September 16, 2025 • 53 mins
“Hacks on Taps” political guru, Mike Murphy, talks about growing up in Detroit, studying ads, becoming a political consultant by being the only one to raise his hand, starting political pacs, being on the outs with the current Republican party, what the Dems should do to win a bigger percentage of the vote, how buying an EV can really help America, being a Republican in Blue Los Angeles, and secret Republicans in Hollywood whispering that they were conservative!
Bio: Mike Murphy is one of the Republican Party’s most successful political media consultants, having handled strategy and advertising for more than 26 successful gubernatorial and Senatorial campaigns, including 12 wins in “blue” states that have consistently voted Democratic in Presidential elections, running successful gubernatorial campaigns for Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christie Whitman (NJ), Tommy Thompson (WI), John Engler (MI), Terry Branstad (IA) along with many other GOP Senators and Members of Congress. In 2024 Murphy founded the EV Politics Project, an organization focused on breaking down the growing partisan divide over Electric Vehicles. Murphy has worked on five GOP Presidential campaigns, and in 2000 was a key strategist for Sen John McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” campaign. He also advises several Fortune 500 corporations, as well as several Hedge Funds and Trade Associations. In 2020 he served as a key strategist for Republican Voters Against Trump. Murphy is also a widely quoted pundit; he wrote the popular “Murphy’s Law” column for TIME and is a longtime senior analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He also co-hosts the popular podcast “Hacks on Tap” with his longtime friend David Axelrod. He also serves as co-director of the Center for the Political Future at USC and was a longtime senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Murphy also works as a writer and producer in the entertainment industry with projects at HBO, CBS and 20th Century Fox Studios. In 2021 he wrote and created the CBS network pilot “Ways & Means” starring Patrick Dempsey. Murphy was born in Detroit, Michigan and attended the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He lives with his wife Tiffany and daughter Audrey in Los Angeles. He is on Twitter/X at @murphymike.
Bio: Mike Murphy is one of the Republican Party’s most successful political media consultants, having handled strategy and advertising for more than 26 successful gubernatorial and Senatorial campaigns, including 12 wins in “blue” states that have consistently voted Democratic in Presidential elections, running successful gubernatorial campaigns for Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christie Whitman (NJ), Tommy Thompson (WI), John Engler (MI), Terry Branstad (IA) along with many other GOP Senators and Members of Congress. In 2024 Murphy founded the EV Politics Project, an organization focused on breaking down the growing partisan divide over Electric Vehicles. Murphy has worked on five GOP Presidential campaigns, and in 2000 was a key strategist for Sen John McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” campaign. He also advises several Fortune 500 corporations, as well as several Hedge Funds and Trade Associations. In 2020 he served as a key strategist for Republican Voters Against Trump. Murphy is also a widely quoted pundit; he wrote the popular “Murphy’s Law” column for TIME and is a longtime senior analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He also co-hosts the popular podcast “Hacks on Tap” with his longtime friend David Axelrod. He also serves as co-director of the Center for the Political Future at USC and was a longtime senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Murphy also works as a writer and producer in the entertainment industry with projects at HBO, CBS and 20th Century Fox Studios. In 2021 he wrote and created the CBS network pilot “Ways & Means” starring Patrick Dempsey. Murphy was born in Detroit, Michigan and attended the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He lives with his wife Tiffany and daughter Audrey in Los Angeles. He is on Twitter/X at @murphymike.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawhut Media. Hey, I'm Mike Murphy and guess what. Thank God,
I'm not alone. I'm here not being alone with my
good friend Jay Cogan.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Don't be alone with jj Cogan.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Hello, Cogan Nation, Hello, don't be a loners, Hello Alone Bones.
This is don't be Alone with Jake Cogan. I am
Jake Cogan, and you are my friend because you're watching.
Thank you for being here. This is a place where
we get together with interesting people to solve my problems.
And my problem today is going to be solved by
a very interesting man. Political consultant and pod show host
(00:41):
Mike Murphy is here today and he's going to tell
me about what it's like to be have been a conservative,
because I've been a lifelong progressive and so the conservative
size the other team. But what it's also like to
be conservative who's not a Trump conservative and to feel
a little bit out of favor with your own people,
(01:02):
your own movement has sort of left you behind.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
That sucks.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Mike is the host of Hacks on Tap, which is
one of the very best podcasts political podcasts out there,
which provides he does with David Axelrod and himself and
provides a service where you get to hear the points
of view of the conservatives and the progressives and more
about the inside politics of how things work and how
(01:28):
political consultants and the press and the people and the
media conspire to sort of make things happen. And if
there's anything we can do to push things in the
right direction, Mike's the man to answer it. Please write
to me at dbawjk at gmail dot com with your complaints,
your compliments, and your listener questions that I use for
(01:49):
the show, or just say hi, we'll have a conversation. Also,
go to the show Substack, Don't Belong with Jake Cogan Substack,
and we're going to have interesting information, things that have
been cut out of past shows that are in there
that we can see, so bonus material.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
That's what it's called, right, bonus matial.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
We're gonna have interesting information, bonus material, and it's completely free.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It's free. All you gotta do is go there, and
so it'll be fine. I'll even write stuff and talk
about stuff and devote more of my endless time to
the sub stack because you know why, somebody told me
I should and I'm that much of a monkey that
I'll do anything somebody tells me I should, but.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
That's for later. For now, it's this show, and we're
gonna have Mike Murphy come on. He's also one of
the world's most successful political consultants. He's been a consultant
for Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, and Ron Schwarzenegger and
Christy Whitman. He won a lot of elections for a
lot of people, and often these Republican candidates in blue states,
(02:48):
So he must be really good. And he's really funny.
He's really smart. He's a TV writer as well and
has a radio announcer's voice, and we'll find out more
about that too. So stay tuned for Mike Murphy right
after this.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Don't be alone with j.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So, Mike Murphy, thank you for being here. Well, thank
you for having me it is.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I am such a fan of your podcasting world. That's
the Hats on Tap was very influential to me. I
love that show, and I love you on it, and
I love acts on it, and I just anybody who
of my fans who are not listening to it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Should listen to it. It gives it perspective on politics
that are very I think interesting. It's not always about
what's right or what's wrong. It's about how you can
sort of politically achieve things. Yeah, I mean we don't
do the scream athon back and forth. You know, you
can get a lot of that for free, you just
(03:50):
take etc. I recommend what it is. Zaxelrod and I
are old, old, close friends from when we were puppies
and consulting many decades ago. We used to run campaigns
against each other, like for governor of Iowa, and then
we go sneak out and have dinner somewhere.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Now, how does that friendship form if you have this
opponent who's basically there to try and destroy you and
your and your and your candidate.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, there used to be, and there are still some,
but there used to be. It's kind of like the
old Looney Tunes cartoon with the wolf and the sheep dog.
Hey Fred h Charlie, and then you know, you go
kill each other and then the whistle blows see you tomorrow. Yeah,
how are the kids fine? You know, we're kind of
trapped in the same crazy reality of the political consulting business,
although on other opposite sides but parallel universe, and we're
(04:34):
both starting out and this is also to my friend
Mark Mellman, who's a big damp poster, and I can't
remember how we originally met, and that's how long it's spent.
But the other thing is in those friendships, you're not
competing for business, right, so you know that stress of
pitching against each other and everything. So only Republican consultants
(04:57):
work for Republicans. They are occasional, you know, it's not
as for a long time it wasn't true. People would
and there's guy Nam David Garth, who is famous in
our business York, who would work either way. Then it
all got very partisan, and it still kind of is,
but ei there are corporate accounts or a referendum where
you might work across the party. So anyway, we became pals,
(05:19):
and most political people ask their divorce lawyers will on
Sunday get itchy, right, you know, yeah, yeah, the kid's
doing great, took him to baseball yesterday, and it sounds
Sunday afternoon, so they start wanting to talk about politics.
