¶ Charlie Cook joins the Chuck ToddCast!
Well, joining me now is somebody who, in the world of political analysis needs no introduction.
It's the legendary. It's the great Charlie Cook.
And he's here because he also is part of perhaps the single most important reference book in both of our lives. It's called The Almanac of American Politics, and the latest edition is hitting bookstores now ish or really, why do we call it bookstores? Yes, there'll be a few in bookstores, but you'll get to order it directly. I'm one of those people that always says the older the Almanac, the more useful it is. So and I have to have every single one of them, and over the years my
ability they go back to nineteen seventy two. I finally have a complete set and got it completed about ten or fifteen years ago. But the biggest impediment to completing the set was always Charlie Cook, because every time I went to a used bookstore in Washington, DC looking for it, I put my name on a list and they said, yeah, that's nice, but Charlie's ahead of you.
In the list. But yeah, any bay works pretty well too. But I did have two complete sets and then was having to do a third because we were splitting the time between anyway. So now I actually gave somebody a bunch of my extras, so I've got two full sets. Though.
Well, what I joke with people about this is that I'm in the sports I like sports cards. And you know there's a there is if you're trying to collect every edition of the American Politics, there is a short print, and the short print edition is nineteen seventy six, which I would argue is the single most important one of my generation because it was the first almanac after the Watergate elections, which had this massive transformation, and you.
Were dying to read the Almanac.
And of all years that they were short printed, that was a tough one because I think I spent five hundred dollars on my nineteen.
Seventy sixth edition. It was so it was so hard to find. What I finally got first in nineteen seventy two is a senior in high school at a bookstore my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, and have been addicted to it ever since. I think they're at a max of twenty two hundred. I think like twenty two hundred pages is the most I think they could get into that kind of binding. Is that what it is now? And that's what that's the limited, That's what it was last
two So I think that's probably what it is. It's time. I know you. My essay is about a third or fourth the size that originally was. Well, this is what I want to talk about.
Look, Michael Baron is the guy who came up with the concept with grand Ujifusa still his name on it.
He's less involvement. I don't think there's zero involvement. If I'm not mistakes, He's still pretty involved. But you get to write the opening essay. Does he write an essay anymore? Yeah? I think, Well, I haven't seen the new one, but I believe he's got Yeah. I think there are three, at least three, Lou Jacobson, who's the quarterbacking the whole thing, and Michael. I mean I think so. I think there are three, and there may actually be a couple of others,
¶ Almanac of American Politics is best reference for each district
but there are a bunch of really really talented people involved. Jessica Taylor, you know a lot people you all know well.
As I am a I always say that it is it's different than most reference books because it you know, there's it does have it was it's a better read than c Q. That's what I used to say, and I don't CQ sometimes had more information, but it was but you learned less about each congressional district. I mean, what Barone created was this model of essentially two profiles and one and half the profile of each district would be about the district and about the economy of the
district and the culture of the district. And it really was, you know, helped you understand the tapestry of America.
And then the other, frankly.
Smaller part, unless it was a well known lawmaker, would be the profile of the lawmaker themselves.
And literally the now I used to joke you could.
Track Michael Barone's political evolution by just reading Henry waxman biography profiles from Night eighty two versus nineteen ninety six, you know, and you could see, you know, the question is did Henry Waxman change or did Michael Barone change? But I say this with love. I love Michael and his you know, we don't agree at everything, but the.
Guy I'll go with the latter.
But yeah, the guy is was a savant, is a savant on this stuff and taught us all to learn, have to learn America one district at a time.
A lot of people go from you know, I'm trying to come up with a metaphor other than caterpillars and butterflies, one of this little less less judgmental. But you know, Pat Cadell, you know, who was always a maverick, but the last you know, eight ten years of his life, was much more of a maverick than even he was when he was a senior in college. And McGovern's pollster.
You know, some people are always outsiders, Yeah right, no matter what, they're always outsiders, Like Bernie Sanders. Strikes me that he would always find a way to be the outsider.
Even if he were put in charge. Yeah, you know right, and in some ways that's Donald Trump.
Well let's start with Look, the beauty of these of these almanacs is it does try to sort of paint a picture in a moment, right where are we as a country in this moment in time. This will be technically the Almanac of American Politics twenty twenty six, but it's really about twenty twenty four, you know, And what did we learn about America in twenty twenty four? And what does it say of who we are in this moment.
¶ Democrats decline happened nearly across the board
How did you tackle your essay?
