The Ricochet Podcast - The Party of The Future

Episode Date: February 7, 2013

This week on The Ricochet Podcast, Lileks is MIA with Skype issues, but we soldier on without him as we ponder nothing less than the future of the party and the nation at large. Our guests are RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and Red State.com’s Erick Erickson. It’s an honest, self-critical, and perhaps even hopeful conversation about where we’ve been and where we’re going. Let us know what you think... Source

Fourth thing we've got to do, we've got to stop being the stupid party. And I'm serious, it's time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults. Hello and welcome to the Ricochet Podcast. This is Podcast 155, which means 155 weeks. That's three years. Good lord. I know. I am three years. Good lord. I know. I am Rob Long. I'm coming to you from sunny Southern California. On the line with me, as usual, is Peter Robinson up in Palo Alto, California.

Peter, how are you? I'm fine, although I have to say, Rob, if three years ago you had told me when you talked me into doing these podcasts that they would continue for at least three years. I'm not sure what I would have said, but it would not have been yes, sure. Good grief. You would have freaked. How could I have known? I don't have the gift of foresight. We are usually joined, as always, by our partner, James Lilacs in Minneapolis, Minnesota. James is having some Skype trouble, so he's going to join us midway through which means

i have to do the jamesian honors which is to say that this podcast is brought to you by netflix instant streaming you can watch thousands of tv episodes and movies on your pc mac ipad iphone itouch whatever i think a lot more than that or on your tv through your x, PS3, or Wii, or Apple TV. It's all streamed instantly by Netflix. Save your time, money, and hassle for a free 30-day trial, including all 33 episodes of Breaking Bad, which is pretty good. You go to Netflix.com slash Ricochet. They just launched their House of Games as their first original Netflix show.

Everyone I know in Hollywood is talking about Netflix. Netflix is a gigantic what they call disruptor. If the Netflix and the Amazon experiments work where these two sort of internet behemoths start streaming and offering original programming along with the rentals and stuff that you can see and you have you maybe you've missed um hollywood will change so i'm excited i think i'm i'm i'm rooting for netflix and and on amazon as well to break it all up have you seen house of cards by the way or i have not house of cards i thought i said it called house of games it's house of course i have not seen it but that's the's the best – that's what makes the streaming thing so cool. You don't – you watch it when you have a moment.

You watch it when you're available, when it's available – when you're available, not when it's available. So I'm excited. Do you have any idea how much they spent on it? Yes, they spent a whole lot of money. Both Netflix and Amazon are making gigantic moves in um original scripted programming they are hiring the very best people around they are making they are making serious commitments to this this is like i mean that's like so effectively the studios this is not this is not let's do it on the cheap this is let's move in and become hollywood players right right the news today is

interesting right because here i mean these are unrelated businesses unrelated industries but Let's move in and become Hollywood players. Right, right. The news today is interesting, right? Because here – I mean these are unrelated businesses, unrelated industries, but they are very similar patterns. You have upstart, disruptive kind of companies like Netflix and Amazon who have been changing the way people – Netflix put all these rental – video rental stores out of business. Amazon is rapidly, rapidly becoming the nation's preeminent retailer. All of these companies do it with great customer service and they do it with sort of incredibly – incredible agility and speed. They're changing the economy in a good way. We know we're conservatives. We like competition. And then couple that with the news today that the post office is stopping Saturday letter delivery.

And the answer – it's like learning that an ancient Hollywood star just died and you say to yourself, gee, I didn't know he was still alive. At least in our household, Saturday delivery has become nothing but a little more junk mail in the box. And you remember it sometimes Sunday morning of no importance whatsoever. Amazon to go – this is a whole new – but the Blue Yeti and a couple of others have talked me into using Evernotes. All right. As you know, Rob, I'm so technologically retrograde that it will take me three weeks to figure out how to use this. But apparently you scan all your receipts in and it makes your economic – your financial life – OK. I ordered the thing. They said you will have it in two days and it turned up in one day. And it's an object. A big box came to the door 24 hours ahead of schedule because I ordered it through Amazon.

It is just astonishing. The post office says that they are doing well delivering packages but not delivering letters because there are no letters to deliver. That may be true, but they're going to continue Saturday package delivery, I believe, which means that a government agency that has a monopoly on something, i.e. letter delivery, home letter delivery, can't make it work. But when it has to compete in the open market against FedEx and UPS and DHL and the other people who do that, it actually does okay. So maybe – when you give somebody a monopoly on something, they always say – we always say about the government, oh, well, we need the government to do the things the market won't do.

Right, right. Well, actually, it can't do those things. It can actually do the things the market does well. So USPS is just one more competitor, and apparently it's effective, but it won't be delivering Saturday mail anymore. But we are very lucky today, speaking of government, speaking of big government, speaking of getting it to be smaller. We have a couple guests we should talk about. One, Rance Pribis. Rance Pribis is the head of the RNC. His name is pronounced Rance. We will really clarify that in a few minutes. They have been doing – conducting sort of a top-down after-action study that apparently is very interesting and confidential, but they're going to probably do it. But they're doing it, and maybe we can get some tidbits from that about what happened in november and what we need to do and then later eric erickson is joining us and eric erickson from

redstate.com uh he will be joining us uh he was was with cnn and now in this great you know tv news shuffle have been following that to the extent that i can yes dick morris is out at fox but in at cnn right they're all kind of swapping. I don't know what the actual strategy is over at Fox News, but it seems like whatever they're doing, it's sort of interesting. I'd be interested to see what happens. It feels to me like they're getting rid of the familiar hot-button faces after four years. Could be. and they're trying to you know i i will also say that if you had gotten your news from nowhere but fox and you had listened to dick morris predict a romney landslide you might very understandably

be scratching your head and saying now wait a minute he was just wrong right and uh i have a we have a mutual friend i won't mention his name because he didn't give me permission to. But he said the day after the election, his wife, who had been watching nothing but Fox News, was ready to get in a car and go picket outside the Fox News headquarters in New York City because she felt they had just misled her. So Fox News is undoubtedly aware that a lot of its viewers said, what? And they're making some changes. The market works. Yet again, more evidence. Yeah. I mean, what's interesting, though, is that CNN has scooped them up. I mean, we've talked about this before. One of the problems with the other news stations is that Fox News has these – Roger Ailes is very smart and he has these exclusive contracts with pretty much every major sort of high-end center-right dude or dudette in the world. And so if you're CNN and you're trying to get somebody to represent the right, not that they always do, but I think they attempt a lot of times.

