The Ricochet Podcast - Inside Their Heads

Episode Date: October 14, 2015

This week on the podcast, we recap last night’s Democratic debate with the help of guests Byron York from the Washington Examiner and Hoover’s (and Ricochet’s) Bill Whalen. Who won, who lost, who will never be heard from again, and who we wish would just go away. Also, Lileks reviews The Martian, and Long reviews Hamilton, the hot new Broadway musical. Spoiler alert: both are raves. Source

FBD doesn't stand for friendly business ducks. Or for the freelance beatbox department. FBD stands for support. We support businesses and communities across Ireland. Visit your local branch to talk to your FBD insurance team and see how we can support your business. FBD Insurance. Support. It's what we do. FBD Insurance Group Limited. Trading as FBD Insurance

is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Got me? No. No. I can't hear myself. See, the cord is cutting out and I can't hear myself because this cord is made of cheap Chinese and it keeps cutting out. Keep all this.

Okay, I can't hear myself. I mean, I can, but... Let's just start these things in a foul mode. Three, two, one. Hello, everyone. I'm not going to get... I don't know what's going to happen here. I don't have any information on that.

They don't understand what you're talking about. And that's going to prove to be disastrous. What it means is that the people don't want socialism. They want more conservatism. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lalex. Post-debate guests, Byron York, Bill Whelan. Hillary, up, down? Well, let's have ourselves a podcast and find out.

There you go again. Welcome to the Ricochet Podcast number 280. There you go again. And I'm guessing it is you might want to get it back in control with SaneBox. And we're brought to you by The Great Courses. Great Courses are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, and they're offering a lecture series in over 500 subjects, history, science, art, music, and more. It's available in DVDs, CDs, streaming, digital downloads, or with your Great Courses app. If you go to thegreatcourses.com slash ricochet, you'll find your limited introductory price. Grab it now. And we're brought to you by, well, why, of course, by Ricochet itself.

And here we always fold into the meringue, Peter and Rob, to tell you why, of course. You should open up, take the jaws of life to your wallet, crack it open until one of those cartoon flies comes out, and then part with some shekels to keep this enterprise going. Good morning, good day, good afternoon to whenever people are listening to this. And why don't you tell them why Ricochet deserves their hard-earned money? Rob? Oh, he's not on quite yet. I'll tell you. I have one word.

This would not be the usual spiel. Rob is in charge of the usual spiel. But I have one word for you. Insomnia. If, like me, I realize I'm going after a niche audience here, James, but I have one word for you. Insomnia. If like me, I realize I'm going after a niche audience here, James, but I bet I got their attention. Insomnia. If like me, you often find yourself tossing and turning between the hours of two and four in the morning, then do what I do, which is pick up my iPhone, go to Ricochet, and skim through all the various comments. I have to confess,

I was under deadline last night. I missed most of the Democratic debate. Of course, I would have devised an excuse to miss it if I didn't have a real one. But skimming the comments on Ricochet, entering in, typing a comment or two of my own, it was fascinating. It was informative. And in due course, it let me sleep the sleep of the just, knowing that not everything is wrong with the Republic as long as Ricochet is there to put little bits and pieces of it

right. Ricochet, your cure for insomnia. I was just going to say, in other words, Ricochet, if it doesn't put you to sleep, your money back. That's a great idea. We might want to know exactly what not. Not through sheer boredom, but by adjusting your brainwaves to peace

and serenity because there is justice and sprightliness and intelligence in the world still. And it's just like that whether you hit it at noon or two or six or any hour of the day. As a matter of fact, if you used to go to Ricochet but for some reason we cannot fathom have fallen away, rejoin the fold.

Use the coupon code REJOIN and you'll get two months free. Podcast listeners, by the way, podcast listeners like you who are, shall we say, hoovering up all of this free audio and not pitching in like you could, not to guilt you like Rob would. Rob would put some serious

guilt on you, but podcast listeners get 30 free days of Ricochet. Go to ricochet.com slash membership and use the coupon code join. So join if you're new, rejoin if you're old, and help keep the center-right civil conversation going. Well, Peter, we're going to talk for a little bit here about the debate with the guests when they come on. But you said that you didn't want to watch it. Now, just between you and me, I watched a little of it and it was hard. It was tough. It really was.

Partly because the visuals were just odd. And I'm sorry. I know that I shouldn't judge people like this. But the last time I saw Lincoln Chafee, he was being held up in the air by a crocodile in the Dance of the Hours sequence in Fantasia. And Jim Webb, bless his service, just reminds me of Jim Gaffigan's sort of more studious, angrier brother. And it comes down to Bernie and Hillary. And

whatever they said, I could feel my future and my liberties diminishing incrementally, and those of my child as well. And it was boring. And it was stultifyingly boring. And it was just more of the expanding blob of government like that moment in the movie the blob where it starts to come to the ventilation grades

but don't you feel like it's your obligation to listen to it don't you feel like well i felt it was my obligation to go to youtube look at look at a few clips listen get a feel for it but it seemed i mean if i had been puzzled about what took place, I would actually have played more of it. It seems perfectly clear what happened. Hillary Clinton showed up and dominated the wimps on stage with her. And I don't care how heavily decorated Jim Webb was as a soldier. I don't care how good and courageous a job he did when he was a secretary in the Pentagon. Nobody on that stage, including Jim Webb, had the guts to take on Hillary Clinton. They all rolled over and let her have the day. So my conclusion is that in the Democratic field, Hillary, right up until that

debate began, I thought the Benghazi hearings, the revelations about her emails, I'm sure we haven't gotten to the bottom of that. I'm sure there are more revelations to come. All of that might prove so damaging that it would actually deny her the Democratic nomination. Done. Gone. Over. She will be the Democratic nominee because nobody else on the stage last night was serious about running for president, including, most particularly including, Bernie Sanders, who I now feel certain is simply engaged in a protracted act of ideological self-indulgence. He wants to go around the country being cheered by 20 and 15 and 10,000 college kids at a

time, and that's really all that he wants. He wants to feel good about carrying forward the radical message that he learned growing up in Brooklyn and that he now in some bizarre way finds Vermont the correct place to preach. He is not serious about challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. She'll be the nominee. Everything else is a detail. Well, I think you're right. And I think I realized that that last night at the moment when Bernie Sanders realized that he had a moment here. He could open it up and he could spread his ideology.