Well, I have a bit of a contrarian view. To me, the twenty twenty four election was kind of a bifurcated election that at the presidential level it had one outcome and then below that it had a very different one at the top. It's astonishing how broad the declines were
for Democrats, both geographically and demographically. In fact that the Catalyst study looked at one hundred different subgroups demographic subgroups, and the Democratic percentage declined in ninety two out of one hundred, and I think it went up in like three and say the same at five or something like that. And then you've seen the ones about you know, the
countings and stuff. But the thing is, but at the same time, it was a tiny bit less than a point and a half and so it was a horizontal loss, but it wasn't a vertical loss either in the sense of it being down that much or but more importantly,
¶ 2024 wasn't the Democrat wipeout it's portrayed to be
you look down ballot, look at the house. When you have it, I mean a gain. Democrats wanted to get a majority. Yeah, absolutely, they didn't get it, but they gained seats. Now do you lose an election if you gain seats, I mean, you know, you may. It may have been a disappointing election, but it wasn't the wipeout
that people suggest it is. And then you look at the Senate races, and you know, if you divide the country up seven purple states, nineteen blue states, twenty four red states, Democrats won every one of the races in blue states, Republicans won every one of the races in red states. And there were five Senate races that were in purple states and Democrats won four out of five. But the election is seen as a repudiation of the entire Democratic Party. No net change in governors, there was
a net gain of one Republican in ags. There was no net change in Secretary of State races, and the change of Julia Sees. The changes in state legislative seats was less than a percentage point, So down ballot this was about as status quo or predictable election as you could possibly possibly get you.
No, it reminds me, I remember the ninety eight min terms were barely budged anything. If I remember, I want to say five House seats total, maybe not a single Senate seat. It may have been zero I think, in fact, I used to joke, right, Mitch McConnell was the NRSC chair in two cycles and he had a net loss of four in those two cycles ninety eight and two thousand and two thousand, they ended up losing seats. But I remember a headline we came up with at the highline,
status quo. But wow, right, because the fact that was status quo was the shock in ninety eight type of thing is I think what shocks everybody is a Trump won the popular vote, so it feels like it was monumental, but when you look at everything else, nothing really budged.
That's basically what you're what you're kind of saying, Well, and you know, we're going through a period where there's virtually no third party or independent vote, and so you know there's going to be, you know, likely to be a majority, you know, or closetro majority, no matter, no matter what. But you know, I got a little bit
more time on my hands. You know, when the last Democrat Democratic Senate incumbent lost re election general election in a blue state, Mark You'dahl in Colorado in twenty fourteen, the last Republican to lose in a red state general election was Ted Stevens in Alaska in two thousand and eight, and that was after he was indicted, but before the indictment was reversed, and that nowadays.
So it's been over a decade, over a decade since blue stayed blue unless unless the Democrats toxic.
¶ All of the movement happens in the purple states
And the same thing for Republicans in red states is that basically all the action is in purple states.
And now Moore, right, like Roy Moore is about what it takes for a Democrat to win in a red state.
Yeah, no, that's a good definition. Chris Kloback in Kansas, in the Kansas governor's race, you.
Know, in my Castle, you know, Mike Castle died earlier this week, and they were in fact, I wanted to make a bigger.
Note of it because it's funny.
Mike Castle in some ways as an early victim of the mega movement. Right twenty ten primary loses to this, you know, in a small primary. The woman became famous for doing an ad saying I am not a witch. Chris Coons became a Senator for life because of.
It, right, And it was a yeah, it was. I remember speaking to a group in Wilmington during that race, and both Coons and Mike Castle were on the program, and I remember listening to Coons because I didn't know that much about Coons and thinking, gosh, this guy's pretty good. If he were everybody other than other than Mike Castle, you know, this guy could seem like the Washington generals.
He was the poor guy that was that they put up to the because the Delaware politics, it was always
¶ Non-aggression pacts between candidates of different parties in 80s
like a year turn type of thing, and it was like, well, it was Castle's turn. Everybody likes Castle fine, right, Like Biden was barely endorsing Coons at the time.
It was sort of like that Castle's a good guy. It's his turn. Well, small states there, you used to have these these non aggression packs in small states where you don't screw with your colleague. And I'm trying to decide whether to tell a story or not sure what the hell I have. It was right after Biden dropped out of it. It's a it was the Neil Kennick story.
Well anyway, forty eight, yeah, eighty eight, race eight eighty seven, eighty eight, nine eighty eight.
And it was the next time he was up for reelection, and I get a call from his his AA chief of staff, Ted Kaufman saying when are you going to be on the hill next? And I said, well, so go buy. He pulls out this three ring binder blue that says Market Opinion Research, you know, which at the time was one of the two big Republican polling firms had the original and get through where clearly he had Roth's poll that Roth had had done and was proving to me that it had not damaged him in Delaware.
So here was the Democratic chief of staff getting a Republican polsters, their Republican colleagues polling here. Why don't you take a look at this? Well, yeah, in the original notebook, So it wasn't even a photocopy. We were talking about handing over a three inch binder. And you know, you know,
back in the old days you said fun times. I had a media consultant one time sitting me down with the let me look at all the cross tabs on a poll that was in anyway, it was basically proving that the guy that was likely to win the Democratic Senate nomination had no chance whatsoever in a general election.
And it was completely conjurary. Well up, you and I couldn't cite it, couldn't quote it, but it was it's
¶ Journalists don't want to be "used" when being given information
nice to cover an election when you have like really well informed information. Yeah yeah, but nobody else. That's not the world.
