of either trying to

pay for or drive a woman to an abortion clinic I mean it's taking a lot and a lot of the smart money is still saying he's going to win So, and the other thing with Federman, I mean, come on. You know, after we watched that debate, you know, as somebody said, that might have been the worst debate performance in a major debate in modern American political history. And yet, and yet, no one is actually counting him out. I was just about to uncork my lawyer theory of partisanship, which is being proven in the, Herschel Walker Federman case just abundantly, that if you are a core partisan, you're just a lawyer for your side. And that means you never abandon your client. And what you're going to do is you're going to always enhance the flaws of your opponent and diminish the flaws of your candidate under all circumstances, even if your candidate's flaws that you're diminishing

are then many ways the same flaws that you're enhancing in another candidate like Herschel Walker. I mean, you've got two guys here who they don't seem to be quite right. And is that isn't in a normal logic that would be relevant in both races. But no, Sarah, it's abelist in one race, just pointed out, and absolutely salient in the other race, depending on who you are. So I think one of the sad realities is that it takes extreme candidate failure to start to even talk about substantial ticket splitting. That's where we are right now.

So let's talk about that debate a little bit more, Kevin. And before we jump into it, I just think it's worth noting that, at least for me, when I watch that debate, you know, you immediately feel for the Federman family and Federman's children and how hard this must be for them as a family. And while this podcast is about politics and the political strategy, and the campaign operatives and the national political moment around this, I don't want to lose sight of the fact

that there is a family trying to get through a major catastrophic medical event with their dad. And that was tough. Okay, that being said, I went into that debate believing based on, for instance, the Dasha Burns and BC interview with John Fetterman, that this was an auditory processing problem,

in the sense that, yep, when you talk, he's not quite hearing you, and that's why he needs to read it. And that in terms of speaking, he's going to stumble over some words just because sometimes your brain sending the message to your mouth doesn't always work perfectly.

It doesn't for all of us, but after a stroke, that's going to be just that much harder. Watching that debate, I left not being convinced that that was the extent of the issue so you had both a potential cognitive impairment problem that was at least unclear and that also the answers themselves just weren't there.

I don't know how else to say it. Like there weren't really answers. Yeah. You know, the thing you mentioned at the beginning that keep in mind this is about people and family is at the end of the day. You know, you know politicians better than I do because you've worked them more closely than I have. But I've known a lot of politicians, and there's something wrong with all of them. Yeah. Totally. There's something just sort of psychologically wrong with people who

succeed in politics. I have often said you, with noted exceptions, you kind of have to be a sociopath to run for president. What I really think is they have the personality of addicts, but usually without the addiction. Some of them also have addictions. That's another story. And Fetterman seems to be, unfortunately, one of these addict types who obviously should have stepped out of the race. He can't do the job. I mean, part of me, like, you know, wants to joke. I mean, the guy, you know, the guy prefers reading to talking. I want to make him president. That's fine. That's, that's, that's great. But in reality, you know, he is, he is badly sidelined by this pretty obviously and shouldn't be running for office at all. He should be recuperating and receiving medical care and resting. It's just not something he should be doing. Because we live in this moment where we've convinced ourselves that every election is an apocalyptic confrontation between good and evil, he probably feels compelled to go out there because he thinks that, you know, if it comes down to control of the Senate between him and Dr. Oz, and this is, you know, whether America survives or not or whatever nonsense, we're telling ourselves this cycle. And maybe he really feels like he should be out there doing it.

But it's clear that he is not doing himself any favors. he's probably not doing the country any favor. And to be really, really cynical about this one, if I were the Democrats, this would be the election I want to lose because the economy is bad and they're getting blamed for it, but it's in a position where it's likely to get much, much worse before it gets better. You know, we're in a very bad position vis-a-vis debt and interest rates and consumer debt on top of public debt. and I'm going to the whole economic chicken little spiel right now. You can read it on the dispatch. But if you're looking at two years from now an economy that is a lot worse than it is today, it's going to be a lot worse for the Democrats if they win and keep control than if they had lost.

People won't necessarily blame the Republicans for it, but they'll sort of share the blame because they'll have been there for a while. But this is a matter of kind of decency and, and trying to do what's right for your family and for the country. I just don't think Vetterman belongs in the race at all. I'm not sure he belonged to the race in the first place. He's pretty lightly qualified guy. I don't know.

