Interview Only w/ Atima Omara - What Does A Winning Democratic Coalition Look Like In ‘28?

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Thanks for having me.

So. Obviously, one of the big pushbacks that your book is attempting to do, Rich is there's the general consensus that it's white swing voters, suburban moderates that decide actions. And in some ways this is an attempt to blow up that myth a little bit. And I think we all have realized that swing voters are not people that swing between h two sides to actually, most swing voters swing between voting and not voting as much as they

Here.

If it was one of the big MythBusters you wanted to do, was that, Yes, definitely.

I wanted to challenge sort of a narrative that if we are are focusing on trying to get this way moderate swing voter, you know, trying to think of thinking of that particular guy, and you would know this from your coverage. I'm forgetting him. But he's like the guy and like the plumber. Well yeah, don't the plumber. He's one, and there's like another one where he's just like, I'm still deciding and everybody.

Office park Dad, Right, we've got that one, right.

You know, sometimes you get like the Nascar mom or soccer mom who's just trying to make decisions, and I get that that is is fascinating sort of in coverage in media, but it's it's it's not great as the basis as the foundation of a political strategy for certainly the Democratic Party. Anyway.

Well, you start your book, you start with Virginia. So this is something I'm very familiar with, and certainly my listeners over the last few weeks have gotten very familiar. We've talked a lot about Virginia in general. But it's it's you start talking about the Ralph Northam scandal and his black face scandal and sort of the role. Walk me through the role you think black women played in that, and I guess it would be his political survival.

Yeah. So you had elected officials, You had cabinet members of his as well as advocates who were like, all right, if you want to stay in political power, we are going to make you put in the work for it. So you had organizers like Chelsea Higgs Wise who had started ah, you know, marijuana advocacy organization that was grassroots to push for the legalization, like, forget the criminalization, We're just going to go the full legalization and organizing people

Thanks to then states Er Jenna from McClellan.

And then you had a lot of the initiatives just in state government and policy that were being pushed by cabinet secretaries at the time who were younger black women, and so you know, a lot of this happened as

Well, look, you had leverage over him. Yeah, he decided and it was I don't want to say it was accidental leverage, but it was it was almost leverage that

And probably and I liuded to it there in the book that I think it made him feel like, Okay, I've got more room to try and assert that I stay.

How often do you think, I actually think sometimes interest groups don't take advantage of what I would call transactional leverage moments. Yeah, meaning you know where, look, this is not somebody that would normally be your ally, but they kind of need you more than you you know, and you know what, maybe we can extract some concessions out

I mean there are moments where you know, listen, there are folks realizing, Okay, I voted for something three times that is now pretty terrible, And I'm not super interested in being buddies with these folks. However, if there is an.

Operation, I don't want to be lectured at for supporting this entity for the lest right, right, Yeah, lecturing like telling me I was wrong, Okay, I was wrong.

And for me it's like, okay, listen, like you're going to be on the same page and voting great, but you don't want to do this again. We don't want to have to go through this again. We are going to on the other side of this have to have a conversation about why you did what you did and

On the other side about how we retain this victory.

Let's talk about twenty four because in here you're pretty you're pretty tough on the Democrats walk me through it. What could have been was it was this an election that was lost on persuasion or mobilization.

Very much mobilization.

I think some of the things that have been leaking from the twenty twenty four Action reporter point.

That we're never going to see you're ever going to see it?

Yeah, you're never going to see. And you know, I've had an opportunity to get some insights into into what it was from some briefings that I.

Who did it, who took in charge of this briefing of this autopsy, of this autopsy?

I actually don't know there was like a whole committee formed, and I know that there's like a couple of strategists who did something.

There probably just two or three people that did like ninety percent of the work the work, right.

Yeah, and then there's like, yeah, so there's just generally this committee. And so we definitely lost it in mobilization. Not to say that racism and asocrapy didn't play a role, because there were certainly these people who were like, well, I remember distinctly Arizona, some young person and being interviewed

I feel like that was a good excuse.

But okay, sure, so you had those, but when you have Trump didn't actually get as much as he was, Like, this was a landslide. It was small amounts of margins of votes in all the seven states. And when you looked at what happened in twenty twenty, where we were trying to make it more accessible to vote for folks, and obviously that rolled back, but then you also looked at Trump's margins, you didn't do that much better than twenty twenty.