So the phone calls start right and Ax and I
would almost every Sunday would have kind of a even
(05:41):
when he was in the White House, and you know,
I'm on the other side but he trusted me, and
I trusted him, and you know, would talk everything. And
so he's the one who called me and said, after
he got out and kind of retired ish, you know,
did more punditary and all that in our campaigns. He said,
you know, we have to turn these into a podcast.
(06:02):
And I said, yeah, I'm doing this radio free GP
trump Py thing, but I'm taking it down now that
he's been elected president. I'm going to give him a year.
And under the fantasy that maybe it was all performance, yeah,
talk about rock, but I said, I really don't want
to piss all over the new president for six months.
Maybe because that was the shtick back in twenty sixteen.
Oh no, I mean Trump even said I have a
(06:23):
buddy who's a big fundraiser for Republican high dollar stuff,
and he Trump was trying to cruit some of those guys.
So he took him in and I said, you know,
a lot of your language was kind of difficult, and
he goes, oh, it's just a show I put on
for the Rubes. You know, I'm a Wall Street guy,
don't worry. And so I thought, I'll give him a chance,
and of course it went Every year, it gets worse. Well,
he's but we started. Yeah, regardless, he's still putting on
(06:45):
the show.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, yeah, the show is everything, and I think policy
takes far back seat.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Well, and the show is more about his own madness
because he's been on Trump crazy bubble for what going
on nine years.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Now, Well, let's talk about that for a second, because
when I listened to the show over the years, I
feel bad for you because you know, you're a believer
in the Republican Party or what we used to call
the Republican Party. You worked for it, You spent your life,
you know, trying to advance certain I candidates and ideas,
(07:18):
and then this guy comes along and he really sort
of takes the party in this weird direction. And then
he did people like you, and I know many people
who are Republicans who also feel uncomfortable by the MAGA
movement in Trump feel left out, like like where well,
I feel a.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Little bit like back in the thirties, you'd go to
the Russian restaurant in Paris and the doorman would be
a former field marshal in the Tzar's Army, Right, and
now I'm parking cars, sure, yeah, and I don't even
what do the kids say today identify as a Republican anymore. Okay,
I'm still a conservative, right, but Trump is a populous
(07:56):
yahoo and that's not conservatism. I came up in the
old ani So days. But yeah, it's weird. We used
to call it the cause, you know, there's a reason
we were doing this stuff. And you know, you become
a businessman too. You learn how to monetize it and
starts paying pretty well. But it's hard, very competitive work.
It's kind of as much as anything is. It's a
(08:16):
meritocracy because you either win campaigns or your phone's.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Not going to ring.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
So anyway, and we were all kind of in and
it was very anti Soviet back there, talking early eighties,
you know, the Reagan era, and then this stuff came
along and I luckily for me, I know a lot
of people who were kind of anti Trumpet won't admit
it because I got a mortgage in three kids and
they're in the machinery. I had had enough success in
(08:41):
my quirky Irish personality any way to be feisty about it.
Because I first bumped into Trump in ninety three, I'm
old God. I was Christy Whitman's consultants. He was governor
of New Jersey, had did those two races, and he
was down in Atlantic City, you know, leaving a trail
of sloped She won. Yeah, yeah, we got to get
in a tough blue state. They were close ones, but
(09:02):
we want them both. But he was a problem, Yeah,
And I could tell he was a big corner cutter
and not a good guy. So I've been you know,
psychonically and I Trump since then, and so it was
not a hard decision for me. I was also in
a position where I could do other stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
And congratulations on that somebody saved his money or at
least you had alternate abilities and things.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I'll talk about, sure work vote for general Lisa iron
fants like you have a choice of megor Yeah, yeah, no,
And you know there's corporate work and all that, and
I do other things upside.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
But I saw that on your you know your bio
that you've worked for corporations. What is that corporate work?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Well, they almost always locked me up with an NDA,
but it would be like a crisis thing where apparently
milk duds will kill you. We better do something about that.
Call a political guy, and I'm making that up milk No,
But like at crisis pr situation. Yeah, some of that.
Sometimes it's just pure consulting to kind of find a
(10:04):
better way to sell something because the agencies are they
think it's a home run. If they get a kleone,
you get one percent more in market share. We're from
the world to fifty or die, So we're kind of
like mash surgeons. We kind of get to the issue fast.
As a not native but pretty close to native California.
Where you're from originally Brooklyn, New York.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Okay, God, but we moved here when I was five,
so it wasn't like I had a lot of New.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
York in me.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
But I've been here long enough to know that if
you're voting for a proposition that sounds like you're going
to try and help solve the homeless problem, you might
be making the homeless problem worse. Yeah, Well, and then
the other one, there's a competing initiative that it says
exactly the same thing.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
The fun campaigns are kind of vote no. The vote
yes campaigns are often a shell game. You know, did
you know twenty seven hundred puppies are killed every year?
Vote yes on Prop A, which will change insurance regulations
to triple profits for our catastrophic here and donate a
million a year to Puppy Kit. There's a little baby
switchery the no campaign. There's one generic no campaign that
(11:04):
works all the time, which is Prop twenty eight. They
tell us it's about saving lost puppies. Read the fine print,
you know, boom boom boom or Prop twenty eight. Saving
puppies is a good idea, but it's flawed. It buys
twenty eight Lincoln continentals for state bureaucrats. There's no audit.
So let's vote know and write a better law next year.
(11:26):
You know, a punt thing, and people tend to tend
to love that, So a fair amount of that sort
of thing for all kinds of industries, all kinds of states.
And then, you know the craziest thing I did, because
it's so much like politics, I went out and dabbled
in show business. Well, sold a coupless scripts. Now I'm
in the union. We're going to bring that. Yeah, it's
not a character building experience. Well, we always vote for
(11:48):
strikes and then we teach the studios how to put
writers out of the equation. But what should I be
more cynical about show business or politics? Since you've done
the show business. Yeah, it's a close. It's a close call,
all right. Show business is a little nicer, okay. You know,
both places run on insincerity. Though in politics, if your
(12:10):
enemies want to kill you, they try to put you
in jail. In show business they give you a shitty overall.
Never return your calls in movie jail. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So it's but they're they're cousins.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
But okay, So how did you then sink your teeth
into the conservative move? At what point did you decide?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
You know what? Well, I was the high school in
the seventies, late seventies, and I was very interested in
international affairs, you know, geography, world map, diplomacy, and so
it was a Carter era and I had a bit
of a rebel. But I was from that weird Irish
Catholic up upper middle class educated but somewhat culturally conservative,
(12:57):
you know. And so even the relatives of my mom's
side or at UAW, they were crazy about the Liberals, sure,
and that era it kind of peaked. So I went
off to the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Russian area
studies go fight the Cold War. That was great, but
I always loved film theater, pop political theater. I love
the conventions and all that kind of So one thing
(13:19):
led to another. I'm in my dorm room and I
had gotten an internship at a conservative pack called nick
Pack back then, and we would run We kind of
invented independent expenditures where a third party could run ads.
The theory was the congressman, nice guy for Congress wouldn't
want to run ads criticizing the opponent, but we could.
(13:39):
They kind of plowed a course for him. So I
wanted to make the ads. But you know, I'm a
sophomore in college. So we had fired the ad agency,
and well, who knows how to make ads? And you know,
paid intern mic I did it, you know many Clio's
and micro I just didn't bring them. So I called
a guy named Alex Costiano, supposed to be an ACE
ad producer, and he had made ad and so hence
(14:02):
Murphy Castianos began, and my first big break. We did
much ads for Nick Pack independ expenditure. Learned production from
these tough old CBS News sixty minutes cameraman. It all
learned in the Air Force, and they kind of taught
me production in their drill sergeant kind of way. There
was a great one named Bob Peterson and Lee Kennauer,
(14:23):
and so learned a lot. I'm still going to school.