He could really make that last final push to get the American people on board with socialism. And at that moment, he said, you know what? It's the email thing. I'm going to attack her on the email thing. This will be the way in which I show I'm my own man. But of course that's not what he did. What he did essentially was say on behalf of everybody in the Republican Party and the Democratic National Council, enough with the emails because he doesn't care.

It's a matter of national security really and Bernie doesn't care. I almost prefer that naked old honest socialism that wants a nice little international community and hates the idea of national sovereignty at all. The only reason that these guys ever like nations is so they can have one to point to to say where their ideas work, like Denmark. I love that. You don't have anybody else on the stage who say, Bernie, you're talking about a tiny, ethnically homogenous white nation. Well, like Vermont, where it sort of kind of works as long as you have the immigrants to clean your – to do all your dirty work for you. Let's explain how that works in a nation of 350, 60 million people.

But nobody – no, you're right. Bernie is not going to get it and Hillary is. But that doesn't mean the email issue is over, does it? No, no, no. It doesn't mean the email issue is over. It means it falls to Trey Gowdy, who, as far as I can tell, is doing a very serious prosecutorial job, meaning very few leaks, really going after the substance. He will continue. And that means there may be findings over the next – it would surprise me if there were not findings over the next few months. But it won't be decisive. It's not going to throw her off her game. They have nobody else to go to. Joe Biden is – well, do I – am I sure that even now that Joe Biden won't get in?

No, I'm not sure even. Joe Biden might still get in. But Hillary Clinton is serious and tough and the way that – the way the dynamics of the Democratic Party are constructed, it will be almost – let's put it this way. When it comes down to it, close your eyes, picture Hillary Clinton. No. I'm sorry. You have to suffer for your art. And now picture Joe Biden. Who's tougher?

Who's more serious? It's not even close. Hillary Clinton. Well, now we know why Peter Robinson has insomnia at 2 o'clock in the morning. He's closing his eyes. We know what he's imagining for. And frankly, if you want to do something about that, I get enough email every day about how to cure insomnia and all the rest of it with all kinds of magical herbal pills. And you're welcome to look in my inbox.

Oh, wait a minute. Sorry, they're all gone. Where did they go? Blackhold every one of them. All that spam and that junk that you get, I don't get it anymore. Now, that doesn't mean that some of the best conversations don't happen through email because they do. And you know the kind exactly. A friend or a colleague reaches out, shares an idea here and there, and you write back a few of your own.

Before you know it, you've got a new fan or a new friend or a new customer, a new colleague, and maybe even some more ideas of your own to share. But what happens? That conversation of the email, 10 mails becomes 100, 100 becomes 500. It's not long before you've got thousands of messages and no time whatsoever for the conversations that you really like to have. If that sounds like your inbox, then here's your cure. SaneBox, as I mentioned before, it does the sifting for you. Oh yes, if you got something from the boss that says, how do I record Downton Abbey and you set it for high priority, then you get it. It will divert the trivial stuff, however, into a certain – trivial stuff like names of agents and foreign governments into a separate folder so that all is left are the emails that matter. One click unsubscribe, ability to snooze non-urgent emails, countless hours will be saved and your email productivity will be increased by 25 percent.

Try it for yourself. Two free weeks of SaneBox. Visit SaneBox.com slash Ricochet to start your trial. You don't need a credit card. Now, after that, though, Ricochet listeners get $25 off a membership, and that's the deepest discount you'll find anywhere in the world. Again, it's S-A-N-E-B-O-X slash Ricochet. And now we hope that – I heard some heavy sighing back there.

It may have been Rob lamenting his opportunity to lance a segue, but you're there. No, I did. I was here for the segue, but I was trying – struggling so hard to get on Skype that I decided to – just to let that segue go. But I know – because I know there will be more segues coming. Well, I'm glad that, of course, you got on Skype being worth every single penny we, the consumer, pay for it. But also on Skype, hanging around now, anxious to talk to you guys about what happened yesterday at the convention, is, of course, Byron York, chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner, Fox News contributor, author of The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. You can follow him at Twitter at Byron York, and you can listen to him now here on the podcast. Welcome

back, sir. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Byron Peter here, the obvious one. What was the point of that debate last night? Well, you've got to have them, right? I mean, you can't just go straight to the primary. Is that a constitutional requirement? It may be.

It's an article we haven't actually seen before. Well, okay, so we've had one. Is there any point in having any more? I mean, it was just – it was dispositive. Oh, go ahead. Well, you know, I do think there's a point in having more because one of the interesting things about debates is there's an immediate reaction. There's a conventional wisdom that forms, and the conventional wisdom is challenged. And then people begin looking at gaps, things that weren't covered in debate.

And there absolutely is room for another one. I mean, look, this is not a stellar field, but I think certainly there is more for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and perhaps even Martin O'Malley to say to each other in the future. And the voters deserve it. Whether they want it or not is something different, but they certainly deserve to hear more. But so, I mean, what I was so struck by was that I'm not sure seasoned by long service in public life and knows what she's doing and wants the nomination.

Hillary Clinton just walked away. Hillary Clinton was the only serious person on that stage. Didn't that just seem so? No? on that stage. Didn't that just seem – no? It's interesting that you say that because I've become kind of fascinated with the instant reaction that happens among elite commentators or mainstream commentators, whatever word you want to use, establishment commentators. And it was – Go ahead.

You're in there somewhere. It was that Hillary Clinton just knocked it out of the park. She absolutely blew everybody away. Huge win for Hillary Clinton. And I went to the University of Maryland for the debate to a Terps for Bernie event, which had about 300 people. I mean, this was not some kids in somebody's living room, about 300 people there. And they were all Democrats, but they weren't all Bernie people. But there was a significant feeling that Bernie Sanders had actually won the debate.

