Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] WVUA FM, Tuscaloosa. Any opinions expressed in this program are those of the host and do not represent the thoughts or opinions of 90.7 WVUA or the University of Alabama.
[00:00:19] Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Pulse of Nation, the only podcast on WVW FM where you can get your weekly news fixed. I am Brandon Vick. I am your host of the podcast, and I know I haven't been around in a couple of weeks. I will explain it all at the end of this episode. But first off, I want to catch back on something that I said I would talk about on the previous episode. Alabama House District ten. Wow. I did not expect what went down to go down. So, for those of you who didn't know, there was a very competitive House district. House District ten in southern Madison county between Republican Madison City Councilman Teddy Powell and Democrat Marilyn Lance. She was the democratic nominee in 2022. She ended up losing to David Cole. The Republican, David Cole has found out didn't live in the district. He committed voter fraud. He got packed off to jail for a month or two and had to resign a seat. So that's why he got the special election he got on March 26. So what everyone was expecting and when. I mean everyone. I mean the Powell campaign, the Lance campaign, outside observers and everybody, oh, we all expected it to be very close. I mean, purple district. Yes. Left training. Yes. One of the higher college educated areas in the deep south, let alone Alabama. I think it has about double the bachelor's degree attainment that, you know, the average state of Alabama House district does. So. Yeah, very unlike the state of Alabama, almost also in the fact that it isn't as religious as, say, a suburb of Montgomery or suburb Birmingham or what have you. So you have these conditions out in play. And I don't think anybody expected Marilyn Lance to win by about 25 or more points. Like, this is a district Trump won by less than a point in 2020. Like I was saying, like, yeah, Biden's going to win this district in 2024. Still stand by that. I mean, special election results don't really calculate into my analysis here, but I want to put into perspective sort of how gargantuan this landslide was for the Lance campaign. Like, for transparency. I did make a few calls for the Lance campaign. I don't make my political affiliations hidden to any jagata or anyone.
[00:02:49] And just for transparency, this is coming from someone who worked for the Lance campaign, made calls and whatnot. Again, nobody was expecting a 25 point landslide.
[00:03:01] The margin of victory was so big that Marilyn Lance did better than Doug Jones in 2017.
[00:03:10] You know, when he won the entire state of Alabama, like, got elected to the US Senate as a Democrat in Alabama, and it wasn't in the 1970s.
[00:03:20] Yeah, Maryland Lance did a couple points better in House district ten than Doug Jones did in 2017. That's how big the margin of victory was for Marilyn Lance. And ever since then, I've kind of been going through just how. It's not how did she win? We all know why she won. It's because she was able to leverage the issues of abortion and access to in vitro fertilization, you know, very, very effectively, you know, canvassing, you know, all across the district, you know, making calls, putting up a very strong campaign effort. Like, that's why she won.
[00:03:59] But it was a difference between just winning a district and blowing your competition out of the water.
[00:04:06] And I've been trying to go through it because Teddy Powell isn't some. He's not a crusader. He wasn't going around saying that, you know, oh, abortion should be totally banned, yada, yada, yada, we should conquer the seven mountains or whatever, like Tom Parker is trying to do in the chief justice, Alabama Supreme Court. Teddy Powell ran about as. I mean, I know this isn't really a nice term to say. He ran about as normie of a campaign as you would expect, as you could expect to get from a Republican in Alabama. He campaigned about, you know, improving local infrastructure, moderate supporter of the education savings accounts that Governor K. Ivey was, you know, touting. You know, he ran a very local, business based campaign. He's a Madison city councilman. Like this guy is about the strongest candidate the Republicans could offer in terms of fundraising. You know, I've talked about fundraising a lot when it comes to the presidential race. Fundraising matters for state house races, too, a lot more than it does for president, mind you, and both were pretty even fundraisers. Teddy Powell did a bit better in the early going. Maryland Wayans had a bit more cash on hand in the last week of the campaign, about 20,000 more, but $20,000 or $2,000, I don't know what it was, but that doesn't make a 25 point margin victory. Abortion and IVF campaigning on those issues, when Teddy Powell refuses to talk about them, you know, sees the issue entirely to you. Like, that can get you to win in a purple district. That can't get you to win by 25 point star. Something else has to have gone on. And with House district ten, it did, because I have never, ever seen a state house special election get as much national attention as House district tenants. And it did like, and I'm not just talking about, oh, you get a couple bylines and some national newspapers and that's that. No, like you can talk about like 19th News, ABC CB's kind of talked on it. 19th News actually did do more of an in depth thing than what ABC and CB's were able to do. I'm talking, you know, Wolf Blitzer in the situation running an entire segment on this state House special election March 26 and, you know, in Huntsville and Madison because it was seen by the media as sort of a proving ground for Democrats in southern suburbs. It was seen as, you know, can they leverage the abortion issue in the south? Granted, if it was just abortion, I don't think lands would have won by 25 points. It's in vitro fertilization because one of the things you learn in politics is the fact that the scandals which stick are those which confirm the, which already confirm the fears of what the people already think. And with the Alabama Supreme Court overturning in vitro fertilization access. And by the way, mobile infirmary, back where I'm from, a mobile, they decided that by the end of the year they're going to pause all IVF treatments because they just don't know what the law is going to be even after the Alabama state legislature passed some sort of an emergency band aid. So the issue is not going to go away, you know, just with the special election or whatnot, when you have CNN make an entire election graphic for you in a state house, just a state house race, some random state House special election in Alabama. Like it shouldn't really be a race that gets talked about in, you know, prime time. You don't have Caitlin Collins interviewing the winner of a state House special election for no reason. And it's because, you know, you're leveraging national issues. Marilyn Wayne's did that and she got on primetime CNN Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. And that, I mean, that had to have contributed to it because with the way that Lanz won, the manner of how she won, with the national media attention that the race was getting, republicans could have probably nominated Jesus Christ himself, and Maryland lanes were still beaten by five points.