It's not the world we live in these days where I feel like, you know where I feel like even the half I want to share something with you, You're like, am I being worked?
I being used? Right? Like? And I'm sure you we're all trying to end. Back in the days when they were nightly.
Tracking, right, and there was a cycle when I won't get specific at all, but where someone was reading to me the numbers in house races that they were getting from their tracking, and they would do a quarter of the races on Monday Tuesday, another quarter on Wednesday Thursday, and then the next week Monday Tuesday, another quarter and so every other week they had.
They had current numbers with on all the rays and uh yeah, we I look pretty smart that year.
So let me let's I want to talk about a conundrum that I consistently talk about, but I'm not one hundred percent sure what to do about it, which is, we live in an era of weak political parties and strong political alliances. Right, the Red and Blue has never
¶ Parties are weak, but allegiances are stronger than ever
been stronger, and the d N r has never been weaker discuss To me.
The decline was, we used to have two broad based, ideologically and geographically diverse parties that overlapped substantially with conservative Democrats that represented small town, small town rural areas of the South, whatever, urban Republicans that represent major metropolitan areas that George Voinovich's or Dick Luger or whatever, and that each side had moderating influences and that and that the
people on the fringes were marginalized. And it was when you started seeing the parties sorting out, and that basically anybody that was remotely conservative abandoning the Democrat Party, anybody remotely liberal abandoning the Republican Party. And suddenly you know the distance between, like right now, the distance between the most liberal and the least liberal ends of the Democrat Party aren't that far apart, and the same thing on the Republican side, most in least, and yet the gap
¶ The two parties have no overlap on policy or values
in between is the whitest it's ever been. And so that you have two parties that have no overlap, no agreement on any significant policy, no agreement on values, and you know, it's borderline ungovernable. And but to me, it was when the parties became less diverse and more monolithic and were inward focused and not uh, they don't even understand anybody that's not in their in their world. You know.
One of the theories I have, and it's just a theory.
I want to run it by you.
We were talking about it before we started taping, is that when when we were ignorant about what voters believed and what do I mean by that, which is there was sort of a pattern of how of how campaigns were run in the eighties and nineties and the modern TV campaigns. And on October of the election year, Democratic incumbent ran the ad that ragged about the Republican they worked with to get something passed, and the Republican incumbent and state X ragged about working with a Democrat to
get something done. Because there was this agreement that the whoever was undecided by October must be vacillating between the two parties. They might be some sort of centrist independent,
¶ Campaigns learned undecideds aren't always centrists
not just independent, but some sort of eh, they're a little this, a little of that. They really want consensus governing. So make the pitch who's the most believable consensus builder? Is how you win over that vote. And then in two thousand and four we learn more. Right, micro targeting became something, and we found out and as the campaigns learn more about these undecided voters, they realized, oh, they're not centrist, they're independents who don't neatly fit into one
box or the other. But there are a handful of issues that they like on our side, so let's exploit them.
Well, I highly commend your substock this morning on this, and we're to me just wording it slightly differently. In two thousand and four or probably three, Carl Rove and his team would be probably met dud and Yon von
Lohausen and Melmott. Right, we're looking at the undecided is the people that were really in the middle, and realize those people really don't like President Bush and we could spend the gross domestic product of many countries and never win those people over, so that we either have to conceive the election or figure out how to organically grow our base because we're not going to get a dispurportant
share of the people in the middle. And they were skillful enough, and we're a radial of ingenuity and we're able to do that and to me, the whole world went from persuasion oriented to get out your base. And I think one was wrong, but the other's wrong. But to me, you have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. You need to be able to persuade the people that are not locked into either party. But at the same time you do have
to keep your base motivated. But right now, you know, I think you've got four When we you know, think
¶ Undecideds are only 2-3% of voters
back to the big state the swing state vote polls that we saw in the last election, undecided would be two percent. I mean like that. I mean in the old days, you saw a poll like.
Some of the Okay, but there's also a part of me that believes polling has gotten so so accurate due to voter files that many times what we are calling polls are kind of voter file projections with a little bit of survey work, yeah, a little bit of a little bit a little bit of modeling, Yeah, I feel like,
and so when you model it, I don't know. There's a part of me that longs for the totally open and don't go in there and give me a raw data set and let me watch the raw data set over time I feel like we're so locked into the voter file companies because we want the most accurate potential poll. Totally want that based on what we think the electric's going to be.
Versus what could the electorate.
Be if you start with just a huge baseline on adults and then go from there. And I do think, Nope, there's no mainstream political operative looks at the campaigns that way anymore. They almost begin with a voter file, which means you begin at forty seven percent.
But let me look at it from a less technical Uh. You know, it used to be someone who said, you know, Democrat, Republican, independent, and then he said, well, do you lean Democrat, lean Republican? And they would vote that way more often than not.
