Have Democrats Found Their Red State SAVIOR To Beat Republicans? w/ Rob Sand

over there and subscribe to it. In fact, it's something you've heard me dabble in before, but it's a more thorough analysis of how fragile the two major parties are in this moment. I think both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. You know, as divided as America is between red and blue, right, we're polarized sort of between

two sides. The two actual political parties that represent red and blue have never been weaker right and essentially more and they've been dominated by cultural personality over the last twenty years. When it just when it looks like they need refurbishing, occult to personality rises up to sort of

paper over their problems. Think Barack Obama for the Democrats or Donald Trump for the Republicans, and yet we are watching around the world the movement where there's you know, we've seen this, there's clearly massive political realignment taking place globally. And what I saw take place in the UK that I brought up a while ago about what happened to the Tories there the fact that they, at least in these last elections were not treated like one of the

two major parties. If you did not if you wanted to vote against labor, you didn't vote for the Tories. You voted for the Reform Party UK, the Nigel Farage Party, if you will. And it's sort of a simple premise to me, it's like, how weak are the two brands of the major parties right now? Think about it this way.

If Donald Trump said today, we're going to disband the Republican Party and replace it with the MAGA with a new political party, the MAGA Party, who's with me, I'm going to guess seventy percent of the elected Republicans would sign up for the new party, and suddenly you would have a complete exodus from the official club known as the Republican Party. Similarly, if Pete Boutagic, Andy Basheer Gretchen Whitmer AOC banded together and said, you know what, the

Democratic brand is broken. It is a mess. It doesn't you know, it's not what it used to be. We need a new left of center party in this country that is focused on preserving the democracy and expanding and thriving and updating it. We need a modern version of this. So we're going to start a new party. And you know, it's sort of like taking the Donald Trump Nafta approach, right, which is, can't stand nafta. So here's the new NAFTA. I got rid of NAFTA because we don't call it

NAFTA anymore. But he kept NAFTA, he just renamed it, right. That is, that is arguably how badly the two brands are feeling these days, and how easily they could be

rebranded into a new party. And the fact is, when I give you those two potential outcomes of how fragile the two major parties really are, the only thing that keeps them afloat is the duopoly they have on ballid access in the fifty States. If they didn't have this duopoly of ballid access, one or both of these parties would have probably disappeared at least a couple of decades ago.

But because of the vehicle that they are for ballot access that actually is connected to my guest today, Rob sand the newest candidate for governor in the state of Iowa. He's basically the Democrats great hope for winning statewide in an actual red state. And I'll get more into Rob sand in a minute. He's currently a statewide elect, the

only statewide elected Democrat in the state of Iowa. He's been the state auditor for two years and Democrats have been waiting for him, essentially to finally take the next step, whether it was for a Senate seat or a good natorial seat. And you will hear why he's a Democrat, and it's simply because there is no other alternative. If being an independent were a viable alternative, it sounds like he would be there. And it's for me a reminder of how fragile I think both parties are these days.

The Democratic brand is so bad in some places, that is, it is more appealing to some Democrats to run as an independent. Take the newest candidate for governor in the

state of Florida, Jason Pizzo, Do realize he was the Democratic leader in the state Senate in fact, just a couple of weeks ago. So here he is technically a leader of the Florida Democratic Party deciding to abandon the party. Now, some of that may be personal, some of that may have to do with personality clashes with the current head of the Florida Democratic Party. You know, there's a little bit of finger pointing than you know, because if he doesn't get his way, that's why he left the party.

But the fact that he that he did, he has some resources to do it. And I've told you I think there's definitely Republican fatigue in the state of Florida, a lot of dysantists fatigue in the state of Florida. I don't know if the Democratic Party brand is strong enough to take advantage of it, but I do know

if there's a strong independent candidate, it could. It's fascinating to me that the potential leading Democrat in Florida decided to run as an independent, this Jason Pizzo, and the leading independent candidate, a former Republican congressman and lobbyist named David Jolly, decided to become a Democrat and run for

governor that way. So it'll be really interesting to see if you're trying to fix the Democratic Party brand, is being a former Republican turned Democrat the way to go as a way to sort of moderate Isaac or central centrism. It infused a little centrism in it and sort of deleftify the brand in Florida left defy de leftified that I inventor word there, or is it being a former Democrat running as an independent? And in some ways we were getting We're going to see both experience experiments take

place there on that front. In fact, I'm fascinated to watch what's going on in some of the Senate races in twenty twenty six. You know, you've got John Cornyn, the incumbent Republican senator from Texas who's being primary by the state attorney general. Ken paxident accident is very maga was just like Donald Trump escaped an impeachment attempt. He

was impeached but not convicted narrowly. Remember Texa pretty Republican states, so quite a few Republicans voted to impeach him in the state House, and quite a few Republicans voted to convict him in the state Senate just not enough. So you do have a pretty divided Republican Party. And it's a fascinating problem that the National Republicans have with their Texas primary. And this is actually a problem they're starting to starting to percolate throughout the set, you know, as

more people debate. Is the Senate in play in twenty twenty six for Democrats? The map's terrible for Democrats, but Republican INFI could actually put more seats in play for them, just and we've seen It's not as if this movie hasn't played before in the theaters. Right. In twenty twenty, Democrats overperformed in center races thanks to bad Republican nominees. In twenty twenty two, Democrats overperformed in center races thanks to bad nominees. In twenty twenty four, Democrats overperformed in