[00:08:45] It's absolutely astonishing when you see, this is just from my experience, when you're seeing the GOP strongholds in the east of the district, formerly community church. I like to bring up when you're seeing that going blue by over 18 points, Maryland Lane is getting over 59% of the vote. And at first I'm thinking the numbers are flipped. But even if the numbers are flipped, getting 40% in that precinct amounts to a win in the district automatically. So it's like, even if these numbers are flip lands is basically already won. But to win a precinct, Trump won by about 25 or so points. I think to win that by over 18 points is like just, that just should be unheard of. Like the only way you should hear of it is if you have some nasty, you know, nasty, you know, down ballot stagnation where, you know, in eastern Kentucky, you know, Donald Trump could win a county by 50 points, but, you know, state House Democrat could win about ten or something like that. And, or if you're Andy Bashir, I mean, you see what happened to Bret hit County in 2023 because of the, what we've seen is a very competent disaster cleanup in the region. You know, Andy Bashir wins a deep, bright county, brighthead county by 20 points over Daniel Cameron that helped contribute to his win in that Kentucky gubernatorial election last year. I mean, this is, I really don't know what to describe it other than a Maryland landslide. I mean, puns aside.
[00:10:24] I mean, the reason why I will talk about abortion again is because Howit has been proven under a national spotlight to be proven a winner for the Democratic Party. Democrats know this. They are going to leverage this in every single state they can across the country. I mean, Florida, they have an abortion rights referendum on the ballot that the Florida Democratic Party is pretty much going to tie itself to the hips you have in Arizona. The Supreme Court recently ruled that in 1864, near total abortion ban should be allowed to be in effect. They ruled that. And I would say my piece of that right now, the Arizona Republican party is screwed. And I've been saying they've been screwed for a while. Like, well before the Arizona Supreme Court decided to bring any eternal abortion ban in the state, but this all but confirms it. You know, Arizona is, I mean, if Democrats aren't winning Arizona, they're headed for a landslide defeat in the November elections. And you'll see this in other states as well. But I'll leave that on the back burner for now because we have more Alabama news to ten or two. Wes Allen, he's up to his tricks again, isn't he?
[00:11:42] Wow. The republican secretary of state is, for whatever reason, trying to kick Joe Biden off the ballot. Like, I can't really put it in any other terms. The republican secretary of state is trying to use whatever legal parameters he can to kick the democratic nominee for president off the ballot in a deep red state. His legal justification for it is like, hey, the Democratic National Convention is going to be held too late for the Alabama deadline to certify your candidates for the November elections.
[00:12:16] West Allen is saying you have to move this convention earlier or your candidate is not going to be on the ballot. And what the Alabama democratic parties in China do and what was used in 2020 by, I believe, both Democrats and Republicans is sort of a provisional certification where it's like, okay, these people are going to be our nominees, you know, and the convention is just simply going to be sort of a official coordination, even though, like, these are our nominees. So what do you do?
[00:12:52] Do you, like, let me stop there. If worst comes to worst, Joe Biden gets kicked off the ballot in Alabama.
[00:13:04] And Frank Larose, by the way, he's trying to do a similar stunt in Ohio, where you have a very crucial US Senate election between democratic incumbent Sherritt Brown, republican nominee Bernie Moreno. So Larros has a political motive to pull a stunt Allen doesn't like. If Joe Biden's pulled off the ballot in any of these states while not having committed a serious crime, you cannot say that the 2024 presidential election is totally free nor fair, especially in the states where it is happening, like 2020 republican, like Republicans always talk about, you know, rigged elections and, you know, whatnot. 2004, a lot of Democrats talked about, oh, Ohio's election was rigged for whatever reason, Florida was rigged, that sort of thing.
[00:13:58] If this happens, this would be a true example of a rigged election. It's similar thing with efforts to kick Donald Trump off the bat. By the letter of the law, the Supreme Court said if he has not been convicted of a crime, then you can't kick, states, can't kick him off the ballot.
[00:14:19] And same reason the Republican would say if Colorado kicked Trump off the ballot, 2024 election wouldn't be free nor fair. Same here. If Wes Allen kicks Joe Biden off the ballot in Alabama, this election will not be free nor fair. So what, I wonder what Democrats could do. This is just going to be me openly speculating. Now, if worse comes to worst, does the DNC file a lawsuit? You know, do you sort of get this, you know, whole thing overturned and out of the way? Do you sort of try to create a temporary party, you know, just sort of a one state party, like a democratic party of Alabama, you know, just to get Joe Biden's name on the ballot?
[00:15:14] Because I guess we kind of have seen that before in Alabama, where you like, like, we're sort of, you know, the Alabama Democratic Party nominated, I think, like, some segregationists or whatever. So you have, like, national Democrats nominate someone else.
[00:15:36] Like, pretty sure it has happened before in Alabama, but, like, I don't know because you're kind of in a bind now, a little bit of history, republicans were facing the same situation in 2020 where their convention was going to be held too late for the Alabama certification deadline. You know what the Alabama state legislature did? They passed. You know, they passed an extension of that to allow Trump to be on the ballot. Now House Democrats are looking for the same deal. Will that be granted? With the way partisan polarization works, with the way that, you know, real politics and power politics works in the Trump era?
[00:16:18] I can't be so sure.
[00:16:21] So it's not just in Alabama but in Ohio as well.