I got to tell you, I went back and watched some interviews that he was giving as lieutenant governor when he was sort of early on in that tenure. He did a 60-minute sit-down with Jane Pauley. He's compelling. It was maybe a little too much on the legal weed for me as an emphasis. But, like, he's clearly, a good candidate. Also, his shorts were kind of short and there was a lot of man spreading and there

was a lot of upper thigh for 60 minutes, frankly. I think he's pretty good at the working class cosplaying thing if you don't have that ground and see him as the phony that he is. You know, it's fascinating in the debate. I taught this to my class at George Washington. You know, Oz obviously shows up suit, tie, the whole thing's very put together. The hair is perfect. He's wearing plenty of makeup. There's things that the Federman campaign just didn't do. His top button wasn't buttoned so that it was like very messy and sloppy at the top. The tie was a little bit crooked. The suit didn't quite fit right and was rumpled. He wasn't wearing enough makeup. So he was super shiny on camera. Just again, those are actually things that

aren't necessarily the candidate actually. That's like weird staff work. Yeah, I understand running for office like as a political Kevin Williamson impersonator. But like as an actual, It's quite a Kevin Williamson impersonator That's maybe In terms of fashion choices and such Maybe not exactly the right way to go If you actually want to win the race I was just going to say one thing

How early was it apparent That this stroke was really serious Because he had the stroke Four days before what four days before the primary Yes Isn't it apparent pretty quickly That a stroke is serious And

I mean yes and no I just don't think you know how quickly you're going to recover. Your doctors say you could recover very quickly, and you're not going to know that you're not going to recover maybe completely or quickly enough. That's going to take some months. But Steve, this is actually part of my question to you, because there's two other groups that are implicated in this race. And that's one, national Democrats that had to make the call very shortly after the stroke, whether to push behind the scenes for him to withdraw so that they could have another candidate,

it on the ballot in time. Clearly that wasn't done. They either feel like they were misled or that maybe they made the wrong decision or maybe they don't. And then the other group I want to talk about are the reporters who've been covering the race and had been writing,

tweeting that Federman, you know, had some auditory processing issues, stumbled over some words sometimes, but seemed fine to them, absolutely no cognitive impairment. and what effect that's going to have, frankly, on both groups? Yeah, I mean, well, let me start with the latter. I think this is a bloated journalist.

I think for an industry that is having serious difficulty with credibility, this will hurt. We have heard again and again and again, mostly from partisan journalists or opinion types, but also, I think sometimes by what they're not saying, from, maybe, mainstream reporters covering the race. A little over a month ago, I think it was NBC News, Dasha Burns, the reporter, did the first sit-down interview with Federman in a long time. And she provided, NBC provided him with the screen where he could see, he could read the words as she was asking the questions.

And I thought in the interview itself, he seemed halting and, you know, and. he really seemed to struggle, although not nearly on the level that he did on the debate stage. But when she reported this, she did an interview with Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News and said that in their small talk before they started recording, Federman really seemed to struggle, really seemed to struggle with his words and finding his place and sort of understanding what was going on. And immediately, she was savaged by reporters and commentators. Again, many of them Democrat aligned her own NBC colleagues. Stephanie Ruhle teed off on her saying, you know, Federman is, Federman's great.

Kara Swisher from Vox said, sorry to say, but I talked to John Federman for over an hour without stop or any AIDS. And this is just nonsense. Maybe this reporter is just bad at small talk. You had a series of these kinds of criticisms of this NBC reporter who reported what she saw. She was the one in the room. And she said, look, this doesn't seem, he seems to really be struggling more than people understand. And it turns out she was totally vindicated by his performance in the debate. And I think the people who had covered for him to this point by attacking her really looked bad.

retrospect. But it was also the case. I mean, this is also, you know, an interesting comment on the changing nature of the way that we're campaigning, the way the candidates are campaigning. It would have been just 10, 12, 14 years ago. The Federman would have been out on the stump. Would have been pressured to be out on the stump doing public appearances at a rate far greater than he has been. He's been doing some appearances. He's been making some comments. they've been short, pretty well controlled. It's been hard in some cases for reporters to even find out where his public appearances are going to be.

They haven't gotten the coverage that they might have otherwise gotten. But if you're covering this race and a theme of your campaign reporting has not been the extent to which Federman has been struggling, either the campaign successfully hid this from reporters or reporters successfully hid this from their readers and viewers. But either way, the public was ill-served by this. I think we all would take a second and recover from the revelation that Kara Swisher might not be entirely reliable. Well, and think about the dynamic here, which is we see this all the time. If you have a reporter who reports something tough, and especially a Democrat who might be sort of a favored, a darling of the left, and the absolute Twitter pile on,

occurs on that person, just the swarming. And, you know, people are human beings. It has to impact how people report. It has to impact. If they're thinking, if I say what I actually saw, my next four or five days are going to be hell, people are going to call for me to be fired, senior colleagues are even going to attack me online, all of this has to operate as a deterrent effect. It has to. I also mean, maybe not that large, but if you know that something's going to get a lot of scrutiny, you spend a lot more time on phrasing that section, on making sure it's exactly what you mean. And that's a good thing, except that you're not doing the same thing for all candidates and all campaigns and all sentences. And that that's where some of that