Then I get a call for the next cycle eighty four,
where I'm no longer really showing up for classes anymore,
from this great old consultant, woman Maxine Fernstrom, who had
Congressman wild Bill Karney from the Long Island Fishtail Stuffolk
(14:43):
County machine Republican Congressman's had a name like wild Bill.
That was a nickname. Publicly it was William Carney. All right,
I want to vote for a wild Bill. Well, Carney
got elected in the eightie Reagan landslide because the Long
Island used to have a Republican machine dying breed. And
the boss sent them all down and said, all right,
it's an open seat. We're going to do well with Reagan.
(15:03):
We need a congressman. I need anybody who's married, Irish, Catholic,
no criminal problems, stand up. And like three guys stood up, right.
Corney was one of them. You're a good looking kid,
you're running for Congress. He was an aluminum siding salesman,
and they get him elected. Then in eighty two. Is
congressman a step up from aluminum siding salesman or step down,
(15:24):
same skill set, exactly better money. Probably in Congress he'd
gotten in trouble because they were building the short of
nuclear power plant and the construction interest to her with
the Republicans wanted to so there was a recall effort
against Congressman Carney back in eighty two, this first reelect,
and he almost lost forty seven votes in the Machine county.
(15:47):
Give you an idea how long island works. Aldamato was
a local official there and they beamed him up to
the Senate to get out of the local stuff where
the careers were, you know, also too greedy. We'll make
them a senate or get them out of here. That worked, Yeah,
it worked great. It was kind of a fluke win,
but anyway, so it was time for the rematch and
(16:08):
nobody wanted to do it. Sure a loser, but you
know I'm a starving kid, right, So did the race.
It was only radio. We had a lot of money,
but we had no votes. So my big idea was
go on New York radio, and I remember the bosses
sent me down and said, we like to do yard
signs here. Here's my brother's card runs a printing company,
seventeen dollars each year. I said no. I said, we're
(16:31):
going to do New York Radio. We got money, and
they said, you're out of your mind. It's fifty congressional
districts here in New York Radio. I go, yeah, and
cleaning the one we're losing. So we did it, and
being young and irresponsible, we did the War of the
World spot. Okay, you know, ant, we interrupt this broadcast
for a test of the shorm nuclear emergency of vacuum.
You'll have six minutes to get to Connecticut. And we
(16:52):
mailed everybody a map with the circles the deadly radiation.
Because our opponent, the state rep had voted for a
state rescue plan for call the power company. They don't
share that would have turned the plan on for a
while to pay down the day. So as far as
we were concerned, he was for finishing and activating short
and we had more money. We had New York Radio,
so we and it was eighty four good year. We
(17:13):
killed the guy. That's great. Now my phone's ringing and
I maybe maybe great, maybe not.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
I'lation yeah, it worked, and I Uh, next thing, you know,
I'm in political I take a leave of absence from Georgetown,
which I'm still on.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
And one day I'll go back and they're not giving you,
like some degree from Georgetown. You haven't gotten something. You know.
I need to find the office they have in the
Middle East because I think I think there's some money
involved sometimes in them. I loved it was a wonderful
place Jesu, which taught me how to argue both sides
of anything, which is a valuable skill.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
That's what I did at UCLA, went to philosophy major,
and so it's all about knowing both sides.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, tremendous respect for a good argument, for sure.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And it's helpful as a writer that you do to
understand two sides of every argument, because your cares all
have different sides and different.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Points, and every character thinks they're a hero. So and
that led to a lot of races right mostly on
the media message side, you know, don't be alone.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
With Was it the rule then, or is it still
the rule? Or maybe it's an imagined rule that the
pack can't talk to the candidate in an independent expenditure.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
You're off in your own world trying to kind of
do this crescent thing where you want to know what
they're thinking and you try, so.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
How do you know that the thing that you're making
either is in the spirit of the candidate. Of the candidate,
we'll appreciate it, and or yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
A good question. So originally we invented it in the
stone age of this in the early eighties. We would
take our own polling and say, obviously, the vulnerability of
Congressman Bagatonas is missed eighty two votes to a junk in,
and so we're softening them up so that we're open
a hole because we're trying to help challengers beating comments.
(19:12):
Now there's some legality. It's become so huge that campaigns
spend a lot of efforts sending signals, and if you
go on a big campaign, a contested one's website, you
will find an unmarked page somewhere that's publicly accessible, and
they might put up an ad with a AI voiceover
(19:35):
that nobody's supposed to really see other than curious people
who've digging, But the Ie committee is supposed to see. Boy,
if only we if we had money to run this ad,
and then you go copy it and put it. I mean,
it's very you got to be careful. If you're smart,
you lawyer up tremendously. But there are ways that signals
of are sent. There's often a lot of those stress
(19:57):
between the campaign people. Those idiots at the super Pac
ran the wrong ad. That happened a lot with Airis.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Now as a consultant, you obviously make money the bigger
the campaign way you can, but you get the bigger
campaign than the bigger the consultant fee. And that kind
of I mean my era because I'm kind of winding
down now.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I'm doing a little, but I'm not doing Republican candidates
anymore can't take it and I'm no good for them.
I also don't want to travel. I'm busy in corporate
and the you know other stuff. In the old old days,
it still kind of exists. The media consultants would act
like the ad agency. So if you in ad agency
(20:39):
world traditionally, though everything's disrupted now, you spend a million
hours on advertising. You charge the client a million dollars.
The station has charge you eight hundred and fifty and
there's a fifteen percent commission, and you know, you have
certain costs to buy the media, which is a complicated thing.
The Commission would be negotiating. Were paid seven percent on
(21:01):
the first million, five percent on the second. So generally
a bigger campaign you charge more money, but you're also competing.
There's always somebody says, I'll do it all for two percent, right,
And so if you become known as somebody with experience
and you've won a lot of races, you're in demand
and you can say, yeah, look, get the guy who
does it in his basement, really good. This will be
(21:21):
his first Senate campaign. He'll learn a lot. I'll show
up for the concession speech. You know, don't go and
get that. That's my rank. You can charge a lot.
The key is the smart consumer would limit the number
of races, right, So I would get full Bote fifteen
on some things. But I said, I'm only going to
do two governor races. You're one of them. And I
do a lot of it myself. I had people there,
but I was the hands on person. And would you
(21:44):
pick if you could, a candidate who you thought was
going to be a winner, Like, well, how to have
more winners in your column? And yeah, but it's weighted.
It's kind it's just like credits, and you know, the
show biz world. So I'm I say, all right, i
can do four state wides, and this year I'm going
to go get two big, well paying tough ones. And
(22:07):
then I got an old buddy who's an easy reelect
won't make much money, but you know he's always used me,
and it'll be an easy thing to do, and I
can train a kid on it a little bit, and
then like I got one more slot, the greedy guys
will try to get a third huge race. But the
key to making money in this business is the longevity.
But I'll say, when I go get an easy re election,
(22:28):
you know, Illinois, a big market, maybe I'll have a
shot at a governor's race there because my stuff will
be good. They're seeing it on TV. So you can
be a little strategic. But generally, when people are looking
at hiring you, the pros are always amateurs who show up
with money and get rolled. You know it's a member.
Once I was pitching this crazy guy was a commercial
real estate developer in New Haven, Connecticut, and I just
(22:52):
signed my office lease. I said, yeah, you know, and
he goes, here's anything you know about office Leasa's kid,
you we do it five times a day. You do
it once every eight years. I probably didn't do that well,
you know. So there are people who get rolled by
political consultants a lot, but I, you know, it was
(23:13):
pretty good because you could have some price control, but
you didn't need to win. It helps to win, but
you didn't need. Yeah, but they judge you on a curve.