Senate races thanks to what say it with me? Bad nominees on the Republican side of the aisle. So here we go again. And so, if you're the National Republican

Party and your job is to prevent the Democrats from winning the state of Texas, the best possible way to do that is to ensure that John corn is the Republican nominee. But what if John cornn is simply not popular enough inside the Maga magafied version of the Republican Party in the state of Texas to win that nomination Ken Paxton, if he's a Republican nominee, is makes that

seat a lot more vulnerable to the Democrats winning. So if you're the national Republicans, do you convince John Corny to pull at Lisa Murkowski and just simply bolt the primary, run as an independent and try to win a three way race in Texas? I know, on one hand, you can think, well, that's crazy. On the other hand, John Cornan the only shot he may have to win this seat is if he leaves the Republican Party promises that

he will cauc us with the Republicans. Like Lisa Murkowski, right, she knew she couldn't win a Republican primary in Alaska, but she also knew she was more popular with independence and with Democrats and with enough Republicans that she could easily win a general and she did it as a ride in and her last name is Murkowski. I still always find that it's like, you know, why is she untouchable?

Why can't Trump get rid of her because she's so politically popular in Alaska that with a Murkowski with a three syllable last name that isn't quite easy to spell, she won us a ride in Okay. That's your mic drop, m u Rkowski. When you if your last name was Smith and you ran as a ride in not that impressive Markowski another story. So, which brings me back to Texas.

I think the real dilemma there either they either because I don't think Cornin is ever going to win this primary, and what it's going to take for him to win this primary is probably going to divide the Republican Party so much that it may it may become an untenable situation in either direction. A three way race suddenly who knows right? It may? It may, you know, I don't think it works the way everybody thinks it works, that two Republicans on the bat automatically will help the Democrat there.

I don't think that's the case. I think Ken Paxton would do more to get the Democrats a chance of Texas than a three way race would. But that's the type of conversation that I think Republicans should be having with themselves in Washington. Of course, it all matters is who's making these decisions. If this is Trump's polit team, well they'd rather have trumpy people. But if this is say John Thune's political team and Tim Scott, who's the current rs C chair, well they may have they may

have a different, different point of view. But I do find what's happening in Texas now to be something that it could lead to. You know, again, if Cornan's goal is to win the Senate seat, it may be his best path to win the Senate seats to leave the party, run as an independent and promise to caucus with the Republicans. You can't just not. I do think that, you know, trying to keep your you know, if you don't, you don't go promise to go there, then you would eliminate

potential Republicans that might vote for you. But I think that would likely be and especially Colin Allred's the Democratic nominee. Colin Allred ran a race that basically said, hey, I'm a John Cornyan Democrat. You know, all he did was praise John Cornyan. So I think he'd have a harder time being able to differentiate himself from Cornyan, and Cornyn may may actually benefit from having having a third candidate

in the race that's done nothing but praise him. So it is, it is I think something worth watching there is I've you know, I have a few other campaign

nuggets I want to share North You know, the Republican Party is dealing with too many crowded primaries. With the Senate races. We talked about Texas, there's North Carolina where now Laura Trump is once again thinking about wanting to be in the Senate. Maybe she primaries Tom Tillis. Tom Tillis is somebody who's who's seen is quite vulnerable to the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. He's another one where is Pat McCrory's experience not being able to come

even close to beating Ted Budd. He was the non Maga Republican. Ted Budd was the Trump endorsed candidate, and we saw what happened there. If Tillis, you know, is it in the best interest of the Republican Party in the Senate, if they're trying to keep that receipt to have Tom Tillis run as an independent. He's another one. Again, the ballot access laws are not easy in North Carolina. Ditto with Texas to run as a third party or

as an independent. Don't get me wrong, but in both of these cases, and I'd throw in Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, where the governor is working with the president to try to find a Republican primary challenger to build Cassidy. Julia Letlow, a congresswoman, is the latest idea being floated. Would Cassidy be better off running as an independent? So you know

it is. It is again my bigger theme being you know, you have two You have two party brands here that are broken. You have two party brands that I think

are very distrusted by the public. You have two party brands that it where it may be easier running away from that party brand even if you agree with seventy percent of what that party brand stands for and running as an independent if you're a Democrat in Florida, if you're a Democrat in Iowa, if you're a Republican now on mega Republican in Texas, or a non mega Republican in North Carolina. So I definitely think it's something to

watch for. There a couple other news topics from the last few days, and I want to I want to I want to talk about here. One is, of course, this Biden book. The excerpts are coming out the book. I'm going to have Jake tapperon pretty soon, who's co author with Alex Thompson of this of this book about uh that is about the Biden cover up? Was it

a cover up? You know? Were there people inside the West wing not telling the truth or being disingenuous when people when people like myself would inquire about why Biden couldn't do this event or that event, or was afraid of doing a Super Bowl interview, all of those things. You know that we all saw with our own eyes

that he clearly there was something foot. But of course, you know, you you're only as good as as your actual sourcing there, and it's pretty clear a bunch of aids did did their best to prove people from knowing any truths right, keeping cabinet secretaries away from him, keeping Biden away. But there's something as much as that. I think it's terrible that the Bidens are once again trying to come out and defend themselves, putting themselves before the party.