sort of unconscious bias comes in. It's similar to agenda setting. It doesn't mean that that's not worth writing a story on, but the fact is who's setting the agenda, then is how some of that bias creeps in. And yeah, if you know that whatever you write about Federman's health is going to get an enormous amount of attention from your peers, you're just going to be that much more careful, thoughtful, tender. I was going to say, we should go ahead and appreciate that she actually said what she saw, though. I can think of probably a half a dozen, you know, sort of right-leaning media outlets that if they had had the Herschel Walker's second abortion claim

story would not have published it. Right. I wouldn't have said a word about it. They would have put great effort into, you know, trying to make sure the news didn't get out. No, to be clear, I'm saying Dasha Burns is the good guy here. It's everyone after they see what happens to Dasha is like, well, maybe I'll say what I thought, but like, oh, I'm going to really

focus on that sentence. Think of Tucker and Kanye. Tucker and Kanye. He had the anti-Semitic segments that he left on the cutting room floor and never were going to see in the light a day until they were leaked. Yeah, as if that's not the real story from the Tucker Kanye interview. No, look, and I think, you know, a lot has to do to a certain extent, we're still seeing this. I mean, what was interesting to me is that Federman was exposed for struggling the way

that you struggle. And let's, let's stipulate, it's possible, in fairness to Federman, that what we saw in the debate stage was a particularly bad night. Maybe he's not that bad all the time. Maybe it was a, maybe, maybe the pressure. I think there's a lot of reasons to think that, by the way, that a one-on-one interview with a reporter would be easier, less stressful. He would choose the time of day. And the Dasha Burns interview was, for instance, in his house, the same place that the 60 Minutes interview was in, oddly enough, same room, actually. And so there's a lot of reason to think that those reporters were seeing a less affected John veteran than what we saw on the debate stage.

So let's leave open the possibility that that's true. I think you can see from, again, her interview, if you actually watch the interview, he was really struggling. It wasn't as bad as the debate performance, but he was not fluent. He struggled over his words. He didn't understand, I think. It seemed to indicate that he didn't understand the meaning behind some of the questions. But what's been interesting is it in the days.

since the debate. The debate should have been this moment of clarity for everybody, every sentient being. Anybody who paid even passing attention to the debate, it should require us to grapple with some of these things. And instead, you're getting sort of two different lines of argument. One is from Democrats and partisans, it's ridiculous for Republicans and critics of Federman to be focused on this. He wasn't really that bad. And the other is, you know, this, we shouldn't be critical of how bad he was because this is a disability. And people deserve sort of the benefit of the doubt if they've got either this disability

or others. New York Times has a story up today about how the disabled community is reacting to this. And obviously it's a very sympathetic story for people who are disabled. disabled who watched him on the stage and are frustrated that he's been criticized for struggling the way that he's struggled. But it seems to me that you sort of can't have it both ways. And this isn't the same person necessarily trying to find either excuses or context that makes the story more favorable for Federman. But it's been interesting to watch the reaction after that rather disastrous debate. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss

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but binary in the sense that I think a lot of Democrats say, I get it, but frankly, the alternative is Oz, and we find that unacceptable. And then Oz has that moment in the debate where he now famously says that the decision to have an abortion should be left up to a woman, a doctor, and local political leaders. you know, in a different debate format, I'm not sure that line would go over so well. I'm being sarcastic listeners. David, what did you think of that abortion answer as our pro-life representative? I mean, if you're trying to craft in a lab, the least persuasive pro-life answer you can possibly craft, that would be the one that wins the focus grouping hands down. I mean, that is, between a woman or doctor and her local political leaders,

conjures up a vision of a woman, a doctor, and then like the local state rep, like walking in. It's strange because watching it, I mean, you know he prepared for that question. It looks like that. I love to you say that in a state where, you know, the political leaders have been people like, you know, Arlen Spector and McSantorum and people who,

whatever you feel about abortion, you probably just wouldn't want to like have a real intimate consultation with. No, no. With my foot in the stirrups, I would really like Rick Santorum, nowhere near the room. And this is what happens when you have candidates who probably, I don't know, can't look inside his heart. Are they lifelong pro-lifers by conviction? Or are they sort of throwing on the pro-life clothes and hurrying on out to the debate stage? And think about this.

I was just thinking about this before the podcast, that we have now gone from the world's greatest deliberative body to it's just we're just electing a vote bot 9000 why do we care if they're decent honorable even functional people and sort of capable of doing a white collar professional job why we don't care about that anymore it's just it's all about the vote it's all about who is going to be selecting the majority leader that's it that's it that's it No more world's greatest deliberative body. That's old, old news. But yeah, the Oz answer, this is what happens.