It was the Democratic turnout that was lower.

And it's all be a combination of voter suppression and not having dealt with that, but also the mobilization there's now and I cited in the book lots of stories from black staffers who were trying to renegade just figure out how to do operational work on the ground and

Well, to me, you know, I've always said that the damning part of this election on the mobilization front is not the seventh the results in the seven states, it's

Yeah it was. And yeah, there was a the fact that the margins were so tight, and then the fact that you had she had one hundred and seven days. And as somebody pointed out when they were talking about the election, I was going out and thought about it. But she's like a voting started basically after the convention,

Gap and came very She saved three or four Senate seats. I look at it, you know, I don't think people. I mean, you know, let's Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada. What am I leaving out here? Is it Michigan? Yeah, it's Michigan. Right, four Senate seats Joe Biden would have lost. Joe Biden been the nominee, he'd lost all four of those Senate seats go down. I'm pretty convinced to that because he probably has something. He's probably performs two or three points lower than she does.

Yeah.

Yeah, I felt that as well. That was the failing. Even just the energy on the ground and volunteer enthusiasm is completely shifted of people who were of the diehards wanted to get work done and volunteer shifted with her at the top of the ticket.

I'm going to go back to black women voters, and it is more and more Democrats talk about that black women are the heart and soul, certainly in primary politics. One of the things that I think is nobody quite knows the answer to. And I see people in the media just as presume that black women are primary are super voters, so that must mean they're super lefty, and that's not the same. I think that that's always the

I think oftentimes, and I'll say this from my own perspective and the conversations in my cohort, is that you're having conversations with people who are not having an analysis of an economic issue that takes into account the experiences of what it means to be black, brown, or woman in this country. You know, every single time I heard Bernie Sanders, all right, but it's about the economy, and I'm like abortion rights, and in response to abortion rights or anything that just wants.

To donay it, he kept saying.

Oh, it's downplaying it when every single, every single sort of study that has come out says that you know, the essentially the discussion around whether you grow a family or not. I know it's personally is based around how many children you have, whether whether you can feed that child, provide for that child, and with things, yes, costs or rising, but it is, it is if that's taken away, that's

Issue.

And you know that we have a great opportunity because it's like a multi racial now sort of organizing. It's

So so let me ask you this, do you describe a two track system of insiders and instigators? Are they? How much do those worlds trust each other? And how much are they just fundamentally intentioned.

They don't. There's always been attention and there should be a sort of a natural attention to somebody who's like an elected official and government highest and you know, halls of power as it were, and those who are doing the activism. I do think that that has become even

You know, certainly for the roles that everybody has to play.

And that's sort of why.

Is there less respect? What's your sense is it? Is it money has sort of clouded the picture for the groups, and the groups are just so driven by finances. What is it?

I think on the elected official side, I think it's like, why don't you tust me to just get the work time? I think it's that their their feeling. And I think on the activist side, I think it's more so that because we don't see you doing a lot of that.

For?

What are the ways around? You know, what are alternative things that we can do to expand the right to vote? Because we're telling you like, if we don't, we're seeing a whole slew of voter suppress bill is gonna come, which they did. And so I think it's that that's like, Okay, you're asking us to trust where there isn't something and officials are life. I need you to trust that we're gonna do the right thing, and there's got to be a little goob and take in that relationship. It's a dance,

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Not as much as they should have?

No, No, what would that have looked like? I mean they certainly risked. Now, Pard, Look, I think you had President Biden has the heart of a legislator, not an executive. So we had more patients for sort of the Senate games been shipped, and perhaps other presidents would have. And you know, I think that that's if you want to know the real secret difference between a senator becoming president and a governor becoming president. It is probably that level

Yeah, I actually don't think a little hardball would have hurt them.

Think about because you.

Know, channeling his inner LBJ, you know LBJ.

Like one of my favorite stories I read about Olbi did It's like lesser known was he was trying to get the voting right Zach pass He did a whistle stop tour like and he had Lady Bird Johnson go through the South have teas with all the Southern senators.

There was one senator in Virginia.

If I am not mistaken, I believe that he was the father of one of our evangelical leaders Pat Robertson, I believe I think it was his father, Yes, yeah, And so he was like, absolutely, I am not meeting with her. I am not voting for this thing. J. I was like, Okay, that's how you want to play ball. Found a primary opponent, groomed him and did an operation to essentially take out Senator Robinson. And I think about that, I'm.

