The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 92. DNC Special: The Attack Dog (Bob Mulholland)

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

What is the role of a delegate at a convention? Why is focusing on the negative the best way to campaign? Is Tim Walz the right choice to help Kamala Harris win? Rory and Alastair are joined by Democratic Party strategist and super-delegate Bob Mulholland in Chicago to discuss all this and more. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. TRIP TOUR: To buy tickets for our October Tour, just head to www.therestispolitics.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [e-mail] Podcast Editor: Nathan Copelin Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Assistant Producer: Fiona Douglas Producer: Nicole Maslen Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to The Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispoletics.com. Hello, welcome to the rest is politics with me, Aleckel. And with me, Rory Stewart,

and listeners might notice it's a bit noisy. And it's noisy because we're in a hotel, higher regency in Chicago, which is one of the big, big, big hotels where hundreds, if not thousands of delegates are staying. and we're sitting talking to a delegate who many times have been a super delegate by the name of Bob Mulholland

who is something of a legend in Democrat politics because he has been around a long, long time he's sitting here wearing his first delegate badge and it's dated 1978. Memphis, Tennessee.

Right. Bob, welcome for the rest of politics. Tell us a little bit about your first convention on what it was like because you'd come back from the Vietnam War. Yes. Well, I got out of Vietnam in 68 and traveled around the world, including in Scotland, London, Ireland, etc., etc. And I kind of wandered for a while, like many of my colleagues in that war, we became so disillusioned. But I got attracted to Tom Hayden, Jane Fond, and Jerry Brown.

And these were big anti-Vietnam War. Yeah. And Jerry not so much. But Jerry, and I keep in touch with him, He's 85 now. He, to me, represented the first politician post-World War II that understood the changes, like Tony Blair saw the changes in the UK. And so eventually I volunteer for Jerry Brown. What was the big change that she was spotting? Well, ultimately, they got called the best and brightest, their McNamara crowd, LBJ.

And they misunderstood that, yes, we won World War II, but the wars after World War II were not World War II. We were not getting to some capital where the enemy would surrender. And Jerry Brown said once, and I told him this years ago, and he couldn't remember saying it, but when the boat people were happening out of Vietnam, Jerry Brown, he was governor at the time, he said, someday there will be boat people from around the world. And I thought, brilliant, brilliant. So you're a super delegate at this convention. For a long time.

Now I'm a regular district level. I got elected by my local people. Okay, so just tell us, what do the delegates do? do. I know this convention is a bit different, but just tell us what is the role of a delegate at a convention? Well, under the national rules of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, and recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court, each of the national parties creates their own process, comes up with a number of delegates, in our case, Democrats over 4,000, Republicans over 2,000, and they have a national convention, and they have votes. Now, in the past, there may

dozens and dozens of votes. Some conventions, they shut, down and moved to another city, but we're a little more organized now. And without the delegates on a Thursday night, after having, a majority goes to one candidate. In our case, this particular convention, which is very unusual. She gets up there and at some point in her speech, Kamala Harris says, I officially accept the nomination. That's when under the federal party rules, the federal law, she is the official nominee of the party. And from that day on, her campaign can spend money that was donated to her campaign for the general election, not for the primary. In some of the previous conventions, when there's been division or there's been a choice,

how different is the mood then? I was a Ted Kennedy delegate. John Kennedy came through my neighbor when I was 13 and was taken away from us three years later. So I was a big Kennedy fan and that was a disaster. And remind us who Ted Kennedy was running against. Jimmy Carter, he was the president and he was elected in 76. No one expected him to be elected. But he was a smart guy, knew how to work the caucuses and a delegate process. And it became so messy. And the press loved it. In the end, when Carter was officially nominated, Ted Kennedy didn't even shake his hands. He was so angry. I don't know what the hell. But he thought all kinds of shenanigans were up and he felt a disgrace. Yeah. But from a voter's point of view, watching that, they go, oh, okay. And of

Of course, in that last year, Soviets invaded Afghanistan, oil embargo, the Iran hostages. It was just one problem after another where no president could have anticipated all that happening on his watch. And then just to fast forward, you then became a major campaign strategist for the Democrats, initially in California and then work in national campaigns. Tell us how you cut your teeth in politics and what your own. philosophy of campaigning was? What made you distinctive as a campaign? And what are your three big ideas in campaigning? Attack, attack and attack. You know, Mitt Romney run against Barack Obama, President Obama in

2012. He said, if you're explaining something in a campaign, you're losing. And it's very hard, particularly for these type of delegates, you know, these are activists. They think a president should go out every day and talk long time about an issue. Well, the American voter gives you about 30 seconds a day. In the last two weeks, they give you a couple minutes. And you better not occupy their time explaining the economic programs of the Democratic Party platform. That is way beyond what they're interested in. It's really, like in the UK, people felt good about Tony Blair. People felt good recently about Kirstheimer. And life is about a contrast. And Jimmy Carter was a victim of all kinds of crisis, so there was no way Reagan was not going to win.