¶ Independents with a "lean" are basically partisan
But right now when you look at people that say I'm independent but lean Democrat and you look at their vote, how they actually end up voting the virtually at partisan as Democrats were the same thing on the on the Republican side. So that what you've got is forty seven forty eight percent locked in for either side each side, and then the two or three percent in the middle that we used to think of as centrist, you know,
equid distance between the left in the riot. They're not that. Yeah, A lot of times these are people they read, watch, listen to news, current events, less than partisans. They don't follow politics. They are even more skeptical than other people are about politicians and parties. And they vote in small, very small numbers, and so, but there are no defections. There are no democrats or independent democratically independents that will ever vote for Republican and vice versa. So there is
no consensus. And we were talking before went on the air. Was the last landslide defined as ten points or more? Yeah, well, first of all, you have to give it to it would be eighty four. And why not Age? Why not eighty eight? Eighty eight? I looked at I was actually just doing some of this. It has been wait, it's
¶ There hasn't been a landslide since the 80's
been ten elections since we had a margin of nine points or more. And that was Reagan eighty four and this was eight points. I always thought that was a bigger white. I think it it was. It was like eight and seven and change. You're a little over eight. But it did not round to It didn't round Reagan in nineteen eighty rounded to ten. But I went into a panic a week or two ago Dave Leap's political atlas was offline, and I for like days and I thought, oh my god, what are we going to do? Well?
It was interesting about the Bush docacas because I just double checked it myself, because I you know, because Bush got over four hundred electoral votes.
In your head, you.
Feel like, oh, that must have been a ten point victory. And eleven point victory. Well that tells you something about how you know, he won a lot of states close right, in order to get in order to get his But he won every if I'm not mistaken, he won every big state but New York. Right, he won California, he won Texas, and he won Florida, And you win those three.
That puts you in a well, that's you know, in
¶ With a country this divided, small shifts are consequential
a way you could look at this last election say, I mean where we are is that very small shifts in votes are when you have parties that are diametrically opposite of each other and the country is evenly, narrowly deeply divided, really small shifts are enormously consequential, so that you know, if someone normally would tell me that you know, a Democratic nominee would get would would drop in ninety percent of the counties of the country and drop in
ninety two out of one hundred demographic groups. You'd say, gosh, they must have had the rear in hand. But the parent's only lost by one, one point four or five percent. Well, let me ask, let me frame this, because I think this is a problem. The Democratic Party has an answer. Did they lose by a little or a lot? Well? Right, how do you behave as a party?
Do you behave as if you Because you know, Tommy to let me give you some interesting framework.
I did this story about Wisconsin's polarization.
Right, I've always said that, you know, before America got polarized, Wisconsin was there first, right the two thousand election.
You know, after Florida, Wisconsin was the next closest.
¶ When elections are close, it doesn't inspire reflection & change
And Wisconsin has been consistently on Barack Obama's the only one in the twenty first century who's been able to win that state by a bigger than a couple of points. And Tommy Thompson said something. I had had a joint interview between him and Jim Doyle because they were the last two governors to win by more than five points. And Tommy said something, he goes, you know what, sometimes you don't lose by enough to do what you need.
You know, when you only lose by a little, by a point, you think, oh, but for one more fundraiser, one more door knock, more better ad, you can win. So you don't think you have to change that much. When you lose by ten points, you think, huh, maybe we need to rethink this.
Take the flip side of that. Let's say hypothetically a someone wins the presidency by a margin of fewer than one hundred and thirty thousand votes scattered across four states. Their party only has fifty seats in the Senate, so vice president breaking a tie, they lose seats in the House, but hold on to a majority by what five six and yet a mandate to do historic and transformational things. No, he was barely one.
And to me you're describing I hope people realize you're describing twenty twenty.
Yes, and that I don't think. I think twenty twenty was a reverendum up or down on Donald Trump, and it was close, but Trump lost. But it was I
¶ 2024 was a rejection of Biden, not an embrace of Trump
only Biden had anything to do with the outcome of the two thou Then twenty twenty four, even with Biden dropping out, it was a referendum up or down on biden Care. And I don't think Donald Trump won that election. It's that Biden. Well, it was a repudiation of President Biden, the Biden Harris administration and by extension, Vice President Harris.
It was up or down and that when Democrats were so pissed off at number one, how did you blow Well, first of all, how did you mismanage the economy in your first year enough to drop fourteen points in job approval rating in four months? And Afghanistan, oh, by the way to border, So it's like you and then the party gets ticked off and you lost. I mean it to me, it was Democrats punted the presidency away, and they will not acknowledge it. They will not that it
was their own damn fault. Yes, no, I believe that. I don't know if they're operating.
You know, as I've said, a few times, I'm not sure they've lost enough yet to make the changes they need to make.
We you know, I'm not not a corner or medical examiner,
¶ Biden's downfall was the first 9 months of 2021
what even a biology major, but I think when you do an autopsy, one of the things you try to do early on is figure out the time of death and I think the death was in the first nine months of twenty twenty one. Yeah, and that I fully agree.