And if you looked at Frank Luntz's focus group with Fox, you looked at another focus group on CNN, you looked at a lot of social media indicators, Bernie Sanders did far, far better in the eyes of a lot of Democrats who actually don't have articles, columns in the New York Times or podcasts for that matter. FBD doesn't stand for friendly business ducks or for the freelance beatbox department.

FBD stands for support. We support businesses and communities across Ireland. Visit your local branch to talk to your FBD stands for support. We support businesses and communities across Ireland. Visit your local branch to talk to your FBD insurance team and see how we can support your business. FBD Insurance. Support. It's what we do. FBD Insurance Group Limited, trading as FBD Insurance, is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Bernie Sanders did a lot better in their eyes

than he did with the group who's forming this conventional wisdom. Mike Allen's playbook the morning after the debate was kind of this perfect compendium of all this Hillary really killed it conventional wisdom. I'm not sure that's exactly where everybody is on this. And so the group you were with out in Maryland, those were all kids? Yes, they were all students. I asked them all when I was interviewing them, just for the heck of it, I asked them when they were born. And of course, they're college students, so they were born between 1990.

So one would say, well, I was born in 1994. I said, oh, yeah, yeah, that's when the Hillary health care plan died. And, oh, I was born in 1997. Oh, that was the year before the impeachment. They don't remember any of this, obviously. They were born mostly between 94 and 97. And so their view of Hillary is completely different than anybody who lived through what we call the Clinton years, the White House years. Wow. So you think it ain't over?

No, I don't think it's over. The fight for the nomination truly isn't over. Okay, I take it back. I take it back because if Byron – If you're saying you think that maybe this – having seen this debate, the tectonic place will kind of shift and Hillary will become the acclaimed nominee at this point. No, I don't think that's going to happen. I think all of the Bernie supporters continue to like Bernie and continue to support Bernie and do not have any doubts about it. Well, before you came on the line, just to save myself here, I want to announce that before you came on the line, that's exactly what I said. It was over. She'd have the nomination.

Everything else is a detail. But if it comes to the following question, do I trust Byron York or my lion eyes? The answer is I trust Byron York. I hereby retract every word I said. Rob, over to you. Yeah. Hey, Byron, it's Rob Long. I'm Byron York. I hereby retract every word I said. Rob, over to you. Yeah. Hey, Byron, it's Rob Long. I'm in New York.

I have to confess, I did not watch the debate last night. I had tickets to see Hamilton on Broadway, which was a much, much better choice, as it turns out. But 9.2 million people in the Nielsen Overnight saw it, they say. More people saw it, and I'll probably go up in the Nielsen Overnight saw it, they say. More people saw it – and I'll probably go up in the afternoon when the nationals come in. More people saw it than the 2008 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Those are pretty good ratings. I mean just to talk about show business for a minute, those are pretty good ratings for a democratic primary debate where nobody cares about any of the other candidates except one.

But there's really only one person in that audience that matters, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong, and that's Joe Biden. And if you're Joe Biden, what are you thinking today? Well, there is this conventional wisdom about Biden now that he's – last night or the debate night showed that he waited too long, that people could see Hillary Clinton. She did extremely well, and I do believe Clinton performed very well. And she performed well, and then they see this perfectly good alternative in Bernie Sanders, if that's what you're interested in. And the Democrats are not looking at that field and saying, after this debate, saying, oh, gosh, I sure wish Joe Biden would just appear. And that conventional wisdom, I believe I subscribe to. I think that after this debate,

there's going to be less sort of a nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Duff, with the vice president. So that's one disappointed viewer of the 9.2 or probably 10 million viewers. But that's an awful lot of people who watched that debate. And you sat there with a bunch of young people. And we talked a little bit about the Clinton legacy. And you're right, a lot of young people that I know who are in their late 20s, this is a dim memory, all this White House stuff. Are we going to relive that now? Are we going to have to relitigate the Clinton era and what happened back then for the next 12 months as she marches her way?

That's a great question in the sense that Hillary's national public life actually divides into three periods. You have the White House First Lady time, you have the Senate time, and then you have the Secretary of State time. And clearly there's been a lot of scrutiny on the Secretary of State time. There's going to be more. The Senate time, with the exception of her vote to authorize war in Iraq, is just not looked at very much. She was not a distinguished senator in any sense of the word.

And then there's the White House years, in which she was actually deeply involved in some scandals, like the travel office affair, or in the war room after the scandals, like the travel office affair or in the the war room uh uh after the scandals uh like the the lewinsky matter now are we going all the way back there i don't know i mean i i'm i'm perfectly willing to i i have pretty good memory but uh i'm not sure there's going to be much public interest in that but here's the question i guess is like for Hillary haters, for Hillary, I should say we say that, they, the Hillary haters, as you know, I'm a neutral observer as the passing scene. The Hillary haters say these are important issues because we're seeing them now. We're seeing the paranoia, we're seeing

the secrecy, we're seeing the vindictiveness. You may be bored of hearing about the emails, but that is Hillary Clinton, and if she's President Hillary Clinton, that's going to be how her Oval Office runs 24-7. And the Hillary supporters say, you people that after her and after her and after her, you've clawed your way, you tried to bring her down when she was the first lady, and now you're trying to bring her down that she's a candidate. There's an exhaustion with Hillary, the Wicked Witch of the West narrative. Who's going to win that?

Well, that I don't know, but I believe I remember – I don't want to give her any blame, but I think Tucker Carlson once said, I'm not a Hillary hater. I'm a Hillary disliker. And, you know, put me down with the people who say her past actions do tell us how she would act in the future. And I do think it's look on the email thing, for example, it's obvious that she did this elaborate email system to avoid the scrutiny of curious lawmakers and of other people in the executive branch, and if need be, law enforcement. I mean, she created this to operate in a secret manner. If you go back, by the way, to 1993, before the kids I was interviewing were born, that's exactly what she did with her health care task force.