So winning an easy re elect and what a lot
of consultants would do is they would go take the
easy re elect incumbent senator, good Republican state, pretty easy,
and they'd lowball it just to get an excuse to
(23:34):
make some pretty spots for the real So there would
be incentives for marketing as well. But I got hired
because I would go do tough races, mostly in non
red states. My specialties were that Michigan back then, Wisconsin
still a swing state, but it was even a little
tough for blue. Florida was a swing state. Massachusetts. I
(23:55):
did Romney's race for governor there Arnold here in California.
So I like to play on the other sides urf win,
you know. So there was was there is like a
filter through how hard was the job, and that's part
of it. So you want to take some tough ones
and they're more fun. But now that so you're winding
down from all of that, can we agree that this
(24:17):
I'm an apostate in the part.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
The money, the money that goes into these campaigns is
kind of ruining.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I don't know. Money is speech, and sometimes the only
speech the candidate has it's not through a filter, is
the money. Otherwise, Okay, I'm going to say something, I'm
going to rely on Fox News to interpret it for
the audience or the New York Times, you know. So
there's a lot of filters out there, and so money
is the blunt instrument that allows you to break through.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yeah, I mean, clearly it's a double edged sword because
that is speech and it is being heard, but it
also is all the politicians are now admittedly spending all
their time fundraising, spending all like so much of their time,
and sometimes it affects their policy and like fo Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Political contributions really well, they come from different pots. One
pot is a catalog business of people who give fifty
or one hundred bucks. That's all emotional appeal, that's ideological,
and it pays to send hot messages out. More money
comes in on the left or the right, right, I'm
overwhelmed with those hot messages. You've made the mistake of
(25:32):
giving before you know, this is this is the election,
this is the end of the world is nigh? You
know all that The old trick used to be when
it was all direct mail. Now with the Internet, the
cost of the communications so cheap, it doesn't cost anything
to email a million people. Back when they had the mail,
they'd spend eighty cents mailing you a letter and they'd
hope ten percent where five percent would give back and
(25:54):
they'd still make a little money. There used to be
the business reply you know, no most envelope.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So what.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Secret? And the trick, as we were all on the list,
is you take the business reply envelope, you stick in
there's a code on the laser printed letter you get
that they can track you with. That's the car. You
put that in. You tape it to a brick or
prefer sometimes a cinderblot, and the post office for eighty
two dollars will bring it back. And the first thing
you do is delete you from any other And some
(26:21):
misterevous campaigns would go get one hundred bricks on a
hundred that's almost a weapon. How much does it cost
to mail a brick back then, and you know, nineteen
ninety eight dollars or ninety six dollars. It was because
the bres are like faster. It was like seventy bucks
or it was lot. Sure, so you go do three
(26:41):
hundred bricks, you know it hurts. Yeah, yeah, So the
campaigns used to be a little more fun with that
kind of you know, PG rated chicanery, not now or
and there's no strategy now. Now it's chainsaws at two
feet and you don't have to tell the truth. Right.
You used to get in trouble in a political ad
if you lied more than like ten percent.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
As a diet in the wold Progressive I'm what, yeah,
I know how shocking, but as like we seem so impotent.
I mean, it seems like we're just we're staring at
the big bad wolf and going like, well, okay, burning
down the house.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
That's all right, you know it's what's pearls call a shrink. Yes,
the Democrat came. We're training a Republican party from age
three that when you're in one of these battles, grab
the sharpest thing you can and attack, right, don't don't
decide to have a group about our right everybody's feelings now,
and I think we really don't try to impress the
New York Times, we used to say, and it's like
(27:36):
confessions of a Republican political goon. Let them win the
smart editorial board argument. We're going to win the stupid
supermarket checkout line argument. Right. And that's a pretty good formula,
it does. It seems to have worked.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Could you have fathomed how dumb this country was until recently?
Did you always as a political consultant? Did you always
know and in your base that I'm going to kill myself.
You're because in my younger, angrier years, there was one
year under occupation on my taxes, I put Moron Wrangler
because I was out moving, you know, generally, I mean,
I have to back up. I did this by choice
(28:12):
because I care about policy.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Right. Two thirds of the people I helped get into
office and voters did the real work, and the candidates
did I'm very proud of they were tremendous, particularly some
of those Republican governors like Jeb Romney, John Engler and
Michigan and Tommy Thompson. Very proud because they were grown
ups and they did great stuff. Now that it's all performative,
they're a lot harder to find, right, And they were
(28:34):
also conservatives, So we're stupider than we were because again,
politics is not seen as that important. It's become entertainment
and sports. But well that's the thing about the media,
they cover politics like sports. Well, the focus groups show
that Hitler's message about immigrants and perhaps locking up all
the Jews tests very well with these key swing voters
(28:55):
they're in Dortmund. Well, yes it's true, but the Christian
Democrats do seem to have there's no loading to it, right,
it's all coach analysis and scorecard, which is nuts. So
many Americans who could have voted didn't vote. Like there,
Well that's a vote. Though not voting is an expression
of screwboat. Right. People choose not to vote. It's the
third choice. Right.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
People don't invest themselves into their civic duty. People definitely
want to hide from jury duty. They want to hide
from voting. They want to have a citizenship. The idea
that there is an obligation, there's a foreign idea. Now
speak of a good citizenship. Tell me about EV's and
tell me about that. I mean, we we have my family,
we have two electric vehicles and one hybrid vehicle. Okay,
(29:41):
and so we're doing your part, doing my part. But
but the thing is, one of our vehicles is.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
A Yeah, there you go America right now, Yeah, there
you go. So it's made by Chinese craftsmen. Listen, I'm
happy to somebody's getting work.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
But but like one of our one of our vehicles
is a Tesla, right, and so now that we felt like, well, okay,
well it really well.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
It was the must have car for a while. And
now what happened was I don't know if you heard
about this, but yeah, to go crazy South African.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah. So now I feel shitty about the paying eighty
thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
For my for my Tesla. Well let me. I'll give
you the ev story, and I'm going to kill your
entire audiencer as they get bored and tune out, but
I'll give you this short version. Yeah. So what, I'm
a motorhead from Detroit. My lifetime average is five miles
per gown, you know. But when I got out here
to California, I found all my prejudices against you know.
(30:41):
I used to write Dentis jokes about it. Yeah, they
run on smugness. Melted away one thanks to our huge
tax regime here and other reasons. You know, we were
for a while pain six bucks plus a gown for gas.
But the elegance an internal combustion engine is an amazing thing.
About four hundred parts, many of them machine a lot
of work. We perfected the damn thing over one hundred
(31:03):
and twenty years. We make really good isations now. But
an electric power trains maybe seven moving parts. So just
the physics of it are more elegant. Yeah, And so
I became a nut for evs, a slow convert because
the technology of them. Then I took a look at
the world trends because I have kind of an OCD
personality where when I get interested in something, I want
to know everything about it, and so I go off
(31:24):
into a weird you know, deep dive. Good thing about
the campaign business is you learn how to take things
apart quickly, Like, all right, we're going to run a
Vermont governor's campaign. I know how governor campaigns work. Never
done Vermont. I'm gonna learn everything about I drive up there,
spend three days driving around. I've become a massive bore
about Vermont and the demographics. Sentrey think is how to
(31:45):
be a good consultant. Well from us, just New Hampshire
without the signs, right, yeah, it's here's the great thing
about Vermont. Very liberal, also kind of appellation redneck at
the same time, loosest gun control laws in a man
you want to own a gatling gun. Mood of Vermont,
most nuclear state, you know. So it's a lot of contradictions.
(32:07):
But went in doubt the mountain range there which it
becomes Appalatia. That strain is still still there. Anyway, it's
a pretty interesting state. The candidate I worked for there,
the governor, actually carried a thirty eight and an ankle holster,
you know, right, he was kind of a big guy.