You know, it reminded me of Trump who threw on the pro-life clothes in 2016, at first talking about the really good things Planned Parenthood does, and then circling full, going full circle towards, yeah, we got to punish women, which is what happens when you're just throwing on the pro-life clothes. Kevin, I have a real question for you. Thank you. there was part of the debate that I did not understand

and I'm wondering whether you understood it is around this abortion question he gets asked yes or no would you vote for the Lindsay Graham 15 week ban this is the question to Oz of course and Oz says I'm going to give you

a better answer I wouldn't vote for any federal legislation that restricts a state's ability to regulate abortion and then he goes on about that and why that's important. And then she says, okay, just to follow up, would you vote for the

Lindsey Graham 15-week abortion bill? He says, like I said, I wouldn't vote for any federal legislation on abortion. It goes on again. And she's like, okay, I'm just going to try one more time. Yes or no. So you wouldn't vote for the Lindsay Graham 15-week abortion ban. And he says, I think I've already answered your question. Why would you not just say no? If your answer's no. I can't, it sounds like his answer is no, but then it's not no. They asked Laxel out in Nevada, the same question. And he was pretty forthright about it. He said, no, I won't vote for the abortion ban for the Lindsey Cranbo.

So I suspect that Auschis isn't very good at this stuff. You know, when you think about it, you know, I don't think Dr. Oz is qualified to be on the cast of he-ha, much less to be in the Senate. And like most people who are professional performers, he doesn't do real well when he doesn't have either lines written for him or adequate presentation or preparation rather. And it just seems like he wasn't really adequately prepared to answer the question. So it seems like the way to answer it if you want to make the point that he was making saying, no, I wouldn't vote for it because I'm not voting for any federal abortion legislation because I think that the whole point of the opposite, this goes to the state. And in fact, I think a lot of Republicans have sort of missed a real rhetorical opportunity there

because, you know, we're having these fights in places like Texas about whether we're going to stick with what the trigger law put in in terms of abortion restrictions or whether we're going to do something more like a 12 or a 15 week ban or something like that. And as people get ready to have these fights, which are going to be some bitter fights on the Republican side, but somebody really ought to stand up and say, all this shows that Dobbs worked, that it did the thing it was supposed to do. We said we're going to return the fight to the states. Now the states are having the fights. Great. God bless America. That's how things are supposed to be. Let's do more of this.

But instead, you know, you've got Oz sort of chasing his tail and trying to figure out how to not say something that he actually kind of wants to say. And I'd say this is the other real, real benefit to Republicans of the Federman struggles, right? I thought Oz came off as very unlikable, not terribly knowledgeable. The example that you just gave where he sort of ran around in circles on the abortion answer was like, I thought like the answer he gave on immigration, like the answer he gave on guns, lots of talking in circles, lots of words, not lots of meaning. And that he's getting virtually no scrutiny on his poor answers. I think, you know, had he been debating, you know, even a sort of mediocre candidate on the other side who didn't call attention?

I mean, I think the debate for me was watching to see just how much Federman was struggling and to see if he could, you're cheering for him. I mean, I'm not a Federman supporter, but I want the guy to give us a coherent answer. Can you answer this question? On a human level, you're cheering for that. and he couldn't again and again and again and we've got two presidents in a row who talk like stroke victims can we cut some slack to the actual stroke victim yeah I mean he he was he was struggling so badly

that just distracted from everything but then it would you'd go to Oz and you'd see his answers and they were sort of incoherent in a different way and I think if you were debating somebody who you know was was average it would have been a much different story coming out of that debate. Let's not forget two months ago, this was a D plus nine race. Federman was up nearly double digits heading into Labor Day,

and then he had to start doing campaign events, and he was doing these interviews. And I think you're sitting in that campaign war room around Labor Day deciding, all right, what are some of these big decisions we're going to have to make? Their choice was between one debate, multiple debates, no debates, and when to have those debates. And I think we're seeing that they probably picked wrong on both fronts. They would have been better off if you're going to do a debate, do it earlier on.

There would have been more time to then rehabilitate that debate performance, do more interviews to show that actually one-on-one in interviews, he's doing much, much better. Instead, you did the opposite order, and it didn't work very well. And two, obviously, I think looking back, agreeing to debate was a huge mistake for the Federman campaign. they were far better off taking the one or two-point hit from not doing any events, not doing debates, not doing interviews potentially, that that would have caused, you know, it's the old Ben Franklin, quote, you know, better to have them assume

than remove, open your mouth and remove all doubt. And so that they removed all doubt. Yeah. Do you think that people are making political mistakes by doing too much of the old-fashioned campaigning still? I mean, Biden kind of showed that you can be elected president without really running much of a conventional campaign. Trump didn't get reelected, but he basically lived on Twitter and used that to kind of go over the heads of the traditional media and... And he didn't do the retail events in 2016.