You're never going to get the high-end guy because he's already locked into Fox. So with all the shuffling, it's kind of interesting. It's almost like sports, which brings me to the Super Bowl. Now, I know you watched. I did. Were you disappointed? I was. I was disappointed.

Jim Harbaugh grew up, spent part of his childhood growing up here in Palo Alto. He played football for Palo Alto High School. As you know, he coached here at Stanford. He and I had several pleasant conversations sitting next to each other in. He's the local coach. So sure. My kids and I are heavily invested in Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers. And there were a couple of plays there that are hard to figure out, but there's always next year. What a game though. Speaking of next year, we are joined by the head of the RNC. And he's going to talk a little bit about next year and what happened, how we win the Superbowl again.

Rents Pribis is joining us. Hey, Mr. Pribis, are you there? Yeah, I am here, guys. I was just thinking about how disappointed I was as a Packer fan to not even have the opportunity to say that at least the team that knocked us out twice was the winner of the Super Bowl. We didn't get that either. You're from Wisconsin. You were – I mean you were Republican Party of Wisconsin. You were first congressional district chairman.

You're state party treasurer, vice chair. So you sort of worked your way up in Wisconsin Republican politics. So if anybody knows how to win and succeed in a blue, blue state, it's you. Well, I sure think so. And you know what it takes? Honestly, as depressing and irritating as it is, the reality is that we have a little problem in our party that we need to fix immediately. And that's that instead of complaining about early voting, and instead of complaining about the fact that the other side treats politics as a vocation,

we're going to have to get a whole lot better at it. We're going to have to accept the fact that we live in a permanent political environment and that in the off year, when everyone is seemingly bored, we're going to have to become a massive coast-to-coast, granular, community-based operation. We're not just talking about a couple people being hired. We're talking about hundreds and thousands of people who are volunteers and people who are employed and working and selling

the brand of the Republican Party. And it's got to happen. Otherwise we'll lose again. Mr. Priebus, Peter Robinson here. I'm calling you Mr. Priebus because I've heard your first name pronounced a dozen different ways. Would you just give it to us once so we know for sure?

You know what? It's easy. Think of pints with a P, like how many pints are in a gallon or a quart? Pints, rinds. So you put an R instead of a P, rinds. Okay. So let me ask you, let me start in Britain, of all places. If you are running the Conservative Party in Britain, you know what you're running.

Every candidate has to sign the Conservative Party manifesto or you don't give them a slot. Nobody gets to stand for parliament without the say-so of the party. All the money spent on campaigning runs through the party. All the money spent on campaigning runs through the party. Here in this country, anybody who wants to be a Republican, who says he's a Republican, is a Republican. Any candidate may enter any primary he wishes to do so. You have no way of kicking people out of the party. As for fundraising, as for the grassroots, we know that in this last cycle, the Koch brothers put together their own database. I've seen stories now. You, of course, know in detail.

I'm only trying to keep up with it by reading the newspapers that Karl Rove is trying to put together his own database. Reince, as chairman of the Republican National Committee, what resources do you command? What structure are you running? What levers do you have to pull? That's a very, you're hitting on a massive, massive issue that I think is very smart and it's very insightful. To your first point, which is not what I'm going to get into, but in this country we don't elect a party, we elect a candidate, and that's a big difference. And so obviously in many countries in Europe you're electing a party and the head of the party ends up becoming the head of the government, and that's why it's completely and totally

different. the head of the government and that's why it's completely totally different but in regard to your your bigger question here uh... in regard to data technology the party if it's a complicated issue but the party still owns the data under campaign finance laws are certain things that we have to continue to on uh... and the data is our most important resource. And to give you an idea, this is sort of off the mark, but you remember when the party was $26 million in debt? Sure. A couple years ago? Well, the collateral for that debt was the data. And that data is very

valuable. And so what we need to do and what's happening, and what I'm hoping to be able to steer as chairman of this party, is to have all of those groups that you've just mentioned and still have the party involved in our data and technology efforts, and that what we need to do in order to be successful is to legally have some ownership over the data so that we can continue to have the data, use the data, update our data, but then to have, as the Democrats do, use their soft money friends in order to enhance the data and then take that data and share the data among a variety of people.

The data issue itself, we don't necessarily have a massive data problem. We have a massive sharing problem. I see. We're in the weeds here a little bit, but here's the deal. So if I wanted to figure out who has a pheasant hunting license in Wisconsin that has donated to a Republican candidate or the Republican Party or the NRA or has a subscription to a magazine that would lend itself to a sportsman of some kind?