I wasn't sure he could ever get to it. Anyway,
(32:28):
he almost killed me one night, and no way. This
is a new podcast. I think I'm going to do
funny campaign stories. Yes, about all the weirdos that you
deal with. How funny they all are. The human comedy
of it is. Oh god, I'll tell you one story
and then I'll get back to eving ern Our. Kirk
Castianos and I get a call from an up and
(32:48):
coming Republican politician who was a member of Congress clearly
going places. Had a somewhat tough district, so I had
to have a good team, but had their eye on
state wise governor president, good looking and smart, always wore
crisp white shirts in a perfect suit. So and he's
going to hire his first real consultants because the district
(33:08):
had got a little tougher. But he's got a plan.
He's one of these very serious guys, not a big
sense of humor, kind of little pretentious. Everything was said
with great important like I made brownies the other day
with walnuts, you know a little. So anyway, we're having
(33:30):
the conversations to get to know, you think right after
we got hired. And then he finally said, and we're
on the regulation blue navy blue congressional couch and he's
by his desk in the ornate office, probably his fourth
term in Congress or thirty. It's one thing I want
you to know. Long pause. I only have one testicle, okay,
(33:53):
And we like look at each other like it's just
a test Is this guy crazy? And we both want
to say the same thing like Hitler, but we don't. Anyway,
it didn't last on that campaign, sure, but yeah, I
used to heal in he did. I think for a while,
but he never You never know what he could have
done with two testicles. Yeah, I know it'd be president fantastic, absolutely,
(34:16):
But EVS so grew up around the auto industry, and
the more I learned about it, I was attracted dv's
and I was not a big climate guy. Yeah, I
believe in it and everything. Climate is actually the problem
with EV's, which I'll explain in a minute. But what
I liked about them, other than the tech side of it,
was the future of the world auto industry. The US
(34:38):
is only ten percent of the world auto market currently
is twenty five percent EVS in the world today, twenty
five percent of the cars are going to be pure electric,
and it's taken over the Chinese that made him move
eighteen years ago approximately where they said to the European
American automakers, you know what, we need cars. We can't
make good cars. We're going to open the market. You
(34:59):
guys are going to make billions over here, but you
got to do a joint venture and teach local guys
how to make a car. And Volkswagen, Mercedes, General Motors,
Ford everybody went running over there and built a ton
of car planks and minted money billions of dollars. Exactly
how to do it. Showed them how the boy these
young engineers are so nice they want to learn. They
(35:19):
cut my lawn on weekends the same in Bite Me
to a feast. GM used to sell more cars in
Asia than they do in the US, and it's only
recently it's backed off a little. And it worked. Everybody
made a fortune. Chinese learned how to make good cars.
So now, of course the foreign brands were all being
killed in China. China is capable of making fifty million
(35:40):
cars a year. They made thirty million. Last year, we
made ten million. Most Americans don't know the Chinese auto
industry is three times our size. They are eating the
world market four years ago, both electric and ice, you know,
combustion cars. Mexico imported fifty thousand Chinese cars this year
probably six hundred thousand. Oh, they're going to wipe out
(36:01):
the US auto industry. I had the CEO of the
famous car company say, it's even money whether we're going
to exist in ten years if we can't get EV's right.
So there were a lot of execution flaws, but Biden
was essentially right about subsidizing our industry. The Chinese are
particularly good at batteries. They have an MIT all about
battery tech. Funny thing is, the godfather of the Chinese
(36:25):
battery industry was a GM engineer, an American who after
the early GM electrics were sheld, they put them in
the fan belt. Thing of nothing to do. He flies
to China to give a speech one hundred young engineers.
One is photo autographed, and the chairman of this young
Chinese startup saying, you ever want to come here and
work on batteries, Sure a GM. I can't even get
(36:45):
a parking space anymore. That began CAATL, the dominant world
battery company. So it drove me crazy that Republicans just
reflexibly hated EV's. They've become partisan. So I took my
own dough and I did some campaign style polling about evs,
what the divisions about, and what to do about it,
And you know, Automotive News picked it up. And then
(37:07):
I'm getting car CEOs calling and come on it. So
I've become kind of an EV activist advisor. And I'll
give you the one headline. It's not about the environment.
We are a country you can say This is terrible,
it's crazy. I'm going to call the New York Times
and write a letter. You can do all that, and
then you can join Kamala in the concession. You know,
(37:28):
you got to go to people where they are, then
you might be able to move them. We ask questions
on our polling, what you know, which of these statements
do you agree with? Climate change is a serious problem,
and we've got to take action, serious actions. Climate change
is overhyped by the media and it's no big deal.
The car market will tell you it's about fifty two
(37:49):
percent serious action and about forty eight percent no big deal.
I'm sorry, fifty eight serious action, forty two no big deal.
Very partisan. So when you do the white pole bear commercials,
the original Nissan leaf where the polar bear's mad and
swims to American hugs a guy by a leaf, you're
alienating half the market. The more evsers in as political,
(38:10):
the worst they do elon who is now pre the
latest feud is favorable unfavorable Republicans with like seventy over
ten Democrats five favorable eighty unfavorable. No wonder the brand's
blown up, right, you know, because he's politicized. The other
way his brand. So the way to see electric cars
is faster, fun to drive, save two grand a year
(38:32):
in gas. You don't have to pay anymore. Average family
spends two grand a year. The electric costs about seven
hundred thirteen hundred a head, and they're more American made by.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
The way, don't be alone.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
The China started, the government started like twenty more. There
are one hundred ev companies essentially.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Right, and they just figured out which ones would do great,
and only three make money, right, And so pretend you're
the CEO of Ford.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
You got to compete with guys who have more scale.
And in the auto business, the more you make that
you for the cost to make and don't have to
make a profit. So when they come into Australia, here's
a twenty three thousand dollars electric car that we lose
money on. How do you compete with that without going bankrupt?
Speaker 3 (39:31):
But in the United States we've regularly helped companies. The
government now has been helping subsidies of companies to do better.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
At least that's what used to happen. I go. I
don't know if trying to kill it now the Senate is,
but basically you go out today to lease an EV
and I would tell our loyal listeners always lease. Why
most of the time of cars you want to buy
with EV's because the battery is improving every twenty four months.
Your resale is not good, so when you own it,
(40:04):
the car will depreciate too quick. Lease it three years
you'll get seventy five hundred off the top from Uncle Sam.
And the Republicans are trying to kill that. They probably
will by the end of the year. I'm a pre
enterprise guy. I hate terrorists, and I don't like subsidies.
But in the short term our companies are good, and
the new evs are tremendous, not just Tesla. The Cadillac
(40:26):
stuff is great, the key of stuff which is made
in Hyundai, which has made here. Rivian and Tesla are
great cars. The Rivian and Lucid Tesla. I'm kind of
bitchy about for crazy Detroit reasons. And then you got
the elon right. You know, you got to decide if
you're on that Vandwagon. But fundamentally, if we get a
couple of years support here so it's not a one
(40:46):
sided fight, well we keep the Chinese out, our guys
will be strong enough to compete with the Chinese worldwide,
or we're going to lose an auto industry. So here's
what I close my little duh congressman powerpoints with. It's
one state. I want you to know. Stop thinking this
is green dogma. This is US manufacturing jobs and not
just the Big three. The most successful auto plant in
(41:09):
America for exports, Number one is BMW in South Carolina.
It's the biggest BMW plant in the world. American workers.