So I'm a big believer in spending, you know, even a reporter asked you a question to explain something, immediately shift to point out that the other guy's a bum. And I'm not sure. So hold on. So when Michelle Obama says, when they go low, we go high, what was Bob Mulholy thinking? I'm glad you mentioned that because President Clinton said one day, oh, Democrats need to stay above the fray or something like that. And then within a few days, I'm in the media attacking the hell out of some Republicans and some reporter says, hey, President Clinton said, I said he was talking about the people on deck,

not about those of us below deck. And I'm a big believer. A lot of Republicans over the years after they retired will say to me, God, I just regretted every time you're in the paper attacking me and stuff. But, you know, voters are voters. They don't pay much attention to all the positive news. They really are all ears to anything negative about somebody else. But you campaigned against Governor Schwarzenegger when he ran in California.

Yeah, I did. And he's, of course, a bit of a national treasure. But if you were going negative on Governor Schwarzenegger, what would you have said about him that was negative? Well, we've actually interviewed him on the show. He's one of your predecessors on the show. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he was on Meet the Press. And Arnold Schwarzenegger had two or three propositions on the ballot of special election,

and we beat him, Labor and Democrats beat him. And I was called in a paper that he's been reduced to a, a 14-year-old French poodle. And meet the press. He's deceased now, but he asked Arnold, hey, Bob Mulholland said this. And Arnold said this, trust me, I don't pay attention to Bob Mohallum,

which I thought somebody called me and I had not seen it live, but I said, hey, mission accomplished. I got the guy responding to me. And it was a good summary because he had just lost three important measures. Reagan had done something like that when he was governor, a proposition one.

And he was surprised when he got rejected because they get into office and then they start thinking everybody loves me and then they start pushing measures and the voters say, wait a minute, not so fast, buddy.

I was very struck because you gave me a remarkable moment of insight. When I was interviewing Governor Schwarzenegger, I suddenly discovered that I was taller than him despite the fact he describes himself as being the height of Alastair.

He's five, nine and three quarters. And I was quoted in the paper and boy, did it piss him off. I said he wears the same inserts as North Korean leader Kim does. Oh, God. And he actually had different sizes. So depending on who he was going to meet with,

if he was going to meet with, like the Mexican president at the time with the tall guy, whoop, those lifts were much, much higher. If you look at these, what's going on now, though, so Trump, he believes in attack, attack, attack. Yes, he does. Right. So do you have a respect for him for the fact that that's how he campaigns?

I remember I was up in New Hampshire at the same hotel as him in 2016. and he's coming through the lobby and there was 17 candidates nine of them were governors or four years. There was no way he wasn't going to. I said to him, hey, Donald, hey Donald, you're going to win.

Hey, thanks a lot. But he's become kind of a ninkum poop. You can attack somebody and the voters would say, yeah, yeah, I didn't know that about that guy. But in his case, I think Trump is just way overboard. Like over the weekend saying, oh, I'm prettier or whatever is working. Better looking, yeah. Yeah, yeah, better looking.

And I thought, guy, nobody in America, Even his wife's going to believe that. Especially his wife. Yeah, especially his wife. Who doesn't live with him? He doesn't live with him in years. So if you were attacking Donald Trump, if you were in charge Democratic campaign,

what would be your message about Trump that you'd want to land with the vote? I wouldn't talk much about the 34 convictions of felon. I would focus on he's a man who is convicted for sexually assaulting a woman. And that's why 30 women over the years have said he has groped them or sexually assault them. In fact, he brags about it.