There were even lawsuits about it because she wanted everything to be done in absolute secrecy. And then she wanted to spring like a 6,000-page bill on the American public, which Congress would immediately pass and implement. So she does operate that way. And I do think that the White House years in which there were independent counsels and all of the scrutiny and subpoenas and all this stuff, I think it made her even more secretive than she was in the past. Now, I'm not sure that's a great way for a president to operate.

Obviously, there is executive privilege for any presidency, but she, I think, would be more secretive than others, and I think that's a bad idea. So put me down in that group that says her history, her past, does tell us something about how she would operate in the White House. And one more question, especially in relation to people who watched that debate last night with you. There's a sense watching that debate that we – I think as you put it in your column today that it's as if we haven't had a very progressive, very left-wing, very activist democratic president in the White House for eight years. If you're one of the legions of young people, do you want more of the same or do you want to change? I mean all the experts always say this is a change election. This is a wave election.

This is a state-of-the-course election. If you're those young people, what kind of change do you want? I think they want the things that Barack Obama was not able to get done. I think they want some huge action on climate change. I mean, when you talk to college students, you have to remember, you hear inequality, you hear climate change, you hear mass incarceration.

These are their passionate issues. I mean, their gay rights, I mean, they're really, really passionate about this stuff. I mean, is any of them going to say, wow, we're $20 trillion in debt. That's bad. No, they don't say that. How dumb are they?

What they want. What do they learn in those schools, Byron? What they want is a president who will, I think, build on what Obama has done. Obama has created a national health care system. They want to probably expand that. There are too many people in jail. Somehow they just want to let a lot of people out of jail, many of whom would be dangerous.

It wouldn't be dangerous to them, though, Brian. That's the thing. It wouldn't be dangerous to them, just the communities in which these people go back to. They want free college for themselves, free stuff for everybody else. They do want free college, and they especially want. One of them said to me last night, he said, you know, money in politics is my single issue

because we'll never be able to fight global warming until we get the money out of the system. So there's this idea that there are these giant corporations who are pouring money into their puppets in Washington. This is kind of a Trumpian vision as well, and who are keeping us from solving this giant problem. How can it be that the United States of America has just produced the finest generation of Swedes that the world has ever seen? I do not – I'm in favor of bringing back a poll tax.

Anybody who says we're not going to be able to fight climate change until we get money out of the system is too stupid to be permitted to vote. Raise the voting – It's interesting. I was kind of surprised when Bernie went to the Scandinavian route early in the debate. Right. Said he liked, you know, we need to look at Sweden, Denmark, Norway. They have a lot to teach us. You know, and Hillary and Anderson Cooper, the moderator, immediately said, well, wait a minute, Denmark has, I think, 5.5 million people.

I mean, is that really a good example for the way the United States should operate? And Hillary said, you know, Denmark's great. I love them, but, you know, we're Americans here. I was kind of surprised, but I will tell you that the whole Scandinavian strategy did not hurt Bernie at all with any of his followers, many of whom believe that we should be much more like Sweden or places like that. So Byron, I'm a GOP operative. I'm watching this debate, and it's all about socialism, progressivism in Denmark.

Is this all Greek oppo for me? I've seen a lot of conservatives this morning talk about how this is fantastic, but is it really? I mean are we absolutely convinced that the majority of American voters who swept Barack Obama in twice aren't sympathetic to this message? No, it's not great oppo unless you're running against Bernie Sanders. If he ends up as the nominee, then you've got a lot of great oppo. But no, it wasn't. As a matter of fact, they were not only the moderator, but Hillary Clinton was just sort of mocking the idea of socialism and of being opposed to capitalism. And she portrayed herself as just a small

Main Street businesswoman, basically. Just a simple gal who likes to cook and sew. Simple gal trying to make a living. And she talked about the middle class. She stayed very much on her message. And so I don't think it was a lot of oppo. And I believe it was David Frum who pointed out today in The Atlantic that so many questions and issues. For example, at the State Department, when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, if you were in her circle, you could apparently work for the State Department and some foreign government if you wanted to. Or you could certainly double dip with some other jobs on the outside. There were all of these issues. I personally think Benghazi is still an issue for Republicans in the sense that we were clearly, we the United States,

were clearly not prepared for what happened. And she was the Secretary of State, and the Americans in Benghazi were sending emergency messages to the State Department saying, this is really, really dangerous. This is terrible. If there's a coordinated attack, we cannot survive. There was an August 16, 2012 memo just before it happened to the State Department for that. And Hillary said, well, gee, you know, I'm a Secretary of State. All of these cables are formally addressed to me, but of course I'm so busy I don't have time to read every one. Well, we got testimony that Leon Panetta, who was the Secretary of Defense, which is kind of a busy job, had actually read this memo,

and that Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, kind of a big busy job, had read that memo too. Hillary Clinton was not prepared for what happened, and I do think that that will ultimately be an issue. But you're not going to see it in a Democratic debate. You're not going to get any good oppo from her because nobody's going to bring it up apparently. Can I just change the subject briefly, Byron? Who's going to be the next speaker of the House?

Wow, great question. Yeah, I thought – I'm not letting you go without the hard questions here. Well, I'm not going to say it doesn't matter, but I do think that there's a problem inside the Republican caucus and the problem of a Republican conference, and that is basically sort of a distance between the Republican leadership and their voters. And the voters, the more aggressive of whom are represented by the Freedom Caucus. FBD doesn't stand for friendly business ducks. Or for the freelance beatbox department. FBD doesn't stand for friendly business ducks. Or for the freelance beatbox department. FBD stands for support.

We support businesses and communities across Ireland. Visit your local branch to talk to your FBD insurance team and see how we can support your business. FBD Insurance. Support. It's what we do. FBD Insurance Group Limited, trading as FBD Insurance, is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Forty or so members of that, plus the other hundred-plus members who are maybe not members of the Freedom Caucus, but would be terrified of being seen as opposing members of the Freedom Caucus. John Boehner announcing his resignation did not solve the problem.