Like, wow, that is sounds like Donald Trump. By the way, when he doesn't get his way, what does he do? You always said, right, No, there's like parts of Trump that are a little LBJ and a little Teddy Roosevelt, right, you know which is you know, it's a little showmanship, but he's you know, it's always like you know, one of the worst mistakes that opponents of Donald Trump make is that they assume everything he says is wrong or everything he does is wrong. It's like, you know, there's

Yeah, And sort of what Trump shows is that the example of LBJ are the example of FDR even because there was like a point where he thought he was going to expand the.

Supreme and he did primaries. He didn't mind me get

Yeah, totally. And is that to push for what you.

Believe in and what you want to get done?

And most of our legislation that passed in this country was through very much not only the dogged persistence of activists, but then you know, when it came like slatively, these folks were like, all right, I'm going to make this happen.

I don't know how I'm gonna make this happen.

We're gonna find ways to do it, whether that's breaking up the bill, doing an executive.

Order, what have you.

And not surprising you, though, are some of our most popular, farm more fondly remembered presidents for their agendas too.

What's a how does an act? I'm a little skeptical of advocacy advocacy groups these days that they don't have the influence they once had. And I sit there because I fear as if the only influence that matters now is money or votes in a primary. And maybe I'm being a tad cynical, but you know, how would you advise today's activist group to get more leverage in the non campaign seasons.

I mean, first to just continue to do advocacy and organizing in need on campaign seasons as someone who you know does this work through you know, my own advocacy and consulting firm. I just I have, I have counseled often. All Right, you want folks to mobilize and come out around these issues as we are getting into the time of as you know, many folks call it late stage capitalism, where housing is more expensive, you're working more jobs, and need used to your distraction is kind of all over.

The place with social media.

You've got to find a way to break through and let people know, all right, some of these things that you're frustrated with you can do something about. And I know that there are some organizations that's just recently at the America Votes Conference who would love to spend more time on the doors and organizing and they're not getting the funding the levels they should. Something I talk about

It's like if somebody is not.

Talking to the not politically engaged like you and I, you know, there is just more challenging.

To do that. It is amazing to me how this has flipped within twenty years. Yeah, Democrats used to dominate the off year messaging, and it was Republicans that sort of just sort of campaign hunted, and now it's sort of you know, you know, basically since Obama, it has been you know, oh, it's election season. Let's you know, round up the usual suspects, round up the usual billionaires, let's fund what are we going to call the super

No, I mean they have taken the media.

The growth of social media, the growth of podcasts is the reason they called twenty twenty four the podcast election. The matisphere is quite real. We see it now, even for those who might not be engaged in politics, seeing it in there. You know, I see it.

My son's nineteen, My youngest iseteen, nineteen year old boy, young man. I'm sorry, he's nineteen now, and you know he's he's certainly he has knows what I do for a living, but so he keeps He lets me know, but he'll be down in one of his sports things or whatever, and it's like, man, it it gets political real quick, you know. And he's a little more aware of it because of what dad does for a living. But I see it. It is quite effective because you

They have moved into pop culture and fitness and healthcare and and we're still like, all right, let's have political podcasts. And it's like, Okay, that's great for you, and I'm.

We're only talking to you and I I know you know.

But that's not you know, there are amazing podcasts that I listened to with some very thoughtful people who are talking about like what's happening on reality TV? That that's a right audience.

I'm curious, do you do you want to know what the what the politics of your hosts are for your non political podcast or do you fear finding out what the politics are of some of your favorites, Like I do this in the sports world and I'm like, you know, they they'll hint at something political, going well, we're not touching that because of this, And then I'm like, wait, where are they coming down? Like I don't maybe I don't want to know. I enjoy this too much.

Right, I mean it's funny.

I have I have sort of discerned in some of the stuff that I listen to, and I think because I'm like my ear is like, oh, oh's.

You look for the red coded or the blue coated?

Yeah, you know, and there are some who are who're talking about I mean, what's happening on Summerhouse right now. That's the topic of conversation pop culture, and they have very thoughtful takes on raise and gender analysis and easily.

Just doing it through the prism of this TV show rather than Yeah m hm, So that's the space you think that that the left needs to get better at. What funny is that the right was convinced that the left was always better than them.