I'm for NATO Allies or Japan or the Koreans building here,
and also Canada, Mexico. It's all integrated in World War
Two in the late thirties. Before the start of the
war in thirty nine, the British Empire, Britain and Canada
(41:34):
which small part of it but I include them, made
half a million light cars and trucks cars and light
trucks vehicles. The French made about three hundred and forty thousand,
Germans made about four hundred and twenty thousand. The US
and the year before Pearl Harbor made four point seven
million light vehicles. And that was the industrial backbone that
won the Second World War. The Russian Army ran an
(41:55):
American trucks, ammunition and locomotives. Third of the British Army did,
and all our army because the assembly line is one
of the few things that can build big, complicated machines
at speed and volume. In fact, in the war, it
was autogism took over making airplanes right because they didn't
know how to make a lot of them right, and
so it was production line techniques. So I don't care
(42:16):
if it's drones or what we're making. It's that manufacturing
muscle that is key to our national security. And right
now again, the Chinese in a production war would beat
us five to one. One of the reasons I'm very
excited that you were here is though I could talk
to you about this, well, you're ready for downal surgery now,
because I bored you to know. Know.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
With VS, it's to that point, which is, you know,
Democrats are very good, and I speak as a Democrat.
Democrats are very good at over regulating things to death
so that nothing works right or it can't get done.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Can't get done. There's too many regulations and too many
we got to help.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
This commuittey in that community thing, and we can't push forward.
And this is one of the issues. So I wanted
to ask you. You seem very you know, reasonable and
smart and all convinced me to be more of a conservative.
Tell me why I should be more of a conservative,
because I'm sure, okay, so tell me.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Well, it's been fun to be in la I mean
here since two thousand pe people have been very nice
to be particularly in show business. But there is what
I call the Lord Greystoke factor, which is your Republican right.
Look at that he can use a front his pants
swinging from the chandelier. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Two plus two is he can do math? You know,
(43:33):
there's kind of this stuff that's fine. Well, yeah, no,
thank you. And there's also ten percent who pulled me
into the hallway. I'm a Republican. I just I want
to have a career. We visited Saturday Night Live once
with a candidate in the mid nineties and three writers
pulled me under the bleachers and said, we're the only
(43:54):
three Republicans working on network TV in New York City.
I can't recommend the current populis republished. But here's the
point of conservatism, all right, have some faith in people
to make decisions. Give them the freedom to do that
incentivize good decisions, don't make bad decisions that easy, because
(44:15):
generally when you try to do good by amassing power,
you know the Leviathon, as Hobbs would say, there's a
good book by Hia called Road Deserved Them. When you
create a big colossus of power to make everybody's lives better,
that power tends to corrupt. It's or well, all pigs
(44:37):
are equals, some more than the others. And so if
you achieve a few things, which is empowered choice, be
very good at civic ladders, upward self education, public libraries,
all this stuff to give people who choose to a
route to self improvement. So the institutions of upward mobility
(44:59):
work for every If you're a math genius born on
the East side of Detroit, now you do not have
the same shot and the success you ought to have
as a math genius born in Scarsdale, New York, public education,
which is tragic. And by the way, every year the
Chinese have five times as many math genius is born
as we do, so we got to take advantage of
(45:20):
the ones we have. If you do this big government stuff,
then you take choice and freedom away and you get
into statism, which is not good at getting things done
and stifles human creativity. The difference between us and this
is hard to say in la where dogs are people,
but dogs we can think and choose right and wrong.
Our choices have power and impact. So build a society
(45:43):
that rewards that. And the infrastructure you're talking about. Where
schools were great and everybody had we leveled the sort
of the playing field to start with, so everybody has
a great option to begin with, and then each person
to his own ability. We didn't. We turned teachers' unions
into British steel mill unions. They're about the teachers, not
(46:04):
about the kids. There is a Fred Siegel wrote a
great book about this in the nineties about that. You
can look it up, about the New York City Teachers Unions,
which started out as a professional organization. By the end
of it it was carpltanol I need a year off,
and the kids got left behind, and it went from
the best public school system in the world to quite mediocre,
(46:26):
and he traces the decline it. Central control does not
work very well. Yes, it's hard to find an example
where we're going to take dictatorial power of the economy
and over people's choices and save them from themselves. It
seems that central control. Maybe not, but the government, big
government has a place in saving people who are the
(46:51):
most disenfranchised, who are the most problematic.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
I would say that that the bleeding heart liberals like
myself would rather have money spent on helping starving people
and poor people and sick people, and let that some
of them. I'd rather have that system be corrupted or
scams put on it, or people then people being left behind.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Every kid in Newark, do they get a ten thousand
dollar voucher to go to any school, including good ones,
or do you just subsidize the twenty grand they're spending
right now on incredibly mediocre schools. But if the people
leave the school system, the public school system doesn't the
public school system collapse. Well, if the public school system
doesn't work, they will migrate to the better school system
(47:37):
that will be funded by the portable money. Because right
now what we do is patch mediocrity and defend it,
and what the institutions get good at. The incentive right
now for a teachers' union is not to improve schools. No,
it's to defend their political power, to their salaries and
their everything else. It's just the union. Yeah right, I'm
for private sector unions. Public sector unions are in the
(48:01):
old days to deal was you're going to take the
post office job and you're going to get a good pension,
but you're not going to have great wages, but you're
gonna have a lot of security. Now the public sector
unions want a lot of security. They want a massive pension,
good health care and high wages. And what do they
do They elect their bosses by turning out in democratic
(48:21):
primaries to pick the school board, you know. So it
becomes a feedback loop. That's about everything. There is no
incentive for them to do stuff right. I'm for safety
nets and I'm for public infrastructure. I prefer spending money
on bridges and electric charging stuff that works, and street
lights and all that. Then I am on transfer payments,
which is I'll pay you not to work. Fair enough
(48:43):
incentives work. Now, if you go too far, you get dickens.
I get it. But we've tried the noble experiment. We
have written the work houses could be good. Besant E's
got some ideas. Little fingers they can assemble quick, you
can decorate them. Yeah, yeah, this is now time.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
For question time is question, who is the most surprising
candidate you ever worked for?
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Wow, it's a great question. Been lucky. A lot of
them fun are surprising either one. McCain was fun. Yeah,
John McCain two thousand straight truck express, I'll never get
election night in New Hampshire. We won, and McCain at
that moment he figured out, you know, we're on rocket field.
Now we had a good shot at president. And he
was like, holy hell, they fell for it right, you know.
(49:34):
And he was a troublemaker and a wonderful guy. Miss him.
What happened with Sarah Palin? Well, you know he called
me up about it that morning and I told him
he was nuts, And I mean, I'm trying to figure
the short way to say it. They there's an addition
(49:54):
American politics that when the other side is having their convention,
you go underground. I mean, you know. So they were
in Sedona, where McCain had a house, watching the convention,
and most of the commentary you hear about politics from
experts is stupid and wrong. And the people who were
better at makeup than working in politics. It's gotten worse
now too. So people don't remember this, but all the
(50:16):
talk was Obama beat Hillary. Women hate Obama for doing that,
and they were interviewing Democratic Hillary delegates who were all
going to vote for Obama in the end. But yeah,
he's got to prove to me that i'm And so
they're watching all that McCain world. This is a two
thousand and eight campaign wouldn't have happened to mine. And
(50:37):
we got to get a woman, and they went and
they found this charismatic, unvetted woman in Alaska, and they
were so mad at the media that was rough around
McCain in two thousand and eight than they were in
two thousand that we're going to surprise them. It's like
Dana Gool's joke about dumb things to say, watch me
surprise the president, you know. And so we're going to
(50:59):
surprise the media is unvetted unknown. And also I used
to have what I called the Robert Redford rule of
vice presidents, which is, if you represent Robert Redford, you're
the agent. You get the golf in the studio. Hey,
we think it's time for a marvel oscar. So we're
going to do iron Man five and we want Redford.
(51:21):
Well he's eighty two, I know, but your agent. You know,
he's parasitic right now, and then he's got his Karate lessons.