And Kevin McCarthy withdrawing did not solve the problem. And choosing Paul Ryan on its own won't solve the problem. So there's a number of issues that the next speaker is going to have to confront that are going to be extremely difficult. And I'm not sure it's any good for Ryan to do it because I'm not sure anybody can succeed at it right now. Byron Peter here. My last question as follows. You are what I'm not sure actually exists, but what a lot of people think does exist. You are a kingpin in the Republican establishment. Which candidate is best? I ask you

only one question. It has nothing to do about who would be a good president, who's most likely to do well in Iowa, who's raising none of that. Which candidate would be best? Which Republican candidate would be best on a stage debating Hillary Clinton? Well, I would think that the kingpins of the Republican establishment who don't look at just one thing. I mean, I'm going to question your premise a little bit. I'm making it up. They do. They do include electability and everything in all their calculations. But I think that they would probably say Rubio right now.

Because, I mean, there's a large segment of the establishment that a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, had thought Chris Christie was going to be their guy. And then maybe they thought Jeb would be their guy. I think a lot of them are now settling on Rubio. And he obviously has rhetorical strengths, the belief that he could appeal more to Hispanics and other minority voters, and young, huge contrast with Hillary Clinton. And he's made a lot of that from his announcement on. So I think that a lot of the establishment types are thinking that right now. The question is, of course, can he get the nomination? There's a wonderful passage in Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway's book on bullfighting,

in which he describes a bull, close paraphrase, the bull was already dead, but didn't know it yet. Can that be said of Jeb Bush? He may know it. Oh, Byron, wow. Well, you know, I have to say that inside the Bush campaign, there's this article of faith, I mean an absolute rock-solid article of faith, that Donald Trump is going to fade and that there will come this time in which Jeb Bush can show his strength

and go to the front of the race. My sense is that Bush has so many built-in problems, the biggest one, of course, being Bush. And, you know, you go out and there's so many voters say, you know, they don't express any disrespect or dislike for Jeb Bush or anything like that. They'll just say, yeah, I just think we've had enough Bushes. And that is incredibly hard.

I think in real estate they have a saying like irremediable property defect, like when your house is next to the expressway or something. You can't fix it. I think that's a problem with Jeb's candidacy. And I don't think he's actually going to be able to fix it. Got it. You know, Jim Webb, I believe, spent a lot of time at the debate complaining about how much time he didn't get.

My first name is Jim. It could be Jim. And I'm going to do the same thing here. I'm just going to complain and complain and complain that everybody else has been talking. Or at least I would, except that we have to let you go. Thank you, Byron. We'll follow you on Twitter.

We'll see you all over the net in the usual places. And I can't wait to have you back the next time these guys get together and have another riveting debate that electrifies the nation. It was a pleasure. Thank you all. Thanks so much, Byron. Take care. Just imagine, though. I mean, people are paid to watch

these debates. I was doing it as a volunteer effort last night, and I could not last more than 20 minutes. It just, it wore my soul. It just did. And there was, oh, shoot. I was going somewhere with that, and I could not last more than 20 minutes. It just – it wore on my soul. It just did. And there was – oh, shoot. I was going somewhere with that and I forgot. I completely forgot. I didn't even interrupt you.

I know you did. That's what threw him. That's what threw you. I was waiting for you to start the Segway so that I could then interrupt the Segway. It's now auto. If only there was just some way that I could work on my memory and get it better. If only there was a way to learn secrets, scientific secrets. Oh, that was good.

He sucked us in. Oh, that's amazing. See, here's the thing, James, that we make you better. It's the friction that makes you better. That was masterful, that segue. And you have to admit that it's like makes you bad. That was masterful, that segue. And you have to admit that it's, you know, it's like makes you better. You know, a little give and take actually. Letting people finish what they're going to do is how conversation works.

Oh, really? Anybody who's spent any time on a podium knows that the art of public speaking involves knowing your audience and having that give and take and that flow and not interrupting. But now I remember what I was going to tell you, and that is that the great courses, of course, of course, of course. I were big fans of the great courses, and they have engaging audio and video lectures from top professors and experts in their fields, and they've got some lectures. Well, let me tell you what they have this week for you. Scientific Secrets for a Powerful Memory,

How Conversation Works, and The Art of Public Speaking, and, of course, even more, Influence, Mastering Life's Most Powerful Skill, and How to Wrap Everything Up and Slip It Past Rob Long. and the art of public speaking. And of course, even more, influence, mastering life's most powerful skill and how to wrap everything up and slip it past Rob Long, but only for four seconds. These courses will give you valuable tools

and insights to help strengthen your presentation skills and become a better negotiator or just sharpen your memory. The Great Courses is celebrating their 25th anniversary this year and they're offering lecture series, not just on this stuff,

but 500 subjects, history, science, art, music, and more. You can get them on DVD, CDs, streaming, or digital downloads or with the Great Courses app right there on your smartphone. For a limited time, only the Great Courses has a special offer for you. Yes, you, the Ricochet listener. And you can order any of these four business and presentation courses for just $9.95. A special price of $9.95 is only available for a limited time. So order today. Go to thegreatcourses.com slash ricochet.

That's thegreatcourses.com slash ricochet. Well, more debate talk, more of whether or not Vegas has ever seen such an exciting event as it saw last night. We're going to talk with Bill Whalen now, Hoover Institution Research Fellow and, of course, Ricochet contributor. Follow him on Twitter, at Hoover Whalen. Welcome to the podcast, sir.

So I was figuring that I bought a can of Harry's Shave Gel the other day. I strongly recommend that to anybody listening. It's probably about the 20th product I bought from Harry's, so is this what I get when I buy 20 products? I get a shot at the podcast? There must be a tie in there. Yeah, you have to buy

a mattress and you have to buy the razor and you have to listen to some courses. There's a lot of work you've got to do. It's not just free. Oh God, the DVDs of Rob Long shows and Peter Robinson books and the list goes on. But pleasure to be here, gentlemen. So let's take a look at last night and I believe that we saw perhaps

the deepest, strongest bench the Democrats have fielded in decades. Boy, you know what you saw? You saw an Amtrak train from hell leaving Washington, D.C., and making its way solely to Burlington, Vermont. And that's a Democratic Party in a nutshell in this presidential election. It's not a national party as much as it is the Amtrak corridor. All of these candidates from within the northeastern sector of the country. And just consider if they add on to this wonderful group of five candidates, who else? Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, John Kerry, Deval Patrick.