At this Yeah, that's that's the irony, and maybe that paranoia gave you know, got them that funding and that energy to sort of you know, really take over podcasts and you know, influencers they pay that they compensate their influencers in a way that left wing influencers are not to be compensated. Yeah, they're just and that's a whole chapter in the book. It's just on on how that

Challenge in a lot of quarters.

So it totally has. Let me ask you this about you think the two parties are going to sustain themselves as the two major parties in this country? For the for the foreseeable future, or do you think that our two party systems vulnerable right now?

I always feel like, you know, the doot like love hate relationship with the duopoly is somebody who's like done a lot in the Democratic Party. But I approach to sort of with that pragmatic sense of things, all right, you know, the mechanisms of change, and I still for the foreseeable future see it that way because structurally, to build, you know, to have a country with multiple political parties requires some structural changes to electoral college and our districts.

Just simply primary rules right at primaries perhaps or something like that. I mean that that's sort of my head is at I feel like, yeah, I do feel like we are a nation that is more diverse than the options we offer on our politics, right Like, Yeah, imagine going into a store or even go on a website and buying a couple of T shirts and the only sizes available were extra small and extra large, Right, that has a lot because it's usually the last two that

Yeah, wells. One of the things that I wanted to really address in the book is somebody who's just been inside, you know, all the way from local to national party politics and demograted party is that you know, in the entire time even that I've been involved in, Democratic Party has evolved in change. You couldn't talk about abortion at all, and people were like third rail. Now if you're not

And changed it.

And you know, I say that, you know you may even be frustrated with the structure of the party as

But I never like.

To talk about our duopoly like we cannot in a democracy as a people moved to change it because there are many people who have made it a better on a lot of fronts as it is now.

Well it's funny, it's both parties are coalitions, and they have been it's just you know, I think twenty sixteen actually gave us our most vivid version of this. We saw that both parties actually had pretty bright line divisions,

Like.

That would have been your European break down. And who knows what that coalition would have looked like. It's possible Sanders and Trump would have been bound together in a run off situation, you know, or Rubio or Clinton or maybe not right, it could have been based on the cultural lines that are drawn. So it is. I do think Americans want that kind of flexibility in their politics. We just don't know how to deliver that system.

Yeah, yeah, And I think that it will take electing people into office who are willing to push, you know, for those changes certainly, so that we have a system that it's better reflective.

There's a lot of folks who are just not happy with the electoral.

College for obvious and good reasons, right, and we haven't you know, organized the will around changing it.

Maybe that will change.

Well, I will tell you my obsession with dealing with the electoral college is to actually double the size of the House and then you actually make the numerator. The

Yeah, and I think it's, uh, it'll be interesting. I'm I'm actually curious to see if some of the energy for those changes really kind of takes hold with a lot of a lot more folks as as they are realizing now you know every day folks that it's not working well.

AI job fear of AI. Job displacement could be that trigger.

Yeah, yeah job a spliceman not be able to ford homes. Right, jobs just not paying what they used to. Yeah.

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Winning democratic coalition, Well, it's definitely going to have to be somebody who is very unapologetic about addressing the previous harms of the administration.

I don't I don't know that people.

Who and you do it without looking like you're looking backwards. You get my drift like, yeah, you got to right wrongs and I'm with you there, but you got to look like you're worried about the future. Right. It's a it's a it's a tough it's a tough it's tougher than you think.

Yeah, no, And it's one of those things where I feel like, you know, all science point to unless something goes really weird, Democrats will get the House. They will have an opportunity to attempt to pass legislation and draft legislation that speaks to the concerns of the American people, housing, economy,

Yes, it's Look, it happens to every generation of operatives. There's a moment where they become the geniuses, and then there's the moment when they're the past. And right, I think the geniuses of the Obama era haven't accepted the fact that they're no longer genius.

They're no longer the geniuses and are not the future and it will be a hopefully a lot more.

You know, I don't want to throw my gen xers completely out the window.

Yeah, please, we never got our chance to lead. I am. I have this like you know, it is one of these like we're I fear that we're the generation that's just going to get skipped. All right. We've we like sucked up to the boomers for like my entire lifetime,

Where it is the next generation? You know, we have the gen Xers finally millennials and gen Zers who are are really and it's you know, Millennials and Z are much more racially diverse generation. But it's large and its large generation.