And also, I would use a lot of diversionary tactics. I'd pop up a $20,000 cable ad, Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach there, about him taking the fifth, a hundred and some times in one of his divorces. And I'd pop up another one in Wisconsin. You need to have diversion. How does diversion work as a tactic? Well, like last night. The Trump hotels down the street. I wasn't involved. But it's at nighttime, somebody had a big, like a Superman thing. It said Project 2025 headquarters. And then it had Harris Walsh, right on the wall. So somebody living here in the condos thinking,

what the heck's going on out here? Big truck on the street. I would do things like that. You know led by donkeys in the UK? Yeah. They do that stuff. They're very good at that. Yeah, I've used helium balloons above Republican candidates. I've used big banners. Like, for instance, when the Rodney King riots happened, President Bush,

he came to L.A., and I had two guys, two staff people, hold a banner up, but it's not 12 jurors. It's 12 years of Bush. and that got on page 8 of the New York Times the next day. And the Bush people were just livid because they come in to help. Page 8, you can't be happy with page 8, Bob. It's going to be page 1. Well, they were livid because I get page 1 a lot.

But they were livid because they felt they'd come into help on the right. You got it. Yeah. But my attitude is never give a Republican politician a break. Never. Only say a good word about them at their funeral. You know a lot about British campaigns, right? You've been to lots of Labor conferences.

You guys are a little too timid. for me. Do you think so? Yeah, yeah. I think your laws are different. Some of your guys over there they read some of the things I said, God, Bob, you'd be sued over here for saying that. I go, really? Like what? Some things I've said about politicians. Yeah, I think we're pretty rough, but I think our public, they want the rough stuff, but if it gets too rough, they turn off. Whereas I think a lot of Americans want it rougher. Yeah, but women are the difference. And I think, I've said this about Trump, a lot of women in America in 2020, especially of that teenage daughters, they thought, you know, I don't want Trump on my TV for the next four years.

I don't want my daughter seeing this is what a man is. And that works to Trump's detriment. In fact, you can read a lot of articles that Trump's staff are trying to say, hey, you know, they already got your name. Let's talk about things that's going to help us because a woman in Pennsylvania, my home state, a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, if she's not a hardcore Democrat or hardcore Republican, she just wants the country to function. and she's going to see Camilla Harris as a more friendly face on TV.

So you've got a situation now where Joe Biden was going to be the candidate. He's gone. Camela Harris is in there now. And what seems to be happening is that there's a real sense of kind of hope and positivity. Does that not suggest that maybe she does need to do a bit of the positive, not just the attack, attack, attack? She is a woman more likely, more has to be more positive. It's very tough for a woman to be angry on TV. in America. Very tough. Because? Well, we are prepositioned. Oh, I don't like that and fill in the gap.

Why, a man looks like, oh, he's responding to something that somebody wronged him or something. So we got the best of all worlds. We have a two front war here. We have President Biden announcing things in the White House, doing things, and then we have the candidate who's not burdened by everyday government. You know, a president is like got the secretary of this, secretary of that, hey, we got a problem in the minis, we got a problem over in Asia, Taiwan. She doesn't have to do any of that. And she's young. So this is the best of all world. Now, Trump doesn't have a job, but you do notice he's not doing as many events as he used to. No, he seems to be slowing up. What was the lesson that you took from Hillary Clinton's loss and what should Kamala Harris avoid in order not to suffer the fate of Hillary

That was a simple one. She should have never hired Robbie Mook as the campaign manager. That guy, along with Jim Messina, comes up with a so-called software program that tells them everything they know. And the day after Labor Day, first Monday of the September, Robbie Mook in 2016, stopped polling. Stop polling because he knew everything he needed to know. Barack Obama, even when he was running re-election, he polled six thousand people a night, six nights a week, in seven key key. states. So if there was a problem in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, different message. If there was a problem in Milwaukee, different message. So Trump didn't win that. We lost that. But that was sort of technological arrogance. They believed too much in a particular software program. And what was

strange about it is Bill Clinton is a very good politician. In fact, Tony Blair interviewed by the Times of London in 97, the editor said, why do you like Bill Clinton so much? Tony said, well, he got himself reelected. And that's, you know, the bottom line. And, and and Hillary and Bill have been around, but yet they didn't have a campaign manager, and they took Terry McAuleth, the governor. Oh, Robbie Mook, but that was a huge mistake. And I don't know why Bill Clinton didn't step in

because he was smarter than that. I think Bill Clinton was saying, well, it's Hillary's campaign. We would have been in the office. She would have been in eight years, and we wouldn't have those three judges. Which was your best ever convention? And why?