[00:16:27] Like, you have these stories that have gone completely under the radar. I don't think anybody's been talking about it, but these could be some of the gravest threats to the integrity of the 2024 election. Because, like, if neither of the major party candidates have been convicted of a crime and the major party candidates aren't on the ballot in all 50 states through no fault of their own, mind you, and it's not due to any incompetence from the national parties or whatnot, then what do you attribute this to other than sheer malice?
[00:17:16] Like, I do struggle to find a reasoning for why you would do this, especially in a state like Aliana. Trump won the state by 25 points. 2020. There is absolutely no reason to do this when you already win pretty much all the races.
[00:17:34] Like, are you trying to somehow retain the second congressional district?
[00:17:43] Go with, you know, I. I don't know, because we saw in 2022, when black turnout was so bad that the second congressional district, as it stands out, would have been extremely competitive.
[00:18:05] But I'm not exactly sure why you would do that stunt just to.
[00:18:15] Just to retain a House seat.
[00:18:19] Like, I get it. You think the House is going to be very close to whatnot.
[00:18:24] But for one House seat, you pull a stunt so big that the national Democratic Party would be able to consider an election as maybe, like, this is rigged. Like, I loathe to use that word just because of the connotations that we have, especially with.
[00:18:52] With the 2020 presidential election, of everything that went down there. But this is the textbook definition of a rigged election in a state. Not saying this means that the election is rigged nationally or whatnot, like, the election would still come down in the various wing states. It does. But be more concerned about Ohio, because if Frank Larose is successful, then Bernie Moreno automatically wins that Senate because a lot of people vote just for president. If the democratic nominee for president is not on that ballot, quite a lot of democratic voters would just get out of there or might not show up at all. And with the competitive nature of the Ohio Senate race, Bernie Moreno would automatically win it. And republicans probably win the Senate, but you wouldn't be able to say it was free or fair.
[00:19:48] And, like, that's my fear. You know, if not just in LA, but especially in Ohio, Joe Biden's kicked off the ballot, then it's sort of a. You might be able to essentially steal an entire legislative body in the US Senate.
[00:20:04] And what would that say about the state of us elections? Even if Biden's winning?
[00:20:11] If, you know, if you were able to pull this stunt, then can you say the US is a democracy? I don't think so.
[00:20:20] Not a full one, at least.
[00:20:22] Speaking of not full democracies, New Jersey, I said I would talk about it at another time, and I think this is the right time to do it because over the past couple of weeks, you know, a very contested, very ugly Us Senate race between Representative Andy Kim and first lady Tammy Murphy, the democratic primary, you know, was underway. And, my God, that was an entire episode. Like I said, like, I could devote, like, remember when I used to do three episodes a week? I could have done an entire episode on what was going on in New Jersey. So let me give you the Cliff notes version. Before I do that, I want to give you sort of a tedious explanation of what the counting line is. So different. Democratic parties, democratic organizations, technically, they will hold meetings, they'll hold endorsement meetings to sort of nominate certain candidates that they want to be able to win the primary.
[00:21:26] And some counties will have sort of open conventions, what county committee members can vote. Others will have closed conventions where it's only, you know, the sort of elected officials that are chosen to be there, like county executive and like some other mayors or something, for example.
[00:21:43] And it's these conventions where the county line, or the official county line of the county Democratic Party is awarded to a certain candidate. And the county line is extremely influential to both parties because whoever wins a county line, in effect, wins that counting in the primary.
[00:22:05] I mean, this matters a lot for everything, but it matters a lot more the more down ballot you go. And the US Senate race in New Jersey is, you know, the first order, you know, that top order of, you know, of the ballot where the county line actually matters because Joe Biden's winning the democratic nomination in New Jersey regardless.
[00:22:30] But here you see an example of machine politics. We have closed conventions where elected officials pick the person they want to win the primary.
[00:22:41] That's essentially what this is. And the county line is very influential.
[00:22:45] You know, a lot of New Jersey voters base their decisions on who has the endorsement of the county, of the county Democrats or the county Republicans. Thats why you saw a Chris Christie supporter in New Jersey be a pretty top contender to be on the republican nomination for us Senate because its the county line.
[00:23:09] Now, Tampon Murphy, who was essentially the pick of Governor Phil Murphy and the New Jersey democratic machine, she was trying to leverage this county line a lot, especially in, you know, especially in the more urban north.
[00:23:25] And it got a lot, it got very ugly because Andy Kim, the democratic US House representative, he was originally running against Bam Menendez. He was running against Bam Menendez. He's like, well, our party nominates Bob Menendez. We can't say a word about Donald Trump. That was his rationale. Like, Bob, like, in his opinion, Bob Menendez is extremely corrupt. There's no business being in politics, should be in jail. So that's why he ran. And Bob Menendez drops out of the Democratic Party nomination process.
[00:23:58] Menendez says he might think about running as independent. I don't, I don't know. I don't think he will. I don't think he'll put himself through that hassle, especially the one he's got, you know, when he's got gold bars to worry about, when he has to worry about potential jail time.
[00:24:13] And then the New Jersey democratic machine picks Tammy Murphy. The reason why this is so controversial, not just because it's machine pick, not just because it's the wife of the unpopular governor, mind you, Phil Murphy almost lost New Jersey in 2021. Only one of three points get Jack Chiatarelli, but also because Tammy Murphy, like a decade or so ago was a registered Republican.
[00:24:39] And so you have polarized Democrats who've come to view anything republican as a threat to democracy. They're like, now what is going on here? Why is Tammy Murphy been registered as Republican? Why are you a George W. Bush supporter in the recent past?