Think about the fact I think about this, you know, I go back and my thesis on this is that following Charlie, which was and this is where I think Trump is running into a potential juggernaut himself, a problem himself, which is. The one thing the public thought Biden was good at was phone policy. It was a core competency. And when he failed on a core competency test, it
poisoned every everything else. You're like, boy, if you're terrible at that, we already you know, well forget it this whole thing, because what else explains that the minute he loses altitude on that issue, Right, he was at fifty three in July, and he goes down to forty five, and he never gets there again, right drops below forty five, never gets there again, and at that moment and he never can recover. It tells me that the public never,
never was, never was bought into him. And then the minute he fails on something they thought wasn't going to be an issue, and Joe Biden informed policy, the one thing that he was a perceived expert on and this is where I think Trump is. You know, Trump was elected for one reason, fix the economy, and the economy is yeah, I like, I mean, I.
Like your framework, but let me frame it slightly differently. Okay, that Biden had run for president in and eighty eight and two thousand eight, comes in fourth place in Iowa, comes in fifth place in New Hampshire. The party starts looking around and realizing that they're, you know, the the that Bernie was consolidating the left, eclipsing Warren, that the
¶ Biden won because party consolidated to stop Sanders
center left was split, you know, basically twelve fifteen ways with Bloomberg getting in and the party panics and Clyburn moves, and that Biden won the nomination because he wasn't Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
Right, He didn't win on a on a up here he went. He won because of who he was, not because of who he was, right, and then won the general election because he wasn't Donald Trump. But the thing is, they thought they were.
Going with a guy to be coming in around the forty yard line thirty seven thirty eight, forty yard line left of midfield, but not that far. That's what they thought they were getting. But that's sort of they didn't govern that way. Look, I do.
Ron Klain came in as chief of staff, and I didn't expect this. He ended up being much more progressive and much more with his ear to the ground on the on the on the groups than I think any of us thought. As I joke with about Ron, he wasn't Evan Buys, he wasn't even by Democrat anymore.
Yeah. Well, I think that each of the parties has become so inward focused that they don't and part of it maybe goes back to your two thousand and fourth thing is they've become so internally focused that they have no comprehension of what anyone that's not in their base thinks or views anything. And that, I mean, I think one of the things that's keeping Trump from I mean, his numbers are ready, I mean they're you know.
Good, right, and it's like, yeah, yeah, dependally one of those that's ready to say forty five to the new fifty.
It has been the last ten years. But yeah, yeah, But that's because of the decisions that people make. But the thing is he he thinks he hit the power ball, just the way Biden thought he hit the power ball, when basically you won because who you weren't. But but the thing is, I think one of the things that props him up some is that there are issues that Trump has correctly identified as something that a decent share
¶ Trump identified public wanted border security
of the electorate thinks is important, and so he gets the direction right, but overdoes the degree, so that I think I think a lot of most wing voters think that no president modern time has done jack on the border. Now Trump, maybe he went too far or border immigration, but at least they agree with the direction he's going.
Oh, I've always thought democrats misinterpreted, you know, when the public didn't like what.
Trump was doing at the border in the first term.
They didn't like the tactics, they liked the goal, and I think Democrats, particularly those presidential candidates, so that I you know, I was on that stage moderating that debate when they all raised their hand to decriminalize the border, other than Biden, right, which was, my god, the smartest hand he never raised.
And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You're you know, the public didn't like the act I always say this, what makes up Look, populists are usually pretty good at identifying issues they're really bad about implementation and execution. And I think Trump identified the issues that the public does care about his execution they don't like, and Democrats misinterpreted that dislike of the execution is dislike.
Of the idea, and that was the mistake. Well, I mean, I think it's direction and degree. I would say the same thing on trade, there's a feeling like, well, we we've been taking advantage of some So he correctly figured out a direction that was a source of frustration for people, but overdid it, you know, with the terris, I would say, keeping restraining the growth in government. Got the direction right, but the degree way off, and so he he's they don't have the ability to calibrate.
Let me throw something else at you because it gets it to what you were discussing, because you said something interesting to me before we were talking that the last time a president won by more than ten points and had big majorities in Congress is basically LBJ sixty four. But there's another phenomenon that I you know, that I
¶ 6 of last 7 presidential elections decided by 5 points or less
like to point out in my talks, which is I note that six of the last basically for the entire twenty first century, right starting with two thousand, counting that election as a twenty first century election. Six of our last seven presidential elections have been decided by five points or less. In the entire twentieth century, Charlie, we only
had five decided by five points or less. Right, And in fact, the last time in the twentieth century, the latest election that was decided by five points or less in the twentieth century was sixty eight.
Well, and we've had a series of what three one term and two terms. We have had straight one termers since the nineteenth century.
We didn't have that.
We didn't have that once in the where we had three straight presidencies where we chose a different party.