This will be the one, because it's... Oh, you see what he did there, Roy? You see what he did? This will be the best one, because, like I mentioned, Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter. My God, it was a field day for the press. In 1984, I was a Gary Hart Delegate and Walter Mondale. Walter wins New Jersey on the last day. Hart wins California. Mondale doesn't have enough. Super Delegates in a few days, union leaders came out and he was the nominee. And then

he got to the convention in San Francisco and says, I'm going to raise your taxes. The other guy will too, but he won't tell you. And I remember telling the guy next to me, why, we just shoot ourselves. Tonight. This is ridiculous. So, so obviously 88, we had a huge fight between Jesse Jackson and Michael DeCockers, the governor of Massachusetts. Ninety-two, I was actually a Jerry Brown delegate because he's from California and I know Jerry, but you know, Jerry and Bill Clinton fight in the street had a debate one day. And my God, I thought we're going to need some intervention going on here. But you love a good fight. Oh, yeah, I do. But I also respect the voters. And I know the voters, They're not listening and reading every New York Times report.

We're no longer around with Walter Cronkite. You know, today the anchors on TV, after their 10 minutes of news, eight minutes of ads, they themselves are at a table selling irons, new microwaves. What the hell happened to Walter Cronkite? So there were two alternatives on this convention. There was the possibility that it would have been a contested convention where Vice President Harris would have been running against the governor of Pennsylvania and the governor of Arizona and this and the other.

And the other option was this. I guess presumably with the benefit of hindsight, this looks like the right answer. Yeah, and I told some reporters, you know, presidential historians 50 years or now may find out that Joe Biden had a political trap for Trump. Spend the first six months, Trump's spending money, tens of millions attacking him as the old guy.

And it turns out the old guy is Trump. And you can tell by Trump's event, He is really really angry. Like, hey, who set me up in this trap? Now I'm against this good-looking young woman who's the vice president. I was supposed to run with the guy and with the Walker. And he's not. As I'm reported, oh, I don't think Biden did it.

I said, well, I don't know. But this worked out perfect for us. What's the best they can come out of this week? Oh, Harris's speech on Thursday night, yeah. Usually that's our biggest audience. It'll be her first, Kamala Harris's first conversation with millions of American voters. and I think most Americans who aren't hardcore left or hardcore right will find it, oh, she seems to be reasonable.

She seems to be somebody I could have over for dinner, and she's a cook. So you really could get her early to do the cooking. Why, as I always say about Trump, if you had him over for dinner for an hour, that guy would not shut up to tell you how he's the greatest this, greatest that, greatest baseball player, greatest president ever. Nice cook. Yeah, he'd be saying he's the greatest cook, not that he could, Cook. Give us some, for British listeners, a bit of a sense of what's happening behind us. So this,

we're inside a huge hotel. There are kind of desks all around, offering passes, DNC, you've got your straps. What kind of people are here? Who are they? What are they doing? There might be well over a thousand delegates here in this high at regency and many of them now are at McCormick Place at caucuses, environment, economic and other stuff. And you notice I'm not there. But I'll be going to the veteran. I'll be going to the veteran one tomorrow. No. Some people like speeches. You know, if we had a governor over there, it would be interesting. So some might be down here talking about policies.

Some might be talking, how can I get my spouse into the convention tonight? How can I get my dog in? You're not getting your dog in. Well, it's a service dog. You're still not getting your service dog in. And Georgia is also here. And tonight, the Georgia State Party is having their party. California is having their party on Wednesday night.

Every state has a different party. So all the delegates will come to the party. Yeah, we won't be. but they know. And the delegates mostly know each other. And the delegates tend to be senior party officials from the state. Yeah, some guy, I won in my recent election in my congressional district. I got the most votes.

And some young guy says, hey, Mahalin, you know, you've been at this for a long time. When are you going to move out of the way for us, young guy? I said, when you get more votes than me. You don't get moved out if you get more, less votes. You know, you got to organize in this business. So a lot of organizing is going on here. A lot of deals are being made. A lot of people saying, hey, you're in a safe state.

You're thinking of coming over to our state for a month? We'll provide housing at a friend's house, all that other kind. To help you campaign? Yeah, help their campaign. So nobody cares about Illinois because the Democrats are going to win Illinois. And so the idea is to get people presumably into Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. Yeah, and every convention has been a good recruiting tool. It's about 17,000 people signed up to be volunteers here.

They all thought they'd be on the stage meeting the presidents and stuff like that. Some of them are at the airport meeting people coming off their baggage. But that's a way to get in. And some of them will grab a sleepman bag and go somewhere. So these are people who love the Democratic Party are fascinated by politics. And some of them will want eventually to be state congresspeople or congresspeople or eventually senators. Absolutely. A lot of people who are high up will tell you if you talk to them,

I first campaigned for Kennedy or I first campaigned for Bill Clinton. And then they hired me. And then they did. Yes. So if you're an ambitious young person who wants to be a Congress person in the future, one route through is to volunteer for the Democratic National Convention to be here, make your name. Yeah, as former Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia said, you know, when I was 18, my dad took me aside and I think it was four kids. Son, you want a $218 million inheritance or do you want to try to work for a living? And Jay Rockefeller would, he'd always speak to us groups and he paused for 10 seconds.