They all are from within the northeast corridor. And it just shows you how decimated the party has become outside of that one section of the country. So watching that debate last night, Bill, this is Peter here. Watching that debate last night made you feel more confident about the GOP's chances in 2016? Yeah, I did. Look, first of all, Hillary Clinton did what she had to do last night. She did not fall on her face or do anything just would cause the party to go into free fall. But imagine her having to go out and do this five more times, just looking at this batch of people to her left and her right. My goodness.

And nothing to be gained in stature from competing with these people. I have two takeaways from this. First of all, she looks very weak having to deal with these people on this stage. There is no peer. There is nobody with anywhere close a record as she has of durability and politics of stature. But the second problem she has, durability in politics of stature. But the second problem she has, and I call it the laugh track test, and it's simply this. Hillary is one of these rare politicians in America right now who has what we call a Jay Leno problem.

And that's you hear Jay Leno about to tell a joke, and you know where he's going with it. Rob can appreciate this. Jay Leno tells a joke about Bill Clinton. What direction is it headed to? Sex. He tells a joke about George W. Bush. Where's it going to? Not being smart. And he tells a joke about Hillary Clinton and where's it going to? Personality.

The B word, which we won't utter on this show. But I think now also with the server problem, a question of truth. When she stands on the stage and she makes comments about I've always been consistent in my record, I'm an outsider, you just wonder if that passes the laugh track, and I don't think it does. I don't think it passes that test.

Hey, Bill, it's Rob Long in New York. I've got a question for you. All those people you mentioned, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, they won. They won, Rob, but they didn't have to face this problem the first time they were running. Bill Clinton faced this problem the longer he stayed in office, especially with Monica. The same with George W. Bush. It was not the caricature that they were introduced with America, whereas she's dealing with this. You know, her biggest opponent last night was none of the four Democrats on the stage. It's 20 to 25 years of perception and distrust and general disbelief with things she has to say. That's her opponent here. And I think that's what the problem

is. So, so, you know, projecting forwardary clinton gets the nomination and she's running and like what we can assume from her is that she's not giving up she doesn't seem to give up she seems to run and run hard and run strong and play dirty um not that i'm not criticizing you for that a lot of politicians do right um how i guess i'm not as sanguine as you are about those chances. It seems to me that I could make the obverse case that, yeah, all that stuff is true, but it's already baked in the cake. People already – that's what they expect from her. They kind of know what they're getting, and that's part of her appeal is that she seems like she fits the bill. She's going to walk in that Oval Office and sit behind that desk, and if you have a lingering – especially if you're a progressive Democrat and you've got lingering doubts that you unspoken – you can't utter them because, of course, it's wrong to utter them, but lingering doubts about the's kind of evil and she's the wicked witch of the West. But I do believe that Hillary Clinton wants to make universal health care work and I do believe she wants to improve the liberal welfare state or enlarge the liberal welfare state. If I'm a progressive, I do believe she's a progressive. She's just a dirty, nasty, conniving one and maybe that's popular. Well, that might prove to be what gets her over the top.

Look, to use a college football analogy, it's going to be a three yards and a cloud of dust campaign for her. She's going to just keep her head down and bull forward. We also don't know who's running against her. The Republicans could give her a gift with a very weak candidate, somebody who's just not up to snuff with her. But I do think this credibility issue dogs her. Just imagine the plethora of 30-second ads Republicans will toss at her, not based on her personality, not based on issues, her marriage or things like that, all the bad places that you don't want to go to with the Clintons,

but just focusing on just issue after issue of one thing, consistency. Can you really believe this person? The second thing I would point to for the Republicans, it reminds me of the 1988 campaign where George Bush ran the ad against Bob Dole, and it was the footprints in the snow ad just saying he really hasn't done anything in Congress. And I would point that way with Republicans. She keeps on saying, I have a record of accomplishment. I would ask, what exactly have you accomplished? Yeah, exactly. Hey, Bill, is Joe Biden more or less likely to get into the race after that debate last night? You know, we sit here in California, Peter, and we spend our time trying to figure out the machinations and mindset of one Jerry Brown.

And he's one complicated chaplain, complicated former Jesuit seminarian. We can all agree. Joe Biden, I think, is also complicated in that way. Maybe this has something to do with the Catholic faith, Peter. Jesuit seminarian. We can all agree. Joe Biden, I think, is also complicated in that way. Maybe this has something to do with the Catholic faith, Peter. I don't know. But it's hard to read that guy's mind. I think there are two dates to look at here. The first one is October the 28th. It's, excuse me, no, the 24th. It's a week from the Saturday. It's the big Jefferson Jackson dinner in Iowa for the Democrats. If he's going to jump in, you think he would do it before then. But then the second date is obviously the next Democratic debate, which November 14th. I just can't tell if he's going to get in or not. There's just such a tug emotionally, I bet, for him to get in. But I don't know if he has it in him. I do imagine, though, there are Democrats who are just sick and tired of waiting for him. I don't think since Mayor O'Cuomo we've seen such a striptease in Democratic circles.

Right, right. Okay, now, Bill... Hold on a second here. I'm just... The Democratic Party is having a banquet to celebrate a slave owner and a warmonger. Is that what you're telling me? Double slave owners, actually, between Jefferson and Jackson. There you go. In fact, there's

been a movement within the party to try to find a new name for it. But I don't know, the FDRGFK dinner, who knows. No, the Hiss Rosenberg dinner, but do go there. Bill, you and I have talked about this before, and I'd like Rob and James and all our listeners to hear this because it strikes me as very perceptive. A three-state election. Explain that, would you? Well, it's a 50-state election on paper, but as we all know, there are red states and blue states

that quickly go by the side, the big blue state here of California, the big red state of Texas, and so on and so forth. Elections are a matter of mathematics and getting to 270 electoral votes. And so if you start with the 2012 numbers and work your way toward 2016, it's 332 for the Democrats, 206 for the Republicans. Barack Obama got 332 electoral votes. Got it. Okay. Now, Obama carried Florida by 1% or less. So you figure if Rubio is on the ticket, there won't be the same turnout in Florida we can imagine as was for Obama.

