Chuck’s Commentary - New Polling Shows BIG Shift Toward Democrats + Trump’s Attempts To Manipulate The Economy Could Backfire - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Hello there, Happy Thursday, getting ready for the long for

(01:26):
what is going to be a holiday week next week.
I'm excited here at the Chuck Podcast. Welcome to another
episode of it because my kids come home on Friday.
I have to say, when I was in college, we
had classes at least Monday and Tuesday. They finally sort
of chipped away at the Wednesday before Thanksgiving because I
knew everybody was leaving. And now apparently there's no more

(01:50):
classes Mondays and tuesdays of Thanksgiving week, at least at
the schools that my kids are at. And hey, as
a recently empty nested parent, let's just say, I am
really looking forward to seeing my kids. I've actually gotten
to see them quite a bit this fall. But it
is not the same. It is for those of you
that have experienced empty nesting. The quiet, right is actually

(02:13):
you miss the noise, and I am looking forward to
that and that all begins in the next twenty four
hours for the Todd household. So I'm happy about that.
And I've also as you can see, I'm home. I'm
finally home. Look, November travel always in you know, November
for me has always been a heavy travel month, whether

(02:33):
it's previewing elections, coming doing analysis on post elections talk,
scheduling a lot of talks around the country. November has
always been a busy travel month. So this has been true,
which is why I never travel on Thanksgiving. As I joke,
as soon as I had a kid, I declared home
field advantage with my family and simply became the Turkey

(02:58):
host at this point. And I'm one of those that
loves a giant a giant crowd. You're welcome to travel
to me. I just don't want to be in an
airport during Thanksgiving week. One other I don't want to
sound like Tony Korneiser here and talk to you about
my travel pet piece, but I'm gonna make one pet

(03:20):
peeve that I think all of you will agree with,
and that is Hotel lotion all right, I you know,
get dry hands.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
And you know, like, is it a rule.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
At every hotel, whether you're talking the nicest hotel you
can come up with, or your you know, your your
sort of highway motel, you know, a courtyard or something
like that, is it a rule that everybody has to
water down their lotions? Like, no matter what what you
buy in CVS is never as watery, no matter the
brand you buy, whether it's generic or not, it's always

(03:56):
watered down every single hotel. It's almost like a running joke.
You feel like why, why is why this lotiony looking
water coming out of their thing? And it is it
is like it is not mattered the hotel. It is
not mad to the chain. And I would just say
to you, some of you lotion companies out there, your
good name, some of you probably for advertising purposes, give

(04:18):
it away, but are you telling it, you know, to
these hotels, And I think they all just dilute them
to stretch it out even further. Anyway, it's becoming a
pet peeve. And I realized it when had my home
lotion here, no more dry hands and it wasn't watery anyway.
I know that's a bizarre, But in that what podcasts

(04:38):
are for, right, You're supposed to air bizarre grievances, right, So.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
I was going to do that.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
But in all seriousness, let me give you a rundown
of this episode.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Number one.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
My guest is Ann apple Bomb. I'm going to guess
some of you are subscribers to The Atlantic, and if
you are, you know who Anne Applebomb is.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I think she's one of.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
The best journalists out there when it comes to expertise
on Europe, particularly Eastern Europe. What's happening are what is
Russia up to? She's author of a book that's come
out in the last year, including a new paperback version
of it called Autocracy inc. Full disclosure. We planned this
interview a couple months ago. It just happened that we

(05:14):
were able to talk on Wednesday, and it's the day
that something leaked out. Whether it was an intentional leak
to sort of start to change the headlines from Epstein
and other stuff, or it was an accidental leak or
a leak by the Russians to try to create an
illusion of peace that is coming. But the leaked potential

(05:35):
supposed peace deal that the United States and that the
White House seemed to say to Axios that they were
going to try to jam Ukraine with and get them
to agree to it. The proposal is a joke for
what it's worth. Now, when I interviewed Anne, we didn't
know many of the details. To her credit, she sort

(05:58):
of foreshadowed what she assumed it would be there, the
maximalist position. If Russia is not allowing. If Ukraine in
the room, they were going to have a maximalist position,
and they know that the Trump administration, which does want
to have a separate relationship with Russia on other issues,
is anxious to have that relationship, and with it comes
the attempt to do this. But as you'll hear in

(06:22):
the interview, this does feel like the beginning of Trump
just trying to get out of having to deal with
this anymore, that he'll throw up his hands and say,
nobody wants peace. I'm walking away, And in many ways
we've already walked away. You know the Ian Bremer's newsletter
G Zero. I'm a big fan of that newsletter. It's
a free newsletter. I encourage you to go check it

(06:43):
out and find it. I think it's a very smart
sort of internet almost like an international Political Science newsletter.
They had a nice chart in there showing funding to
Ukraine for the war, basically US funding and European funding,
and it's been pretty much dollar for dollar up through

(07:05):
twenty twenty four, American funding European funding. Twenty twenty five,
American funding is almost down to zero. It's not zero.
We have sent a few things to them, and European
funding has never been bigger. But still the combined is
only about sixty percent of what Ukraine was getting during

(07:27):
before Trump took office a second time. So the United
States has already financially walked away from this war.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
The question is going to be.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Whether and because the US actually isn't funding much of
Ukraine's war anymore, they're providing important intelligence. In some ways,
the US doesn't have the leverage that it even had
a year ago on Zelenski, or the leverage that they
even had six months ago on Zelenski, because at this
point the Europeans, to their credit, have essentially tried to

(08:02):
help on their own the Ukrainians, and they, like I said,
they have filled the gap up to about sixty percent
of what the combined total funding was. And so the
leverage is not the United States doesn't have the leverage
over Zelensky that it did in some ways, the Europeans do.
And I don't know if the US has the same

(08:23):
leverage over the Europeans that we had. You could argue
that Donald Trump's plan to make Europe pay for this
is working and with it, though, comes diminished influence from US,
you know, as the leader of the free world, because
we are not a party to this, we don't want

(08:43):
to be in. Well, then we're also not going to
be able to have the same amount of leverage. Look,
we had a ton of leverage over Israel to force
them into that peace plan. We do not have the
same leverage over Ukraine a year ago we did, but
we do not have that same level of leverage now.
So this thing is not going anywhere, and it does
look a lot more likely that this is. You know,

(09:04):
he will he will just simply walk away from it
because he doesn't want to be a party to something
that he thinks he can't deal with. And he's and
you know, it's unless he accepts the premise that Putin's
been playing for him for a fool and he refuses
to accept that premise. I think we know that this
is unfortunately going to continue to drag on into some

(09:25):
version of a stalemate. But our conversation gets deeper than that.
We obviously talk about this deal, talk about what could happen,
where's this headed, the rise of authoritarianism Saudi Arabia. We
get into the Venezuela issue and what our aggressiveness towards Venezuela,
what message that is sending to China in regards to Taiwan,

(09:46):
or frankly putin in regards to what he's trying to
do in essentially reconfigure the.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Old Soviet Union.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
So we get into all of those things. I think
it's a so conversation, but a good conversation. And we
hadn't touched on this topic in a while, and hey,
that everything. The confluence of events made this I think,
top of mind, and I hope you will give it
the attention that it deserves. But it is a you know,
it's interesting when we were talking about the issue with Venezuela,

(10:20):
and I think I've expressed this to you before. Personally,
I'm sort of very torn. I want to see him go.
This is a country. This guy's violating democratic norms. He
he was ousted in a free and fair election, and
he's refused to go. And if I and if the
if the president of the United States laid out the

(10:42):
goal and the rationale for doing what we're doing in
an attempt to sort of essentially protect and defend democracy
in our hemisphere, I think you could.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
You know, look it, I think you could. You certainly
would have a bit.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
More credibility in the world stage for what we are doing.
The problem I have is the fact that he's lying
about the rationale for doing what he's doing. Right, we
don't have a fentanyl crisis coming out of Venezuela. That
isn't the issue. You know this this we are there
for other reasons. But we're claiming we're there for another reason,
which isn't true. And that's you know, when you lie