Isn't it combined? Is that fifty percent of the population, right, just yeah, right.

Yeah yeah, just about just about, if not by twenty eight for sure.

So and especially voting.

Vot voting popular, yeah yeah, and having a have folks have different walks of life because once they get struck me when I was really looking at data is not only these racially diverse generations, but also the different perspectives that you have as a result of it. You know, you're more likely to have grown up in household where parents are no longer together, you're blended families.

You likely maybe have related to.

Immigrant people, folks who came from somewhere else in the world. You know, you are likely to have, okay, counter economic strubles. You're likely to have been in debt.

You know, these are people, you know.

Ayana Presley says, the people who are closest to the pain should be closest to the power, and those are the definitely the folks who should be at the table. I mean one thing, even just to go back to sort of the David pluffs and Carville's Carville who's long since been eating out on his time.

So he kind of admits like he will go out there, right, Remember he called out you got to give him credit for this. He goes. He called out and I'm not going to name names, but certain them consultants who are worried about their carried interest clients and not putting together a populous economic plan. So I hear you on James, but he's still a populist at heart, you know, I mean.

At heart, But he has his moments. We're like it. It's like, okay, sir, like we are getting to be a more diverse America. Let's let's start to sound like that. That populace is reflecting that the people. And you know,

Let me throw I I've I've made this observation a few times and I think it It always lands awkwardly. I'm curious how, but I think we sometimes don't fully appreciate the fact that we still have a large chunk of voting Americans who grew up in segregated America. And you know, I'm look. I started kindergarten nineteen seventy seven in Miami, I believe if I had started kindergarten eight years sooner, I'd have been in a segregated system. Right.

Yeah, yeah, I kind of allude to that. I think I say it very directly in the book, which is that you know, when you don't realize how good you had it because a lot of the freedom's joid, the rights that we've had has been because of sort of the work that came before. And you know, I think that the organizing muscle for a long time of keeping a democracy vibrant and pushing back against encroaching on sort of those rights kind of atrophy. Right, Like you're like, okay, everything's working.

Look, we've equalized voting, Okay, Yes, you've equalized voting, but we didn't equalize opportunity, and you still have an equalized opportunity. We still have an equalized education attainment we got. In fact, I would argue that the single most underrated issue going into twenty eight is our fracturing public education system, and I think it is. I admire that Ram Emmanuel is one of the few talking about it on the Democratic side.

System, we don't have a shared public education, we don't have a shared memory.

And well that leads to that, like I think one leads to the other. That's why I think it's important. What was brilliant about our public education systems and in theory, and it didn't work this way everywhere. I'd like to argue that I just got a taste of it living where I lived, because Miami was its own little unique experiment. I always say, we're you know, Miami had this reputation of being where the city of the future, meaning, you know,

And yet.

Now it's you know, you don't have socioeconomically wealthy people and socioeconomically poor people in the same schools, and you don't it's not even a close call. That actually was a reality in the eighties. Yeah, yeah, and.

More of that, and yeah, it's changing in ways that is intentional.

And of course this voucher system, yes it is.

It's all about yeah, in religion and you know the running joke you may have heard it, but you know a lot of folks it's like, all right, I mean Iraq and Afghanistan war is bad, but really no child left behind is legacy in you know.

What what It sort of opened the door to which it's like the kind of this acceleration of you know, not a set of agreed to ways to make sure that everybody is getting sort of like a shared public education, because in the countries where they're all like on the same page about the Holocaust and what happened in Germany, right, I mean, you never mean something right, And it's the

Know, and look, we had it similar in Florida. I'm

It never gets introduced, right.

And there is.

An intention obviously behind that, because then if we're not exploring those things, then we're not trying to think of what led to that and how can we do better? Fascination and so you know, when I I one of the points I wanted to make about sort of pluff to some extent, car believe in though he's Southern, but many of the strategists from the Avamba universe are southers, and I think that and I think that has contributed to some.

Of the issues we've had.

Because our politics in a way at large, while it's like this American thing, but it's very much affected by the seg The.

South is the mood music for our politics still.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of ways, and it's.

Certainly the heart and soul of the Republican Party rights. Its cultural base is in the South, right.