You know, the big thing was he didn't show up to Iowa. His helicopter was there. Right. So why do the traditional stuff when it seems like there's ways to get around it? And especially if you're someone like Federman who's going to suffer from it. because the people running campaigns are my age and older who were raised in the traditional way and so I just don't think they're willing to be the one who takes the big risk

doing something the new way then losing the race and everyone blames you for you know, Federman, if they didn't debate and Federman lost, they would blame the operatives for making that mistake. And so there's a risk aversion there when it's your career, but we are seeing shifts. I mean, as you said, Trump

didn't do any retail at the state level, New Hampshire, Iowa, like you expected, still did incredibly well in those states, all things considered, certainly was able to make it through, unlike the Giuliani strategy in 2008. He tried to skip those early states, and it was a disaster. You know, that wasn't that far before 2016. Biden had the advantage of COVID, right? There was a reason he wasn't going out. He was an elderly man who didn't want to get COVID. You know, there wasn't a vaccine for large chunks of that, et cetera, actually for all of it until after the election, I guess.

No, am I one year off? No, I'm right. No, you're right. Yeah. Time flies when you're staying at home with a baby. And then there was this fascinating piece in the New York Times, which, Steve, you do this all the time where you're like, oh, man, I should have written that. Where it writes about the new communications directors for these campaigns and how, you know, I was raised in the old school, like you're a staffer, you're there to represent the views of your person, you're like working behind the scenes and you're trying to kill stories, shape stories, get surrogates into stories. And these guys are their own mini candidates. They're sort of like vice presidents almost. They're social media celebrities. They're out there making their own

news with their own followers. Well, you know, they're like Jennifer Lopez, right? They're fly girls in the back, but they're awesome. They're not all girls, by way. But, you know, they're doing... Fly girls. Yeah. What does that even mean? Oh, my God, you don't know what fly girls are.

In Living Color. It's one of the great comedic shows of the late 1980s. I mean, come on, Steve. Yeah. Anyway, so they become miniaturized candidates in their own right. That is a total departure from what we've been seeing. But DeSantis has done it. You know, in Arizona, we're seeing it in Nevada to some extent.

So I think there's a lot changing in campaigns. I just think we're in the middle of the change and that Federman's campaign clearly isn't quite in a new campaign mode. David, last word to you on the Federman Osres because I want to make sure we touch on some other stuff. Yeah, I just am struck at the way, just to circle all the way back to your opening question to me

about partisanship, the way in which ferocious partisanship is elevating such incredible mediocrities because the reality is you just don't have to persuade that many people. You don't have to have that much talent to be able to elevate yourself to become a Senate candidate. I mean, well, Herschel Walker had a lot of football talent, and that's it. And he won by 55 points.

Oz, he had the talent of getting the Trump endorsement. It is a remarkable, and then we have had, as Kevin said, you know, in 2020, we had two of the least impressive public figures running for president that I've seen in my lifetime with an incredible ferocity behind the race. And this is, I think, one of the more unanticipated, at least to me, developments of hyper-partisanship is the way in which it enables staggering levels of mediocrity and shocking levels of corruption, because if there's one thing you cannot do, it's abandoned your corrupt mediocrity for the other side.

That's the one thing that cannot be done. Dave, you know where this country really missed an opportunity? We should go back in the time machine. It's 2016, Donald Trump versus Hillary Rodham Clinton for mayor of New York. That would have been a great way. And either one of them would have been good at that job and left the president to see some grown-up. And, you know, Trump actually,

That job might have brought out the sort of better side of his character, whereas the presidency certainly brought out the absolute worst of it. Oh, Kevin. You find new and interesting ways to make me sad. I was just going to say. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex.

Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at mx.ca slash yMex. Steve, let's talk Ukraine for a few minutes. We had the progressive caucus rescind a letter that sounded a whole lot like Kevin McCarthy's position. And when they rescinded this letter, they retracted the letter that they put out.

They effectively acknowledged that one of the reasons they were retracting the letter is because it sounded a whole lot like Kevin McCarthy's position, which is a pretty remarkable thing to say. Politics is a horseshoe, man. This is one of these stories that we talk to people on Capitol Hill, people who cover Capitol Hill,

they will say that, you know, this is a particularly bad incident or example of stuff that happens all the time. These kinds of letters are drafted all the time. They're circulated among members of Congress and their staffs. There's backroom pressure to sign on to this letter, to not sign on to that letter. And then you get to a point where the letter is settled and approved and distributed. Well, in the case of this letter, apparently the original drafting took place like in June.