(11:20):
or mislead a democracy into why you're going into a
military intervention, you know that usually doesn't go well. You
know it. We only have our own history to look
at that. And every time we meddle in Latin America
this way, it always bites us in the ass. And
so that certainly is of concern. But if we were

(11:42):
a nation that cared about expanding and protecting democracy around
the world, we'd be much more involved and invested in
Ukraine's success at beating back the Russians, and then maybe
we would have a better rationale for what we're doing
in Venezuela. But right now now we are not in
We are not trying to protect democracy in Venezuela.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
That may be, that may.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Be an outcome that comes with this decision to intervene,
but it is not the primary reason we're doing it,
and that I think that is unfortunate and it will
only increase the amount of mistrust it out there. And
of course Donald Trump has a has a has a

(12:26):
base that doesn't want intervention in foreign wars, which is
why I think this Venezuela situation is more fraught politically
than I think this administration appreciates. I think they think
that they can basically play the deal with Venezuela like
they're playing the game of risk and we're the big
bully in our hemisphere, and we'll just do this because

(12:48):
this is this is right there on our side of
the of the game board. It doesn't always work that well.
It doesn't always work out that way. So when you
look at what we're doing with Venezuela and what we're
not doing with Ukraine, right, We certainly don't have any
kagent ideological explanation for our lack of intervention in one

(13:13):
place and threatened intervention in another place. So again, that's
that side of that conversation. I want to get through
a bit of a like I said this before, a
bit of a notebook slew of notebook items there. We've
seen an additional round of polling now post election day

(13:34):
twenty twenty five. If you recall the last time I
delved into a poll with you guys, it was the
NBC News poll, and it was a poll that came
out before the election day twenty twenty five. And it's
worth noting how precient that poll was. It had Democrats
with an eight point generic ballot advantage on the generic
congressional ballot. No other poll had shown anything like that. Now,

(13:54):
pretty much every pole that's come out has shown Democrats
with anywhere from a five to a Maris Pole chose
a fourteen point lead. I think that's a super outlier,
but there are other polls out there that show it
consistently five six, seven. It shows you that eight point
number was not an outlier. There were some people who
were trying to argue that was an outlier, that was
not an outlier, And I think we saw there was

(14:16):
another part of that poll that I failed to make
a big deal out of that. Frankly, I meant to.
I'd written it down in my notes, but I didn't
bring it up, and I should have. And that was
sort of one of the ways the heart McInturff one
of the regular questions that the NBC News poll has

(14:36):
had on that poll going back some fIF I want
to say, we started doing this in the eight cycle,
maybe six cycle. Is on a scale of one to ten,
how you know, how interested are you in this election,
in the next election? Interest in the election? And what
was remarkable in this in this poll here in twenty
twenty five is the number was already in the mid fifties.

(14:58):
And this was asking about the twenty twenty six midterms
a year out, and it was in the mid fifties.
Normally that number was in the forties four years before,
and it's regular. This was sort of a It being
in the mid fifties felt like a summer of an
election year number, not a fall of the year before. Well,

(15:20):
what did that foreshadow? The massive turnout advantage that Democrats
ended up showcasing. On election day twenty twenty five, we
saw New Jersey. I continue to go back to the
New Jersey example. You know, Virginia you can write off
as a federal worker issue. New Jersey where there was
a not so popular two term Democratic governor being replaced.

(15:41):
It was term limited. In the Republican nomine he got
more votes this time than he got four years ago,
and he ended up losing by thirteen percentage points. That
is a flashing red light for the Republicans. And I
will say this, So we've gotten these two new generics
out there, Marist and I know the Marist folks well.

(16:03):
They they they are very they're very careful about what
they they They're very transparent about their methodology, and so
their numbers can be a bit more fluid. And academic
polsters in general, uh get a little skittish about about
waiting based on different things. They very much want to

(16:23):
have a more hands off approach and to some of
the decision making that they make on weight. So the
Marist will fluctuate more. And that's why it's always important
don't compare two different polls to each other. Compare a
Polster trend line to themselves, and so the trend line
fits the same trend line. We're seeing what what marists
showed a month ago is now is now moved in

(16:48):
the democratic direction. Well, guess what every pole has moved
in the democratic direction. You've seen a consistent rise in
Trump's disapproval rating, a consistent rise in the spread between
Democrats and Republicans, and the generic ballot. They're clearly something
has turned here. It looks like it's mostly economy based

(17:10):
more than anything else. Right. You know, you may think
it's about Epstein, or you may think it's about some
of these other things. Ultimately, I think the great lesson
that everybody I should go back and take away from
twenty twenty four is it Ultimately it's about prices, and
it's about cost of living. And the cost of living
has been skyrocketing everywhere, right, and the latest issue is
electric bills. And the fact is you can't you know,

(17:32):
the White House is nervous. That's why they wiped away
the food tariffs. That's nice that maybe they can sort
of slow down the rise in grocery prices, but the
electric but the rise in electric bills around the country
is going to eat into whatever tariff savings he creates there.
And of course he spent his speech browbeating the Fed.

(17:55):
And if the Fed lowers interest rates too quickly, and
I think there's a real divide on this because going
to imagine the Fed lower's interest rates and Trump turns
out two thousand dollars checks, we're going to be in
twenty twenty one all over again. And remember what happened
in twenty twenty one. That's when we had another surge
of inflation that essentially ruined Biden's presidency. Right, he could

(18:17):
not get out from under that initial inflation surge where
the market was flooded with easy money and lower interest
rates plus a tear Freebate check all would flow extra
easy money in there. And I promise you prices aren't
going to go down, just the opposite, prices are going
to go up. So he is not This economy is
not in a good situation. There's not many levers he

(18:40):
can pull here. And yet one thing you know about
Donald Trump is he's always going to try to pull
a lever, and in some ways, the more levers he
tries to pull, the more he makes things worse. If
you need an example of that. Just look at what
he did with redistricting. He has now put his party
in a worse place right by bullying all these legislatures
to do this, He's put his party now in a

(19:02):
worst place if Texas, if this map does, if this
map doesn't get upheld by the US Supreme Court. But
I want to go back through these because there was
another poll that was out that I think gives you
a sense of how to read some of these generic
ballot numbers, the Marquette Law School poll. I'm a big
fan of the Marquette poll. It's a very he's a

(19:25):
steady pollster there, Charles Franklin. Anyway, it's a very good poll,
very consistent. One of the things, by the way he
does quarterly is probably the most thorough examination on the
public opinion side of the public's opinions of the Supreme Court,
for what it's worth.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
So it is.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
It is a poll that I care about a lot. Well,
they came out and their generic ballot among just registered
voters was forty nine forty four the Democrats. Then he said,
among those certain to vote, the Democratic lead expands to
nine points. More importantly, in that Poul Trump's approval rating
among independent voters is below thirty percent. So look, there's

(20:12):
already a disadvantage for Republicans when it comes to these
off your elections, as Democrats have the more regular voters.
Democrats have the voters that are definitely going to show up,
which is why you see those more certain to vote,
the Democratic lead expands. So if you're the Republicans and
you're trying to hold Congress, you know, among registered voters,
you're hoping that the number is you know, you don't

(20:33):
want a separation on the generic ballot of more than one,
two or three points at this point, because you know,
among likely voters it's going to basically whatever the spread
is among registers, it's basically going to double. And so,
you know, I think the way these congressional districts are gerrymandered,
Democrats probably have to be ahead somewhere between six and

(20:56):
seven points on the national generic ballot in order to
win control of the House. Maybe if the Texas map
doesn't get upheld, you know, and let's say Virginia still
gets aggressive and decides to redistrict and helps out the
Democratic numbers, or maybe that number goes down to four
or five. But The point is we're already in territory where.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
The House is gone. Right.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Anything north of six points the Republicans have lost the House.
And as you keep creeping up, then suddenly you start
to see that the Senate is in play. There's a
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is free unless they win. One of the talks I
did a few days ago was on with another another
analyst who was very involved in the one of the
Virginia races, the ag race, and you know, I want

(22:49):
to protect we were in an off the record setting,
so I just want to share the analysis. But the
basic analysis of why did j Jones win? Did he
how did he win? Well? He won because the number
of split ticket voters in Virginia was about six or
seven percent. Yes, I know what I just did, six