You know, they ought to take a page from from George W. Bush. Right after Obama won, after there was. It was clear the Bush brand was done inside the Republican Party. He didn't go out there to try to fight for his legacy. He went and took up painting right,

and in many ways by not trying to be out there engaging every day in his legacy, and thanks to Donald Trump, his legacy is oddly improved in the minds of many voters. Certainly his personal legacy, there's still a lot of people question whether, you know, the greatest mistake made and you know, since Vietnam was the Iraq War, and I don't think anybody that that isn't going to change.

And what certainly his character and is in his sort of how he you know, how he treated the institution of the presidency as something that has only grown with time and not trying to make, you know, make people uncomfortable by coming back out to defend himself and to say, no, you know, my own popularity is wrong, et cetera, et cetera. So I do think that the bidens ought to take up.

But I get human nature wanting to defend yourself. But there's something about these these books where you're gonna have all these people make anonymous claims that well, they were hiding it, or they were doing this, or they were doing that. Well, then shame on you. You know you own this. If you believe the country is at risk of slipping in the democracy, shame on you and all of these anonymous aids, and frankly all the people that work for him that are now they tell us. This

is one of those. I think it's Brian Curtis of at the Ringer Is dubs these stories in the sports world. Right every time somebody gets traded, you're like, oh something, and then like right after the person gets traded, then all of a sudden, the beat writer for said team writes the big tell all story about how the relationship between player and the ownership totally broke down, and he

calls it. Now they tell us, and this is a now they tell us, right, So now all these Biden aids who didn't say a word for two and a half years are suddenly now speaking anonymously to folks. It's it is or early aids coming out. Where were you at the time when many of us were pointing out he seems to be too old to be running for president. I know I did it quite a bit publicly. People like David Ignatius. And you know what many of those same aides did who are now talking to these authors,

They would push back privately and publicly with me and others and say, no, no, no, it's fine, no, no, no, my interactions with them are fine. This is just exaggeration. You're buying into a right wing narrative. So you know, these people have talked about both sides of their mouth. So in many ways, I think this Biden book is only going to not just undermine Biden, but I think make it toxic for anybody that worked for Biden, because then it becomes where were you, How did you participate

in the cover up? Pete Bootage? This may mean something for you. You know you were a cabinet secretary. A You're going to now tell us, yeah, I didn't have much interaction with him. Well, then why didn't you say something? I had a cabinet secretary tell me that they had no interaction with them, and wondered about that. I had that off the record. I've after Biden quit, I've since

shared it with people. Still not going to share who the cabinet secretary was, because that's not my I'm trying to you know, I believe in keeping your word as a journalist, and it was an off the record as far as being told to me. And I think it's up to that person to decide whether to speak out

or not. But I think it's a question anybody who worked directly for Biden, So Gina Ramondo if she thinks about running for president, Pete bootajej all of these cabinet secretaries are now going to have to answer for all

of this. And I do wonder if it's going to make anybody that touches Biden persona non grata, not just anybody directly in the Biden world. As far as you know, it could be the way, you know, anybody touching Carter was sort of exiled for decades in the Democratic Party in the eighties and nineties. It really wasn't until Obama that sort of parts of Carter world were resurrected in a positive light inside the Democratic Party. That's some nearly,

you know, nearly thirty years later. That's probably the best Biden world can hope for, is that they need to

the generation that lived through this mess will have to go away before they maybe get a second chance at the historical record. A lot of it. Those are going to depend on on what the Trump presidency looks like three years from now and what kind of impact it has. Because everybody who worked for Biden, and Joe Biden himself to me, is directly responsible for everything Trump does in the second term, right They their behavior and their actions led us to this place, their contributors to the place

we are at. So they better hope it's a successful second term for Trump because they own a piece of that failure too, and the recovery for America from its economic what could be an economic disaster. I mean, obviously we're escaping short term problems here by this pause with China, but let's be honest. Already his management of the economy has cost a lot of people, a lot of people money, and it is still going to create inflation. So it is.

It is now. He's already done damage. The question is can he mitigate the damage he's done or is more coming He's just delayed when that happens. But mark my words, if you're not happy with any part of this second term and you're angry, some of that anger belongs to the Bidens, and some of that anger belongs to the people who had no guts to speak out when it mattered, and waited till talking to an author of a book. Finally, there's the story of the DNC in this issue of

