The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 94. DNC Special: The Young Buck (Josh Elliot)

Episode Date: August 25, 2024

What does a State Senator do? What is the difference in the energy at the DNC now the nominee is Kamala Harris, not Joe Biden? How do politicians become delegates? Rory and Alastair are joined by member of Connecticut's Congress, Josh Elliot, to answer all these questions 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. Welcome to The Restless Politics with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell.

And we're sitting here. It's a wonderful thing with the state representative from Connecticut, who, for those of you who are listening as opposed to watching, rather unusually, given the rest of us, are walking around in suits, is in shorts. Yes. That's kind of part of your trademark. I mean, you've appeared on the House floor

in Connecticut and shorts? I'm not saying that all my colleagues love it, but I'm saying that I have been in office for eight years. I just won a bruising primary. The general election will be in November, but there's nobody running against me. So unless something that I cannot

foresee happens, I will be elected to my fifth term. But yes, I am a more casually-styled legislator. And tell us a little bit about you. How old are you? You grew up? I mean, I used to have in Granford, Connecticut. So you grew up in Guilford. I grew up in Guilford, that's right. On the coast. About two towns away.

I lived there for a number of years. I lived for New York. I lived in Virginia. I came back in my early 20s to go to law school, and I went to Kinnepiac Law. And that is why I am now a representative in Hamden. I moved around the corner from the law school. Politics was nowhere in my sightline. It just happened to me. I got really involved with the Bernie Sanders for president campaign.

I did work around the state for about a year. as a volunteer. The Working Families Party approached me, asked me if I would primary the sitting speaker of the House from the left. I said yes. He ended up going into early retirement. So it was a proxy fight between labor and local folk. And I worked hard, got lucky. And here I am. I got elected around 31. So would you be on the left? I would be considered a fairly progressive Democrat, yes. In my first term, I restarted the Progressive Caucus after about 20 years. worth of dormancy this cycle. I started the tax equity caucus. I'm fighting for fair taxation. I'm fighting for criminal justice reform. I was a major player and the increase to the minimum wage and the

enactment of paid family and medical leave. So yeah, I would say a pretty left individual. Yeah. And this convention, there's lots of kind of buzz and vibe around the place, but do you actually get engaged in policy arguments that lead somewhere here? Here, not so much. At least not so far as what I've seen. So this is the first convention I've been to. Oh. It went from being what was going to be a fairly, let's just say, that's that boring convention to one that's very exciting. And I get requests almost every day from somebody who wants to be here. And I was bought in when this was Biden. And for those of us who were bought in, we're the ones who get to be here for something that's remarkable and historic. And when you say you get

requests from people. Do you also have the power to invite other people along? Sadly, no. I tell no to a lot of people. I'm here with my girlfriend, and she is also unable to get into the halls of the convention tonight from 5 to 10 or 8 or whatever it is. Tell us a little bit about how you become a delegate. What is a delegate? There are about 3,000 of you. How did you get this position? So it was a caucus process. So we have five congressional districts in Connecticut, and in each congressional district, four men and four women would be elected. So first, the notice went out, and I was interested. I'd never been before.

So I talked with a few of my colleagues. I talked with Sarah Locke, our executive director in Connecticut, and I said, how do I do this? So first the suggestion was talk to a woman, because it's easier if you work with somebody. So I talked again with my colleagues. And then she said, talk to a couple of the chairs. I talked to a couple Democratic Town Committee chairs, and it became clear that the process was more about organizing a larger slate of around eight or so people, or eight if you can get it.

And so we did. So over the course of a couple weeks, organized with a number of folk, got a lot of people to come out to the caucuses, and then I was voted in. So it's a competitive process. It is. There'll be other state representatives

who'd also want to be here who didn't make it. That is correct. Can I go back to your sartorial elegance? Oh, absolutely. If you were a British parliamentarian, yes. I think I'm rival or you'd get kicked out. Yeah, you're not allowed into parliament if you turn up in shorts,

no, no. And you have to wear a tie? Yeah, yeah, time, yeah. Yeah. Do you not have a Connecticut speaker who says, excuse me, young man, you cannot dress like that in my house? I came in as being somebody who had his elbows out, and I came in with a chip on my shoulder,

and I also realized very soon that I would be somebody who would be there for a while. And because I would be there for a while, I wanted to do the job well. To me, doing the job well did not depend on how I was dressed. And so I've passed a number of major pieces of legislation. One of the big things I helped pass was a bill. to ensure that telecommunications are free for people who are incarcerated. We went from being the most expensive state in the country to the first state to make these telephone calls free.