You know, Bob will get you in the greatest Yeah,
he's ready. Well it's a two hander. He's got a sidekick,
titanium man. We're about to close the deal with Brad Pitt.
If you're Redford's agent, you know, I'm thinking a va gooda.
Because you don't want to be better or different. Then
(51:43):
it's about the differences. That's why Clinton was so smart.
All pick another Southern white Protestant, forty year old governor
who's not as good as me Al Gore and now
I'm two feet taller. Arnold was smart. I remember we
had a party when I started working for him for
stuntman at his house and I looked around and every
under five nine stuntman in Hollywood was there. Yeah, you know, yeah, sure.
(52:04):
Bobby Goodman, the great consult when he had John Tower
the Center from Texas to do the re elect shot
the ads in the old Centate chamber with all the
small furniture because Tower was about five five, so Texas giant,
you know, because it was all doll I was furniture.
So that's what happened with pale. Well, thank you for
being here man, you really enjoyed it. Can I do
a plug? You're awesome? Sure? Please? Do you want to
(52:25):
follow me on Twitter at Murphy Mite. You want to
learn about all this crazy ev stuff and get your
own beer cozy, go to ev politics dot org. All
the polling is there. We have an active blog. Uh,
there's even a way to put in a zip code,
find jobs, click a button, send your congressman email, don't
screw the subsidy. Ev politics dot org and can I
(52:45):
do a plug? Yes? Tacks on Tap is a fantastic,
great show. I listened to it every week. Well, it's
like old coaches. You know, it's an inside what's really
going on? And you know, we're two old coaches who've
been to the top level of it, and we pick
her a little. We're old friends, but it's it's done
with love and we're not you know, I tease them
(53:05):
about being a left winger, but we we tell you
what's really going on by how it works. It's a
great show. I listen to it.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
I love I get true insight and it makes me
feel better about the world.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
Well, thank you, that makes us happy. We designed it
so You're on the campaign trail in Iowa a month
before the caucus, and generally all the campaign people from
the different parties and all go to the same bars,
and you walk in like a reporter would or another hack,
pull up a stool, and you have the insight conversation.
I like it, and I really appreciate it. I appreciate
you being here podcast. I'll be plugging it, and.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Thank you for being here, and thank you for joining us,
and please feel free to share the show whenever you
want to and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Don't be alone with
Strawhut Media. Hey, I'm Mike Murphy and guess what. Thank God,
I'm not alone. I'm here not being alone with my
good friend Jay Cogan.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Don't be alone with jj Cogan.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Hello, Cogan Nation, Hello, don't be a loners, Hello Alone Bones.
This is don't be Alone with Jake Cogan. I am
Jake Cogan, and you are my friend because you're watching.
Thank you for being here. This is a place where
we get together with interesting people to solve my problems.
And my problem today is going to be solved by
a very interesting man. Political consultant and pod show host
(00:41):
Mike Murphy is here today and he's going to tell
me about what it's like to be have been a conservative,
because I've been a lifelong progressive and so the conservative
size the other team. But what it's also like to
be conservative who's not a Trump conservative and to feel
a little bit out of favor with your own people,
(01:02):
your own movement has sort of left you behind.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
That sucks.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Mike is the host of Hacks on Tap, which is
one of the very best podcasts political podcasts out there,
which provides he does with David Axelrod and himself and
provides a service where you get to hear the points
of view of the conservatives and the progressives and more
about the inside politics of how things work and how
(01:28):
political consultants and the press and the people and the
media conspire to sort of make things happen. And if
there's anything we can do to push things in the
right direction, Mike's the man to answer it. Please write
to me at dbawjk at gmail dot com with your complaints,
your compliments, and your listener questions that I use for
(01:49):
the show, or just say hi, we'll have a conversation. Also,
go to the show Substack, Don't Belong with Jake Cogan Substack,
and we're going to have interesting information, things that have
been cut out of past shows that are in there
that we can see, so bonus material.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
That's what it's called, right, bonus matial.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
We're gonna have interesting information, bonus material, and it's completely free.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It's free. All you gotta do is go there, and
so it'll be fine. I'll even write stuff and talk
about stuff and devote more of my endless time to
the sub stack because you know why, somebody told me
I should and I'm that much of a monkey that
I'll do anything somebody tells me I should, but.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
That's for later. For now, it's this show, and we're
gonna have Mike Murphy come on. He's also one of
the world's most successful political consultants. He's been a consultant
for Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, and Ron Schwarzenegger and
Christy Whitman. He won a lot of elections for a
lot of people, and often these Republican candidates in blue states,
(02:48):
So he must be really good. And he's really funny.
He's really smart. He's a TV writer as well and
has a radio announcer's voice, and we'll find out more
about that too. So stay tuned for Mike Murphy right
after this.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Don't be alone with j.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So, Mike Murphy, thank you for being here. Well, thank
you for having me it is.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I am such a fan of your podcasting world. That's
the Hats on Tap was very influential to me. I
love that show, and I love you on it, and
I love acts on it, and I just anybody who
of my fans who are not listening to it.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Should listen to it. It gives it perspective on politics
that are very I think interesting. It's not always about
what's right or what's wrong. It's about how you can
sort of politically achieve things. Yeah, I mean we don't
do the scream athon back and forth. You know, you
can get a lot of that for free, you just
(03:50):
take etc. I recommend what it is. Zaxelrod and I
are old, old, close friends from when we were puppies
and consulting many decades ago. We used to run campaigns
against each other, like for governor of Iowa, and then
we go sneak out and have dinner somewhere.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Now, how does that friendship form if you have this
opponent who's basically there to try and destroy you and
your and your and your candidate.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, there used to be, and there are still some,
but there used to be. It's kind of like the
old Looney Tunes cartoon with the wolf and the sheep dog.
Hey Fred h Charlie, and then you know, you go
kill each other and then the whistle blows see you tomorrow. Yeah,
how are the kids fine? You know, we're kind of
trapped in the same crazy reality of the political consulting business,
although on other opposite sides but parallel universe, and we're
(04:34):
both starting out and this is also to my friend
Mark Mellman, who's a big damp poster, and I can't
remember how we originally met, and that's how long it's spent.
But the other thing is in those friendships, you're not
competing for business, right, so you know that stress of
pitching against each other and everything. So only Republican consultants
(04:57):
work for Republicans. They are occasional, you know, it's not
as for a long time it wasn't true. People would
and there's guy Nam David Garth, who is famous in
our business York, who would work either way. Then it
all got very partisan, and it still kind of is,
but ei there are corporate accounts or a referendum where
you might work across the party. So anyway, we became pals,
(05:19):
and most political people ask their divorce lawyers will on
Sunday get itchy, right, you know, yeah, yeah, the kid's
doing great, took him to baseball yesterday, and it sounds
Sunday afternoon, so they start wanting to talk about politics.
So the phone calls start right and Ax and I
would almost every Sunday would have kind of a even
(05:41):
when he was in the White House, and you know,
I'm on the other side but he trusted me, and
I trusted him, and you know, would talk everything. And
so he's the one who called me and said, after
he got out and kind of retired ish, you know,
did more punditary and all that in our campaigns. He said,
you know, we have to turn these into a podcast.
(06:02):
And I said, yeah, I'm doing this radio free GP
trump Py thing, but I'm taking it down now that
he's been elected president. I'm going to give him a year.
And under the fantasy that maybe it was all performance, yeah,
talk about rock, but I said, I really don't want
to piss all over the new president for six months.
Maybe because that was the shtick back in twenty sixteen.
Oh no, I mean Trump even said I have a
(06:23):
buddy who's a big fundraiser for Republican high dollar stuff,
and he Trump was trying to cruit some of those guys.