(23:10):
seven have at it, everybody, But it was somewhere in
the six to seven percent range here and it is
it is interesting because she she won by fifteen points
and Jones was able to win by five or six
So you start to see what that range is and
if you applied this, so Susan Collins in twenty twenty

(23:32):
overperformed by about six to seven points, indicating a split
ticket vote in Maine of about six or seven percentage
points of the electorate. So you know, we've all been
trying to calculate what is the maximum number of voters
who might actually be vacillating between the two parties. Right,
Most of the differences these days are which party turns

(23:55):
out more of their voters. That's that's the difference between
why you know, Democrats may do better in Ohio in
a midterm year and Republicans do better in Ohio in
a presidential year. But the question is who's the persuadable number, right,
who are the voters? You know, we used to have
fifteen twenty five percent of voters that would be split

(24:16):
ticket voters. We're nowhere near that. But it's interesting to
me that what you saw in Maine was about six
or seven percent on the split ticket side. What we
saw in Virginia five years same sort of six or seven.
So just keep that in mind, right, And so what
does that mean? So let's say you have this generic
ballot sitting in the where Democrats are up north of

(24:38):
six points, which I would argue is what their advantage was.
It looks like in the off year elections, essentially anything
between any state legislative district that Donald Trump carried by
five points or less Democrats won in Virginia. Now they
only won I think one seat where Trump carried a

(24:59):
legislative district by somewhere between five and ten points. So
let's assume that sort of five point buffer. You apply that.
So what that would mean is that it makes Ohio
Senate a coin flip. And then you already have a
bit of breeze at Shared Brown's back because Democratic turnout advantages.

(25:20):
So that's a that becomes a coin flip race. It
is a winnable race. Not saying he's gonna win it, it
is a winnable race. Then if you apply the wellther
six to seven percent of potential split ticket voters, all right,
then suddenly you say, okay, what would that do numbers
wise in a Texas, numbers wise in an Iowa, numbers
wise in a Kansas although there's no Kansas series Kansas

(25:42):
Senate candidate yet, or numbers wise in a Mississippi, And
that's where you start to see where, well, I don't
think Democrats in a presidential year could win a Mississippi
Senate race, could win an Iowa Senate race, could win
a Kansas Senate race, and probably not a Texas center
race though though I think Texas is is a bit
more fluid than we fully appreciate. In a midterm year,

(26:03):
they can, right, you apply the five essentially a generic
five point advantage, and then on top of that, right,
you have another six to seven percent of voters who
are willing to split their ticket. If you accept the
premise that this is essentially what we've seen in any
competitive race, at least in our new Trump polarized era,

(26:26):
that does put Kansas, Alaska, Mississippi, all of that on
the radar. Which is why I think right now I
go back. I've never been more bullish on democrats chances
to do well in the midterms, and I am this week.
I've been a bit skeptical all year because you know,
there's because of a few things. One is just the

(26:48):
simple and popularity of the Democratic brand. But that was meaningless,
I mean it turned out to be meaningless.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Right.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
The other big, the other big sort of what do
you call it rule these days of the Trump era
is we just vote against right. We don't like whoever's
in power, and so we are voting out parties in

(27:17):
power when we get a chance. We are voting out
incumbents presidents when we get a chance. Right, we've done it,
I mean to think about it. We've essentially fired two
incumbent administrations back to back, and if you count Trump's
victory over Clinton, that's three in a row on that front.
The House flipped in eighteen, The House flipped again in

(27:37):
twenty two, Right, so the Senate flipped in twenty The
Senate flipped again in twenty two. Excuse me, the Senate
flipped again, not in twenty two and twenty. Then it
flipped again in twenty four. You notice here, how it?

Speaker 2 (27:51):
You know? On that front. So I do think that.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
If Democrats can't use this moment to find good candidates
to run in Kansas, good candidates to run in Alaska,
big money to donate to places like Mississippi, Iowa Senate,
Kansas Senate, Alaska Senate, they can't do it at this moment,
then I don't know when they're.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Going to do it.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
This is their opportunity. The polling's never look better. And
I'm a big believer in the Haley barbarisms. I love
my old Haley barbarisms, and one of my favorite is
good gets better and bad gets worse. And I think
we're in a situation where bad is going to get
worse for Trump, right, because he's going to keep trying
to fix it, and the stuff he does to fix

(28:40):
it will only divide his party, like he's already divided
his party on whether to even do these rebate checks.
He thinks he can do this without Congress. Good luck, right,
He's going to get a haircut when the tariff ruling
comes down. So all of these things, I think that
he's likely, his instinct to meddle and to think he
can somehow change the weather is likely to take a

(29:03):
bad situation and make it worse for him on this front.
And even though do you have a Democratic party that
doesn't like its leadership, there's a total vacuum there. There
is such enthusiasm at pushing back against Trump. There's such
a belief that, hey, this stuff is working. Right, the
courts ruled against them in Texas, voters got behind doing

(29:24):
something that I didn't think was as you know, I
don't think we fully appreciate how impressive the feat was.
With Gavin Newsom in California. You start to see where
good gets better on that front, but we're still in
the in fairness, we're still in the wake of what was.
This has just been a really bad November for Trump,

(29:48):
the Republican brand, Republicans in general. You know, it is
every month going to be like this between now and
next November. That's unlikely, right, but it is if this
economy continues to be this uneven, and especially if we
continue with this AI bubble talk, and there's a lot

(30:09):
of conversations out there that we are this is looking
a lot more like nineteen eight, ninety eight, nineteen ninety nine,
which was basically the first time the Internet bubble completely popped.
You know, as I joke, well, somebody please tell me
which one of these AI companies is pets dot com.
And there is certainly that hanging over the head. And

(30:29):
so if even that doesn't go well, then that turns people,
even those that have a little bit of money, will
suddenly be feeling sour about about how about how Trump
is handling this economy. One more thing I want to
get to before we get to the interview with Ann Applebaum.
And by the way, I also will have my college
football preview. I got a few things to say about
the updated college football playoff ranking. Says you might you

(30:51):
might think, and I'm going to deal with a few,
quite a few questions. I want to just end on
California governor. We just got a new candidate jumping in
the race, Tom Steyer. You may remember him as a
climate change activist who ran for president, kind of self funder.
You know, Stier is a guy who doesn't look like

(31:13):
he ever laughs. He is always serious, borderline a little
bit angry, and.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
He's and I.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Think he takes I think he takes his positions very seriously.
He takes politics very seriously. He's willing to spend his
money as a to do these things. But there's you know,
there's I don't think you can be dour all the time.
You have to have some sonny in you somewhere, right,
you know, I think the key we've all you know,

(31:43):
you heard crystalis and I discussed this quite a bit
during the election night live stream that we did. You know,
one of mom Donnie's superpowers is his optimism and the
constant smile on his face. So you know, you've got
to project some optimism with voters. And you know Styr
has been in this dog sort of dark place, dark
place about climate change. Right, the end is coming sooner

(32:05):
than we think. Dark about democracy. He inserted himself a
bit into the referendum campaign to do the reredissecting in California.
It was an insertion that how many great Gavin Newsom
folks appreciated. But look, you know why he got in
because this has been I have to say so far,
the development of California governor's race is one.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Of the big head scratchers to me.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
This is in nineteen ninety one, when all of these
big time Democrats decided that George H. W. Bush wasn't
beatable in the nineteen ninety two general election, people like
the gut part Out Gore, Bill Bradley, Jay Rockefeller, Sam Nunn,
all these supposed rising stars of the early nineties all
decided not to run. And the people that did run

(32:51):
were nicknamed the Seven Dwarfs. And it was Bill Clinton,
it was Paul Songiz had Doug Wilder in that race,
you had bought carry in that race. I know, I'm
leaving Tom Harkin was in that race, but collectively that
crew was because there was no star power at the time.
Bill Clinton wasn't a star. Then Bill Clinton ended up

(33:12):
sticking out as like the best political athlete on stage
with a whole bunch of sort of Tier two senators
and governors who showed themselves up and I think helped
catapult him, to quick start him. At the time. I
remember a debate I believe it was on PBS the
first time they all appeared together, and Bill Clinton was
the sort of the clear star of this field. But