I mean, yeah, I mean basically, when they reupt with h W after eight years of Reagan is the only time you know, certainly in our lifetimes, in anybody else's lifetime, that that's happened. But to me, when I get to the forty seven forty eight, this forty forty eight percent, and then you have this little group of people in the middle that they're not there's no they have no
coher or an ideology whatsoever. I mean, they're all over the all over the place, or or more importantly, they don't vote for anybody or anything they vote against the who I'm matt at, disappointed in or afraid of. And so no matter who wins, there's not a democratic mandate. There's not a republican mandate. There's not a liberal, conservative, progressive, populist, libertaire.
There are no mandates anymore. So that if a party, if someone got elected president, was smart enough to just kind of aim towards that forty yard line on whichever side they're on, they've got a fair chance of sticking around for a while.
Look, it's not lost on me that Obama is the last president to at least try the whole red you know, the whole unity message.
Any won by He's only one, the one by more than five, right, he won by six. Right.
He did as you said, He did the walk and chew gum. He expanded his part artie base, you know,
¶ When 50% +1 became the standard, polarization set in
and he did that with micro targeting. But he also had a closing consensus message to try to persuade.
You know, have a He won.
As I always say, there's two types in two thousand and eight. We have two types of presidents in my lifetime, what I call the fifty percent presidents and the sixty percent presidents. Right, those that strove for a sixty percent approval rating, they know they'd never win sixty percent of the vote, but they wanted. You know, Reagan and Clinton believed they were winning if they had a sixty percent job rating. And now and then it was Bush who said, well,
I only need fifty percent plus one to win. And when that became, right, when we dropped six fifty, when fifty became the new sixty, and we, by the way, talking about doing it everywhere, including in the filibuster, right when we stopped, Like to me, that's not lost on me,
¶ There's NO reason to have a U.S. Senate anymore
when we dropped the judicial nomination process essentially from needing sixty to needing fifty, we have an entirely different polarized judiciary, right, we have a judiciary polarized by ideology.
When we were going for sixty, we were actual looking for umpires. Well, first of all, there's no reason to have a US Senate anymore. I mean, they were it is boy, that's a hot take. There is no reason clip that. Lord, there is no reason to have a US Senate anymore. It's Charlie. And the thing is, and I say this as someone who who started the freshman in college working in the Senate. I'm a Senate guy.
Iized the Senate. I don't. For me, the beginning of the end was when the First Reconciliation Act was done, and when when you needed sixty votes for something contentious, when you dropped it so you could just jam the hell out of the other party. And you know, I think people are like voters are like animals in the center. You put them in a quarter and you if they feel threatened, they're they're gonna lash out. And it's it's it's it's when they drop the threshold down to basically
majority to avoid filibuster. It's lowering the conference the the I mean, which one of these controversial cabinet members or justices would have had a chance of getting sixty votes in the Senate. None of them.
And maybe Scott Bessett he might have gotten sixty. Well, I don't put him in the controversial category, right, I don't either. Absolutely Rubio would have gotten that, which because he did.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I'll give you a Rubio. But it's it's when people feel threatened that they do things that they otherwise wouldn't and that now we see people in politics doing things. Everything's existential everything, And I don't know. When I got up there, it sure as hell wasn't like that. And so is this something that we had, like, you know, are you a belief? To get this back?
We actually have to probably put some erect to guard like we had norms that handled this and now we don't, right, And I think that, you know, I think about.
What does if we want to sort of.
¶ The republic needs new guardrails post-Trump
If we want to reanimate the republic post Trump, we might actually have to make some large changes, not small ones, and maybe they are constitutional.
Yeah.
I've been playing with the idea of a book about how it's what we've been talking about, how things went wrong, why they went wrong, And I think, at least in my mind, I think I'm going to got it down, but I don't as a solution, I don't have one I see that could explain it all that I had heard it incredible one And it's it's kind of cheesy to write a book that goes into chapter and verse how bad things are and how they got there and not offer any hope but all on the other end
¶ A robust third party challenge sobers up the two parties
of it, you know, I.
Will say this, I think that if you look at our country's history, every time we've had a robust third party challenge. It sobered up the two parties, right, whether it was Roosevelt in nineteen twelve.
What I could argue is, if you look at the.
Various moments where we've had a insurgent challenge from the outside, George Wallace, Teddy Roosevelt, Ross Pureaut, that the outcome changed the two major parties in a way to prevent that from happening again for one reason or the other. You know, I've always looked at ninety two as it really ended up, arguably in the short term, giving more definition of both parties.
Right.
It made Republicans a little more sensitive on trade, made the Democrats a little more fiscally, a little more sensitive on deficit and fiscal issues.
Right.
Bill Clinton is not a deficit minded president without Ross purerout, and I don't think that the Republican already moves towards
¶ It takes a great person or event to unite the country
this protectionist mindset without Rossborough.
Let me put a slightly different frame on it. Generally, when we've been heading down the tubes, they'd been the great person came along or the big event, and the great person. We've been lucky because that happened a lot. The question I have is would the great man, would the great woman? Would they run for elective office? And how would they win a primary? Yeah, and you can't win the general. You can't win the presidency if you're not one or the other because of the electoral college.