And if you don't understand it and you didn't grow up around it, which most black people have, and there's a chunk of white strategists to have that, they're not

I want to I want to stew in that a little bit more because I do think that, you know, there's always been that joke about, you know, in the South, whites and blacks are more honest about race. In the North, everybody's more polite, but they're more dishonest about race. Do you still feel that in sense that.

Yeah, and there is this belief that because oh, you know, we're the North, that we're not subject to the same you know ills the South.

We're not the racist we're the Northerners. Yeah, we don't have a history.

Right yet.

When you could point to so many many.

Different right yeah.

So yeah, And it's it's interesting.

I mean, I mean somebody was like, I found Confederate flags in the hard parts of rural New York and I'm like, do you know what part of the country you're in? Like, yes, And I remember it was I think it was Trusty McMillan.

Cottam heard or say, like, you know, has it was?

It clicked for me when she was saying, like, you know, the culture of the South has very much migrated into other in other parts of the US and even other parts of the world. You can find Confederate flags and other parts of the world even no.

I mean even just country music is more mainstream today in the Midwest than it was back in you know, back in even the eighties, seventies or eighties on that. You know, though, it's interesting you say that, I always thought that Barack Obama's superpower as a political victor was being from Illinois. You know, when you looked at the just the simple power of the states you know that were that touched Illinois were all important moments for him

Yeah, I mean I think I think you know biased here being in Virginian, but I think a lot of it is.

Well, I took that Virginia seceded from the Confederacy sometime in twenty twenty eight. But yeah, right, you know that Bason Dixon line keeps moving, you know, right.

Yeah, we'll be having a very different conversation if Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas were different electorally. There's a reason that most of the pushback to progress, some of the most horrific you know, voter suppression bills that you've seen, anti abortion and tyleeber all happen in the South.

Some of it in the Midwest.

Well, look at the National Party. They seem allergic to actually trying to work on the South outside of Georgia and North Carolina and that Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, Mississippi and South Carolina are totally underfunded and have enough potential vote to be competitive. You just have to put a little elbow grease into it. And Texas and Florida arguably the same way. They're expensive, but there's this consistent well,

And I think it's because of those are the areas in which they feel comfortable and goes back to saying oh okay, well, we don't have like Southern strategies, especially come brown organizers. You've had to navigate around all of these challenges if you're from Chicago and you go down to you know, the South. I mean when I think of sometimes the stories I would hear from like fellow, you know, folks in Virginia other parts of the South.

I'll give you one that I ran into when I first joined NBC, which was like, well, we can't poll on a Wednesday night? Why can't you poll on a Wednesday night? And this was in South Carolina, like Wednesday

The community does. I have my first campaign, I remember he was in the deeper southern part of our district. It was a real southern district, and he said, yeah, I'm not even a religious person, but I'm definitely putting up the sign on Sunday morning that says gone to church if anybody's coming by the campaign or whatever. And understanding the culture of the district. And so yeah, I think that that has absolutely presented challenges.

And to the type of work that we can do.

And one of the things I was going to say was that, you know, Obama's superpower to me was that he he at least I think, because he had grown up living around the world, had lived in a multiracial place like Hawaii, he kind of really early on understood how to talk to everyone.

That was his talent.

And you still see a lot of election no scar tissue.

Scar tissue does everybody does what you get through, But he didn't have a lot of scar tissue in that. There's something freeing about that as a politician.

Yeah, and I think that that is having something. I mean, Jimmy Carter also had that talent too, Like I mean, you know his primary you know, he did well because

All right, let me get you out of here on this. Give me four. Give me give me four people, one of you know, the four people in your head who think are most likely to be the actual Democratic nominee, not who you want right now, give me four. You know, it's sort of like it's way early, but I'll give you. That's why I'm going to give you four of which one of whom you know you're you're just sort of like, it's like, look, this is my field, so narrow, this

Yeah, yeah, I you know, I see Pritzker. I'd be interested in, especially if he kind of fashioned and self in a modern day sort of FDR that saying sort of.

Fact I am. I was a skeptic until I saw him play party machinist in a very effective way, and during the primary you did for Juliana Stratton. I'm like, you know what, I'm not going to dismiss him anymore. Yeah, I'm not dismiss him.

That's yeah, that's kind of where I'm with him too. You know, he says no because I think I was the thing of the thing you say when you're running again for you a senate. But I see as off in the mix somehow, more.