(33:35):
in general it was treated like the Seven Dwars. That's
kind of how I feel about the current makeup of
this California governor's race. Here's here's an open seat for
California governor. That where you get to be the governor
of the fourth largest economy in the world. It is

(33:58):
as important of a position. I think it's you know,
New York City mayor's probably slightly more prominent on the
international stage because of New York City's prominent, But California
governors probably New York City maybe a harder pr job.
California Governor's just a harder job, especially these days. You know,
it's weird. It's you know, you think a single party

(34:19):
state makes it easy. It's all these one party states
are still two party states, meaning there's sort of two
wings of the one party that fight each other. I mean,
Texas is kind of a three party state. Right, you
have the Democrats is one party, and then you have
two wings of the Republican Party that are at war.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
With each other.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Essentially the Ken Paxton Dan Patrick wing that Greg Abbott
is suddenly now on one side. And then you have
sort of the old bush Rick Perry John Cornyan wing
of the party a bit more pro business. And what's
interesting that wing worked with the Democrats to elect the
last speaker of the Texas Legislation. But the point is
these one party states, you know politics, you know the
expression politics of poors a vacuum. Even in the one

(34:59):
party states, there's always an opposition. Sometimes the opposition comes
from an outside force. In Oklahoma, it's not the Democrats
or a slice of the Republicans, it's the it's the
tribes who are very wealthy, and they will fund primary foes,
they will fund candidates to keep sort of as the
quote check if you will on the on the Republican

(35:20):
leadership in that state, and in California you do.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
You pretty much.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
You have a very liberal, progressive wing of the party
and then you have a very sort of pro business
democratic wing of the party. And collectively it's given Democrats
this illusion of a super majority, but it actually makes
it quite difficult to govern. But it has been interesting
to me how few big time rising stars have wanted

(35:48):
to jump into this race because it isn't you know,
it's a you know, this doesn't come open very often,
and you know, you've had Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom
essentially governor of California for the last sixteen years, and
they've kind of, you know, they've kind of been hovering

(36:10):
over democratic politics in California for the entire twenty first century.
This is the first time that page is going to turn.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Now.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
I understood that with the referendum and the re redistricting,
that kind of whatever jockeying was taking place on when
it came to the governor's race sort of got put
on pause while all efforts went in there. But we're
still I mean, let's just be honest, this thing is
lack and star power. You have Jave Ebreserah, the former congressman,

(36:36):
former state attorney general who's one of his closest advisors,
just got indicted. And it's an investigation. You can't just
chuck this up to a Trump investigation. It's an investigation
that started during the Biden Justice Department and continue during
the Trump Justice Department. Basically a dummy job, right, you know,
sort of using Bessera's name and a position to you know,

(36:57):
there's no evidence of Besserah was a part of this,
but I think it it tarnishes him. Whether he thinks
that's fair or not, I think it does. You've had
somebody I've interviewed on this podcast do I find to
be one of the more interesting characters in this race,
Steve Klubeck, who is of course made his money doing

(37:18):
time shares. He is a big personality to say the least,
and you know, in this environment, he's one of those
that if he caught fire, it wouldn't shock me, And
if he ended up only getting two percent come primary day,
it wouldn't shock me. Katie Porter had the had that
well publicized meltdown when a journalist asked her a few

(37:41):
simple questions where she couldn't handle basic questions, and then
of course the floodgates open. Exporter staffers just you know,
unloaded story after story about what a terrible boss the
former congresswoman is. I do think you know, that probably
has ended her ability to become one of the top two.

(38:05):
And remember this California governor's race is a top two situation,
so everybody runs in the same ballot. There's really only
two prominent Republicans that are getting some attention. You have
this Riverside County Sheriff, Chad Bianco, very very hardcore, sort
of more of a MAGA guy. And then you have
Steve Hilton, who's the British transplant as a British accent

(38:29):
and everything, but he's a US citizen. He's been running,
he was a Fox commentator, he was a former advisor
to David Cameron when he was Prime Minister of the UK.
I hadn't really taken his candidacy that seriously. Not because
he's not a serious guy. I think he is, but
because I just don't think, and I still am skeptical

(38:49):
that a former British citizen is going to be met
with open arms by a Republican electorate or any electorate
to become governor of I mean, yes, they embraced Arnold Schwarzenegger,
but Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, in some ways, was as
American as they come, and it isn't it wasn't a

(39:11):
recent thing that he became an American to then jump
in and run for governor on that front. So, but
what I've noticed is the Democratic field is so weak
that both Republican candidates in a very with a huge
undecided number have actually been the ones hovering closer to
the top. You've seen different orders by uncle will be

(39:31):
one some of them. Hilton is one, Katie Porter with
her name ideas too, and then everybody else is sort
of below that. So the assumption is some more people
are getting in. I don't consider Stier.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
To be a big name.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
He's big money, but I don't know if he's a
big name on that front. And I don't, like I said,
I have some questions about whether he's just too dour
to catch fire.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
We shall see.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
By the way, Tom Styr, I'd look forward to having
you on the podcast. Steve Elton, I know we've talked
about having you in the podcast. I'm hoping to have
you on soon as well. Then the other though, Shoe
that I think the assumption is, you know, in whispers
in California circles, is that people are just waiting for
Rick Caruso, who lost the LA Mayor's race four years

(40:17):
ago to Karen Bass. That you know, is he going
to run for mayor, for real for mayor and challenge
Karen Bass again, or is he going to run for governor?
And it really depends on who you talk to out there.
I've talked to people who are sure, of course he's
running for governor. Why would he want to run for mayor.
It's a it's a ceremonial job. You don't have as
much power, it's perceived power. And about the only draw

(40:41):
of being mayor of LA over the next four years
is being mayor of LA during the twenty twenty eight Olympics.
So there's there's some people who swear, no, no, no, no,
he's not He's not going to run for mary. He's
going to run for governor. He's definitely going to run
for governor. I think the field's open for him if
he does run for governor, because you have sort of
this race to the left right now that is with

(41:04):
Katie Porter, Tom Steyer. There's nobody, I mean, Klubec will
tell you he's trying to hug the center lane. He
calls himself a Bill Clinton Harry read Democrat, which is
his code for saying, I'm a more pro business centrist Democrat,
but it's clear Caruso is going to and that lane
could be wide open if all of the other Democrats

(41:24):
are going to play to a more liberal crowd. And
I think some of this are not sure. You have
Antonio Viragoso who's running again. He was kind of the
only seemed like the only candidate that had a shot
at making Gavin Newsom's life miserable when he ran for
governor in twenty eighteen. I actually moderated a debate that
featured both Via Goosa and Gavin Newsom on there, and

(41:47):
they were the only two sparring partners, if you will.
But that was a race that never felt in doubt.
It was all about whether well with knew some sort
of you know where is where out is welcome providing
an opening or not, and Knewsom didn't and he ended
up running away. Swawell could be interesting. I don't want

(42:08):
to write him off. He could end up raising a
lot of money. But sitting members of Congress have struggled
in the past in governor's races in California. It's just
tough because it's tough to have much name id. In
some ways, Katie Porter is benefiting from the fact that
she ran for the Senate and did run state watch game.
Obviously didn't make the runoff against Adam Schiff, but she

(42:31):
certainly got a little bit of that. But I still
look at this and I keep thinking there's got to
be some better, some bigger candidates that are going to
jump in this race. You know, maybe some interesting outsiders
that might jump in. It has been a what I
would say is a shockingly sleepy race that perhaps gets

(42:51):
more interesting if Rick Caruso ends up jumping in and
then suddenly that might elevate things. But I'll tell you now,
I do think the Republicans have all both of them,
have gotten enough traction where this is going to the
top two is going to be a D N and R.
I don't think you're going to have two d's or
make it in the top two anymore. And I think
there was a thought that that's that's where we were headed.