Let's put that in the Republican column can imagine, as was for Obama. Let's put that in the Republican column. So that's 29 right there. Then you add on 18 from Ohio, because we have to go to Ohio. Republicans can't win without it. That's 47. So now we're moving down from 332 to 285. Now we're looking, Peter, at a handful of states that come into play which swing this. And those states I would contend are, number one, Virginia, the great Commonwealth of Virginia with its 13 electoral votes. The second would be Iowa. The third would be Colorado.

And the fourth would be Nevada. And before anyone chimes in with Wisconsin or Michigan or Pennsylvania, I don't think the upper Midwest is in play. I think that's Charlie Brown football politics. Republicans always go for the bait and it never comes out. So those are the four states I look at right now. I look at Virginia, I look at Iowa, Colorado, Nevada as the key. And I think of those of the group, Peter, the one that stands out to me is Virginia, where Hillary Clinton has a Democratic governor in place or her former bagman, Terry McAuliffe. The demographics work very well for her with Northern Virginia and the growing

suburbs there. It's also proven problematic for Democrats both in terms of northern sensibilities entering a southern state but also it's hard to run against the government when you have a lot of people in Northern Virginia who feed off the government. following three states, Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, then the Democrat is down from Barack Obama's winning margin to a margin of 272 electoral votes. That's right. If the Republicans take those three. So then any additional state, even any small state will give the Republican a victory. So the key states then are Florida, Ohio, and Virginia plus anything else you'd like to toss in. Question.

So Florida, if Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio is at the top of the ticket, you'd expect them to have a very good chance in Florida. You could argue that John Kasich would be the running mate for either of those because that would give us an inside track for Ohio. Question. As I recall, there are four, five, or six states. I think the number is six. You know this better than I. Where Barack Obama's winning margin was the African-American vote in this state. Is there any argument, has polling been done on this, that Ben Carson should be the running mate to flip those states?

I honestly haven't seen polling on it, Peter, so I could not answer that question with certainty. But we have to see where Dr. Carson is going to be six months to a year from now as an individual. I think the more time he spends out there trying to explain gun control and reviewing Nazi Germany history and things like that, I think it just seriously diminishes him as a candidate in the presence. But that's a fascinating question. If I'm going to be honest, I hadn't thought about that. But there are a lot of directions Republicans have to go to, and again, coming off that

debate last night, while Republicans obviously sweated over Trump and worry about the direction the party is going to, they have options. The Democrats don't have options right now. Their eggs are in one basket with Hillary, unless Joe Biden jumps in. But even if Biden jumps in, we don't know how good of a candidate he will be. So I would just ask a Democrat, how good do you really feel having watched that show last night? Bill, I have one last question, and then I'm going to release you to the tender mercies of James Lilacs. Here's the question. We all still assume, I hope you can't hear that noise in the background.

The garbage truck shows this very moment to back up at the halt in front of my house. That's my garbage they're compacting out there. Metaphor alert. Metaphor alert. Are they picking up or dumping, Peter? They're picking up. Yeah, thanks. So we're all still assuming – it's kind of underlying presumption still among all of us, James and Rob and me and you, I think, and Byron, whom we had on 15 very quickly down to 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, to a very small number. People start

coalescing behind other candidates and some other candidate besides Trump, God forbid, catches fire. Number one, I think the other tipping point is when Trump actually falls behind in a national poll because I may be stealing this line from the show because it's so clever. I know I didn't come up with it, but the essence of the Trump campaign is simply this. I lead in the polls because I'm great, and I'm great because I lead in the polls. Well, I think once you take away the leading in the polls, I think that's sort of like pulling back the curtain on the wizard, and a lot of that stature disappears pretty fast.

Hmm. Pay no attention to the man behind the gilded curtain. But I'd say what this points to though, is for all those who are sitting out there wishing that Trump is going to vanish in, in November or December, I think this is a much more prolonged process and you're probably going to drag it out until April. Oh, grand. Great. Great. The long, steady grind until we get to November. Not this November, next November. Well, we'll have you on to talk about that somewhere between here and there. Thank you, Bill. We'll see you at Ricochet and around the world.

Keep posting, Bill. Thank you. Okay, thank you, guys. Thanks, Bill. And I don't remember. You know, one of the great things about childhood is the innocence that you have and you're not aware that adults are actually thinking about these things so far in advance. I just remember when I was a kid that all of a sudden, boom, there was an election,

and it just kind of happened, and there was a week or two, and then we had a president, and then we had a different one. That's the way it was. The world seemed to move slowly then. Of course, back in those days when I was a kid, rooting for Nixon, because my parents did, it was a different world. Why a fellow could pick up a copy of Playboy and see some actual thing, Lady Parts, lanced by Staples. Yes, but they would fall right out of the magazine or so we heard.

A little cultural note this week. Unbelievable. Lady Parts lanced by Staples. I just don't believe this. My head is exploding. The nicest possible way to put it, I guess. Yes. And now we've learned this week, and there was, I think, Tommy had a post about this at Ricochet in the member feed,

that Playboy has decided it's no longer going to feature naked ladies, that the competition out there is simply too strong, and they're going to go with racy Instagram posts, more or less, and that this will be their key to success. The magazine loses money. They make their money by licensing the bunny in other places. They got a million different editions all over the world, which I assume will still show skin, but not in America.

So why did this happen? What does it mean for America? And is it just the fact that they stopped actually showing, how do I put this, glamorous this glamorous women and went for a series of less alluring examples of female pulchritude for an audience that was jaded or not interested or just simply tired with an endless – you know what it is? It's the fall of the Soviet Union, which released billions of Eastern European models who just drove the Americans. That's what it is.