[00:24:58] And that sort of just starts snowballing into one of the most nationally watched, you know, us Senate primaries. I mean, the most nationally watched, I think, since, what, 2020, Massachusetts, where Ed Markey narrowly beat, you know, beat Joe Kennedy III.
[00:25:16] I think that was the last one that sort of captured the national, like the average politico's attention at a national level, this was probably more than that.
[00:25:31] You know, Mark Eighteen's aside. Like, this Andy Kim thing is a whole different beast because it's not really an ideological campaign that Andy Kim is running. He's just running as sort of a popular Santi machine candidate.
[00:25:47] And it's sort of these county line conventions where things start to ramp up at the more open conventions, even including in Tammy Murphy's home county of Monmouth, Andy Kim won the county line. And the more closed, not transparent conventions, Tammy Murphy pretty invariably won.
[00:26:05] And so what you're getting at now in the polls are showing that Andy Kim has the popular support and Tammy Murphy doesn't.
[00:26:14] So I'd imagine the New Jersey machine politicians, they're panicking, and rightfully so. Like they might be about to be handed an embarrassing defeat when the New Jersey democratic machine never loses. Pretty much.
[00:26:31] And so I can only assume that the meeting the Murphy campaign had with these democratic party bosses was just the democratic party bosses just basically banging their hands on the table urging team of Murphy. You've got to drop out like you're king of the sea. Is a direct threat to our power now, essentially is what it is, because Auntie Kim is now suing at this point in time, suing to eliminate the county line.
[00:27:03] And I'll talk more about the county line later. Then the day after that meeting, Tammy Murphy drives out, like, no build up, no anything? Nope, nope. Just in the morning, Tammy Murphy's gone.
[00:27:16] Like, oh, wow.
[00:27:20] Not really anticlimactic, but that was a very sudden end to one of the ugliest Us Senate primaries we have seen in a good bit.
[00:27:28] And, yeah. So Andy Kim is the presumptive democratic nominee now, and it's a victory for asian american representation. I'm pretty sure he'll be the first korean american senator. I mean, as far as New Jersey goes, maybe even nationally.
[00:27:45] You know, assuming Bob McDonald's doesn't run as an independent and assuming that Chris Christie supported Russ name, I can't remember, wins the nomination over a more, you know, more trumpist type like you have that. And now as far as the county line goes, that's in grave danger because a New Jersey judge pretty much ruled that as sort of unconstitutional. And the fact is, the New Jersey attorney general didn't even write to defend the county line, saying that the county line was most likely unconstitutional.
[00:28:20] So the county lines aren't its last legs. I think there's a couple of counties that are still trying to defend it. Most counties which defended the county line have dropped off the case. I think a couple are still trying. But the county line could well and truly be dead, like right now. And that would be a giant sea change in New Jersey politics, because you could have more grassroots politicians. You're not having to curry the favor of the party bosses as much anymore. More grassroots candidates can go up and win. That will help groups like the North New Jersey DSA, for example. You will have more progressive and more socialist candidates selected at the local levels of office.
[00:29:01] And I'm really interested to see what this does for, you know, minority representation, because New Jersey is a very diverse state. There are large latino populations, large black populations on Asia Pacific Islander population, especially south asian Indians, and of the sort all across New Jersey. So I'm really interested to see how this sort of end of the county line plays in New Jersey politics. Not just to the US Senate level, not just 2024, but you go down ballot, you know, sort of a city council races, state house races, you know, these county commission races and even county executive races. I wonder how that will go as far as minority representation.
[00:29:56] I'm very interested to see how the sea change in New Jersey politics is going to play out.
[00:30:03] And all because the New Jersey machine wanted to replace Bob Menendez with the wife of the unpopular governor.
[00:30:13] Such an unmitigated disaster for the New Jersey democratic machine. Speaking of unmitigated disasters, let's turn back to the presidential racist. Go take a look at tv ad spending numbers.
[00:30:30] If you're a republican, you're looking at these numbers, you're kind of panicking because looking this up again, these numbers are astonishing. Now, the US Senate, it's bad enough.
[00:30:45] Pretty much the only money that Republicans have spent August to November is in the US Senate. They spent 129 million. Okay, fair enough. A lot of that is in, I think a cap of that or so is in Montana or something like that. It's like, okay, you're trying to get Tim shady over the line. The Trump by 16 state is, you know, tens of millions of dollars should be able to do the trick.
[00:31:07] But the Democrats have reserved in the US Senate double what the Republicans have reserved. Pretty much it's 256 million for the Democrats, 129 million for republican gans.
[00:31:20] That's the best that is being done because when you take a look at the presidential race, and this is for August to November ads, by the way, this isn't for ads like right now or anything like that. This is for ads in the final, like three months of the campaign.
[00:31:36] And Democrats are banking their ads reserves in early $130 million for the Biden King campaign. And over $77 million for House Democrats.
[00:31:47] What do the Republicans have? Donald Trump has not invested one single cent in ad spending from August to November. No wonder the House Republican number is 348,000.
[00:32:03] That's not even close to the average gdp per capita in a place like what, Stanford, one of those random Silicon Valley suburbs like Cupertino?
[00:32:14] Way more. They make way more money per year than what House Republicans are currently reserved in ads from August through November. Now, granted, the GOP usually likes to make their ad plays a little bit later. I get that.
[00:32:30] I don't think it's a smart play, but never has been a smart play to sort of go on ads a bit later, especially when, you know, you're risking the fact that you have this come up. Democrats are right now stronger fundraisers than the Republicans, and as a result, they're able to make their ad spending a lot earlier than what the Republicans were able to do right now.
[00:32:55] And with the fact that Joe Biden's campaign spent $130 million in ads, not, it's not even so much. You get risk being defined early.