(43:12):
I think there's definitely going to be a D versus
R situation here because of the smaller number of Republicans
and the increasingly large field of Demo. I mean, if
you're gonna have Swawell in this race, Tom Steyr in
this race, Katie Porter in this race via Regosa Bessarah
Klubec is a self funder throwing correct. I mean, you

(43:33):
see where we're going here. That's up to seven Democrats
splitting that vote. If you assume there's thirty to forty
percent of the electorate is going to show up for
the Republicans. You see how very quickly that you almost
guarantee that one of the two slots is gonna is
going to go to the Republicans. But just in general
it's been in it's been fascinating to me how we

(43:56):
haven't seen more star power try to come into this anyway,
something that I suspect we'll get. We'll start to see
some movement over the next few weeks, and maybe in
and around the holidays you'll start to see some enough.
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Speaker 2 (45:52):
All right, let's.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Get to a few questions Sash, Chuck. I'm going to
try to get through three or four here before I
get to my college football preview slash reaction to the rankings.
It's not going to be as ranty as you might suspect.

(46:14):
I'll let you know. This next question comes from Brian
and he gives me a little let cheeseery, which we
know what that means if you know you know, Hey, Chuck,
my new favorite part of the podcast is the Weekly
time Machine. I like hearing that, you know what. It's
kind of becoming my favorite segment to produce. I thoroughly
enjoyed this week's topic of the end of World War One.
He's referring to last week anyway, got me thinking back

(46:35):
to what I was taught, and you're exactly right, and
focused on German surrender, the harsh reparations, and now that
led to the rise of Hitler in World War Two.
I'd love to go deeper into the fall of the
Ottoman Empire and how it led us to where we
are today, any books to recommend on it?

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Thanks?

Speaker 1 (46:47):
You know what I'm gonna I don't have him. I
don't have any good books right now on that. I
want to do some You would think here, why don't
you do the research before you read the questions? That's
not how I roll guys now. But you know what
my substack and this is a good way, and yes,
this is my conspiratory way to get more of you

(47:08):
to go subscribe to my free substack. I am not
going to ever put it behind a paywall. And I
know that substack sometimes lowers the algorithm on free substacks,
but I don't care. I want to be totally ad supported.
I don't want to be captured by an audience and
worried about an audience. So this is a free and

(47:28):
it will be free.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
I will not.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Be, you know, sneakily making you pay down the road here.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
But this week, for what it's worth.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
I have a big column on Gavin Newsom and sort
of what explains why Gavin Newsom's rise in the twenty
twenty eight sweep steaks if you will. But in there
I also do I did some book recommendations on James
Garfield and what's been happening with that miniseries Death by Lightning.
I am this coming Tuesday, going to make one of

(48:00):
my sidebars segments of that, and I update that newsletter
every Tuesday, and this one I will put my favorite
Automan Empire books. I just don't have a good list
in front of me. I want to get it right,
and you know, there's different aspects of it. You know,
there's some good books just about sort of Turkey and

(48:22):
sort of the rise of Turkey post World War One.
Obviously plenty of books I've been sort of I'm probably
over subscribed on books about sort of Israel before nineteen
forty eight, and there'll be some in there. But I
will put that together. I think that's a nice public
service and a very fair request. Next question comes from

(48:45):
Aaron from Skokee, Illinois. I probably said this to you before.
I think you've written in before, because when I see Skokie,
I still think of one of my early memories as
a kid was that Clan march in Skokie back in
the day, and this.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Is similar theme.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
He goes, I was fascinated by your recent commentary in
World War One. As a gen xer, I only learned
about the war through an American lens and didn't grasp
the full extent of the Ottoman Empire's role or the
consequences of European powers carving up the Middle East. And
here again, do you have any nonfiction book recommendations that
offer a broader global perspective on that war. I've always
been a history buff, but World War One tends to
get overshadowed by World War Two. I'm so happy that

(49:23):
this is the reaction I've gotten for what it's worth. Aaron,
same answer that I just want to prove to all
of you that I read your questions and that we
do this, both Aaron and Brian. I promise you I'm
going to put together a very thorough World War One
holiday reading list. Perhaps it'll be stocking stuffers for your
family to get you if you want that. And there's

(49:46):
also I'm going to point I'm actually going to find
a couple of you know, one of my favorite I
binged and I can't remember the name of it now,
but it was like a fifty part podcast series. He's
on the fall of the Roman Empire. It was about
five years ago and it was sort of and it's

(50:06):
there are some terrific podcast historians out there, and I'm
going to do a little research to see if there's
any good ones on World War One. I've not fully
dove in on that topic in the pod in the
audio space, but I will also try to do that
as well. All right, next question comes from Lynn Oh,
a longtime fan from Boise. I appreciate your recommendations on

(50:28):
changing the US Constitution. Bringing in experts for a deep
dive would make a great segment. In Idaho, voters have
a direct say in constitutional amendments, unlike at the federal level.
What are your thoughts on making voter approval for amendments
to the next amendment itself?

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Huh?

Speaker 1 (50:40):
I know the textualists would bulk, but we need more
citizen engagement and this could reinforce the idea that the
Constitution is a living document. Linn O go Idaho Statesman.
What I love about that The Idaho Statesman is sort
of the pay has been the paper of record when
it comes to Idaho news for most of my lifetime,
so nice to see that there. It's interesting on whether

(51:06):
you know a lot of countries do national elections and
constitutional amendments right, Ireland did one on reproductive rights. That
got certainly generated a lot of international news. We're a republic,
not a direct democracy. My argument against it, it would be
that we are not a democracy or a republic, and

(51:26):
in a republic it is you. In fact, I'm one
of those, I'm I could I think that because we're
a republic, we shouldn't have state based referendum. But that's
that ship is sale that we are a republic, meaning
a representative democracy more so than a direct democracy. But

(51:49):
I am all four. Look, I think I think the
case for a republic when you had a limited amount
of information that was you were even able to share
back in the day, you know, just logistically and geographically,
you could say it made a lot of sense.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Today it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Right Today, we all have equal access to information. We
all have an equal opportunity to be informed.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
You know.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
It's not as if there's there's these barriers. You know,
there's we have a public education system that I wish
were better, but it's certainly pretty good, good enough to
sort of inform us enough on how to be a citizen.
And I think you would need a constitutional amendment. And
I think if you pass constitutional amendment that says all
future constitutional amendments need you know, need to be passed

(52:34):
by the populace. You know, then hey, it's an amendment
in the Constitution. I think where you would where you
would have a real debate is whether and I can
tell you this right now, I think small c conservatives
on this would argue for a threshold of say sixty percent.
And you could make an argument that given that there

(52:55):
is you know, either two thirds, three fourths. You know,
there's certainly these bigger requirements in order to get a
constitutional an amendment, an amendment added to the constitution. You know,
what number do you use to pass the constual? Is
it sixty percent? Is it sixty six percent? Two thirds?
Do you go all the way up to seventy five percent?
So I do think that would be the among probably

(53:17):
the biggest debate about what should that number be. But
in general, I mean, I think that anything we can
do to bring more democracy closer to the people. Right
this is why I believe we've got to double the
size of the House of Representatives, you know, I think

(53:41):
is an improvement in where we are. And so you know,
I could be talked into it, but.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
You know, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
I've thought about imagine this. Somebody said, you know what
if we had retention elections for our Supreme Court justices
instead of instead of you know, basically they were there,
they were there for life, but they'd have to go
through in a retention election. And I was just thinking,
can you imagine a national retention election and the money
behind it for Saint Clarence Thomas, right, and the amount

(54:13):
of what the ads would look like. I don't know,
like that that could be, that could be something that
we would we might regret, but look, like I said,
I'm for whatever it would take to get more people
engaged in our process. I think we desperately need a
constitutional convention. We need to update the rules of the
democracy to fit the twenty first century. And I think

(54:35):
it's pretty clear that we're not there. And I think
ultimately the frustration that's out there with the populace is
because politicians are further away from their electorates than they've
ever been before. All of their money comes from big
rich downers, It doesn't come from grassroots or the people.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
You have these.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
Giant congressional districts that population have the population size of
a major city, which means all you need is a
small faction of said major city to then represent the
entire congressional district, which is no longer a community of interest.
So I do think the biggest problem we have generically
in politics today is that people are too far away
from the politicians, and we've got to figure out how

(55:18):
to close that gap. It's a problem with the media, right.
We gutted local media, and so now I would say
national media is too far away from the people we cover. Right,
there's too many reporters in Washington and not enough everywhere else,
says the guy doing his podcast from the suburbs of Washington, DC. Anyway,
I'm a well aware of irony. Next question comes from
Reggie in Austin, Texas. He says, Chuck Guy is the

(55:41):
following with the subject line about coming back, as in
back to a time when the parties actually work to
get things done. In addition to reform when it comes
to how the districts are drawn, would there be any
way to reform the primary system which makes it more
and more difficult for center left and center right candidates
to win. I view most of our primaries now like
the runoff in the presidential race in Chile, where you
have a far right candidate posed by a communist.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Yes, and can you imagine? Like, what do you do? Right?