And in the past eight years, I've now worked my way up to be the speaker's right-hand man. I'm the chair of the screening committee or the steering committee, depending on what chamber you're in. And so I have my fingerprints on every single bill that comes through the house. I've done it in shorts. To give us a sense for international listeners about a state representative, How much you paid? How many days a year does the state sit? What kind of role is this? And is it a route for some people to being a congressperson or a senator? How does this all function? It is a part-time legislature. Every state is different. So that's how we do it in Connecticut. When I first got elected, we were paid $28,000 a year, which is in no way livable. We just gave ourselves a raise for the first time in about $18,000 to $40,000. Again, not something particularly livable in a state like Connecticut, but a little bit better. I think the idea was with paying less and having a part-time, you give a wider range of people

who are in there. But now it does seem to be a little bit more people who are doctors, attorneys, realtors, people who are retired, who are independently wealthy. We've sort of windowed down the field for who can do this job, which I don't love. I think maybe being full-time or being paid more would be better. We are, like I said, part-time. So the first year you get elected in these two-year terms, you are in from January to June. The idea is that that is a budget year, and you are crafting a $26 billion a year budget.

And the second year, it is from February to May. And then you run for re-election. And being a House member, there's 151 of us, there's 36 of us in the Senate. It is a great spot to run for higher office. There's not a lot of spots in Connecticut to run for, but if you want to, you have a lot of friends by the fact that we are such a large chamber. And the work is joy. The work is incredibly fun. But do you have to work elsewhere? Do you have other work?

So my mother opened a little grocery store 27 years ago, and her and I co-owned that now. So I have the flexibility. I live about five minutes from the store, manage the store, and we have great staff who have been there since we opened. And I am just lucky to be able to do both those things. One of the things when we were talking to Congressman Deloria, she said, is that she'd been very worried that the party was very divided. but she felt that Vice President Kamala Harris had really reunified. What was she talking about? What were these divisions that existed before? What were the major splits within the party, which she was worried about, and which would

then have been reunified by Kamala Harris? I think the split was more energy than anything else. I just know that for myself, because I was in a primary and because I take the work very seriously, I canvass, I knock doors every single day when I have a challenger. So for three months, I was knocking doors. And for the first month and a half, as I was talking, with people, especially after the debate, every single person I talked to as a rule was saying that Biden had to drop out. They were all saying that he had done an excellent job leading the country,

but they did not think that he had what it took, again, speaking with other Democrats, to be able to take on Trump. And, you know, there are other side issues like the ceasefire resolution, certainly the Gaza and Israeli conflict, I think, is one such place where maybe the left and the Democrats as a party are sort of maybe not. seeing eye to eye right now. And is that one that you personally feel passionate about? Do you have a strong position on that? So I have been vocal internally that I support a ceasefire, but I'm also of Jewish origin, represent a lot of Jewish people in my constituency, and have been concerned with the phrasing of a lot of the resolutions that I've seen. So I see it as sort of a false position

to have to choose one side or the other. I think everybody that I talk to agrees that the killing that we're seeing is awful. At the same time, there needs to be an understanding that, you know, there were 1,700 people that died that kicked a lot of this off. Can I quickly, because in the UK context, this is very brutal if you're in your position. Yeah. Trying to find some middle ground on this. Right. Because you will have very, very angry people on both sides. And we've just had elections where progressive labor politicians found themselves outflanked by very, very angry pro-Palestinian demonstrators trying to bring them down because they didn't feel they'd taken a strong enough position on Gaza. Do you experience some of that at your level? Is there a sense of active crowds of angry people?

There are vocal and passionate people. What I would say is that my primary opponent ran almost exclusively on a ceasefire message and I won my race 82-18. I think that there is a place for moderation here while we look to see if there's ways to divest from Israel. to ensure that we aren't funding a far-right government because the government and the people are not necessarily one and the same. And I think that what we're seeing is while there's a rise in anti-Semitism and also a concurrent rise in Islamophobia,

that again, choosing at one position, one way or the other, just seems to feed into the other side's hatred. And that's what I've been really, really careful about. And I think the vast majority of people that I've talked to, again, because I've been going door to door, is that there needs to be some sort,

sort of middle ground, recognizing that we need to be, again, divesting and pushing Israel to find resolution, but also not just being out there and just doing destructive work. There's a really kind of good mood around the place at the moment, and being Frank and somebody who really likes Joe Biden, probably wouldn't have been the same had he still been a candidate. And I think to us, as Brits, and I think most Europeans look in and think how on earth is Donald Trump, even still anywhere near being in the race, which he is. He's still in the race. Correct.