[00:33:08] That's what these earlier ad plays are for, to define Donald Trump on abortion.
[00:33:14] Like the million dollar ad buys in Arizona and all these other swing states, try to find Donald Trump on abortion.
[00:33:24] And to be fair, Donald Trump hasn't really spent any ad money in the early game either. So that's another big problem. But as sort of these late ads, the issue with not spending any money on these late ads right now is later on, these ad spots are going to cost more.
[00:33:43] And right now, a lot of this ad spending by the Democrats, it's done by the candidates campaigns. Campaigns get better deals on ads. As I've explained earlier, they get better deals on ads than super pacs.
[00:33:56] And granted, you know, House majority PAC for the Democrats, they're not going to get as much bang for their buck as a House campaign will. And most of this House spending is by the House majority PAC, mind you, I think the Senate is, I think kind of the Senate is as well, almost, you know, the Senate majority pack and all these other groups.
[00:34:17] But when you just refuse to spend ad money in the late game right now, later on, it's going to bite them because they're going to ask for more from the big donors.
[00:34:34] And as far as the Senate and the House go, especially the US Senate, big donors will be more than happy to spend the money because they're likely to get a return on their investment, especially in the US Senate, where the conditions are already so favorable that should they should win the Senate by default. They should. The fact I'm not saying they will speaks volumes to what the republican party I believe has become electorally.
[00:35:02] I mean, I could talk about, you know, potentially, you know, soon after this episode is released, maybe there's a new scandal that comes out with Tim Shay. He's been very defensive about the Washington Post, asking where he got his purple heart, just saying, watch out for that.
[00:35:19] And that's the guy with the biggest stat spending right now amongst Republicans. Because Republicans know you win Montana, you should be able to win the Senate. You should be, because you're supposed to hold all your seats. You're supposed to flip West Virginia.
[00:35:35] You just need one of Montana or Ohio to win in that scenario. Not even counting the money you're going to spend in Nevada, not counting the money you're going to spend in Michigan, in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona. Like, eh, you might spend in Arizona, you probably are going to spend in Wisconsin. Not sure about Pennsylvania. Maybe spend in Pennsylvania. But it's not going to be as much and it's not going to have as much of a return to say like just blanketing the ads in Montana and Ohio. It's like you might spend like throw like something at West Virginia even though you're gonna win by at least 30 points. But like, the Senate's just, it's tied up on a platter for the Republicans and the donors. Like, okay, we'll give money here because we can at least get something even with the dysfunction in the US House right now. Marjorie Taylor Greene, if you don't know, it's pre filed a motion to vacate, pretty much like she filed a motion to vacate, but she didn't make it privileged. So it's not been brought up right now.
[00:36:39] But yeah, she filed a motion to vacate against Mike Johnson. Why? I really don't know. I guess that's just what bomb does do. I really am not sure what her true motivations are like with Matt Gaetz.
[00:36:53] We know what his motivation was.
[00:36:56] What he said his motivation was, was to get a more conservative speaker. What his true motivation was was to try and get the House ethics committee to stop investigating him for sleeping with underage girls. And that's just the unvarnished truth. In my, like, that's just the unvarnished truth. He's being investigated for this and some other things.
[00:37:16] And that was the leverage that Matt Gaetz had. He papers it up as being McCarthy, not, not being conservative enough. McCarthy makes the absolute blunder of trying to blame Democrats for this function in the House, Democrats balk on McCarthy's pleas to save him. Enough Republicans vote against McCarthy. McCarthy is now a private citizen because he then resigned from the US House.
[00:37:42] Yeah, pretty, uh, yikes. Not great stuff. Or, uh, not great stuff from Kevin McCarthy there. And to be fair, Kevin McCarthy should blame nobody but himself for the reason he's no longer the speaker and no longer a member of the US House.
[00:38:02] But it is important to note the true motivations for why he was no longer. He's no longer speaker. But even with all this going on in the House, you still have a decent opportunity to hold it because a lot of the republican candidates will expect to outrun Donald Trump. And a lot of these donors, these big donors who might be a little queasy trying to help out the president, well, what two thirds of the Republican Party base still believes is a rightful president, mind you.
[00:38:39] But as far as the presidential race goes, they'll be concerned that all that money is just going to pay Trump's legal fees.
[00:38:48] As far as the House goes, they don't have to worry about that. They can at least invest in these candidates and say, like, okay, we can invest in the republican congressional apparatus, we can invest in these campaigns to hold and flip marginal seats because these candidates don't have this stink that donating the Trump way.
[00:39:11] And plus you more likely to get a better return on your investment. Simple economics.
[00:39:17] And if Donald Trump's campaign is right, and the national environment is right enough where they could win no matter what, then investing in these down ballot races are going to help the Republicans tremendously. Because if Trump wins, he's likely to get a trifecta.
[00:39:33] Trifecta would be because these donors are investing a bit more in the House races than they would in the past because they dont want to invest in the presidential race.
[00:39:44] And I have to question if Donald Trumps only ad expenditure are digital fundraising ads right now, Bidens already been up for months.
[00:39:56] Pretty much.
[00:39:59] What is Donald Trump spending that money on? Is it his legal fees? Is it something else?
[00:40:05] I don't know. But with the small donors having already been built, Donald Trump's having to beg the big donors. And to be fair, decent fundraising numbers nowhere near as strong as Joe Biden in March.
[00:40:19] But the small donors don't run out as fast as the big donors do because the big donors, you know, you plop a millie, you know, pop 500,000 or whatnot. But you can only do that a few times, you know, through these dark money backs or whatnot.