Speaker 1 (56:04):
I'm enjoying the new podcast, thank you, and I'm also
now following the newsgirls I, Mabel, and Rent are happy
to hear that. I hope you, Reggie, I'm glad you
have made that fine choice. Look, I think we I
am going to reiterate something I've said before. I think
partisan primaries that are funded by the taxpayers are unconstitutional.

(56:25):
I think the idea that I have to become a
member of a private organization in order to participate in
a primary that is funded with my taxpayer dollars is
a poll tax.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
And I believe.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
We've decided that that's that that's unconstitutional. You can make
an equal protection argument on that. I think that if
you're not registered as a Democrat or Republican, you are
sometimes banned from certain being able to vote in certain
primaries some states, some state parties do have allowed independence

(57:02):
to vote and some don't. H I think we got
to go to all part all. I think we had
to get rid of partisan primaries. I'm fine if you
want to put if you want to put a partisan
label by your name on an all you know, basically
an all voter primary. But I think I think it's
pretty clear, and especially now with so many in gen

(57:23):
Z so disillusioned by either of the two major parties
that are registering as independence. I mean a plurality of
voters in America prefer to be registered as no party
or independent rather than being registered with either the donkeys
or the elephants. So I think it's I think it's
well past time and this and the and you know,
the reason why that two major parties fight this is

(57:45):
because the two major parties are controlled by base activists,
base progressives and base conservatives, and they only have a
chance at getting power through a rigged primary process. Yes,
I called it rag.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
I think the.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Keeping other voters out, you know, you know, siloing your
selection there. I think a political party is welcome to
endorse a candidate, go for it, and then let the
voter decide if that endorsement means anything to them, But
to then shut out people from having any sort of
choice on who makes the general election ballot, especially when
you're using taxpayer dollars. So I think there needs to

(58:23):
be smarter lawyers attacking this situation. All the good election
lawyers work for the two parties. We need some election
lawyers that work for the rest of us. But I
think I think in you know, full full disclosure, you know,
with some of these organizations that are working to try
to open up primaries, I've gotten to know them and
I've been working them hard on this issue. I think

(58:47):
this is I think this is one of the things
that is eating away at the democracy. I think polarization
is a virus. And I think if we want to
deal with polaris, if we want better elected officials, we
need we need a better system and a better set
of incentives. And if an elected official knows every voter

(59:07):
is going to be on the ballot for a primary election,
I promise you they're going to make different decisions when
they vote on certain pieces of legislation. I think that's
the single biggest thing we could do over The next
is that, And then the second is the barrier to
the barrier to get on the ballot as an independent
or as a third party. Again, many most states rig

(59:31):
it so that the Democrats or the Republicans have easier
access to the ballot than if you're an independent or
a member of another party. Again, I believe there's an
equal protection argument there, and I believe that rigging a
prime access to the ballot through the prism of the
two major parties is unconstitutional and yes, undemocratic. All right,

(59:57):
last question before I get my college football rants, go here.
Long time fansac the hotline on call days it's not
on call. Well, I guess our blog was called on call.
I think we did that. We were always on call.
We had last call, and they'd still have last call
and wake up call. I still have a few episodes
saved on iTunes. Oh, look at that. I do vaguely

(01:00:18):
remember when we were doing those things. Watching your Decision
to ask stream tonight and wanted to share quick thought.
I've heard you mentioned how DEM favorability is low despite
great results. As a Democratic county official, i'd probably tell
Aposter I feel unfavorably too. I think, by the way,
you're not alone. I think one of the reasons Chuck
Schumer's numbers suck. It's not just Republicans that don't like them,
it's fellow Democrats that don't like them. Anyway, the party

(01:00:39):
failed to keep Trump out yep, But like many hardcore Dems,
I'm still walking through fire to vote next November. There's
a real internal grievance this time, not just among independents. Pete, Pete,
I think you're right, and I know this. I mean,
it was the same thing we saw, you know, in
the run up to when the Republicans went ahead and
got behind Trump. If you recall, you would start to

(01:00:59):
see growing disapproval of Republican officials by Republicans. And there
was a time where Democrats are reading that as if oh,
Republicans are sour on their own side, that they wouldn't
support Republicans. That isn't the case. And I think you
make an important point. I want to single out of
line you said, because this, to me is this single

(01:01:22):
most I think it's the biggest reason why a chunk
of voters are so sour in the Democratic Party. The
party failed to keep Trump out. Joe Biden had one job.
He was elected to do one thing, turned the page
on Donald Trump, and he didn't do it. Now you

(01:01:42):
can say he tried and failed. You can say he
pursued it the wrong way. You could say he was
the wrong man for the job. We could go through
a variety of reasons. But I do believe that the
anger at Joe Biden is all about he, and he
alone is why why Donald Trump is back. And I
think people and I think there are going to be

(01:02:03):
Democrats that will will hold Biden to account on the
return of Donald Trump for the rest of their lives.
It is why Joe Biden can't raise money for his library.
It is why Joe Biden got invited to exactly one
campaign rally over the last three months, and it was
for the Nebraska State Party Democrats, rank and file, activist Democrats,

(01:02:28):
independents that didn't like Trump. Right, the anger is not
a Trump anymore. Yes, that anger is still there. And
like you, we've seen this, right, which is I don't
like the Democratic Party they gave they were so bad
at their job. They brought back the return of Donald Trump.
But it doesn't mean you're not going to not vote
for an opposition to Donald Trump. Right, So I get

(01:02:50):
where you're going here. But I do think the single
biggest sort of elephant in the room that Democrats haven't
had a haven't had this full conversation, but with the
real anger about Biden was like you had one job
and you failed to do that job, and you instead

(01:03:11):
sort of let people whispering you, and you let your
presidency get hijacked by the left in ways that you
thought was a good idea, and all you did was
create a situation where Donald Trump came back again. Some
of it may not have been in his control, but

(01:03:32):
I think for many voters that you know, Joe Biden
was very few Democrats had Joe Biden as their first choice.
He was pretty much everybody's, you know, nobody's last choice,
and he was everybody's second or third choice. But the
assumption was he was going to be a calming presence
and he was going to be able to turn the page.

(01:03:52):
I do think, and I'm going to point you back
to my substack this week. I do think why the
single most important attribute that I think Democratic voters are
going to be looking for in the next Democratic presidential
nominee is somebody who's ready to act, somebody who isn't

(01:04:13):
sloganeering but is doing right. I think one of the
reasons why Gavin Newsom has frankly had shocked me, but
he is sort of rocketed to already the top of
any presidential primary poll. You ask whether it's a poll
of Democrats in New Hampshire, a national primary poll or
any you pick a state and he is somewhere in

(01:04:34):
the top three, and the other two usually are AOC Bernie,
you know Bernie actually Les, you'll see AOC there. She's
already been a national figure for some time. And then
you might see Pete Budagdge, who's run for president before.
It's more impressive to me that Gavin Newsom, who's never
run before and really did not have a national identity
before the last six months. I know those of us

(01:04:57):
in politics think of Gavin Newsom as a guy that's
been around a while, but he's it's really been a
you know, a star in California, not necessarily a national figure.
He's a national figure now. And I think Democrats that
are picking him at the moment seem as somebody, Hey,
he went and did something he didn't just you know,
this is not going to be a hope and change

(01:05:18):
Democratic primary. This is going to be your goddamn right,
I'm going to do this primary. And so I do
think that, and I do think the failure of Biden's
stylistic and the temperament of Biden, and I wonder is that,
you know, I look at an Amiabus share in a
wes Moore as two candidates that want to be sort
of turn the temperature down, turn the page candidates, and