Who are those people? I can get those people. But if I wanted to figure out, if someone in the finance department wanted to figure out, how do I Facebook the people who have donated $300 or more to a Republican Party function in the last 10 years because I've got a guest here that's coming in, and I want to Facebook them and sell them tickets to this fundraiser that's going to feature maybe Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and maybe David Keene from the NRA. The sharing issue is the problem, and that's where our breakdown is, and getting the usability of that data into a place that's easy for any person involved in any part of the campaign

to use. I know I'm in the weeds on this, but it's something that's very important. It's very interesting, right? This is Rob Long again in L.A. I mean, are you – the military has been doing this for years. Are you doing sort of a comprehensive, brutal, warts and all, after-action report after November? And if so, what's going to happen with that report? And is it going to get leaked?

Can we hear a little snippets of it? We can leak it to us. Yeah. How rough is it going to be? That'd be good. You know what? I don't know how rough it's going to be, but it's going to be honest. And I think that what you're going to see is that in the area of technology,

you've got to have experts involved. You've got to have people whose lives center around technology and data and sharing, and they're the ones that have to drive it, and we have to put people in charge of it, and we have to take risks. But I think it's going to be very clear and straightforward, and I would suspect that what you'll see is that in the area of demographics and outreach in the minority communities, like I said before, it's not going to be a few people that need to be hired at the RNC. I can get a couple good days of press and hire one person to head up our Asian effort

and one person to head up our Hispanic effort and make it look really good. But after a while, all it is is a one-off in the press. If you really want to move the dial, I mean, if we really do want to win and change what's been happening on presidential elections for us for 24 years, by the way, if we really want to move the dial, what is it that we need to do? My guess is, and I'm guessing, I'm getting ahead of the committee, but my guess is going to be that it's going to require real metrics, real measures of success.

I would say in the area of Hispanics, for example, that means hiring and finding volunteers from specific communities to lead in those communities for a long period of time, whether it be voter registration, community events, swearing-in ceremonies, what are the standards going to be for our party? Part of my issue, I think, with the party is that we have to have long-term standards that we're all expected to meet, both the national parties, the state parties, the local parties. And then how do we measure that success? And then how do I come back on your show in six months or a year and say, well, here's where the measure of success was. Here's where we were with the percentages. Here's what we accomplished. And then the ultimate question, which you asked is,

okay, so you did all these things. Tell me how that's going to end up moving the dial so that we actually have more success in these presidential elections. I think that's really where we're headed. Well, we hope we don't have to come back in a year or two. We hope that you're going to hang out at Ricochet more. We have a lot of great, very conservative, committed members. They like to talk a lot, and they have some great ideas, so you should check us out. But here's my question.

We talked about the politics and the mechanics, and I think everyone agrees that we have a lot of work to do on those issues. What about policy? Is there a policy problem that the Republican Party has? Well, listen, I mean, if you're talking a legislative agenda, I mean, just traditionally in the party, it's just not an area that we don't trample into the legislature. But what we do believe is that we have a messaging issue. And I would agree with you. I mean, you look at Wisconsin, and that is something that we can work on. But you look at Wisconsin. I know we didn't lose Wisconsin because, you know, we didn't lose because we weren't Facebooking people that were,

you know, as I said before, pheasant hunters. We didn't lose Wisconsin because we didn't do well with Hispanic voters. We lost Wisconsin because the Democrats had more voters than we did. And that's a bigger issue. And it's the issue that you're getting to, which is we have to grow the party. We have to grow the party without compromising our principles. I think that one of the things that we do well in our party, and I, is that we're pretty good at math. And we're really good at explaining our positions in regard to the debt window and our entitlement problem. We win the math award. And in fact,

if you look at the election, we won the question that we wanted to win, which is which candidate would be better for job creation in this country? Mitt Romney won hands down. In fact, Mitt Romney even won the question hands down of who would actually make a better president. Problem is, where we lost was who cares about you? Who's inspiring you? Who gives you hope in our country? And unfortunately, in that question, that's the question that Obama campaigned on. That's the question they wanted to win. And in the end, that's the question they did win, and they won it overwhelmingly. I think candidates matter. I think what comes out of your mouth matters. I think you have to have a plan, a vision. I think you have

to have heart in what you say. I think you have to inspire people. It's not good enough to be good at math and to explain where we're heading in this economy. We won that one, but we need to win the other one, which is a lot different, and I think it's something we need to be committed to as a party. Ryan, it's Peter Robinson here. I know we've promised to let you go. I've got applause for you. I've got a little fan, a mash note for you, and then one last question. And my mash note is as follows. Rob Long and I, I live in Palo Alto. Rob is down in Venice Beach.

And what you were saying a moment ago about the need to gather data to make a long-term effort to hold the party accountable just to basic metrics. I can't tell you what music that is to the ears of a Republican in California. God bless them both. But when Meg Whitman ran for governor and Carly Fiorina ran for the Senate, they spent tens of millions of dollars. Meg Whitman very generously spent $100 million of her own money. But they were constructing one-time campaign organizations. They were gathering their own polling data. They were putting together their own get out the vote. They both lost. And though that information and that structure just vanished, it was the candidate, not the party. So California is a long-term problem, but it sounds to me as though you're thinking about it in exactly the right way.