So what does it say about America that this guy got elected in the first place, did all the stuff that he did, then did all the stuff that he did when he lost, and yet he's not politically dead? I don't understand it. I don't understand it either. I think that it speaks to the anger that many Americans feel. And I think that what the Republican Party has done a really good job of is tapping into that anger and using it for their various pet projects, whether it is eliminating the right to abortion

or eliminating gun regulation or it is giving tax cuts to the wealthy, they are happy to tap into that anger for that reason. And I think that many people get confused that they take that anger and then sort of point it in the wrong direction. So it's easy to point toward liberals or Democrats. But the problem is, as I see it, is that we have sort of missed the boat, at least right now, on really angling ourselves towards the class consciousness issue. And that, to me, is where we've gone wrong.

And that if you really focus on the fundamentals of helping people get good jobs and supporting people and not just couching everything as some sort of giveaway, but ensuring that people have an opportunity to enter the middle class. And you have to do that by asking the wealthy to pay their fair share. You can sort of hear my Bernie Sanders coming out. I think that, to me, is where the party needs to go. That doesn't seem, to me, like a big lefty or progressive thing. That just seems to be where we were for 40 or 50 years that we've strayed from.

But on the strategy for this week, we were talking earlier to somebody who's a pollster with the Democrats, who's saying that Joe Biden going has given the party in Camillow has quite a big lift, but you've also lost some people because she needs to provide more reassurance than maybe people are thus far getting. Will there be a tension with people like you if she makes, if you like a big reassurance speech, as opposed to a radical speech on Thursday? I think she needs to sort of do both and thread that needle. I don't think it can be one way or the other. I think the left is a big part of the party,

and I think that without an excited left, you can't win as a Democrat, but I also think that you need to appeal to that broad base of moderates who just want consistency and stability. And I think that she certainly can do that. I think she's been doing it already. I think that the honeymoon period at some point will end, I don't think we're there right now, but at some point, the press will start getting a little bit more critical, and the Republicans will find some way to go after that maybe starts actually sticking.

But as of right now, it seems that we are... How do you feel when they call it a communist? Well, I mean, I get called a communist, but every Democrat gets called a communist. I mean, at this point, it just doesn't mean, it just doesn't mean anything. It just, I mean, when a Republican calls a Democrat a communist is just like, it's just venting. It's divorced from any real meanings. So it just doesn't mean anything to me. You're an experienced campaign.

How do you win a campaign? What would be the three words that you would suggest as being the key to a successful campaign? Clarity, honesty, conviction. And how about the question of going negative against an opponent? When do you go negative? When do you go positive? This is this great famous Michelle Obama line. You know, when they go low, we go high.

What's your view on all that kind of stuff? It's really dependent. So our constituency base as a state representative in Connecticut, is 24,000 people. And of that 24,000, and again, I'll speak to my primary that I just went through, 6,000 are Dems. So many of them know me personally. So for somebody to run a negative campaign against me, a lot of those hits just don't stick because people just know who I am. So I have only run positive races.

And in my mind, that's the only race I will ever run. That said, when you were running for president and there's over, what, 3,000, 50 million people in the U.S., you have to strike that balance between pointing out the deficiencies of your opposition and pointing out what your strengths are. And I think it's fair to point out that Donald Trump is a convicted felon on multiple accounts and is an extremely poor businessman. And the only work he's done is, has been able to push his name. And he's done that exceptionally well, but that doesn't translate to running government well. So that's my feeling is just try to run as positive as you possibly can. My last question, are there politicians who kind of just want to be

state politicians? Or is there a part of you that comes to something like this event and sees the big cheeses going around with the motorcades and all the rest of the things? I'd quite like to have a bit of that as well. There's this fairly well-known idea that you can either be a showhorse or you can be a workhorse. And I think that what people want out of politics differs greatly from person to person. I have been and continue to be a very policy-driven person, but to be able to push policy, you are going to be able to do that better from higher vantage points. So there's incentive there to be reaching for those higher positions. I know plenty of people that have gotten elected for a term or two and then retired.

I know people that have been there for 40 years and have no interest in moving up from their state reposition. I mean, the variability is wide because the variability in human nature is well. wide. So it really is just all dependent. But I guess I'm asking whether we're ever going to see your shorts in Congress? Possible? Would you wear the shorts? Sure. Sure.

I mean, we have the congressman. Well, we have the congressman out of Pennsylvania who wear shorts. Yeah. Yeah. And I did it before. I just want to say. Well, Josh, thank you very much. And we very much hope that we will see you in the U.S. Congress.

And we look forward to seeing what your dress will be when you turn up. Yeah, I guess we'll see. But thank you. Thank you also for your service and for your time, and I hope you enjoy the convention. A pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you again. Bye-bye.

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 Thatcherism. It's the tone, the moralistic, evangelical tone. Yeah, and the low church tone rather than the high church tone. Completely. Margaret was 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, And 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 around. 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 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, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, she doesn't think that. She doesn't think they are well-meaning and idealistic. She thinks that 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 yourself of yourself as the goodies. To be told, actually, you're not, 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.