David Hogg. Oh, of course, was an activist born out of the Parkland shooting in Florida. I'll be honest, it's very personal to myself. I have my own connections to somebody who's in that school. Uh when when when it when it happened, So I have a lot of personal empathy for anybody that went through that, you know. I think the way David Hogg has conducted his politics is hard to It is hard to it's hard to to see him as a member of the leadership of the d n C considering what the role of the d

n C is now. There's obviously people that are unhappy with him that as vice chair of the d n C he got elected vice chair of DNC, that he now wants to work with a group to primary essentially democratic incumbents in very blue areas who he believes are stagnant right who need generational change. In all of this, this has created an uproar that a member of the DNC leadership is talking about primarying elected Democrats, and I

understand that criticism. It was like, wait a minute, you can work on the outside, you chose to work on the inside. When you choose to work on the inside,

you're choosing to work with the Democrats that have been elected and help new Democrats get elected, not necessarily purge the party from the inside. So I have empathy for the criticism of Hawk. But now they're trying to create a So apparently now they've come up with a instead of instead of forcing the situation about Okay, you've got to make a decision, David Hog, are youre going to work on the outside or work on the inside, they've come up with a convoluted It feels like a pollit

bureau decision. Well, we've got to figure out how to get rid of this person, but we don't want to make it look like it's politics. We want to make it look like it's a technicality. So in this case, there was a challenge. They's supposed to be gender equity

in the leadership of the DNC. Well after when the DNC chair won and it turned out to be a man not a woman, it should have triggered that one of the vice chair can't you know that there was going to be gender equity on the vice chair level and there was not, so there's been a complaint file. So now the DNC has decided they have to redo this vice chair race. So all they've done is turned and David Haggas said, well, this is really about them

being angry at me. They're just using this technicality to force a to force a new vote. Malcolm Kinyata, who is the other person elected vice chair, clearly doesn't like that he's been attached to the David Hog controversy. He's up said about this, let me just tell you something. I think that DNC looks ridiculous right now, just effing ridiculous. It's behaving like a pollet bureau and not like an

actual functioning political party. In a democracy, a pollet bureau would come up with a convoluted technicality to purge somebody from the leadership because it's making other people unhappy, rather than actually dealing with the issue straight up front. So what they've done is they're actually going to make a martyr of Hogg. You know, like I said, I'm not sitting here. I don't I don't think what Hog was doing was was you know, I thought it was I

thought it was poor form. I thought it was in bad taste right to be elected member of the leadership and then work to sort of purge Democrats. But I also think the way this entire episode is being treated, how the chair is dealing with this, how it's turned into this back room thing, only makes the whole party look even less organized than we all thought they were. Clearly there's a leadership vacuum. This has not been a

good start for the new DNC chair, Ken Martin. I can tell you there's quite a few Democrats I hear from who are wondering why the chair of the Wisconsin Party, Ben Wickler, who now is leaving there, who's had a ton of success, why he was an elected chair, and openly wondering would he be allowed this mess to go on?

And I think, for whatever reason, Ken Martin is not taking a strong hand on this, feels like he's almost letting, letting the letting insiders get involved too much on this. Either way, it looks ridiculous. It's going to make a martyr out of David Hogg. And either he's realized he's elected again, which is talk about major with with everybody knowing this giant amounts of egg on their faces, or they don't, and it looks like a bizarre party purge.

And all you've done is is thrown fuel at the fire of the of the insurgent class wanting to get rid of the establishment. So it is one of those massively unforced errors. And leave it to the DNC to somehow get in its own way while they have this target rich environment in what has been a sort of incompetence on the Trump administration, whether it's in government cutting, managing the economy, or all these very shady deals that seem to be taking place in the new crypto capital

of the world in the Arabian Peninsula there. And yet it's the Democrats shooting at each other, just making a mockery, frankly, of their own party here. And they're going hog wild in all the wrong ways. All right, So coming up, I got Rob sand And here's why you need to care about this race. This is easily the best chance Democrats have of truly having a red steak governor to stand next to Andy Basheer and Laura Kelly. Andy Bsher of Kentucky, Lora Kelly of Kansas. This will easily be

their best shot at it. And I'll tell you this, if he wins, Iowa is going to be the first in the nation CAUCUSUS. They will get their place back if Sand proves that they can win in this environment, and it will be a better environment for him to run in than he ran in twenty two. If he wins that race, it will put Iowa in first in the nation, which will be really good news if you're Pete Boutagid's although as I pointed out, I do think his Biden baggage is going to get heavier and heavier

as he goes about. But take a listen to Rob Sand, because this is a guy who's sort of you'll hear it,

kind of reluctant Democrat. And you know, previous episode I had Jasmine Crockett, who's she's not a reluctant Democrat, but she's got a point of view of how the party should be messaging. Now I think you'll hear a different point of view from Rob Sand, So be curious what you think. Of course, let me know at ask Chuck at the Chuck podcast dot com. And with that I'll sneak in a break and afterwards you get Rob sand.

the go along to get along kind of thing. And so I think that, yes, it was easier for them to do it because I was a Democrat, But if I had been a Republican who was really serious about public service not politics, they would have tried. I just don't know if they could have gotten enough majorities to go along with it, because we had bipartisan opposition in the Iowa House to it as it was.

government service. So I buy that. But let me ask you this. I think that I think your job being auditor to me would both be interesting and also though

sometimes a negative place to come from. And here's my and here's where I'm curious where if you the auditor's job is to find you know, to find ways fraud and abuse, right essentially right, And so if you don't find it, does it mean everything is going well or you didn't do a good enough job looking for it? Right? Like, I feel like it's a never like. I don't feel like you could ever feel satisfied that you're doing the job.