So this is the sound of – you have one Republican applauding you this morning, right? So your day can't have been a loss. Listen, here's the question. In the current issue of The Weekly Standard, Jeff Bell writes about the need for Republicans not to shy away from values, questions and social issues and he quotes Chris Caldwell. This is a slightly incestuous piece. I come to think of it. It's Jeff Bell in the Weekly Standard quoting Chris Caldwell from a previous article in the Weekly Standard. And here is what Christopher Caldwell wrote about his summary of the election. It's two sentences. Structurally, the outcome was the same one that we had seen decade after decade, where two candidates argue over values the public may prefer one to the other, but where only one candidate has values, he wins whatever those values happen to be, close quote. So the nature of the problem for the Republican Party is that all the world, the press, the commentators, even there's polling data to suggest that they're right, think that our values on social issues in particular are the

values of a shrinking minority of Americans. And yet, if you put forward candidates who wish to run only on economics and downplay the values, they lose. So how do you square that circle? Well, let's see if you can have it both ways. Let me explain. My guess is I didn't read the article. I was just listening to you, so I could be out of context here, but let me just say this. I think that what I'm hearing there, and I would agree with, is that if the world wants to pigeonhole you as a candidate, in that you have values on life and marriage and issues of family values

and things that, you know, Second Amendment rights. They want to pigeonhole you as being out of touch, out of step, awkward, not with the mainstream America. The answer is not to retreat. The answer is to stand up and state your values, explain why your values are better for America, and at the very least, you better be on offense on it, because if you act in defense and you retreat,

you're just going to prove the caricature that everyone else in the mainstream media is trying to prove. And I think that that's true. I think you need to be on offense. I think you need to be proud of what your positions are, and you need to state them clearly and boldly. And when you retreat, you just give credence to all the mischaracterizations that the other side is trying to throw at you. And I would say that, in my opinion, I would agree with that completely. And so, you know, our values and our party are

solid and strong. And I think that the way we communicate about our values have to be improved. Obviously, people like Todd Akin and Richard Murdoch didn't help, but I think that it's important for us to measure what we do in every circumstance. And clearly, being pro-life, it's not a losing issue. But if you don't want to talk about it and you let the media and the Democrats suck up all the vacuum and space on that issue, and then you have someone like Todd Akin

talking about legitimate rape, all of a sudden the caricature, fair or not fair, is suddenly starting to look plausible to the American people. And I think that's unfortunate, but that's the reality. And that's all a matter of being on offense. Don't be afraid. I just can't, I'll tell you, you know, it's a matter of deciding that you're going to

correct the record when the record is put into the, you know, when the court reporter is typing up the record. If you need to correct the record, you should, my instinct is always correct the record is put into the, you know, when the court reporter is typing up the record, if you need to correct the record, you should, my instinct is always correct the record. Now, I don't run the presidential campaign, but I'd leave you with just one thing, a little bit different than what you're talking about. I went out to visit with Mitt and Ann, and they're great people, by the way. They're, I think they're real community leaders and generous and warm and everything else. I just think the world of them. But I found out that that car elevator, you remember that whole car elevator episode?

Absolutely. And it seemed like such an incredible thing. It turns out that this thing is like a $1,500 car lift that is required by the code in San Diego. What I'm saying is that it's just a little tiny thing. It's expensive, but still, it's not like what you would think of a car elevator, like some huge elevator in your house. My point is, my instinct is correct the record or clarify the record. And it goes to all of these other issues, too.

Being on defense is a loser. And it's something that we just can't afford to do anymore. So what we have in Reince Priebus, although you are the nicest guy in the world, as has just become clear in this conversation, is a chairman of the Republican National Committee who intends to fight. Well, that's right. And you have to fight. And we have to fight for our party.

And we have the opportunity now. With a miserable loss comes an incredible opportunity. And we have this opportunity to fix our party, to be a coast-to-coast operation. And, yes, I know we talked about California. You know, go look at the map in 1988. California, Illinois, red, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware. It's all gone. So what are we going to do about it?

Are we going to continue this kind of silliness of having eight states and we have to hit the bullseye in all eight states, and if you miss, you're out? We can't continue that. It doesn't work. And so we're going to have to do the harder job of growing our party and finding more voters so that we can compete again in a place like California, which used to be a wonderful Republican state,

and we have lost control. And we just have to be willing to fight again for everybody in this country, in every state. Well, hey, Reince Priebus, we really appreciate you coming on. We really appreciate your joining the conversation, and we hope you'll stick around and check out Ricochet.com when you have a chance, and there's a lot of great wisdom there in the member feed. And we hope to see you again soon. And listen, best of luck in the next couple of months. There's a lot of fight ahead.

Enjoyed it. Very intelligent. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thanks, Ryan. So that can't be to be the chairman of the RNC for the past three months, two months. That can't have been too fun, I guess. You would not think so.

To put it the most subtle. I just – I mean that guy's phone and email inbox must be ringing and buzzing every day with people telling him what a moron he is or he's got to do this he's got to do that um i don't know that's a hard job he i mean he's he seems to be saying the right thing i gotta say like for all of the uh i was saying this but to jonah and to mark uh two weeks ago when i was in dc like for all of the talk of the bloodletting and the Civil War and the party, Eric Cantor, Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan, Bill Bennett. I'm just talking to the people I heard speak. Right. Jim DeMint. They're all kind of saying the same thing, which is either makes you happy or makes you nervous.

I don't know. I have just one comment on Reince Priebus. This is the first time I've talked. You're just using his name a lot because you know how to say it. I am and I'm trying to – exactly. Exactly. I'm now trying to memorize it. Actually, I've got it now.

I've got it. Right. That guy was just doing his honest best to answer questions. Yeah, yeah. There was no spin there. was no yeah right okay that's question number 23a here's the answer and spitting none of that sense that you're talking to somebody who's pre-programmed i liked the guy he's smart and he's honest and he's taking a long-term approach yeah I don't know how you could ask for better. I also agree with you completely. Why he's doing it, I cannot imagine.

It doesn't seem like it's good for your cardiovascular system. Correct. Correct. Worse than plaque. Now, worse than plaque. Before we continue, Eric Erickson is coming up next, and he's a great guy. And I'm sure our members are regulars on redstate.com. If they're not, they should check it out after Ricochet, of course.

