05-27-25 Interview - Jon Caldara

A couple of you have texted and said, Hey, you are arguing with Matt, but you don't believe Matt would post this without the stats.

To back it up.

I did a quick Google search this morning. The stats that Matt is relying on here from the sixties and seventies. Well, recent statistics have shown that the divorce rate is about four percent higher for women who earn more money than their husbands, not fifty percent as Matt said. So Matt is using outdated information to make his point, and I do think it's outdated, and I think it's most.

Men don't care.

I bet John Caldera wouldn't mind it if he had a sugar baby taking care of him.

How you doing, my friend?

If that is an offer, sweetheart, we can talk now. Hi, poodle, howdy? What man doesn't want his woman to make considerably more I need.

I don't think it's a big deal.

But you know what, back in the sixties and seventies, the male ego was maybe more fragile, and the expectations of what men were seventeen.

For twenty five, the desire for a man to sit.

At home and play video games all day has grown exponentially that can only happen if you're If you're someone's booho kept man.

And by the way, I am available.

You are well good.

If any wealthy ladies out there looking for a rather sarcastic, sometimes interesting man to day, well, I don't want.

To oversee you. I want to manage expectations. John, I don't want.

My love life is so awful, you know. If there are men out there.

I'm I'm I'm just looking for the money at this point.

Anyway, That's not why I brought John Caldera from the Independent Institute on the show. I wanted to bring him on to talk about his column today or yesterday in the Denver Gazette about changing our primaries in order to perhaps maybe someday get a less crazy person elected in Colorado. Is that a fair way to say it?

More than fair?

I think a lot of conservatives Republicans have a hard time facing political reality. The political reality is right now in Colorado, an ultra progressive state with socialists in charge of every branch of government in every large city. We've got to look at a couple realities, and mainly the reality is in swing districts. I'm not talking in the rural areas I'm talking about Jeff Go and Rappaho and

You know, I think that these.

The amount of unaffiliated voters has now gotten right up to the fifty percent margin, more than any other state that I'm aware of. In Colorado could become the first unaffiliated or independent state. And that's the reality of it.

And we've got it. We've got to get ready for that.

You know, John, We've seen significant increases in the unaffiliated voters since we changed to an open primary. So do you think that that change sort of allowed people to make their own statement when it comes to affiliating with one party or the other, Because I think that most unaffiliated voters fall.

Into one of two camps.

The first is those people don't represent me because I'm either further right or further left than the parties that we have. Or there are people who used to be in the parties, or normally would be in the parties, but they're like, look in Colorado, the Colorado GOP is an absolute dumpster fire and nationally getting better.

By the way. I'm a big fan of Bridehorn.

I think she's a stick aculate lady, full of character and doing the right stuff. But here's here's the political reality. And tell me if you think I'm wrong. In the near future, the next ten, maybe twenty years, Colorado is not going to become a anti abortion state, or an anti weed state, or an anti gay state, or an anti environmental state. These things are off the table. But it doesn't mean that Colorado is is pro tax, pro regulation, pro crime, or pro woke.

So what are we doing with our primaries and how, in your view, can we fix it? So perhaps we have better options in the general even in areas where we know, like in Denver, our Republican is not going to be elected mayor full stop.

You know this, I know this.

So what could we do so we would have maybe less objectionable democrats to choose from Kent theory.

In twenty sixteen, the.

Large wealthy guy who in Politico opened up primaries to unaffiliated, which means that people who are unaffiliated could vote for either in the Republican or in the Democratic primary.

People like this.

Now fifty percent of us are unaffiliated, including myself. I live in Boulder. There is no Republican primary. There's no reason to be registered that way. Last year he put forward, I think a flawed initiative, and it had two components. One was a jungle primary, where as many people who wanted to run in the primary, could you know, five Republicans twelve Democrats, doesn't matter, but the top two would go would go to the general.

Well, he had it that the top four would.

Go to the general and then there'd be this weird ranked choice voting, which I'm rather skeptical of, and apparently so are most Coloraden's. I think the time is ripe to have jungle primaries and the top two go to the general election.

What does that mean? It means in places like.

Socialistic Boulder, two Democrats will probably be on the final ballot, which is fine by me because it's always going to be a Democrat anyway. So we'll have our usual socialist, but maybe we'll get a bit more moderate of a progressive and I could find somebody I could vote for

So I think this is the future.

Why do you only want two instead of four?