(01:05:41):
it could be by twenty seven, that is, that is
where the primary electorate's attitude is. Especially if Democrats win
both the House and Senate. I think then maybe though
the heat will have backed off a little bit. But
if the same frustration that Democrats are expressing like you,
Pete right now is there in twenty then I don't

(01:06:01):
know if the moderate and temperament governor idea is going
to be as appealing, even if you know, even if
it's appealing to somebody like myself, who I considered myself
to be more of a swing voter because I'm not
comfortable ideologically in either party, that might not be what
Democrats want, and they may consider electability not necessarily somebody

(01:06:22):
with the moderate temperament, but somebody with an action temperament,
with a take the bull by the horns temperament. Because
as I mentioned to you earlier, one of the interesting
things in my recent trip to austin my interview with
wes Moore and the conversation I observed with Tim Wallas,
was that they both came down. They when they were

(01:06:43):
asked to you know what, the question the form of
the question of what does Trump do? Well, you know,
he's always doing something right. And Democrats are always asking
a committee to look at an idea, and then they
kick the tires and then they see if an interest
group is going to support them, and then maybe they'll
implement the idea if they can find the votes. After that,
you get my point. So, I mean, we'll see where

(01:07:04):
the attitude of the party is in twenty seven. I
think a lot of it will have to do with
how successful or not that the party is in twenty six.
But I Pete, I think you've put your I think
you've really identified the feeling that you have Democratic voters
who are going to crawl them broken glass to vote,

(01:07:25):
who have a negative view of the current leadership of
the Democratic Party.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
All right, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Time for a little bit on college football. Not the
greatest weekend of games. This is this weird weekend where
every SEC team plays a group of five or worse
team other than Oklahoma. Missouri and for those of us
in the two loss column of the college football Playoff,

(01:08:00):
there's a lot of Missouri fans in South Bend and
a lot of Missouri fans in Tuscaloosa, and a lot
of Missouri fans in Miami, UH and potentially a lot
of Missouri fans in in Oregon and southern California. That's
the other big game of the weekend, which is Oregon
in southern cal UH that they could have some playoff implications.

(01:08:21):
But let me just react a bit to the college
football rankings. Believe it or not, I'm feeling I don't
want to say bullish about Miami's chances, but I actually
think your start that we're that that is, it's now
in Miami's control. They can't they obviously they can't lose
another game. They got two more games on the road,

(01:08:42):
one against Virginia Tech this weekend in Blacksburg on the
week that they hire their new coach. Does that mean
players want to play hard because they know the new
coach is watching, because I'm sure he's going to be
at the game, and that there's going to be because
they want to start to drum up enthusiasm for for
Franklin or have they already mailed it in?

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Does this coaching staff know they're all going to get
replaced and they all have to look for jobs or
do they want to impress the new boss to see
if they can stick around. Right, I'm I don't know
what the psyche of the tech folks are going to be,
and that is but it does it shouldn't matter, right,
If Miami is as good as I think they can be,

(01:09:26):
then this is you know, if they are Playoff worthy,
then they they smack they smack Tech. You know, it's
a thirty one to ten, you know, something like that,
thirty four to you know, you know, forty two seventeen,
but it's something thorough anything less than that, and this
is going to be held against them. But I think

(01:09:46):
if they can do that and then they whip Pit
the following week, another tough game, road game Saturday after Thanksgiving,
you know, I think the path is there because it's
interesting to hear the Player Off Committee spin, you know,
when they're asked the question of why do you have
Notre Dame ranked a head of Miami when Miami?

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
When are you And.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
They're saying, well, we're not factoring in the head to
head because they're not being considered within the same pool.
And they it's it's funny to me all the different
rules that they sort of let us know about and
they trickle them out because they still don't. They still
have never really said what the criteria is on whether
wins matter more than losses right right now, they've decided
losses matter more than wins, because if if wins mattered

(01:10:29):
more than losses, Miami would be.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
Ranked ahead of Notre Dame.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
But they've decided losses matter more than wins, and that's
why Notre Dame's ahead of both Miami and Alabama. By
the way, I wanted to welcome Paul Finbaum to the
Miami's Getting Screwed Here committee, I noticed I have a
feeling he's only there because Alabama got dropped below Notre Dame.
Because again, Alabama's wins are terrific, but they're being punished

(01:10:55):
for the Florida State loss and punished for losing at
home to Oklahoma in a game that they should have
won if you believe in these SP plus rankings, et cetera.
But it's interesting if you look at the two loss teams,
right You've got Utah, Miami, Notre Dame, Alabama, Oklahoma, and

(01:11:16):
then maybe Oregon if they lose to USC, and then
USC jumps in there, and then you might have Michigan.
If they beat Ohio State, then there suddenly in the
conversation on this sort of where things go. But I
do think that Miami's creeped up here. If they were

(01:11:36):
ranked one slot higher, they would be in the same group.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
They apparently decide who the top four teams are. Then
they then five through eight are are identified and compared
against each other. Then nine through twelve, well, Miami's in
the next tier of thirteen through through sixteen. If Miami's
in the same quote like grouping of Notre Dame, then
the head to head according to these according to these

(01:12:02):
playoff committee experts, will start to matter more. Bimi wins
out and wins both games big and Notre Dame does
the same. But you know, I do, I'm starting to
believe that they're going to get there, And I do
think I'm sorry by the way, the lack of there's
a lot of people who don't watch college football. It

(01:12:23):
turns out they watch their team, but they don't really
pay attention to the rest. This is true of politics,
and it happens all the time. In case you're wondering,
I get all of my expert college football advice from
gambling podcasts on college football, not from any of the
punditry that you see on Fox or ESPN, because frankly,
the gamblers give you a it is a much more

(01:12:46):
data driven analysis that you get right of offensive metrics
defensive metrics now gamblers sometimes get, you know, I do think.
I do think Mario Chrystobal's reputation for blowing games, for
his teams losing games that they shouldn't. It's true at Oregon,
it's been true at Miami is for some reason, being

(01:13:08):
held like it's making for whatever reason, Miami's losses are
being held more accountable to Miami because of this supposed
crystabal reputation. I don't think that's fair to me. It's like,
you know, it should be blank slate, here's team AY,
here's team B, and if it were blind taste as
team A team B. Miami's going to win that argument

(01:13:30):
just about every time. Against Not Dame for one simple
fact the head to head and again, yes, the final
score was three points, but if you watch that game,
Miami was in charge of that game the whole time.
They basically had a double digit lead for most of
the game. They were in control of that game until
Mario didn't know how to just sort of slow the.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
Game down and end it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
But it did give it did give Notre Dame the
perception of coming back there at the end, but it
really wasn't. It was a pretty thorough defeat by Miami
over Notre Dame. Now you can make the argument out
CJ Car's first game. Yeah, that's true. So it was
Carson Beck's first game. It was Malachi Tony's first game, Ruben,

(01:14:11):
you know, so there's you know, I think that that
argument sort of wears me out. And now here's where
I think Notre Dame might actually have more problems on
that committee. As much as I think this committee is
making decisions not based on what happens on the field,
but what happens in the ratings and what happened and
what ESPN cares about the most, I do think there's

(01:14:32):
a lot of conference commissioners and conference ads who can't
stand that Notre Dame continues to not have to be
in a conference. And the fact of the matter is,
none of these college football pundits have acknowledged the fact
that Notre Dame's last two games where against teams that
chose not to compete at one hundred percent against Notre Dame.