But we are very lucky to be sponsored. This is our first sponsorship from them, from Netflix Instant Streaming. They are sponsoring this podcast with Netflix Instant Streaming. You can watch thousands of TV episodes and movies on your PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Touch, or on your TV through Xbox, PS3, Wii. And it doesn't say this here, but I watch it through Apple TV, and it's great. It's easy to watch. Right, right. And you can save a lot. You could check out – there are a lot of TV shows that are there.

Netflix has got everything, a lot of movies, a lot of great movies. I have been working on a little side project, a caper kind of heist show I want to do that takes – has like 10 or 12 episodes where they try to steal something and they move on to another city. And Netflix streaming has been fantastic because I can, all those movies, all those old heist movies, they're all on Netflix. You can get it at netflix.com slash ricochet. You get a free 30-day trial

of Netflix instant streaming at netflix.com slash ricochet. Ricochet is great. Make sure you put the ricochet in because we want them to know that we're supporting them. We could see a whole bunch of great TV series if you missed. Breaking Bad is one.

It was one of my favorites. You want a personal testimonial? Yeah. All right. The kids watched Downton Abbey. And Downton Abbey, you know, it's lavish. It's engrossing. I take nothing away from Downton Abbey because I've become an addict of Downton Abbey myself.

On the other hand, somewhere about a third of the way into the second season, and we're now in the third season, as you well know, Rob, there was a moment – I think it was the moment when the heir miraculously recovered from a spinal injury and stood from his wheelchair. And at that moment, he said, wait a moment. This is not a serious endeavor anymore. This is a soap opera on which they're spending a lot on set and costumes. It's a soap opera. It's just a soap opera with tweed. So I said to the kids, now, if you want to see a high-budget, high-costume production that actually goes someplace, That's a great story.

Watch the 1980s production of Brideshead Revisited. And guess what? It's right there on Netflix, streaming video. 30 seconds after I said that, they were watching it. Netflix. Wow. So I know we want to talk to Eric, and I want to get to him soon, but I just have to stop. So you wanted the family to watch Brideshead.

Well, yes, of course I wanted the family to watch Brideshead. It's a fantastic book. That's great. And it is – and of course the other thing is that when – that my kids – well, I was at Oxford when they were filming the thing. So for me, it brings back all kinds of memories of walking from home, having had a drink or two at a pub and seeing bright lights in a place where they shouldn't be and wandering over and seeing that they were filming a night scene of Brides That Revisited. But just think of the performances. It's Claire Bloom before she began to look old. It's the last big performances from Olivier and John Gielgud. It's Jeremy Irons in the performance. Gielgud is fantastic. and John Gielgud. It's Jeremy Irons in the performance. Gielgud is fantastic.

Oh, Gielgud is fantastic. The great thing about – that's what I love about Netflix is that it puts – I mean Netflix and I'll say Amazon streaming but Netflix especially. It is absolutely the kind of business that makes my heart glad. It puts the consumer at the center of the decision. If I could do this, if I could do Netflix streaming, a version of Netflix streaming for healthcare, put the consumer at the center of the decision, all problems would be solved. Speaking of solving all problems, boy, these segues are hard and I make fun of James for doing them. I was about to say I won't do it anymore, but of course I'll do it again.

We're joined by a friend of ours, a great guy, a wonderful writer, great – one of the early bloggers, great commentator, contributor. He was the managing editor of the blog site RedState.com, which I know most of our listeners have heard of and go to regularly. He also hosts a weekday radio show on WSB from 5 to 7 p.m. And until a few weeks ago, he was a conservative commentator on CNN. He lives in Macon, Georgia. Great guy. We're really pleased to have him here. Hey, Eric, it's Rob Long in L.A.

How are you? I'm well. How are you? I'm well. How are you? I'm doing well. And you got Peter Robinson up north. Palo Alto, not that far north. Yeah, yeah, Palo Alto. So can we just quickly talk about CNN? What's going on with CNN? You know, new president, new shakeup. I think they finally have someone who really is focused on the news gathering and really focused on what's going on. I wish him best of luck.

I'm excited for him. I moved over to Fox last week. Two weeks ago was the last day I was at CNN. Last week moved to Fox. I'm excited for him, though. They're very good people. It does seem like there's some kind of switcheroo going on because you're moving to Fox, and I think Dick Morris is going to appear on CNN today or tomorrow.

Do you guys, like, pass each other on 6th Avenue? Well, you know, thankfully, living down in Macon, Georgia, I don't see much of anybody. That's right. Well, you see, you see the denizens. That's not going to go down too well with your neighbors there. So we were just talking to Reince Priebus. And the first half of our conversation with Reince Priebus was just nailing down the precise pronunciation of Reince. And he sort of gave us a great energizing thing, and I – but I was really struck by something that you wrote recently called – about the loyal opposition.

Right. In which you're angrier at Republicans than you are at Democrats. And I know I'm just making it pretty simple just to get into it. Could you talk about that a little bit? I mean where should we be aiming our energies and our persuasive fire? Well, I think we have to aim it at the left, but I think we also have to hold people on the right accountable. It was not the Democrats who got us to $16 trillion in national debt. It was Republicans and Democrats alike.

I mean, Republicans came in in 2001 saying that they were the party of smaller government and promptly passed No Child Left Behind, letting Ted Kennedy write it, Medicare Part D, steal tariffs in Pennsylvania, and then got past the election and tried to do the Bush immigration reform, which I think broke down the moment they decided that people on the right who opposed it were racist. Harriet Myers for the Supreme Court. And you had op-eds along the way from other people, including Fred Barnes, who I adore, writing in the Wall Street Journal saying, well, this was now an era of big government conservatism, and there's no such thing.