Because I believe that one The political reality is Colorado's not ready for ranked choice voting has proven last year with the with Theories thing going down, initiative going down, and also I don't trust ranked choice voting. I think there's too many games that could be played. I think there's some difficulties there, and the idea to save Colorado is to get fiscally sane, unaffiliated candidates who can win to the general where they have a real fight.

The problem, John, and you know this as well as I do, is that without the infrastructure of a party, it is extremely difficult to pull together the kind of sort of framework that candidates rely on for a campaign.

Now, I say disagree.

Do you disagree with that?

Yeah? And here's why there would be a time when I would.

But I'll ask you what infrastructure, what what health?

Does the Republican Party give? Now?

The party does two things. The state party on both sides cashes checks from the from other parties, the national gop et cetera.

And they run primaries.

That's all they do, the left one Colorado because over the last fifteen years, all the other infrastructure they farmed out to other organizations and went around the party. Right, The party just isn't that important. The infrastructure is important, The vote harvesting is important, the registering is important, the

But Grandma has passed on.

It is a new Colorado and we need a new way to bring liberty principles to reality.

Why are you anti ranked choice voting? Because the more I read, the more I see the outcomes. This time in Alaska, where politicians finally got the message that they could not, you know, run against their fellow Republican viciously, and they had to say, look, you know, if you're not going to vote for him, vote for me. I love it for that very reason, and I think ranked choice voting is probably the best chance that any kind of right leaning person gets elected in Colorado.

I understand your point, and I even though you're wrong, you're still a wonderful person. Here's what I would ask is check out something called approval voting, which does the same thing but without nearly the same convolutions. In Alaska, after they screwts things, Republicans did learn how to play better, and somebody said, no, I'm stepping out so this guy can win.

Do you really think.

In the world of Dave Williams type Republicans that that's going to happen here? My last concern with ranked choice voting is that the left plays teams much better, particularly in like school board races or city council races, where the Unions will say vote Bob number one, Susie number two, and Frank number three, and they fall in line a

It was some of the candidates.

Keep in mind that, and well it was at San Diego they had to yank somebody off the school board six months after ranked choice voting because they got the calculations wrong. Out in New York, they had to wait weeks to find out who was the mayor and who was on city council. It's a convoluted process. But here's the political reality. Colorado's not ready for it yet. The halfway mark is to have first the jungle primaries and

But yes, but.

Very bit off a little too much. Then Colorado was willing to chet you.

And by his own admission, he has been pretty open about the fact that he thinks they tried to do too much with that ballot initiative. But you know, I look at the Denver mayor's race in this last go round and when it came down to Kelly Bruff and Mike Johnston, I was full thronedly in the Kelly Broff count camp and I still believe she would have been a much better mayor. That being said, we still get two Democrats, one very progressive and one sort of center Democrat.

I've dedicated my professional career for the last thirty five years to promote the ideas of individualism and limited government.

I am an unaffiliated and because.

That's not only has the party left me, but it is the best way for me to be active in I get to vote in the Democratic primary now, right, and there is an a Republican primary where I live. There really isn't one in Denver, And I like to say there's a paradigm switch that's just worth chewing on for folks, which is is it important that the party win or is it important that policies get turned into reality.

The thought that the party.

Is going to win in any substantial way in Colorado, I think is unlikely to happen.

In the near future, the next grade of decades.

But that doesn't mean that doesn't mean at all that there's somebody or that the policies are unpopular. The policies are popular. Tabor is popular, property rights are popular, Educational choice is popular. And as businesses are going under due to incredible energy problems that are going to be happening and blackouts will be coming, as the minimum wage is going to be destroying small businesses. As these regulations are destroying the state, people will say, hey, listen, I'm not

I agree with you.

John Caldera, and you can read his work in the Denver Gazette or at Complete Colorado dot com, or you can just go to the Independence Institute and have a conversation with him. He's he's a delight and looking for a sugar mama.

So if you have.

By the way, I hear a female talk show hosts really rake it in.

You know what.

As we've discussed before, I am currently not on the market.

John not the same guy, Yeah, same one. I'm fond of him. What can I say?

Well, you understand there's two types of people. There are divorced people and then there are pre divorced people.

Well, I am already a divorced person, so I don't need to do that again.

John Caldera. Joy is always on.

And by the way, I've really been enjoying the Mandy and dev show.

Thanks you as.

Just a lot of fun.

A lot of fun on IV's YouTube channel. You can find us there. I'll talk to you later.

My friend,