You know that you've you've found every thing, because I think the public is probably like me, a little bit cynical assuming well, there's always a little bit of public corruption. The question is are you finding it all?

my first term, and the answer to that from politicians in Des Moines was to go, hey, we got to stop this guy. He's actually doing his job.

know I'm just throwing my vote away. And there's that frustration of just sort of the being trapped right, being a prisoner of this system while we are also participants in it. That's the bottom line. It's the same question for a candidate. So I would love to have a system in Iowa where independent candidates can actually get elected very easily, but we're gonna have to change how the system works before we get there.

is doing great. It's just, you know, they've succeeded by not being the Democratic party brand. You, being an auditor, I would argue it's better to be an independent than to be a member of either political party, right to feel like you could depletely function in that. But again that's why I asked that question.

and we all know what happens. I am the spoiler, or maybe it's the Democrat that's the spoiler, but either way, so before it begins, because of the way we structure elections, right, So the answer to how you do that in Iowa is again like and well, actually I want to go to a different piece of your point here about the Tories and sort of being a favored party. This is supposed to be about solving problems. This is government is supposed to be about people coming together and deciding, Okay,

what do we need to address this issue? How do we address that issue? So many of our founders warned us watch out for factionalism, watch out for partisanship. And we are at the point here where people actually say, you know, like, oh, well, you know, you'd have to be careful about that, because what if then you're not electing a Democrat. Well what if we were actually solving lots and lots of problems, but we were having people with a different letter behind their name, whether it's Republican

or independent or anything else do it. I'm here for solving problems, and I think as long as we have a system that allows elected officials and candidates to sort of say, well, I don't have to solve your problems, as long as I can convince you that so and so over here is worse than me. I don't think we're solving in a lot of problems because there's no incentive to do it. So I think your answer to be more specific if you want the more specific answer.

Right now, in the state of Iowa, independent voters are not allowed to participate in primaries that their tax dollars pay for. I think that's wrong. So I think we should have a single, open primary, and then I'd love to see approval voting on the second side of that for three or four or five candidates. So here's three to five that make it through to the general vote

for all of them that you approve of. There is no rank choice. The tabulation is available automatically. It's easy.

It's a little a little more choice. So I certainly as a journalist, like that too, because you can't pigeonhold me by looking at my voting record always always voting Democrat or always voting Republican. But I like that just as a voter, and I assume more voters like that. But it does sound like you're you're a reluctant partisan.

I think that if I win, then maybe that helps other people figure out what's effective out there. But I'm not doing it. I want to be a public servant to the whole state of Iowa. I don't want to be a leader for a political party. In my time at the State Ouitor's office, we had Democrats, Independents, and Republicans always in senior leadership. I actually appointed people to the most senior positions in the office who had made

campaign contributions to my opponent from twenty eighteen. I think it's important to do that because do.

or try that may I'd like to have some independence, yeah.

one hundred million dollars last year, and the Reynolds administration didn't let us audit the controls of the program. Again, they use that new law just as we predicted they would to literally hide our ability to see what was going on with money. But even even Chuck, if the program is working the way it's supposed to, all of that money, the whole one hundred million, has to first go to tuition. Once it's paid his tuition. There's only one thing on God's green earth that can't be done

with the money. With private schools, they can't pay a rebate to parents whose kids are going there, but that's it. Any other way they want to use the money totally legal, and they don't, and we're not allowed to audit it. So I don't even know how we would find out that.

state taking care of insiders. They're taking care of special interests. Odyssey, the company that runs the program, We found out after months of stonewalling, they actually doubled the pay for Odyssey to administer the state's voucher program, with no additional obligations on behalf of Odyssey in return. They just said, you know what, we told you, we're going to give you this amount of money, We're going to double it. Happy birthday, have fun.

And either you're going to have some questionably accredited people trying to do startup schools in areas that they've never done it before, and they're going to be using taxpayer dollars to experiment and it could fall on its face. That's something we found out in Florida. You know, if you had a good administrator, maybe the school went well, but if you didn't, all of a sudden, money disappeared

and parents were wondering where's all these promised teachers. But it's I've noticed, particularly in rural parts of Texas and Florida,

even among very conservative voters, they're very nervous about this because they're like, where's the choice. You're really basically saying, I either homeschool my kids and maybe you're going to give me some money to do that, or I maybe get into a pod with some other like minded parents. But that is actually, why can't we just make the school in my neighborhood better? You know?

You want to have competition, all right, fine, private schools, in order to get this money, you too have to take every student that says they want to attend there. Oh well that's hard, it's hard to plan. Yeah, well that's a difficulty that public schools face. You said you wanted to have competition, same rules apply, job.

So then, of course your choice is actually smaller than it was because maybe there's only one private school that has decided to invest in helping kids with this same sort of you know who has a different learning plan than kids over here. And guess what happened. It turned out he was better off staying in Arlington public schools.

And his kid got some services because the public school had to provide the services, and it was actually really good services.