And it sort of was rocketed around Capitol Hill for four months with revisions being added, revisions being taken off and then suddenly released in the days after in the days after Kevin McCarthy made this comment last week that Republicans, if Republicans become the majority, would not be giving Ukraine what he called a blank check and hinted that the funding could well be cut. The Progressive Caucus, the House Progressive Caucus, released this letter not only calling on President Biden to reevaluate his strategy on Ukraine, but also directly calling for direct negotiations with Russia, with the aggressor in this case.

It was a, I think, a bold call. And it turned out that in the hours after that letter was released, they took a ton of grief for this. even some of the people who had been signatories to the letter immediately put out statements for recasting their support for the language in the letter or suggesting that the letter might have changed. Prima Gaiapal who put out the letter suggested or others suggested on her behalf that it was released by staff without final approval. Those things can happen. reason to be skeptical that they happened in this instance. But it was a it was a bad moment for Democrats and certainly something that the White House has to be livid about. Joe Biden had gone

out of his way to make nice with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including its leaders, courting them assiduously. This is detailed in Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns' book, This Will Not Pass. And this is the thanks that he gets for it. There was not, as I understand, any attempt to take this to the White House beforehand in any kind of a serious way. This was just a blindside shot at the president with pretty significant implications and pretty significant embarrassment. David?

Oh, man. How much time do you have? I know you have feelings. I have thoughts and feelings on this. so it isn't think of it like this so it's not just the malpractice of the letter itself which was largely incoherent except on one point directing negotiations with russia right it's also the timing which is right as the dirty bomb sort of threat or the dirty bomb calls are being made now why is this significant it's significant because right now the battlefield dynamic is this

it does not appear that Russia has over the short to medium term the ability to completely reverse the battlefield momentum so long as the United States continues to supply Ukraine with weapons. So if you can't break the Ukrainian line under current conditions, if you're Russia, what are you trying to do? You're trying to adjust the conditions. You're trying to hammer at the weak point of potential American aid. Because if American aid is removed, the disadvantage, the Ukrainian disadvantage becomes just staggering. So what does this do? This letter says to Vladimir Putin, ha, I've got about 30 Democrats, maybe. And then the Republicans, if they win the House, there was 57 Republicans who voted against Ukraine

aid. That number may go up to 70 to 75, depending on who exactly wins. So you start to do your math if you're Vladimir Putin. 75 plus 30 means 100 and 5 right now. And you've got, then you're saying, hey, there's some possibility here to crack open this coalition. And the other thing is, remember, this is not necessarily, we're not necessarily anywhere close to the end game of this war. This war could go on for years. And so if Vladimir Putin is playing the long game, what did the progressive caucus do? It just shattered the illusion of total Democratic Party unanimity on this point. At the worst possible time, right when Vladimir Putin is trying to place pressure on the West through this dirty bomb, these dirty bomb allegations, which are

transparently designed if a dirty bomb ever went off to provide the pretext for dramatic escalation. And so the timing, it's hard to imagine worse timing for this. And then the cowardice of it all, I love the Jay Paul statement where she says staff did this

and I take responsibility. If you take responsibility, don't say staff did it. But what a sorry, sorry, sorry spectacle. It was just incredible to see.

Kevin, what does this look like with a Republican-controlled Congress, let's say both House and Senate, Biden White House, how does our stance toward Ukraine or Russia change? Well, one of the things that the sort of progressives and the kind of libertarian paleo, Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, Wright had in common for the longest time is that they weren't really serious about foreign policy, that all of their foreign policy views were basically laundered through domestic politics. in attitudes about the military industrial complex and that sort of thing. And because it didn't come up, because neither group had very much power, they never had to deal with the fact that they have very similar foreign policy views and very similar kinds of ways of applying those views. And now that you've got this, you know, kind of Ron Paul adjacent foreign policy view, really ascendant in the Republican Party,

the progressives are suddenly feeling the moral urge to abandon it because, you know, we can't have the same views as those guys because those guys have cooties, therefore the views have cuties. And even though we've had these same, similar kinds of, you know, Peasnick adjacent foreign policy views for 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years, we can't have it now if Kevin McCarthy has it. And so this is a, I think, a pretty good indicator that the left is still pretty unsurious about this. But I think that there is an element of, on the right that is taking this up in a more serious and in meaningful kind of way. I think that it's going to be a very, how to put it, I'm not surprised to see Republicans being irresponsible because I've been alive for the last 10 years and watched a great deal of Republican irresponsibility. But as Republicans sort of give up, well, we used to be the fiscally responsible people, sort of, at least we had some kind of rhetorical claim to it, some sort of defensible claim to being the more fiscally responsible people. They'd pretty well abandon that. But for a long time, you know, from the 70s forward, I think the Republicans could really claim