(01:14:52):
So essentially they got to play two exhibition games, one
against Navy, one against BIT against two teams that did
not care and the co coaching staff. I'm not saying
the players didn't care, but the coaching staff did not
coach to win the game. They held out players that
they thought mattered more for their conferences. And again, it's
a very logical thing to do, but it should. It

(01:15:14):
should count against Notre Dame. It doesn't mean they defeated.
It's an impressed I'm not impressed with their pit victory
because they didn't face the best version of PITT. So now,
is it Notre Dame's fault that teams are choosing to
do that. No, but they're not in a conference and
so they don't they don't have that pressure of winning

(01:15:35):
or losing conference games. Conference games are just have more
pressure because you face the same team all the time,
and especially if you're the bigger brand, they're always obsessed
with beating you, and it's and it's in conference, and
there's it just matters more conference games. It adds pressure.
They're harder all of those things, and Notre Dame doesn't
have any of those difficult type games because now, in

(01:15:59):
some ways, the conference path, particularly ACC Big twelve and
Group of five teams, since the committee is going to
be incredibly biased against every conference that's not named the
SEC and even the Big Ten. Right, your conference games
matter so much more than your non conference games, and
Notre Dame plays nothing but non conference games. So I'm

(01:16:21):
just saying I think that's there's a chance that this
is one of those cases where Miami might get you know,
I think deserves the bid over Notre Dame. But the
reasoning they may get it is it irrit you know,
it's about pressuring Notre Dame to join a conference and
to have a real conference schedule and to go through there.
And I do think if Notre Dame wants a simpler

(01:16:42):
path to the college football Playoff, they'd be better off
joining the ACC as a full member. They would likely
almost always make the a SEC final. But of course
that was the pitch Florida State made to Miami coming
into the ACC, and we know how well that worked out.
But it would would make everything I think cleaner in

(01:17:02):
this and it would it would actually probably still get
It would still create more leverage and it was sort
of equal to veil. I do think there are going
to be more conferences in teams that wanta that want
to try to have a bit more of a of
a leverage against sort of this this sec sort of

(01:17:23):
financial juggernaut that ESPN is trying to create. Anyway. But
the point is, I'm starting to feel slightly better that
if Miami wins out, they're going to get treated fairly
here in this, in this, in this UH comparison, and
that UH I saw that Yeah, yeah, who sports is

(01:17:46):
chief college football writer said it would be it would
be pretty much erase whatever little credibility this committee has
with many college football fans, and they don't have a
lot of credibility, particularly with fans of the a CEC. Mean,
what they will was done to Florida State to this
day is to me an unforgivable sin and a reminder
that what happens on the field does not matter to

(01:18:08):
this committee. They just want to They're just putting on
a TV show. They don't care about the merits of
what happens on the field, which I think is just
a terrible lesson to teach young men when it comes
to life. You know, if you rig a sporting event.
And that's what you're doing when you punish a team

(01:18:31):
that goes undefeated and is a conference champion, and yet
you say they don't belong because you think they that
without a top level starting quarterback, they're going to get
bounced hard a I don't think that was true in
that year. I'm convinced to this day that Florida State
beats Michigan because that's who they would have played. They
probably have been the four seed and they would have

(01:18:52):
played Michigan. I think they'd have beaten Michigan because that's
how good that defense was, and they would have had
a month to prepare and get that offense there. And
I don't and don't give me what happened with the
Georgia Florida State matchup because Florida State all their good
players didn't play in that game. So it is that
game is meaningless to me and has no impact whatsoever

(01:19:12):
on what was an egregious decision then. And if keeping
Miami out despite winning a head to head a Notre
Dame would be equally as egregious and would discourage teams
from ever scheduling tough out of conference games. If you're
saying those out of conference games don't matter whether you
win them, and that's what they would be saying by

(01:19:33):
not crediting, by putting Notre Dame in ahead of Miami.
They would say, then why schedule Notre Dame at all?

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
Screw them?

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
Let them play Northern Illinois every week.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
Anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
Games that I'm obviously the most Missouri Oklahoma. There's lots
of rumors at Missouri's bo Prebula is going to try
to make this game. Kudos to Missouri that they want
to keep fighting. I have to tell you, I think
this is going to be a nail bider. I expect
this to be a close game. I don't have a

(01:20:04):
lot of confidence. This is one of those Oklahoma just
won the biggest game of Brent Venable's tenure there, and.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
Put it this.

Speaker 1 (01:20:14):
Way, I'd be all over the underdog on a point
spread cover if given the opportunity, and perhaps I will
take that opportunity. Usc Organ. It's at Oregon, an old
Pac twelve matchup that used to decide who was going
to win the Pac twelve. Right, Oregon's got an interesting
last two games. They got this game so and then

(01:20:36):
they have to play Washington at Washington, and that's that's
a real rivalry game. So it you know, throw the
record books out right type of thing. So the Big Ten,
do they get three teams for sure in the playoff
or do they only get two?

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
And you know, if here's your scenario, you know, if
Oregon beat USC but loses.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
To Washington, do they make it I think?

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
And then suddenly it's Oregon Notre Dame Miami? Maybe for
that you know two of those last three, who are
the two? Do they sort of avoid the Miami Notre
Dame discussion and put both Miami Notre Dame and leave
Oregon out? Or if it's USC Notre Dame Miami with
the two losses, I think USC definitely gets left out there.

(01:21:29):
Is it possible that Big ten only gets two teams? Anyway,
it is interesting between Michigan, USC and Oregon. And by
the way, I fully expect USC to beat Oregon and
lose the UCLA the following week and their rivalry game.
Point is both the USC and Oregon this game matters,
but they both have a long time rivalry game the
following week Oregon with Washington and USC with UCLA. So

(01:21:52):
it's that's gonna be a great game. Notre Dame plays Syracuse.
Can they beat Syracuse by a bigger margin then Miami
beat Syracuse. Is that the fairest way to measure it? Well,
it's going to be a way to measure it. Miami
won I think thirty eight to ten. Basically at back
door it was thirty eight to three, and then Syracuse
back door covered. It was a twenty eight and a

(01:22:12):
half points bred in case you were following at home,
and Notre Dame, I think it's favored by thirty five
and a half point. So the expectation is Notre Dame
is going to run up the score. Are they going
to run up the score? Will they?

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
We shall see.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
Kentucky Vanderbilt. You know, we don't talk about Vanderbilt in
the two loss in areas there's almost this assumption that
Vanderbilt is is not going to be you know that
they're going to be. You know that they wouldn't get
in over Notre Dame, they wouldn't get in over Miami.
At least this is looking like the assumption these days.
Kentucky's five and five, they need one more win to
be Bowl eligible. They got Louisville next week. That's not

(01:22:48):
an easy game, although we'll see if Louisville has anything
to play for. They really don't have anything to play for.
But Kentucky might care about Bowl eligibility. Mark Stoops might care.
That game smells like one that's going to be sneaky
clothes on that front. Pay attention to there's a whole
bunch of five and five teams. Tulane appears to be

(01:23:11):
one of the front runners for the group of five
slot in the playoff. Well, they have to go to Temple.
Temple's five and five. They need one more win. They
care about being Bowl eligible. Keep an eye on that game.
That's going to be interesting. Pitt Georgia Tech. This is
probably as important as there is for the ACC. Obviously,
Miami needs Pitt to win this game. I think had

(01:23:32):
BC knocked off Georgia Tech last week then Pitt beat
then the path for Miami to get into the ACC
title game would have been a bit more plausible. Less
so now Tennessee, Florida. How much does either team How
much does Florida care about this game? That's a question
that I have. They look like they kind of quit
when they got.

Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
Beat pretty badly by Kentucky.

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
But you know they gave will miss a little bit
more of a game than I expected there. And then
a big game in the Big Twelve is BYU at Cincinnati.
Let's just say BYU is uncomfortably. You know, they only
have one loss. They are two slots ahead of Miami.
Nobody expects the Big twelve to get two teams. But

(01:24:18):
can you sit there and ignore an eleven to one
one BYU team SMU at eleven and one got in.
I don't know how you leave an eleven and one
team out. Let's just say for those of us that
want to see Miami into this playoff, we're big Bearcats
fans this week on that front.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:24:37):
That's how I'll be watching college football. And what's exciting
for me is I'm watching with my son this weekend.
He's in town. My daughter, she's now living and dying
by all things hurricanes. So uh, it'll be a lot
of fun and a little bit tense in the Todd
household over the next two weekends.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
But with that, enjoy your weekend and I'll see that Monday.

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
Hey,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Chuck’s Commentary - New Polling Shows BIG Shift Toward Democrats + Trump’s Attempts To Manipulate The Economy Could Backfire