Iowa right now doesn't do those things. Most of the private schools have had their tuition skyrocket, So if the idea was to help you get this money to get so you can cover tuition, and then tuition skyrockets, it's still out of reach for those people. But I'm not sure that that's ever what this was about. Because we

also have no income limits on the program. So the wealthiest islands this year are using this program where people in rural areas where they don't have private schools or paying state taxes, and now a lot of that money is going to wealthy islands to send their kids to private schools.

They get to raise their prices, and they will raise their prices. It's like that. All right, Look, we're making a pretty good argument against the school choice, but we're not. I want to hear you make your tell me how you can how can we get because I do think

there's a lot of frustration that here we are. Basically it's over one hundred years since we started our public school infrastructure in this country, let alone in the state of ioware everywhere else, and it really hasn't changed, right, Like, I think this is why there's parental frustration here. I don't want to parents wanting something different is a real issue. Now, you and I were saying, Hey, what you think is a fix? Is it going to work the way you

think it's going to work? So what's your plan to improve public schools and more importantly, to restore confidence in the public school system with these parents?

going to save. And So what I would like the state to do we have right now a really meaningful surplus that's presently just sort of sitting there. I would like us to actually start a revolving fund to help schools with the upfront cost for those efficiency investments, because most folks know, you know, if you're going to make some efficiency investments, you pay a little bit upfront and

it pays off down the road. So we could use those state dollars to help dig in and make efficiency improvements. Those would help us do the things that we know make schools more effective, parental involvement, smaller class sizes, right, But you can do those if you're saving that money in a way where it doesn't necessarily cost more money.

I think that's a no brainer. And I don't know why we're sitting here in twenty twenty five and it's only being proposed right now as opposed already being done.

going to college with people who go to college. Are you going to be an electrician, Well, you're going to be an apprentice electrician with other folks learning to be an electrician.

parents working or zero parents working. You know, and you understand society, I think so much better. And that gives you such a better sense of who we are as a state or as a country. If you're participating in

public schools.

relationships because of a student activity. Maybe it was in sports, maybe it was in music, whatever it is, and it Look, it does give you a better understanding of the world we live in rather than some fantasy, you know, isolated bubble. No, that's a good argument. Let me ask you this on Governor Reynolds. What's a policy that what are some policies that you're going to keep if you're elected governor. What has she done right?

wives came over, their kids came over. We had a great time. One of their wives is a public school teacher, although she's in Minnesota. The other one, until very recently, was a teller at a bank. These are smart people, and I know them, and I know they have tons of common sense, and then they have great worth a work ethic, and that they're smart because I spent twelve

years in public schools growing up with them. And it doesn't matter what people's choices are after I think that they're smarter or than some of the people that I went to college with. And I think it's important to understand that but you need to get that experience before

you can understand that.

wasn't a clean Republican suite. But Iowa has shifted, or it feels like it's shifted. Has it shifted or is this a is this a red mirage? Is this a Trump phenomenon that will look like an outlier ten years from now.

That would be a measure where you could say, literally, we are the most purple state, right, and we were

one percent off of that. So Republicans have won a lot of elections in Iowa lately, but Iowans are still just sort of looking for the person, right, and this is why this state I think went for Obama twice and then Trump three times, not because the state changed overnight, but because both of those guys were outsiders who promised to change politics.

I think Iowans are good at doing this. But but make a make up, make the case that you have to make to the d n C.

Iowa voters. Nobody's more into it, No one is more you know, I appreciate that you made a personal phone call to me, but I'm gonna still yeah, I'm gonna I'm still going to make sure that I have a chance.

tell you this. The state was basically the east side was Democrat, the west side was Republican, and literally des Moines in the middle was the swing area still is the swing area. But Donald Trump racked up all sorts of support along the Mississippi River and in Bait where you grew up in the court you've seen it firsthand. Is it as much of what did what did the MAGA movement do in Eastern Iowa? Or is it what the Democratic Party didn't do in Eastern Iowa.

and a half dozen in the other. Right, I mean two things can be true at once. Again, keep in mind that during those presidential races, Democrats also nominated consummate insiders. Right. I don't think that that helped, not in a place where people look at politics and they see a bunch of bs when what they want is people working together to just solve problems.

driving range of Des Moines, and then leave again. And I heard similar complaints in twenty twenty by Biden and some of these others. But Pete was the one doing it the old fashioned way, and he was showing up in these towns and then, oh look who ended up overperforming in the caucauses. I'm shocked that campaigning worked you know.

an open book. They reached out said will you come to a town hall? I said absolutely. I went up there. We had a great event. I don't know if we had seventy eighty ninety people. We had Q and A, which they ended up pre screening. It wasn't my request. When I do buy one hundred town halls, I don't spreak, prequeens, spreek, I don't pre screen questions. But times I can't. I can't. I can't even say it once slowly. But when they announced, Chuck that I was going to come talk to them,

the Iowa GOP headquarters read them the Riot Act. They treated these Iowans like they own them, and that to me is the kind of stuff that man, it just makes me want to fight the idea that a political

party would call people and sort of tell them, don't you go listening to your state wide elected official. Don't you go and asking questions of the state wide elected official. There's something deeply wrong in the establishment of that party right now, and that, to me is a great, great example of it.