I'll take the inheritance, dad. but most of us have to work our way up and jay spent 12 million dollars he was a vista volunteer in west virginia he's not from west and he got credential there and then he ran for governor or senator he spent 12 million dollars of his own money i guess out of that 218 million easy come easy go but he still needed to establish himself as an active volunteer because you know if you're eisenhower in 52 supreme allied commander and you know and you're izenhower in 52 supreme allied commander and you run and you get the nomination and you know what he said for his cause

the Korean War was going on Ike says I will go to Korea that's all he had to say right he swept in even before he sworn in he went to Korea and the war was over soon you know McArthur screwed that up by keeping it going up to China

for some stupid reason God and then the Chinese a million people but simple causes Bill Clinton was I'm a new kind of Democrat and that allowed a lot of little Americans, like Tony Blair did in the UK. Oh, he's not one of the radical guys. And that makes a big, big impact when, you know, Jesse Jackson, he ran, and then

that appears to be too radical for most American people. So a guy like Tom Bradley, I was the mayor of L.A., L.A., Southern California, a lot of white people saw him for years, reasonable guy, and he almost became an elected governor. So in the moment, Trump's kind of casting around trying to get different attack lines. and they've come up with this idea now, this sort of communist camera. Does that work or not? No, I don't think so. Yes, that kind of stuff would work with a left-wing candidate back in the 60s and 70s with the Cold War.

You would have worked. Yeah. I mean, most voters, you know, given American public education not the best, are probably trying to figure out what communism is or what does it mean. You know, when I grew up, you knew about the Cold War and stuff. Trump is trying. I'm sure he's doing a lot of polling. And ultimately, he may have the best to kill his heel against her. whatever that is. And he thinks it's immigration, doesn't he? Yeah, obviously President Biden

had made some moves the last month, which slowed that up. And that's our Achilles heel, I guaranteed. That's a problem. Me, if I was in charge, I shut it down completely and say no more asylum, particularly on Ukrainian men. I don't know why they're coming here for asylum. So you think, if you were in charge, you'd get ahead of it, go very tough on immigration before the election to neutralize it. I'm a big believer. A little bit what Kamala Harris did, I'm a big believer. The guy says I'm for putting a stoplight on this corner. I'm for putting up a stoplight on that corner. He said something about tips and waiter. She says I'm for that. You match them. Because the way our system works, three pre-branched the government, and I tell this to new candidates,

campaigning is about getting a date in office is trying to keep the marriage together. And most people, especially in America, don't even remember what your promises were unless it was like, I'm going to cut taxes by 20 percent. But most of the vote. voters just need to feel good about it. Your intentions are good. And it doesn't mean you're going to follow through all the promises. And maybe there's some you can't, but you make a reference if you're running for re-election. In our case, we got a brand new candidate.

And unlike Britain or Germany had a recession, we never had a recession. But I always remind people what Bill Clinton said years ago is just because things are okay, you don't necessarily run on that because voters are, we're not in a graduate, class at Yale, we're in the American political system and people aren't reading the pages of your biography or your platform or your manifesto. They just get a sense of who you are by hearing something on the radio, newspapers, and then seeing you on TV. And if you look like you got fangs on TV, they're against you. If you look like a nice person, they're for you. So she's nice and he's got fangs. Oh, God, he's got fangs. And he's got the orange skin. And he says,

stupid things. And, you know, Roger Ailes used to tell candidates, show me a candidate with a cause, and I'll show you a candidate hard to beat. And a cause could be, I will go to Korea. And you didn't have to fill it in. Oh, that guy won World War II, so he knows how to do things. A teacher running for school board in America, she just puts, I'm a teacher. People automatically, oh, she's better qualified than the guy that says business owner. Final one for me. Tim Woolst, the vice president. I love the guy. Tell us a little bit about what makes him. I don't know him and I was surprised about her selection, but I quickly realized, even though she didn't really know him that well, I quickly realized Tim Walts is a great guy because he's from the Midwest, but he was Army veteran 24 years.