to be the party that had the more sophisticated and responsible foreign policy views and national security views. And I think that they are just sort of jettisoning that too. And I know that there are out there some people who don't care as much about, you know, abortion and issues like that is, say, David and I do, who still for, you know, kind of tribal reasons, can't bring themselves to vote for Democrats. They're kind of, you know, old Alex P. Heaton Republicans and whatnot. But if you have a Democratic Party that ends up having, by default, the more responsible views on foreign policy, by default, maybe even the more responsible views on fiscal affairs, at one point, I've never voted for a Democrat in my life. I don't expect to. But at one

point you have to figure they become a more attractive option for some people who have not hitherow been attracted in that direction successfully. And there are a lot of people who care a lot about foreign policy the way some people care about the so-called social issues. I haven't seen a hint that Democrats are going to be the party of fiscal responsibility, even by default. So tell me if you see that, I would be, I'll be stunned if that happens, which is not to excuse Republicans. You're absolutely right that Republicans have, I mean, that's what makes this so few, I think the Democratic openness to unpopular tax increases is probably a more responsible position than the Republican blanket hostility toward irresponsible or a hostility towards such increases in its enthusiasm for

irresponsible, continue tax cuts. Yeah, I guess I'm sufficiently convinced that we give enough, the federal government enough money in taxes that we shouldn't be raising more. We should be instead focusing on entitlement reform. Yeah, then that's a great lot of argument until you get a fiscal crisis on your hands like the ones we're headed into you. But I agree with you. The question isn't so much true. I want cancer on my left lung or right lung. Right. Stop smoking. Democrats are Democrats are not going to be suddenly for entitlement reform, which I think is the the most urgent pressing fiscal consideration. I mean, Republicans are not either. Well, I think that's true, but this is, I mean, this is, this, this underscores the departure, right? Because Republicans

adopted that as a party, however reluctantly, just 10 years ago, and now they've totally and completely abandoned it. On the foreign policy question, I mean, there is a, there's a development to make Kevin's point, Representative Paul Gosar, who is, should we say, sort of QAnon-adjacent, white nationalist friendly, member of the House, invited, just now invited Vladimir Putin and Woldemir Zelensky to come to Arizona to negotiate a peace deal. So he is of this ascendant, Ron Paul-asked, non-interventionist, neo-isolationist wing of the Republican Party. I have to say, I don't think it's as big as, I don't think it's as large as you might believe it is, given the attention that it's getting lately.

When you have Kevin McCarthy making the kind of comment that he made, there's a sort of an assumption that this is represented. You've got the potential speaker of the House making this kind of a declaration. This shows us just how the party has changed. And we may find out that that's true. But I think he's being led around by the nose by the House Freedom Caucus. having basically made a deal with House Freedom Caucus leadership that they will support him or at least not oppose him so long as he does what they want to do. And depending on who you

talk to on Capitol Hill, there's an actual deal. It's not just an unspoken deal. There's an actual deal and it has been for a while. But either way, Kevin McCarthy is, I think, articulating the views of the House Freedom Caucus. R. Haley Bird reported earlier this summer that this was the position of the House Freedom Caucus. And several months later, you have Kevin McCarthy saying it out loud. If you look at where Republican voters are, they are not where Kevin McCarthy and the House Freedom Caucus are, particularly on the question of Ukraine. I think broadly on foreign policy, Donald Trump made these, to the extent that you can charitably call what he did on foreign policy pronouncements arguments, he made these cases or these assertions for the better part of

the last six or seven years. And the Republican Party, by and large, is still not where he is, which I think is interesting. I mean, they've adopted some of his skepticism. They've articulated some of his views. But if you look at the polling, the party itself still remains on the question of Ukraine, very strongly in favor of Ukraine and very strongly opposed to Vladimir Putin, recognizing sort of the moral bankruptcy of what Russia has done here. You know, but what worries me, Steve, is I think this is true. If the Republicans take the House, aid for Ukraine is going to be in more doubt

than if the Democrats keep the House. I think that's just flat out true. Yeah, I agree with that. And then the other thing is the momentum, the momentum seems to be with those who are casting doubt on aid for Ukraine. As I said, 57 Republicans voted against aid the last time around. It'll be more the next time around in all likelihood.