It really reminds me of the McDonald's monopoly scam because it was a similar it was a similar discovery. And for those that remember that Netflix special about the McDonald's thing, this had to do with was it Powerball and the Mega Because I des moins headquarters for a couple of a hot lot of these multi state lotteries, and I'm guessing you didn't even think it was as corrupt as you ended up finding out. Give me the Give me the elevator, I guess the long elevator ride version of the story.

sort of pick the seed. And so, of course, because he was an insider, he knew, he knew, he knew what day this could happen, right, and he would know what those variables were so he could go out and buy a small number of tickets and guarantee a win. He his best friend, his brother, and then some guys who are big foot hunters because his brother is one, and they're believers.

tree big foot hunting. So there's that. But when Eddie the Mastermind was trying to convince his best friend. Hey, it's okay, don't worry about it. We can do this a second time. One of the things he shared with him only at that point, after the best friend had already won one jackpot, was.

I blue was top because he hadn't. That was the first time he learned about this other jackpot. Not only was there another jackpot, but also the FBI had questioned some of the people involved, so he got very He got a lot less happy with his best friend after that.

But when there's all this uncertainty out there, they they they are sort of trapped in this system that they have no control over, which then means they have very little control over their own success.

going to be you know, there's a lot more riding on your on your campaign than maybe you may realize, which is, you know, belief and whether I was a swing state again, belief of if you win, I bet you first in the nation status comes with you. I know that's not why you're running for governor, but I just have a feeling that that sort of the perception of the Midwest is a swing territory, the perception of Iowa. All of those things probably on your shoulders. Whether you

like it or not. I don't know if you whether you appreciate that or not.

guy regardless.

and hopefully i'll get you back here again.

interview where you discussed the Obama election. I was working in Texas one day. Many of my colleagues came back after lunch, all very joyful and happy, and one colleague told me that they had registered as Democrats to vote for Obama. Reason being Russia. Limbaugh told people to do that as no way USA would vote for a black man, and they could somehow get Hillary to the Democratic to be the Democratic choice, which in turn would mess up the Democrats. I wasn't a US citizen, so I didn't

know what the effect of this Limba idea was. So my question was there a study made on the Limbaugh effect? Best regards Peter, I remember this. It was an Operation Chaos.

I think Limbaugh called that he was trying to encourage Republicans or independents not necessarily read, but where they could vote in a Democratic primary to vote for Hillary to extend his theory was the longer the primary process, the mess here, it was the better to keep the Democrats all tied up the Republicans McCain was largely locked up the nomination a bit earlier than Obama did. I believe there was an academic study or too, and it didn't. Really.

There isn't many places where that seemed to have an impact. And I think whenever you get people trying to do that kind of voting, trying to organize sort of you know, you know, vote in the other primary for somebody to mess things up, you know, I think the informed voter might do it. You know. My old man was a registered Democrat in the state of Florida at a time where if you wanted to participate in most elections, the

only primaries that were competitive or Democratic primaries. But he was a Republican voter, but he was a registered Democrat. A lot of southern Southern Democrats were in this vote where they were registered as Democrats but almost exclusively voted

for Republican in general elections. So I remember in eighty four distinctly, and not only that, in the Democratic primary in Florida back then in the eighties, you voted, you could there was a beauty contest quote unquote where you picked the candidate that you wanted in the primary, but then you had to actually pick the specific delegates for said candidate to represent at the national convention. So my father was one of those. He was petrified in eighty four.

I'll never forget this. He was petrified that Gary Hart would be the nominee because he thought Gary Hart actually could beat Ronald Reagan in eighty four. He didn't think Mondale could, and he didn't think Jackson could, so he believed he was trying to support Jackson. So he ends up voting Jackson in the primary and the delegates, it was less about voting for Jesse Jackson and more about trying to deny, you know, trying to improve Jackson's chances

to weaken heart sore. And there certainly is plenty of evidence that the long primary campaign hurt while her Mondale in eighty four. But I think in hindsight, the long primary campaigns for Obama and eight and for Trump and sixteen didn't weaken the eventual nominees. They actually strengthened them. And I think one of the things that hurt Joe Biden in twenty twenty was was cutting off the campaign so quickly. I wonder if the Democratic Party would have

been better off as far as field. But I'll give you a perfect example in OBAMAA Obama had that thing wrapped up. I would argue, we knew after Super Tuesday he was directionally going to be the nominee. He had to collapse. And then, of course, after he did his Philadelphia speech race speech, he put it away because there was just never going to be enough delegates the delegate path,

the way the Democrats distributed delegates. But Hillary kept marching on just in case, right, just in case there was some revelation that would come out and destroy his candidacy, and she'd be there to pick up the pieces. So deep into May, right, they went all the way to June, deep into May. We had a big primary night Indiana, North Carolina. This was the night that Tim Russell famously said, we now know who the Democratic nomin and he's going

to be. It's Barack Obama. And he declared the race closest to anybody came on TV to declaring the race. Although we had kind of been hinting at this, it was always funny to me that him saying it became became such a gut punch to the Clinton campaign. They got really angry about this, believing this was now. But the fact is North Carolina and Indiana. Why am I singling those two states out? Well? Those were the two surprise states that Barack Obama ended up carrying in two

thousand and eight. Does he carry those states in a

general election without actually having to run a competent primary campaign in Indiana and North Carolina in May of that election year. So my point is is that by having to organize in more states for longer during that process. Inaight, what if rush Limbaugh thought he was helping the Republican Party, extending the primary only made Barack Obama's organization better and

strong in more states. So I actually believe the more contested a campaign is towards the end, arguably it has in the twenty first century, it has actually helped that party in the general election. All right, Next question comes from Steve and Vernon Hills, Illinois. He writes, you're double the size of the House idea may have merit, but where would one physically put them all? How would it work? The seating in the House chamber would look like economy

seats on airplanes. And wouldn't that be great?