[00:40:35] And by the way, with leftward shifts that are coming in these rich suburbs, you get more rich democratic donors and less rich republican donors, which adds to the fundraising gap.
[00:40:48] But it's not just the fundraising gap that the Republicans face. They face an incredible ground game disparity.
[00:40:57] It is not pretty.
[00:41:00] Like, we'll go to North Carolina, which is one of the only offensive opportunities the Biden campaign has.
[00:41:10] And Biden's open up a lot of North Carolina. And what does Donald Trump has? He has nothing. There's ten field operations in North Carolina, not just in the major urban centers, you know, like Mecklenburg, Guilford, whatnot, like Orange county, but it's also in a competitive county of new Hanover, you know, South North Carolina and Wilmington. It's also, you're trying to target not just Cabares County, a tossup county, tossup suburban county, you know, east of Charlotte. You're also targeting a GOP suburban county, you know, in Johnston, you know, east of Raleigh.
[00:41:48] I'm really interested that they've added Johnston in the opening round because again, I think they're trying to leverage the abortion issue. They're trying to leverage, you know, being a social liberal, you know, and fighting back against the social conservatives, especially when it seems like Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for North Carolina governor, is trying to Doug Mastriano it up already.
[00:42:12] Like, even as Trump is leading in a lot of these polls in North Carolina, granted, I don't really take a lot of polls into account, considering some of my issues with how they're done. But even in these polls, Josh Stein is leading Doug Mastriano and outrunning Biden by a significant amount.
[00:42:33] So it's not just in North Carolina, it's Nevada, you know, where, you know, Democrats are opening up these field offices. But the RNC's, you know, minority outreach centers, not just Nevada, but Wisconsin and Georgia, have all closed, you know, as far as Nevada goes, they've been replaced by a spanish speaking church, a vape shop, a Boba shop. In Wisconsin, there was an ice cream shop. There's in Georgia, you know, Axxx store. Let's just say that, you know, and what is the RNC doing? What is the Trump campaign doing? Trump campaign is statewide directors in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but Joe Biden is state directors in all the states, all the competitive states. So I'm not exactly sure if Trump is going to get going later on or whatnot, but they really do need to start getting up because if you're allowing Joe Biden's campaign to go into these communities months before you, it's not going to be pretty viewing. And also, something that doesn't get talked about a lot when it comes to 2020 is the fact that Joe Biden's campaign didn't really run a campaign because of COVID fears that they were going to COVID. So no in person campaign to protect the staffers, they ran everything, you know, everything online, everything from the basement, pretty much.
[00:44:12] You know, you have all these rallies where, you know, people are spaced out, whatnot.
[00:44:17] Like it wasn't a campaign, like Trump's campaign was a campaign. And so Donald Trump locked Joe Biden in the ground game because the Trump campaign didn't really, you know, have that many concerns about COVID as much as the Biden campaign did. And so I wonder if that's an underrated reason why Donald Trump nearly won 2020.
[00:44:39] But the fact is the Joe Biden campaign is doing a lot of in person campaigning now. You're going to these communities, especially minority communities, that the Republicans have made gains with the fact that the Democrats are now going in these communities months before your campaign is able to, you can't rely on the state and the local parties like you were able to in 2020, in 2016, and even 2020 because the state parties have been hollowed out. Like Arizona, Michigan are two prime examples, you know, in critical swing states of where those republican parties are hollowed out in midst of civil wars. You have, you know, Minnesota and Colorado, two former competitive states.
[00:45:22] Republicans still think Minnesota is going to be competitive because that one poll, which is going to probably be off by ten points.
[00:45:28] But it's like those state parties, they're broke.
[00:45:33] They are absolutely broke. Pennsylvania not really doing too hot. And it's the state where Joe Biden is doing the best in the both of any of the competitive states. It's Pennsylvania for some reason. Speaking of Pennsylvania, you know, next week, Joe Biden is going to be going to Scranton. He's going to be rallies in Scranton and Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania next week. And where has Donald Trump gone? Rallies rallied in Rome, Georgia. I think he had fundraisers in a couple of other places. Where has he gone?
[00:46:04] You know, Joe Biden is, for all intents and purposes, running a vastly more vigorous campaign apparatus than Donald Trump is right now. You have all these concerns about Biden's fitness that the majority of the voters have.
[00:46:19] And so this is what the Biden campaign is trying to respond to, those concerns by just having an aggressive campaigning schedule.
[00:46:26] It also helps when Donald Trump is going to be in court for a lot of that campaign because he's due to stand trial in New York in a couple of weeks.
[00:46:35] Like, again, things that don't get talked about. Donald Trump is criminal trials waiting for him at St. Charles. He's got multiple waiting for him before November 5, and we don't know how that's going to change the election again. Remember, there are always October surprises.
[00:46:54] Always remember the call me letter.
[00:47:00] And remember when Mitt Ronnie was leading Obama in the polls up until October 2012. Like, let's be real here, things can change.
[00:47:14] Like I've always said, like, everything is within the realm of possibility. Republicans could win a trifecta. Democrats could somehow come away with the chai factor.