He was a coach and we've seen a lot of good comments from his former players and stuff. And he was a congress member in a district that Trump won by 15 points. And that told me that guy has the ability to be the Walmart green. Does somebody, oh, this is a nice guy, and then he becomes a governor. Well, that tells you a lot. And even Camelow, who didn't know him that well, don't think she knew him that well, that told her a lot. This guy connects to people.

And so I think he's going to be a great. And he's a little bit older, but he's much younger than Trump. So I think it's a great ticket. My last one, Bob, Kirstama, Labor. Yes. What's your take so far? Oh, I love the guy. I love the fact that when the street riots happened,

within a week, somebody's announcing that people have pled guilty. and they're sentenced. And I'm thinking, that's what the American people would like to hear for sometimes. I think Kirstimer is the perfect contrast to the Tories as well as to Corbyn. And I think most British voters are comfortable with them. But the future is the future. And the voters will soon forget who the Tories were. And then they'll start, hey, you better fix my problems.

LBJ got elected in 64. Huge landslide. He told his staff the next day, we better move my agenda in Congress because every day I'm going to be losing support because a smart politician knows that they're swept in not because or all because of their manifesto but because of the conditions, the time and the contrast. But the day after, all of a sudden the same voters who just swept in say, hey, you know, I didn't know the guy who's doing, here's an example. Obama wins in 2008. In 2012, three million fewer white people voted for him. And he had saved the American economy, save the U.S. auto industry.

But what happened in 08 was September 15th, the Lehman Brothers. Once that happened, McCain and Palin, they were always behind. And some of the Barack people think, oh, it's because of his great campaigning. No, no, no. It was get even time for the recession. And people lose half their stock value and their home values and everything else. Well, Bob, thank you for your time. Okay, no problem.

And just remember, if you see any arrival podcast, you just tell them to. Yeah, no. Yeah, thank you, Bob. And just an attack, attack, attack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you learned that? Have you got that? Yeah, I mean, you know, basically I tell new candidates,

there's three things you do when you first announce. You say where you came from, you say what you've done in life, and you say what I'm going to do in this office for you. So for me, if I was running for office, I would start out, not that I would, I was born 3.1 miles north of Independence Hall. Because most Americans would say, they wouldn't necessarily know it was in Pennsylvania, but at least they'd say, oh, that guy was close to Pennsylvania. at Independence Hall. I wonder if you knew any of the founders.

Bob, thank you. Okay, thank you. Really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Hi, it's Dominic here from The Restis History, and here is that clip that I mentioned earlier. The other thing is something else you get some Grantham, and that's the Methodism. And actually, this to me, I think this is one of the absolute defining things of Thacherism. It's the tone, the moralistic, evangelical tone. Yeah, and the low church tone rather than the high church tone. Completely.

Margaret, as a girl, had to say grace before every meal. She had to go to chapel three or four times on Sundays. Her father as a lay preacher went on and on and on about hard work, individualism, thrift, clean living, all of this. And this is what I think makes her politics different. There is a moralism to it, a low church moralism that is totally unlike anything that any other Tory leader says before her. So in 1984, an interview with the Times, I am in politics because of the conflict between good, and evil, and I believe that in the end, good will triumph. I mean, Ted Heath could have lived to the age of 10,000, and he would never have said anything like that. It's unthinkable. Also, I mean, what's interesting is that it's giving to the left what the left often give to the right. It's casting the left as evil and the right as virtuous, and usually it's the other way round. Completely it is. I mean, you see this reflected in her archives, which are online at Thatcher Foundation website, which is brilliant, by the way, this amazing digital archive. You can see all the notes that she would handwrite for her conference speeches, and they'd be full of

all the stuff about, you know, the evils of socialism, good versus evil, what the great religions of the past teach us, what life, you know, life is struggle. Her speechwriters would cut all this. They'd say, God, this is bonkers. But it would find its way in. in one way or another. And I think you're absolutely right. She thinks socialism is not just wrong. She thinks it's morally, it's evil. It's corrupting.

And people in 70s Britain, you know, they're used to thinking, socialists are well-meaning and idealistic. Maybe they're a bit deluded, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, she doesn't think that. She doesn't think they are well-meaning idealistic. She thinks they're doing the devil's work. Yeah. And that's what makes for her admirers, it's so invigorating and for her critics.

I mean, if you're on the left, right, and you're used to thinking of yourself as the goodies, to be told, actually, you're the bad people. It's insulting. And it's why I think one reason why people take it so personally when she sort of wades into battle. If you want to hear more, search for the rest is history wherever you get your podcasts.