name and put on a name. So I think we're due for one office space right now. Some argue is tight, but I actually would double the size of the house, but not double the size of the staff, right so that you would have so I'd have, you know, one more office building, but essentially you you would you would you would narrow it down. I'd like to see members of the House have their bigger offices in their district, and that's where a large majority of their staff ought

to reside more. The staff ought to be in the district than in Washington. That you really, your Washington staff ought to be literally the chief of staff, the legislative director, your communications director, and and and some and and maybe maybe a few other helpers. And that's it. That the large chunk of your work, if it's constituent services, should

actually be taking place in the district. So that's to me, I would sort of we reimagine what office space is like, and it really should be about office space in the district, not necessarily office space in Washington. And as for where do you see them in the large Chamber book, you know it's it was, you know, they they've added seats to that chamber before since we've been We expanded the

house for one hundred and twenty years. So there's no reason why you can't come up with different ways to continue to expand the house seating chart and things like that.

You know, I think you could do it without making us feel like we're all sitting in Southwest seats. But I certainly, I certainly think the bigger question is where do they have their offices? And this is where I would flip the script here, districts should be where a lion's share of the staff and offices are, and literally you should it almost should feel like a cubicle when you're coming to Washington. That's to me what a citizen

legislature for a representative democracy ought to behave. All right, last question for the for this episode, dom from Easton PA. I believe that's the home of one Larry Holmes, the most underappreciated all time heavyweight champion of the world. Let me go. I've been thinking a lot about the issues facing American democracy. Wouldn't it be smart for a group or party like Andrew Yang's Forward Party to become dedicated

to this one cause. Similar to how the Forward Party endorses candidates that are registered Republicans or Democrats, this new American Forward Party can support candidates and officials on both sides and independents who decide to support legislation that would end jerrymandering, overturn Citizens United, or vote to expand the US House. Is there an appetite for this? Well, you just described the much of the agenda the Forward Party,

and it's funny you bring up the Forward Party. I'm actually going to have the chair of the Forward Party on this podcast pretty soon, hopefully before the end of this month of May, and we will ask her about that. I've been doing some deeper dives on what they're up to. You know, in theory, No Labels was trying to get to this place that you're describing, where they could create sort of a caucus or a coalition of the willing, if you will, have left and right on different issues.

I think I've always thought if No Labels made a mistake, it was assuming there was an actual centrist ideology. And I think that what what there really is is a pragmatic ideology, meaning people that are willing to compromise to make incremental progress versus people that want the issue and it's their way or the highway right. And that's to me, is the difference between a partisan legislator and a and a politician.

get why that? That seems like you know, there's no there's no perfect compromise there. But I do think there's something there is. I think there is a vacuum out there and there's going to be an appetite for this. And again, look, some of it is going to be by necessity. Do we have a John Corny and decide he has to run as an independent? That's an opportunity

for the Forward Party, right, Ditto with Tillis or ditto with this Jason Pizzoo in Florida. So some of it will have to do with what kind of well we see ah a better quality of candidate running as an independent in some of these spots or running as a non traditional member of what either party an. I think that's you know, some of it is you know, you have you have an idealistic you have an ideal in your head of what that candidate would look like. Is

there anybody that will actually resemble that ideal? And we'll see. I think it's a little early but I know, I'm hopeful that there's some attempts to shake up the system because it's clear the two party duopoly is not good for the democracy.

It's you know, we'll see if it's a if this sort of changes, but this is a state that loves its football and loves its baseball, and basketball has always been fine. And there's certainly you know, been your Baylors had a good program. Tex UT's had a good program, don't get me wrong. But in Houston obviously has been one of the powers in college basketball off and on

for years. But as you know, it is never it has never been that the core and yet the NBA three the three franchises, there have never all three been on this strong of footing at the same time. Anyway, that's going to be fascinating to watch build on that front. As for my poor Wizards, I mean, it was such a wizard's ending. Not only did they not get it, they didn't even get a top four pick, didn't even get a top two pick, end up in the sixth spot.

You know, who knows. You never know who you draft in six You know, Jokic was drafted in the second round. Yannis was down in the deepen the lottery, and you know, grew three inches after he was drafted, So you know, you can always hope. But boy, go look at the NBA draft history and see how many players in the top three become All Stars versus how many players in the rest of the first round become All Stars. So it's a bummer not to get one of those first

three picks. All right, that's enough with my sports update again, Like and subscribe everywhere we are, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, you name it. And oh, by the way, we now have a weekly substat that you can subscribe to as well, so go check it out there and with that until we upload again,