[00:47:24] I know we'd like to think of these sort of things as baked in, but like, these margins are not baked in. Like, we see House District ten, that 25 point margin victory, Marilynne Scott, that was not baked in. That was based off of the work she did. That was to exploit these sort of issues that were favorable for her campaign, to exploit the national media attention that that race got and leverage it to her ability by running a very strong campaign. Again, something doesn't get talked about in House district ten. Marilyn Lanz already had that persuaded. She was endorsed by the former republican representative Mike Bosch. She used to be a campaign manager from way back when, a few decades ago. So she already got quite a few, you know, republican leading voters to come to her campaign vote for a campaign. So you add that to, you know, her already strong campaign, and it's just curtains for Teddy Powell. And that's just one example. You know, what if Tim chase scandals up the wazoo and John Tester might be able to take advantage of that and somehow narrowly win Montana again? What if Bernie Moreno sort of gets caught, like, selling cars in China or something? You know, Jared Brown's able to take advantage of that, you know, or what if Bernie Moreno has some other massive scandal that Brown's able to take advantage of? We don't know. As far as Mark Robinson goes, I don't know what his October surprise is going to be. North Carolina Democrats have been running oppo for miles. Like, Robinson's got a rap sheet down to his ankles. Like, I don't know what they're going to pull out of the bag in October, that he eats babies or whatnot. But I'm almost scared to find out. As far as Maschian goes, considering what we already know and as far as talking about the presidential campaign goes, I think that y'all, even if you're a staunch Republican, you need to watch the Willows vox ad that Joe Biden put up, because this is going to be an example of the ads are going to be running in the swing states across the nation. It's going to be women, you know, tearing their, sharing their painful stories about, you know, sort of pregnancies that were lost. They couldn't get the rightful care thanks to a, thanks to an abortion law passed in a state.
[00:49:51] And they're going to be running these sorts of ads all across the nation. Like, I compare Willow's box to Daisy just in its sort of emotional impact.
[00:50:04] The fact that I'm comparing that to Daisy already.
[00:50:08] Yeah, I would be scared of these ads that are about to run if I was a republican party, because Donald Trump is already trying to run. Oh, abortion should be a state's issue. Abortion should be a state's issue. Whatnot.
[00:50:22] Like, you're trying to run from it, but I'm not sure they're going to be able to, especially when you're letting the Biden campaign almost go sort of uncause you're trying to brush the abortion issue aside. It's not going to work. Didn't work for Teddy, pal.
[00:50:40] But I think it's time now that I explained to y'all why I've been out for the last couple of weeks. So I don't like really sharing my own personal life or whatnot, because this is a politics show, and we spend 1 hour a week talking about the biggest political stories of the week. But it was the last Monday of last Monday of March, March 25, 2024, and it's a day I will never forget.
[00:51:16] As I was here in Tuscaloosa, you know, going to classes or whatnot, and I sort of get a text from my father that, you know, gotta pack your stuff up. You know, like, you pack your stuff up, gotta go home.
[00:51:31] And I did.
[00:51:34] And I didn't know what, I really didn't know what it was for, but I had sort of experience with this because it was like, I think a few weeks before that, like a month before that ago, where I had to do a similar thing because my mother was in the hospital, she was in the ICU, she wasn't doing well. So we had to pack her stuff up, got to go home for the week.
[00:51:56] And luckily that week was spring break, so it didn't really affect schooling too much, but she was able to get out of the hospital, you know, spring break and whatnot, get back to school. March 25 comes around, same text comes in. I do similar thing that I did last time, but as I'm but decided I was gonna get a cheeseburger, cheeseburger at Lake style, as I often do, around 02:00 p.m. That's when dad and his father showed up in his father's truck. And right there in that ridgecrest parking lot, dad told me to do his. That my mother had passed away.
[00:52:39] It's not easy dealing with death, especially at that age. You know, a mother, you know, 40, 44 years old when she passed, and she had metastatic renal cancer, and it spread to her brain, like my father, especially my mother didn't really like, we knew it was a terminal cancer, but mom said, terminal cancer doesn't mean what it did in the past. It's like, oh, this could be. We could treat this and whatnot. Trying to keep her spirits up. But dad told me after the fact that the prognosis was three to six months, months after the diagnosis. And my mom lived for five months after the diagnosis.
[00:53:31] It's tough.
[00:53:34] It's tough knowing that.
[00:53:38] Tough knowing that your father is the only person who was able to bear that pain, because he was the only person, he was taking care of her. He took a lot of time off of work. He didn't go to work, work for a fairly long time to take care of my mama and stuff, knowing that he's the only person that can bear that burden. He was the only person there when my mama passed, and we weren't expecting her to pass in there.
[00:54:11] Granted, I had been thinking about, you know, sort of thinking about the possibility that my mother could pass away this year.
[00:54:22] I was thinking about that. Thought about that the night before she did die.
[00:54:27] I wonder if that was just, uh. I wonder if that was just her saying goodbye to me for whatever reason, but it's.
[00:54:41] Can't really put it into words when, you know, when 20 years of age and you're having to sign the papers executing your dead mother's wishes in that funeral home, because technically, my mother and my father weren't married. But it's common law. Alabama no longer recognizes common law marriages. So it goes to next of Kia, to next of kids. Kin was me.
[00:55:10] And I explained to my father that, you know, like he said, it was not right that I had to do this. And I told him that, you know, if I have to do it, I will.
[00:55:28] But it's like I have to share in the responsibility of honoring my mother's legacy as well, because Ava was the one who wrote the notice on Facebook. Ava is my sister. She goes to UA.
[00:55:40] She was the one who wrote the obituary. And so my thought processed her and was like, okay, I have to bear my source of responsibility as well in honoring her legacy and honoring her wishes. That's what I'll do. Sign the papers. The contract is under my name.
[00:56:02] But that responsibility does. It pales in comparison to the responsibility my dad has.
[00:56:10] Like, he explains that it's a nightmare that he's just not been able to get out of.
[00:56:20] Like, that's what it feels like to him.
[00:56:23] And because he and my mom were soulmates and it's not easy to be at home, be in your room, and just hear your dad crying, wailing over the course of a week. It's not easy, especially when he himself does not like to exhibit emotions either. Like me.