And then the other factor here is that the right-wing infotainment world is very much on the side of suspending aid or at one extreme suspending aid entirely and another one which is this sort of heritage foundation position of we don't want to do a blank check but we're not really willing to say what our current, we're not really willing to put forward a plan of our own and really push this through Congress

that supports Ukraine on the terms where we want to support Ukraine and so there's an enormous amount of infotainment momentum against Ukraine. I love that McCarthy has given us a literal example of I must follow them for I am their leader. Exactly. Exactly. It won't be the last time. No, David, your point is exactly right. And look, I mean, I think we can go further without the risk of caricaturing some of these positions. I mean, I think some of the people in the right-wing infotainment world are pro-Russia. Remember, Tucker Carlson declared on his show that he's on Russia's side. You have Tucker and others creating these fantasy conspiracy theories about the Biden administration having blown up North Street.

I mean, things that are just without any evidence whatsoever and making pro-Russia arguments that can't really be characterized in any other way. So you're right. And that's where the trend is heading. I just think it's, give me just this little slice of optimism in our current moment. Because, because Republican voters don't seem to be going along yet. Yes. I'm going to hang on to that. All right. Next week is going to be our last podcast before the midterms. And if you are a member of the dispatch, I want to make sure you hop into the comments after this and ask us whatever questions you want us to answer for that last pre-midterm podcast. Whatever's on your mind? Probably about the midterms. But if you've got questions about

Spanish wine, you know, feel free. It'll be kind of like a... Always welcome. Always welcome. It'll be kind of like a podcast version of Dispatch Live for our not members. And we hope you'll like it and consider becoming a member after that. And Sarah, should we mention maybe you were going to, um, a week from today, the day that we're recording this is Chicago. We will be together. Yeah. With Declan. Yeah. In Chicago. Yeah. It's true. So if there are people in Chicago, I think we may be running out of space. So register quickly. We'll put the registration in the show notes. Uh, but there is a dispatch meetup in Chicago next Thursday, November 3rd. Uh, very, we would love to see any of you there. I'm very confused.

why, as the weather gets colder, we're going to colder and colder places. But, okay. Builds character. And for a quick, not worth your time, I feel like I'm being gaslit by my friends. So I think I've mentioned my mom pod before. There's a group of us who all gave birth the summer of COVID, and you couldn't really see anyone or leave the house with your baby. So we all just kind of sat on our phones and we're like, is this normal with pictures of poop for months?

And two of these women have come out. and told me, I mean, just admitted it openly, like, they weren't embarrassed, that they, not just, like, will eat candy corn. I mean, they actively seek it out. I went over to one of their houses recently and was offered candy corn. Like, that wasn't an insult, a way to get someone to leave your house. And I don't understand, and I guess I'm just curious. None of you like candy corn, right? That's not real. Candy corn is great Of course

Steve likes candy corn It's great And the better form of candy corn Are those little pumpkins That are made of the same thing Because there's more You can get more in a handful When you start off with

We were exchanging pictures of poop And then they started to confess I didn't know what the conversation I was worried I was worried I got to see a candy corn at that moment Yes I mean to go from

pictures of poop to something as glorious as candy corn. I just want to explain. These are like real people in America who I've now known for years. And I was shocked. It was a horrifying experience. David, back me up here. Like, you're eating reases. You're eating snickers at this time of year.

Kit Katz, sure. I have never, to my memory, seen someone voluntarily consume candy corn. Thank you, David. Thank you. It's not a real thing. They're decorative. So this is true. I will tell you this. I do not think we've not yet purchased any Halloween candy for distribution at the Hayes household yet. However, that four distribution is doing a lot of work about how much candy is in the house.

No, there's always a possibility. I can't be, I can't be too emphatic about it because it's always possible that the kids have like a stash that I don't know about. But we have had candy corn on hand for, you know, sort of pleasant, joyous nibbling for the last month, I think. That's what these women were doing. They were doing pleasant, joyous nibbling, but of candy corn. Yeah, it's great. All the delicious options that are in the world.

I have a very strangely complete memory of my early. childhood. I can remember being in crib and such. And when I was very, very little, I thought that I didn't like cupcakes until someone explained to me that you have to unwrap them. And I can still remember what chewing on that paper tastes like, better than candy corn. Okay, good, good. Frankly, if you were going to guess who the absolute psychopath was in this podcast, it would be Steve. So this is all fulfilling all the thoughts that I previously had. I'm glad. Again, if you're a member, hop into the comments section, ask your questions that will answer on next week's episode. If you're not a member, you should consider joining just for that. And we will see

some of you, I hope, in Chicago, where I will be dressed as if it is mid-January, because I hate that. Real quick, did anyone have any feelings on not worth your time? I was thinking maybe something Halloween-ish. Elon Musk buying Twitter, finally. That's classic. That's total. Like, I couldn't, I so don't care. You could just say we actually found something that was not worth our time, so we're not talking about it.

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