And so you say, well, okay, what about event. Okay, let's then attack on the contrary. Okay, that worked for a couple of years after nine to eleven, and then it kind of came undone. And then you say, okay, maybe a once a century public health crisis. Oh wait, that made that worse. And so if the great man or woman is unlike to get in or get anywhere, and if the big event either has a short shelf life or makes things worse, there's only one other solution, Charlie.
It's control old delete, it's reboot, and yeah it is rough. Yeah yeah, and I don't pretend to understand how that works. Yeah, no, I look, it's funny you say that.
On the solutions, I get very micro and some solutions, like I think uncapping the house could have a huge impact in a positive way if we double, if we mandated,
¶ Pros/Cons of doubling the size of the house
I actually came up with a percentage point zero zero zero one percent of the population. No district should ever be bigger than that represent more than that which right now would put congressional districts at one per four hundred thousand, one per eight hundred thousand, which is where we're sitting. You double, you'd be essentially double the size. You'd make gerrymandering less necessary, not saying you wouldn't have it less impactful perhaps, and you might lower.
The barrier of who could be in congress.
Right in theory, I don't think it's there is if you're well, but smaller districts should allow more working class people to want to run.
Well, yeah, I mean the thing is, I mean I've heard you talk about expanding the house when you know, I think you'd probably just get more of the same thing. I mean, I don't think size is the issue. Well, but is it? Is it closer to the people?
And that's my issue is that I think right now, every congressional district when you're when you're the size of a major city, eight hundred thousand is the size of Austin, Texas, which is the fifteenth largest city in America. Charlie, you can factionalize is does Austin speak as one?
Right?
You can factionalize and take charge of a community of eight hundred thousand. Weirdly, in a community of four in one thousand, you might actually have to have more consensus.
See, I'm trying to figure out whether the state of New Hampshire, with four hundred State House members for a state that's only big enough for two CDs, am wildly independent. I don't know New Hampshire. I think New Hampshire is some of the smartest voters in the country. Because of that, it's also is not terribly representative of a lot of places.
¶ The public isn't learning history, civics or economics
But you know, but I.
Not to full of de tooke fall on you. But that's what he marveled at. He thought it was amazing our townships and stuff.
I thought, we love that. Part of the problem is that people aren't learning civics, they aren't learning history, and they're not learning economics, and that the idea of federalism. And I know you've too long ago read the Federal's papers from start to finish, the concept of separation of powers and why we have a separation of powers. And I don't think Donald Trump's record federalist papers.
By the way, Charlie, excuse me, I don't think Donald Trump's ever read a federalist paper.
By the way, I'm not going there, but I know that there were reasons why this system was built this way, and reason why the Senate was made this way and the House was made this way, and the check I mean, and you know, each of the three coequal branches were designed to be able to keep either of the other two from getting too powerful. I mean, it was a brilliant I always look back.
The fact is they foreshadowed every potential problem we're facing, and they had a solution for it.
We just don't. As I say, the tools are there, we're just choosing not to pick them up. And I'm part of it blame education, but part of it is that there's getting into your other favorite subject. People don't
¶ Most people don't have coherent consumption of news
can see now, I mean the share of people that have any coherent intake of news in any systemic way, as opposed to just sort of a la carte, just sort of pick up whatever accidentally comes in over your Facebook or something, so that we have leaders that aren't worthy of leaders and voters that aren't really doing the due diligence that a voter should do. They're not taking their citizenship as seriously as we wish that and other than that, everything's fine. All right, let's close with this.
I want to wrap up on a land the plane here because you know, the real going back to where we started, which is the almene equ American politics. You know what really sucks for all of our friends that actually have to put the book together is if there's a massive redist thing in the middle of the decade
¶ Where do the redistricting wars end?
and they have to rewrite all the profiles.
I just I mean, what a nightmare? What do you make?
Where is the where does this end? I mean if we basically go down this road of a redistricting war between the states, right where I'm really uncomfortable where one person says, Hey, this is you're disenfranchising us in State XS. So we're going to disenfranchise voters in state Why to get back at you for State X?
That doesn't end well? Well, and when if you don't like the outcome of elections, you change the rules, right, that's what you on both sides do. I mean to me, unless you've got a court order, there should be no
cracking open districts during a decade. And I do think that the Supreme Court decision in the whatever common calls that that was basically we're not going to look at the federal course, are not going to look at Jerry Mannering for political purpose is they're not going to throw you know, to me, that was one of the worst decisions ever. And that's that's a big you know, uh that that's a big that's a big charge. Yeah, I'm no. I mean, if you're going to say, what are the
top ten or bottom ten? Yea, But it is a race. It's a race to the bottom. And I have to kind of modulate my outrage and uh well, I mean I does feel like, here's my frustration.
Nobody seems to be saying, you know what, we shouldn't be doing this in either state, right, Like, where's that set of leaders. I don't mean to sound Pollyannish and you know, yelling screaming at the cloud, but I'm stunned that nobody thinks it's good politics to say, you know what, this is bad in Texas and this is bad in California.