[00:56:51] He's like me in a way.
[00:56:54] But I think there is sort of a lesson to learn in this whole situation that, fuck death waits for no one.
[00:57:11] And you're not gonna want the Grim reaper to come. You know, nothing that we do can stop him from knocking on our door.
[00:57:23] And, like, it doesn't matter what you're doing, doesn't matter where you are in life. You know, when the grim reaper comes, he takes no presence, comes in, does his duty, and leaves broken families in his wake.
[00:57:38] And this is why I think that sort of we have to enjoy the time that we have with our loved ones and that, you know, when we have time with our whole families that, you know, we're able to come together and sort of love each other for who we are. Because I know some, like, I was lucky to have that, but I know that some people don't.
[00:58:08] And sometimes that's the fault of the kids. A lot of the times, that's the fault of the parents.
[00:58:14] And it's sort of when that happens that, you know, all these thoughts rushing heads, maybe I should have done this, maybe I should have done that.
[00:58:28] But it's who's left in the wake. We have to be there.
[00:58:36] Like, when the rock of your household gets taken away, and, you know, the person.
[00:58:44] When the person who takes up the responsibility of trying to lift us up is broken, what do you do?
[00:58:52] And that's the experience that I've had to sort of. That have had to take up the responsibility, because it's.
[00:59:10] At least we have us. Like, we have the three of us, and we have dad's family to lean back on, but I recognize that some people don't.
[00:59:26] And I've been thinking about that situation, that I'm lucky that at the very least, you're not dealing with it on your own. You're not dealing with it with just a couple of people. You're dealing with it in the whole support system. I know some people don't have that because of certain extraordinary circumstances. Maybe your parents didn't accept you for who you were.
[00:59:54] You know, they kicked you out of the house for being gay or something like that.
[00:59:58] And I really do grieve for those who, in this time of need, in this time of tragedy, you know, the only per, if it's the only person in the family that they vibe with now that person is gone, you know, what are they thinking? Thankfully, I don't have to experience this, but what about another person that does?
[01:00:29] What about, you know, the people who don't have the privilege of dying at home? Like my mother was at least able to be home when she passed away. What about those who passed away in a hospital? In a hospital hospice? What about those who, you know, aren't able, you know, to even get back?
[01:00:55] You know, I recognize that even in this situation, I have that privilege and that our family had that privilege, that this month, like, she is going to be able to come home, you know, have her final rest in place.
[01:01:14] Some people don't have that. So I want us to sort of recognize the privileges that we do have and that we are able to get. And think about everybody who doesn't have the sort of doesn't have those privileges that other people have. And you sort of think about, you know, as we talk about politics, at least for me personally, I'm thinking about how does this affect the bottom of the barrel and those who are forgotten about, those whose voices are never heard, those whose experiences are forgotten or even ignored by all of larger society. Society.
[01:02:03] Because that's what my mama would want me to do.
[01:02:07] To the left of me, I have her picture right here. I brought it in here because this episode is to honor her and all episodes of Pulse of the nation, from the first episode I did last year to now and forever, and everything else I do here at UA throughout my career are going to be in honor of her.
[01:02:31] They always have been. They always were.
[01:02:36] And if you learn nothing else from watching Pulse of the nation, if you learn nothing else from sitting through, you know, hour a week, how are we Saturday watching this stuff?
[01:02:55] It's to cherish the experiences, you know, and the memories that we have. And even if you can't do that, if your memories, your experiences are, you know, too traumatic to do so, use them as your power, because your voice is your power.
[01:03:17] And I don't want anybody to have lost their voice or have their voice be, you know, left out, forgotten, echoing in the shadows.
[01:03:31] If you have a voice, use it.
[01:03:35] If you have a story to tell, tell it.
[01:03:39] Because the pulse of the nation isn't just about going over the latest presidential polls. Oh, Biden, start negating the polls. Yay. It would be.
[01:03:49] It's not just about that. It's not just about state laws that get passed in Alabama or Oklahoma or New York or something like that. It's about the local stories, too. It's about the story, you know, of someone who has a miscarriage but can't get the necessary care due to a strict abortion law. It's about someone, you know, who isn't, who has, like, multiple jobs but still isn't able to make ends meet. It's about the person, you know, who's working 16 hours a day trying to make ends meet. It's about, you know, recently about, you know, children being forced to work at a Hyundai plant next to Montgomery or at a plant in Luverne, Alabama.
[01:04:38] Migrants, a lot of them guatemalan descent, for example, being put to work at these plants, child labor.
[01:04:50] Elevating those stories, the stories of people that we don't really tend to think about in Alabama. Elevating the stories of hispanic latino communities in rock indicator, Fort Payne, and other areas across the state to elevate those stories and elevate those people, because the pulse of a nation isn't just in Washington, DC.
[01:05:19] Pulse of the nation exists in every one of us.
[01:05:23] And I don't want any of y'all to ever forget that.
[01:05:30] And as we go through life, as we go through loss, as we go through heartbreak, grief, and every emotion under the sun, I want you to remember that, you know, we have that pulse inside of us, you know, and what we can do with that pulse is more powerful than any of us ever know.
[01:05:57] That's what, that's what my mom would want us to do anyways.
[01:06:02] So I want to thank y'all for listening to Pulse of the nation. We're going to be back next week with another episode. We just have a few more to go before the end of the semester and thus the end of season three. Thank y'all for listening to Pulse of the nation.
[01:06:16] And I love you, Matt. I don't want you to ever forget that any opinions expressed in this program are those of the host and do not represent the thoughts or opinions of 90.7 WVUA or the University of Alabama WVuAFM, Tuscaloosa.