So than made Warnock too, right in that like a little bit of the only one can run.

Yeah, well, only one can run, and that is like war oxmbision. I wouldn't be surprised if it is. He's you know, preternaturally talented on stump and inlakable and gosh, I mean, I will see her in the mix, whether she is whether she's actually successful again in the nomination of No. But I could see the Vice President Kamala Harris back in the mix as well.

She got a we're all in Washington underestimating her strength at the current elector in army.

I feel so, I do, and I think she could be an interesting candidate again now that she's less tied to trying to essentially accommodate an administration that she's part of.

I you know, I've been through this, and I hate I know they hate when people like me put them on the couch. I will go to my grave believing that she's yet to run a campaign that was her campaign, yet that she's always been running somebody else's race or somebody else's you know, suggestion. I found her primary campaign to be this attempt to be all things to all people. She was trying to straddle write the Medicare for All mindset sort of told you everything you needed to know.

You know.

So she's alway he's had, I think, And so my guess is you're right, we will see a different version of her. And I'm very curious what it is, Yeah, Sam, very curious what it is. So that's three Pritzker, aesof and and common. Don't think I didn't keep count.

Oh my goodness, all right, I'm not keen on it. But he gonna find some way into it.

Gavin Newsom, Yeah, I don't know what he's four.

I don't know what he's four either.

That's why I said I'm.

Not Yeah, but I know what he's good at, which is being a resistance leader. Right. He knows how to do that. And that's what I think about Pritzker. I don't know what they're for, although there's a little bit more meat on the bones with Pritzker, right, I get that, I would say, ye, No, he's sort of He's in charge of the Illinois Democratic Party. Gavin Newsom is not in charge of the California Democratic Party. And you can feel that difference in their government styles and their campaigns.

Yeah. And if I knew what Newsum is for, it's kind of interesting. I saw him when he was speak when he was an elected mayor. Is very different and you evolve in your politics. But I'm like, okay, was that for version? Real? This version?

He's all sorts of talented. Yeah, there's no doubt, like he is a I used that. I like to use the expression political athlete. He's a really good political athlete. But you've got to have a specialty, right, you've got to be what are you fighting for? Right, It's got to be it's got to be a thing, not a not a not just winning that isn't the idea, you know, and we'll see. Look, this book's a great you know

I think we for some of thereaton also Brooks. Yeah, I'm actually hopeful in this next couple of years, like twenty six and setting up for twenty eight, that we'll start to maybe finally get that, you know, black woman governor. So I haven't got one yet, you know.

That could be Slant Bottoms is probably the best shot.

This prob be shot this year, I think, yeah, this year for sure, but I do see an increase just great.

Yeah, well a team of this has been great to talk with you, great to meet you. I mean I'm sorry that we've not met before. Where are you in Virginia? Where did you grow up in Virginia?

Northern? Well, actually I grew up in just outside of Richmond, and now.

I love northern Virginia. Where does Northern Virginia end now.

Fredericksburg.

Yeah, it's like this blob that keeps growing, right, Yeah, what's bigger? Northern Virginia or the Atlanta suburbs. Right, it's almost it's a very similar thing.

And yeah, no, I'm like when they say Atlanta suburbs and I'm like, that's not that's like an hour out and they're like, now still the suburbs.

Oh, I know, right, It's like it's well, if we were all one state, we'd talk about Washington Baltimore as one.

Yeah, not true.

Well what do you think about if we you know, if Trump had really been clever about this whole Arlington splitting, putting Arlington back to d C, you know what he really would have done, What is we're going to put give Arlington back to d C and advocate for DC statehood. Then if you really want to put pressure like that would be a fault line. Right, They're not that clever. This is why I'm like they're terrible at this, Like

Yeah, I mean, yeah, gosh, that would be kind of interesting.

I'm all, they're never that Like I said, they're never that clever. It's all a sledgehammer everything, you know, every problem is a nail, every hammer. Anyway, Well, the book is, it's terrific. It's a good especially I've got a lot of political nerds in a good way. I say that it's a compliment you know that listen that want to know more. And this has also got plenty of data in it too, So thank you for coming on.

All right, thank you again for having me Jack.

And I see you down the road. And I love the merch Well then thank you.

You can order on the website as well. The Instigators book.

Dot also.

Well said, y E agree.

Evening