Well, Eric, so Peter Robinson here, George W. Bush is gone. He's long gone. And even Mitt Romney is – who ran on economics and we could argue ran perhaps too defensive a campaign, downplayed social issues, was defensive in every moment except the first debate. I may be overstating the case but one way or the other, he's gone. So now we have Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal. I understand you're wanting to vent and get it all said. But now that you've said it, oughtn't we just to be turning to this new crop of young leaders whose party

has taken a shellacking? All the polls show that the Republican brand is damaged and yet we have this – Nikki Halley, we have this young group stepping forward. Shouldn't we just be cheering them and urging them on? Here's the problem with that though, Peter. We should be – I'm trying to provoke you, Eric, though, Peter. We should be doing that. I'm trying to provoke you, Eric, because you're so beautiful when you're angry, but go ahead.

Marco Rubio's a friend. These are all friends of mine, and all of them, with the exception of Bobby Jindal, all of them were opposed by the establishment Republicans who were in Washington, D.C. Remember, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the leadership that's still there, by and large, supported Charlie Crist. The Republican leadership in Washington supported David Dewhurst against Ted Cruz. They supported Trey Grayson against Rand Paul. They were absolutely opposed to Bob Bennett being challenged in Utah. And then when he was thrown out, they immediately lined up against Mike Lee in the gubernatorial races. They were opposed to Nikki Haley getting

elected in South Carolina. They didn't support Rick Scott in Florida. The guys in Washington who want to make the calls on the candidates like to say, oh, look at these conservatives. They've picked very bad people, Christine O'Donnell, Sharon Engel, you name it. And they want to ignore the fact that they have been on the wrong side of every hero you and I now see in the Republican Party. They've been on the wrong side of every hero you and I now see in the Republican Party. They've been on the wrong side of those races. Okay, but can I push one more time and then I'll turn you over to Rob. We just had 25 minutes with Reince Priebus. Reince Priebus helped make Scott Walker possible. Reince Priebus is close personally to Paul Ryan. Those three young fellows turned over the state of Wisconsin and rebuilt the Republican Party in Wisconsin.

And to hear him talk, you'd have to conclude that Reince Priebus is an Eric Erickson kind of conservative. In other words, I make the case – again, I'm very happy to have you. I feel – believe me, I'm with you. But it's over. If we got Reince Priebus running the RNC and Marco Rubio is in the Senate now, Ted Cruz is in the – I just think this is a wonderful moment. And your next piece should be let the sun shine. I'm trying to cheer you up, Eric. I would think it's a wonderful moment except for the leaders in the party still who are calling the shots are Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, who have both been in Washington since 1985.

I think they should, if they were smart, would start ceding more face time to the Ted Cruz's and the Marco Rubio's and whatnot on on a host of issues, not just immigration for Marco Rubio. Notice they give it to him and not to Ted Cruz. Not just these individual issues. They should be allowing the states. Look, this is a wonderful time for conservatives in that a majority of states are now controlled by conservative governors. And federalism has a chance finally to work. And it's not just conservative governors. It's conservative governors who disagree with each other. So we get a battle of ideas within conservatives

to see the cream rise. But the faces in Washington that the media relies on and the faces in Washington Republicans put forward are the faces who have been there for two and a half decades. So you're as hopeful as I am, I think, Eric, about

the Republicans outside of D.C. The minute you're west of D.C. The minute you hit, the minute you're west of Dulles Airport or south of Dulles Airport, things look better. So what can, we got a lot of members on Ricochet, a lot of very good conservatives who really want change. What's the best thing they can do?

I mean, what's the best thing? One of the things you said is like, we train our outrage at the president and we become humorless and angry opponents of the president pretty much just like that. Well, how do those people go out and sell the ideas of the conservative movement and free market enterprise and the Republican Party are that we have an army of supporters the way the president has an army of supporters all over the country i think what republicans need to do is go back to doing what they did so well when robert president and that is ridicule the policies left we've largely lost our sense of humor to some degree and and we need to get it back laughing

at some of the ridiculous policies of the left. We spent two and a half years debating health care. We got to this Obamacare to save money, and now healthy young men are going to see their premiums go up three times over. I mean, there is so much absurdity in Washington that we should be laughing at instead of screaming at. People don't embrace screaming, but they love to be in on the joke. I totally agree with you. I mean, I feel like that's the one thing we've lost.

I remember when we used to make fun of every single crackpot left-wing idea and every single crackpot left-wing bureaucrat regulation, And it seemed to be effective even during – we seem to have forgotten that. Even during the first Obama administration, there were moments, there were whole months that went by that his popularity was plummeting because we were finding little things and making fun of them. I mean I don't – I still think that we completely fumbled the cash for clunkers idea, which completely – the most harebrained scheme ever and completely didn't work. And we just – we didn't make – what's wrong? I mean we seem to have all of the things we need. We've got great blogs. We've got Twitter.

We've got Fox News. We have ways to drive a national conversation, at least a national joke. What are we not doing? We're not laughing. We're too busy screaming. And, you know, frankly, I hate to say this because it really rubs a lot of my friends on the right and the media the wrong way, but I think we're so focused on the outrage moments that we haven't focused on the laugh lines. We're so focused on the anger on the right uh we haven't

focused on just how ridiculously stupid some of what the obama administration is proposing i mean for example their energy policy the last time anyone was so dependent on wind and solar as the white house wanted it was called the dark ages and we should be pointing things out like this instead i realize we've got to focus on things like Benghazi and whatnot. The media is not. But when we keep screaming about things and the media is surely never going to pick them up, channels or sites like Red State or Ricochet, do you think that we're fueling the outrage button, the outrage fire and not the funny fire. I mean, I saw some very, very, very funny Photoshop's of that hilarious picture of Barack Obama firing a shotgun at God knows what. And the funniest one was it was Barack Obama's holding the shotgun up and he's firing it. And then in front of the shotgun, there's a teleprompter that says pull. Yeah, I should be laughing about these things. And I think we've got to get the humor game back.