Hard stop. Yeah, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, I wa, I mean, for the lad I would never point to California as a fair district, the original one, you know, the one that's in place right now. I would. But to me, Iowa, I think Iowa was about the straight up drawing of Well. Now, granted it's a lily white state and all the counties are square.
So you know, my my grandfather in Iowan as an engineer, and he's proud of those he was proud of those square lines.
God damn it. You know it was it made sense. But there the thing is, I mean my theory is that, you know, the standard used to be compact and contiguous, and then the compact got winned away when well, to
¶ The 91' reapportionment started the gerrymandering mess
create more minority districts, we're going to have to fudge a little on this compact thing.
And that was a big moment, wasn't it. The ninety one reapportionment set us on this road.
Yeah. When you start creating on compact on one thing, it it it basically spreads out to other things. And it's also that was the first cycle where you had Republicans working with minority Democrats. Yeah. No, it was an interesting going I mean, there's but it was compact and contiguous work pretty damn well. And when compact went out the door, out the window, that's when we started going down this horrible path, at least on the districting part of it.
All Right, Let's get to the last most important thing I like to talk to you about, which is who's got who's in better shape politically? Donald Trump or Brian Kelly head coach of LSU football. Can he survived Donald
¶ Who is in better shape, Donald Trump or Brian Kelly?
Trump has to survive twenty twenty six midterms? Will Brian Kelly be the head coach of LSU football in twenty twenty six?
There are so many reasons why I shouldn't address this and won't, but getting into with Chuck Todd a belt sports is not something's good. I'm guessing LSU fans have pretty high bar this year, don't they. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll admit it to one game the whole school year down there, it's uh, are you teaching this semester or springs? Now? My teaching career is over. But uh OHSU was very good to me, and they were very, very very nice
people and stuff. But uh, that's a lot. Teaching is a heck of a lot harder than I ever ever thought it would be dreamed it would. Wasn't it pretty rewarding? Give you a little bit of hope? Yeah, I mean it. I think the pandemic and devices have done a lot to undermine the ability of people below a certain age to do what their older brother sisters, and you know parents were able to do. And I think it's a I think it's it's a it's a real challenge, and I think it faces you know, any any just about
any state, in any state, any university. I think that's a I think the pandemic really did not only a rest arrest development, but took some away. And you know,
¶ The pandemic really affected students and learning
I always thought, you know, I teach class. If I ever taught teacher, first of all, the first book would be What it Takes Richard ben Kramer. Now you can no more hand a class one thousand page book than Fly to the Moon. I know you're hand in that book and be like, good luck. It's always no I only it's dated and stuff. But I know way anyway, but they were very they were very good to me, and my esteem for the profession knows no bounds.
Now you are right about that, well, Charlie Cook. It is always a pleasure to hear you. Look the mid do you have, I mean the midterms.
That's the first time I think the word midterm has come up, I know. And I was just going to say because in some way.
We're trying to you know, the midterms are going to be a coin flip, and yet we're going to probably take away way too much from them, aren't we.
¶ Will we take away too much from the midterm results?
Yeah.
I I The thing is that I've started, I've I've moved to using major party vote and you know three Trump averages and the Hillary uh, Hillary, Joe Biden, Kamala Harrison and then major major vote and then rank order, and when you do red blue, you're just looking to say, well, it's a after after, but sheher Steve Basheer is turned out in Kentucky after you at the next and lawn, Kelly the governor of Kansas has turned out there, Yeah,
and Glenn Younkin and Virginia's turned out turned out. So basically you're left with Phil Scott and Kelly Ayot will be the only governors of either party. They are in the other colors the other states color for governors, and and Susan Collins the only one, the only one in the Senate. And so it's all the action is in fourteen states. And I know you're trying to cut the but to me, it says a lot that Republicans have won only four of the twenty one Senate races in
Purple States since Donald Trump has worn into office. But at the same time, because Democrats have ten out of the fourteen Senate races in Purple States, Yeah, making really hard for them to make up and to get the fifty. And each party is screwed in a different way.
Yeah, it's astonishing that it was that the Democrats were at sixty for a brief period in two thousand and nine. You think, boy, I don't know when they'd ever see I don't know if they've seen sixty at our lifetime, but you never know.
Yeah, it's but I do think that if a party. I was having coffee with a group of senators within the last year and someone say, well, do you have any advice, I say, yeah, you use your use your go at your brains and not your glance when you make decisions. I love you were very careful. You were like I got to pick my words here just right. Well, also, I was kind of reaching for it, but IM trying to remember the term I used because I know what I would use on a on a Yeah, if you
weren't being recorded, Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well we'll let we'll let the audio. That's the beauty. We'll let them, We'll let them imagine the word you were out. This has been a whole lot of fun. Chalk all right, but I missed this, the almainic of American politics. Go grab it in two weeks coming out brother, see chock.
Thank you,