They're doing the jobs American women apparently won't do anymore. I'm not touching this. I'm having much to talk about. Yeah, I'm enjoying this. Yeah, this is – I can't wait to segue out of it. I don't even know if there is one. Well, we'll leave that then for others to debate in the comments. You're both too

chicken. All right, let me try another little bit of cultural here. I saw a movie in the theater and it was two hours and 20 minutes long and it felt like it breezed by in 90. It was The Martian. Yeah. It was a favorite here at Ricochet. Did you see 3D? I wish I had. My daughter refuses to go see 3D and I think

you can, except for the end sequence, I think you don't need 3D for this one. But I thought it was a grand movie and the sort of thing that makes you – I walked out feeling exalted like you do when you've seen a great movie about the human spirit. But then you just sort of feel sad and a little bit withered when you realize that we're not exactly, well, as close to perhaps that sort of future as I thought that we were going to. So I agree. It was a wonderful movie, and I walked out feeling exalted because it was just a movie. It was self-contained.

It was entertainment from the very first moment to the last. It kept you engaged, guessing, wondering, figuring out how the characters would respond to this, that, or the other. And when you walked out of the theater, I felt, what a relief. There's no political connection. There's no implication. There's nothing. I'm leaving the theater having seen a movie. Then James comes along

and starts mentioning the NASA budget. Well, we know that's a difficult subject for you, Peter. For me, exactly. All I care, I'm a single-issue voter. I want the NASA budget cut. That's all I care about. You don't spend any money getting Matt Damon back from outer space. Well, exactly.

What the movie cost, what? A hundred – I'm assuming a movie like that is a hundred million dollar movie. Ridley Scott has cost 50 million to begin with. So what's – that's a – it's good enough. Just do the digital stuff. It's about outer space. Exactly. That's – as I've said before, I think the reason that some civilizations maybe stopped going into outer space was because their fictional means of doing so were much more satisfying.

I think it was interesting that they took some stuff out of the book. For example, in the book, when he's making the drive from the rover to the next spot where he hopes to be picked up, He's halfway there and he realizes he left the iron on and he turns around and he goes back. And it wasn't on anyway and he's really feeling stupid and then he has to continue on with the trip. I just want us to get that ion drive going because – I don't know if you guys saw this. This is Atlantic Magazine. This is not some national inquirer. They've been looking at some stars, some distant stars, and they're looking for planets. And the way they look for planets is to check to see whether or not the light dips in a way that would indicate that something was passing in front of the star. And they found this system that's just got all kinds of crazy stuff rotating around it.

They can't quite explain it. It could be debris. It could be some large mass that got pulled in and broken up by a traveling star. Or it could be alien artifacts. It wouldn't be alien to them, but it could be extraterrestrial intelligence artifacts of a huge and unimaginable sort, which makes you wonder what they're doing and whether or not we'll ever meet or whether the galaxy is simply too far and too spread out for anybody to ever do anything more than wave across the vast inky distances. But the comment sections are completely different because there you can get right next to Peter Robinson and Rob Long and all your fellow Ricochet guys and talk and meet and plan meetups and just generally exult in the community that has been created there.

And if that sounds like I'm wrapping it up, it's because I am. But does anybody else have anything else they want to add? I came in late. So you mentioned how important Ricochet is at the top of the show, right? Yes. While I was struggling with Skype. That's the most important thing. If you were listening to this podcast and you're a member, we are pleased and honored to be a member with you.

If you are not, please go to Ricochet.com. Sign up for the Daily Shot. Get to know uschet.com. Sign up for the Daily Shot. Get to know us a little bit. Sign up for three 30 days. I'm being told by Blue Yeti I need to give a quick theater review. I did not see the debate last night. I went to go see Broadway's hot, hittest, most amazing show, Hamilton. It is – as I was walking there, I felt a little trepidation.

I'm not a musical theater fan per se. It is a hip-hop sort of culturally contemporary music musical based on the life of Alexander Hamilton. stage in 20 years and i don't say that lightly it is um if you see it and you are a conservative you will walk out thinking to yourself that we may be as a culture okay uh the music is great the story is fantastic there is not an ounce of re-presenting american history vision american studies nonsense there's none of this uh marxist analysis of the great – of our founding fathers. It is a straightforward story of heroism and sacrifice and freedom, and it is unabashedly patriotic. It is astonishing. If you can see it, if you're in New York City, you should see it. If you hear about it, you should root for it.

It is a sign that we may be culturally okay. Well, wow. The heart sings. The spirit lifts. It should. It should. And with that lilting reminder that all is not lost, which is something we always have to remind ourselves. Peter, would you like to chime in and say all is lost?

No. We're fine until next week. We're fine until next week. Until next week, fellas. We will struggle through our next little iteration here of seven days and then bring you something more to worry about and to be happy about. So anyway, we want to thank you for listening. We want to thank TheGreatCourses.com.

That's TheGreatCourses.com slash Ricochet. And of course, SaneBox.com where you'll get a coupon code ricochet that'll let you just make your email finally manageable. And of course, you can visit the Ricochet store where all sorts of things from t-shirts to mugs, t-shirts will be available to broadcast that Ricochet brand around the world. Thanks for listening. We'll see everybody at Ricochet 2.0. Next week, fellas. Next week. If you want my future, forget my past.

If you want to get with me, better make it fast. Now don't go wasting. Bye. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really, really, really wanna take a sip If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my plans Making love's forever, friendship never ends If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give Taking it's too easy, but that's the way it is What you think about that? Now you know how I feel. Say you can handle my love. Are you for real? I won't be hasty. I'll give you a try.

If you really bug me, then I'll say goodbye. Yeah, I will tell you what I want, what I really, really want. Don't tell me what you want, what you really, really want. I want to, I want to, I want to, I want to, I want to, I want to really, really, really want to say goodbye. If you want to be my... Ricochet. Join the conversation. You've got to kick it. It's too easy, but that's the way it is. So here's a story from A to Z. You want to get with me, you've got to listen carefully. We've got M in the place who likes it in your face.

You've got G like MC who likes it on a easy fee. You've given gum for free. She's a real lady. And ask for me. How you'll sleep? Stomp your body down and wine is all around. Stomp your body down and wine is all around. If you want to be my lover, you've got to get with my friends. Making love forever. Bye.