I mean, it's very odd that for the last couple of years, the left has really been the ones laughing at the right. Now, in historic perspective, it's cyclical. After George Bush won in 2004, the Democrats for a couple of years went really, really nasty. And they were able to take back the House of Representatives on that rage. But it wasn't until Barack Obama came hope and change and an optimism message and laughing at John McCain and the right that they were able to get into the White House. People want to be happy. And it just seems like conservatives are still in a state of misery when they really do need to be laughing. If they're going to be angry, be angry at their own side for not doing what they said they would do. But, I mean, start

ridiculing Obama. The man really is ridiculous. We should be laughing. Most Americans, actually, if you poll them, they tend to agree that a lot of his policies are ridiculous. Right. I mean, that's one thing that Reince Priebus mentioned to us, is that in all of the deep dive into the big data they have, the one of the most frustrating things is that on a lot of issues, on maybe even a majority of issues,

the American people are with the Republicans, certainly on economic issues. And so that does seem to be a disconnect. So let me ask you, make it Georgia. I mean, do you think that you've got a better perspective from being in Georgia, being a southern state, or do you think it – is that just kind of another bubble? I mean I live in Venice Beach, so my neighbors all voted for Obama, but their heart belonged to Dennis Kucinich in the old days. So they kind of held their nose and voted for the establishment Democrats.

So I'm surrounded by crackpots, and that definitely affects the way I look at politics and the way I look at policy and the way I look at the way to move forward. I mean is there a place where you think they're doing it right? Is there a state or an area where you think we could ape it? And I'll just ask you this because me personally, I feel like we are not spending enough time thinking about Wisconsin, which is a blue state that voted for a very strong anti-union reformist government. Is there another high spot there that you want to like – just that you think that doesn't get enough attention from our side? Oh, I think Wisconsin is a good one to look at. I actually think Louisiana is an interesting one to look at. I actually think Louisiana is an interesting look. It's my home state. I've got to tell you a sure sign of progress in Louisiana,

the progress Bobby Jindal has made, is that in the old days when the lights went out in the Superdome, when they came back on, the score would have been reversed in the 49ers. That is a sign of progress that we've moved beyond the Huey Long Era in Louisiana. I actually left Louisiana and moved to Georgia after suffering through the David Hugenman

and Patrice when my Republican parents put on a bumper sticker that said, vote for the crook. It's important. And we all voted Democrat that year. It's huge progress. It should be underestimated. Wisconsin as well has made huge progress. Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal really have been leading the nation.

Put Louisiana just in real perspective. It went from 50th in the nation in ethics to first in the nation in ethics in one vote of its state legislature three years ago. And business is coming into Louisiana than any other. It's a real progressive state as far as economics go. Eric, Peter here again. All right. We've now established that you're talking to us from Georgia

and that you grew up in Louisiana. Let me quote to you a little bit of what David Brooks wrote in the New York Times on January 28th. And he wrote a story about the importance of building a second wing of the Republican Party. Why?

Quote, in the South and rural West where most Republicans are from, the anti-urban sentiment has characterized those cultures for decades. So, he continues, let's build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic states in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. This second GOP, final sentence, would be filled with people who recoiled at President Obama's second inaugural address because of its excessive faith in centralized power, but who don't share the absolute anti-government story of the current Southern gop there you go eric what do you say back to david brooks ah david brooks see that looks like him in the mirror with a better leg crease i you know

this gets back to the story because the and how david brooks i think he may just not understand the settlement of people look i don't profess to have some sort of better worldview because I live in Macon, Georgia. I think I have a more precise worldview among Republicans because I'm not hanging out of the cocktail parties with these people so I can talk about them. business owners in oregon in wisconsin in ohio in massachusetts they have the same contempt for government that southern republicans have by and large they may be in the minority in their state per se but i think there's something to be unlocked there that david brooks doesn't necessarily understand david brooks has never tried to open a small business if david brooks open tried to open a small business he would be as mad as hell at government as a lot of the rest of us. I would love to see the small business that David Brooks

would open. Imagine the khakis that he would sell. I was going to say like a fountain pen store or something equally obscure. Kind of nice, but who needs it? Hey, listen, Eric, we're really, really thrilled that you joined us. We're both big fans, and redstate.com, terrific place. You were one of the early guys to be

out there and spreading the word, and we're really grateful to you, and we certainly owe you a debt. You're one of the inspirations behind ricochet.com, that's for sure. Is there anything you'd like to say? We've got a lot of members. They're all conservative. They're all kind of, all different kinds of conservative.

What would you say to them? If you're like, you know, you're certainly a leader of the movement. What's, you got any final words for our members? You know, before I'm even a conservative, I'd characterize myself as an evangelical. And I'm very big on the fact that I believe there's a last I'm very big on the fact that

I believe there's a last day and that those on the right side win. And so there's just no reason to be mad as hell all the time. You got to be happy. You're not going to break the whole treaty if you're mad as hell all the time. You mean to say that you believe there will be a day of judgment and the person sitting on the throne of judgment will not be barbara streisand that is shocking i know for many people but probably most of the listeners here they're shocked that you would say barbara streisand as opposed to barack obama barack obama i'm just trying to i'm trying to rattle rob a little bit here yeah well i uh i would be i would be um surprised by either one of them, put it that way.

Eric, thanks. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Hey, Eric, thanks a lot for joining us. Sure. You know, I got to say, he says it so much better than I've been trying to say it. I wish I had read those words so I could have stolen them and appropriated them and claim them as my own. But I do think he's right that we – when we forgot how to make fun of the other side, we forgot how to mock them, something – we lost a little something because I think that was one of the things that I think helped with Reagan, making fun of Tip O'Neill.

I think it's helped – I mean it's one of the things that fell to caucus. It's one of those things that we used effectively with Clinton certainly in the first term. And when we lost that sense of humor, we actually – I don't think we hurt ourselves I think in terms of sheer happiness. But I think we also gave up a great weapon. I couldn't agree more. What was the best humorous line of the campaign just concluded? Right. I don't know. Can you think of one? I can't even think. Well, it would go to the Al Smith dinner, but those were self-deprecating.

Right. And what was the – yeah, they were – and that was the one use of humor that I can recall. Actually, there was a great joke in there that Jay Nordlinger referred to. That was a big joke for Romney. Romney said, you know, listen, we're here. We're both – because he and Obama are at that Al Smith dinner. So we're here just for tonight for this charity, and we're going to put down our – we're going to cease the campaign for a while and just be normal guys. Because look, we both have a job to do. So he talked about the press. He talked about the press. I'm sorry. I messed that up. He's talking about the press. He goes, well, we both have a job to do. My job is to lay out a plan for the American future to restore prosperity and growth and health and happiness.

And your job in the press is to keep anybody from finding out about that. And it was a much better joke. I'm doing it a terrible disservice, but got a huge laugh, a gigantic laugh. Everybody laughed. Jay Norlinger accurately said, the reason that's funny is because everybody knows it's true. Nobody scratched their head and said,

hey, what's he talking about? They all knew exactly what he was talking about. That's why that joke worked, not because it was so outlandish or he was somehow speaking Swahili. It's because he was actually saying the truth, which is what the best kinds of humor do. I'd write this column every two – for every issue of National Review since 1993, by the way. So I'm coming up on my 20 years there. Yeah, it's a lot lot it's amazing how old

i am it's unbelievable but i started when i was 27 and i started making fun of al gore and bill clinton and i did that for eight years and then um then when bush came in i kind of made fun of bush a lot i made fun of bush a lot and his side but i also made fun of the other side. And I do really feel sometimes like it should be easier for me to make fun of this president, but it's been harder. And I don't know why. And I think Eric is right. I think you got to reconnect to the whatever it is that you're mocking muscle. You make fun of muscle. You're happy. Look at those crazies muscle. And you have to be sort of confident that in the end, you know, we'll win. Speaking of old, I know that this is old man talk when I start talking about Reagan.

But no speech for Ronald Reagan. You wouldn't even dream of sending over a set of remarks to the president, no matter how brief, no matter how inconsequential, or to put it the other way, no matter how important, you wouldn't dream of submitting a set of remarks or a speech to the president without an opening joke and two or three other pieces of humor spaced throughout this. I mean, that was just part of our job. I mean, to use the old line, humor is serious business, right? But he was a pro. He knew what he needed. He needed, I need a joke. I need a joke. Exactly. Exactly. It's still, you know, still the best definition of government. And it fits Jay Nordlinger's observation that people laugh because they

knew it was true. But Ronald Reagan used to say just this little quip, this innocence, this good humor. But it was exactly right that the federal government is like a baby, a voracious appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. You know, George W. Bush had a good sense of humor too when he gave speeches. He could be pretty self-deprecating and make some good jokes. But, he brought down the House. He was so funny. It was a remarkable performance by a – I haven't seen a better actual acted performance by a president where he just read

from – I think it was Jake Weisberg's book Bushisms and he kind of read from these things that he had said that were kind of nutty and he kind of justified them and he looked up and it was brilliant. But again, it wasn't the same thing as saying here's a joke that when you laugh at it also tells you what I deeply believe. Right, right.

We're missing that. Have you – we'll have to – all right. Let's just establish right now that we'll make this a running theme because to me, one of the – what I'll be looking for, we've been talking with Reince and with Eric about the new crop of Republicans, rising Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley. And to me, whether they can give a joke and do it well and use humor is one of the most critical tests. So I can't – I don't have a feel for them enough yet. But, but let's, let's return to that. Watch. I think that's a, that's a big, big thing for us. And it's a big

deficit we've got to cover. Hey, Peter, we, you and I just did an old school podcast. I know. I know. It was, it was just Uzi and Meze and it was 155. Good Lord. And by the way, you're right. You are looking old, Rob. I just want you to know that. I'm feeling old. Oh, stop it. Stop it. I'm so much older than you. All right.

That's true. But still, that is true. You said that I was old. It's not relative. It's all individual here. We are very lucky, again, I should say this, to be sponsored by Netflix. Go to Netflix.com slash Ricochet for your free 30-day trial. I didn't say that in the middle spot for Netflix. I really should say it one more time.

You get a free 30-day trial at Netflix.com slash Ricochet. That's pretty cool. And I know you'll love it. It's a great, great service. It's exactly what the consumer needs. I've used it all the time, and I'm thrilled with it. And we are very, very grateful that they are supporting us. So, I mean, I guess we're going to – well, James will get his Skype problem sorted out.

I did kind of miss him when I was doing the segues. He was so good at those. I mean he is so good at those. It's not like he fell off a cliff or anything. He will be back next week. Peter, you will be back next week. I will be back next week. Until next week.

Until next week, Rob. Take care. See you soon. You would cry too if it happened to you. Nobody You would cry too if it happened to you. Nobody knows where my Johnny has gone. But Judy left the same time. Why was he holding her hand? Ricochet.

Join the conversation. It's my party and I'll cry if I want to. Cry if I want to. Cry if I want to. Join the conversation. Bye.