So he took him in and I said, you know,
a lot of your language was kind of difficult, and
he goes, oh, it's just a show I put on
for the Rubes. You know, I'm a Wall Street guy,
don't worry. And so I thought, I'll give him a chance,
and of course it went Every year, it gets worse. Well,
he's but we started. Yeah, regardless, he's still putting on
(06:45):
the show.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, yeah, the show is everything, and I think policy
takes far back seat.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Well, and the show is more about his own madness
because he's been on Trump crazy bubble for what going
on nine years.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Now, Well, let's talk about that for a second, because
when I listened to the show over the years, I
feel bad for you because you know, you're a believer
in the Republican Party or what we used to call
the Republican Party. You worked for it, You spent your life,
you know, trying to advance certain I candidates and ideas,
(07:18):
and then this guy comes along and he really sort
of takes the party in this weird direction. And then
he did people like you, and I know many people
who are Republicans who also feel uncomfortable by the MAGA
movement in Trump feel left out, like like where well,
I feel a.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Little bit like back in the thirties, you'd go to
the Russian restaurant in Paris and the doorman would be
a former field marshal in the Tzar's Army, Right, and
now I'm parking cars, sure, yeah, and I don't even
what do the kids say today identify as a Republican anymore. Okay,
I'm still a conservative, right, but Trump is a populous
(07:56):
yahoo and that's not conservatism. I came up in the
old ani So days. But yeah, it's weird. We used
to call it the cause, you know, there's a reason
we were doing this stuff. And you know, you become
a businessman too. You learn how to monetize it and
starts paying pretty well. But it's hard, very competitive work.
It's kind of as much as anything is. It's a
(08:16):
meritocracy because you either win campaigns or your phone's.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Not going to ring.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
So anyway, and we were all kind of in and
it was very anti Soviet back there, talking early eighties,
you know, the Reagan era, and then this stuff came
along and I luckily for me, I know a lot
of people who were kind of anti Trumpet won't admit
it because I got a mortgage in three kids and
they're in the machinery. I had had enough success in
(08:41):
my quirky Irish personality any way to be feisty about it.
Because I first bumped into Trump in ninety three, I'm
old God. I was Christy Whitman's consultants. He was governor
of New Jersey, had did those two races, and he
was down in Atlantic City, you know, leaving a trail
of sloped She won. Yeah, yeah, we got to get
in a tough blue state. They were close ones, but
(09:02):
we want them both. But he was a problem, Yeah,
And I could tell he was a big corner cutter
and not a good guy. So I've been you know,
psychonically and I Trump since then, and so it was
not a hard decision for me. I was also in
a position where I could do other stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
And congratulations on that somebody saved his money or at
least you had alternate abilities and things.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I'll talk about, sure work vote for general Lisa iron
fants like you have a choice of megor Yeah, yeah, no,
And you know there's corporate work and all that, and
I do other things upside.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
But I saw that on your you know your bio
that you've worked for corporations. What is that corporate work?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Well, they almost always locked me up with an NDA,
but it would be like a crisis thing where apparently
milk duds will kill you. We better do something about that.
Call a political guy, and I'm making that up milk No,
But like at crisis pr situation. Yeah, some of that.
Sometimes it's just pure consulting to kind of find a
(10:04):
better way to sell something because the agencies are they
think it's a home run. If they get a kleone,
you get one percent more in market share. We're from
the world to fifty or die, So we're kind of
like mash surgeons. We kind of get to the issue fast.
As a not native but pretty close to native California.
Where you're from originally Brooklyn, New York.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Okay, God, but we moved here when I was five,
so it wasn't like I had a lot of New.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
York in me.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
But I've been here long enough to know that if
you're voting for a proposition that sounds like you're going
to try and help solve the homeless problem, you might
be making the homeless problem worse. Yeah, Well, and then
the other one, there's a competing initiative that it says
exactly the same thing.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
The fun campaigns are kind of vote no. The vote
yes campaigns are often a shell game. You know, did
you know twenty seven hundred puppies are killed every year?
Vote yes on Prop A, which will change insurance regulations
to triple profits for our catastrophic here and donate a
million a year to Puppy Kit. There's a little baby
switchery the no campaign. There's one generic no campaign that
(11:04):
works all the time, which is Prop twenty eight. They
tell us it's about saving lost puppies. Read the fine print,
you know, boom boom boom or Prop twenty eight. Saving
puppies is a good idea, but it's flawed. It buys
twenty eight Lincoln continentals for state bureaucrats. There's no audit.
So let's vote know and write a better law next year.
(11:26):
You know, a punt thing, and people tend to tend
to love that, So a fair amount of that sort
of thing for all kinds of industries, all kinds of states.
And then, you know the craziest thing I did, because
it's so much like politics, I went out and dabbled
in show business. Well, sold a coupless scripts. Now I'm
in the union. We're going to bring that. Yeah, it's
not a character building experience. Well, we always vote for
(11:48):
strikes and then we teach the studios how to put
writers out of the equation. But what should I be
more cynical about show business or politics? Since you've done
the show business. Yeah, it's a close. It's a close call,
all right. Show business is a little nicer, okay. You know,
both places run on insincerity. Though in politics, if your
(12:10):
enemies want to kill you, they try to put you
in jail. In show business they give you a shitty overall.
Never return your calls in movie jail. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So it's but they're they're cousins.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
But okay, So how did you then sink your teeth
into the conservative move? At what point did you decide?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
You know what? Well, I was the high school in
the seventies, late seventies, and I was very interested in
international affairs, you know, geography, world map, diplomacy, and so
it was a Carter era and I had a bit
of a rebel. But I was from that weird Irish
Catholic up upper middle class educated but somewhat culturally conservative,
(12:57):
you know. And so even the relatives of my mom's
side or at UAW, they were crazy about the Liberals, sure,
and that era it kind of peaked. So I went
off to the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Russian area
studies go fight the Cold War. That was great, but
I always loved film theater, pop political theater. I love
the conventions and all that kind of So one thing
(13:19):
led to another. I'm in my dorm room and I
had gotten an internship at a conservative pack called nick
Pack back then, and we would run We kind of
invented independent expenditures where a third party could run ads.
The theory was the congressman, nice guy for Congress wouldn't
want to run ads criticizing the opponent, but we could.
(13:39):
They kind of plowed a course for him. So I
wanted to make the ads. But you know, I'm a
sophomore in college. So we had fired the ad agency,
and well, who knows how to make ads? And you know,
paid intern mic I did it, you know many Clio's
and micro I just didn't bring them. So I called
a guy named Alex Costiano, supposed to be an ACE
ad producer, and he had made ad and so hence
(14:02):
Murphy Castianos began, and my first big break. We did
much ads for Nick Pack independ expenditure. Learned production from
these tough old CBS News sixty minutes cameraman. It all
learned in the Air Force, and they kind of taught
me production in their drill sergeant kind of way. There
was a great one named Bob Peterson and Lee Kennauer,
(14:23):
and so learned a lot. I'm still going to school.
Then I get a call for the next cycle eighty four,
where I'm no longer really showing up for classes anymore,
from this great old consultant, woman Maxine Fernstrom, who had
Congressman wild Bill Karney from the Long Island Fishtail Stuffolk
(14:43):
County machine Republican Congressman's had a name like wild Bill.
That was a nickname. Publicly it was William Carney. All right,
I want to vote for a wild Bill. Well, Carney
got elected in the eightie Reagan landslide because the Long
Island used to have a Republican machine dying breed. And
the boss sent them all down and said, all right,
it's an open seat. We're going to do well with Reagan.
(15:03):
We need a congressman. I need anybody who's married, Irish, Catholic,
no criminal problems, stand up. And like three guys stood up, right.
Corney was one of them. You're a good looking kid,
you're running for Congress. He was an aluminum siding salesman,
and they get him elected. Then in eighty two. Is
congressman a step up from aluminum siding salesman or step down,
(15:24):
same skill set, exactly better money. Probably in Congress he'd
gotten in trouble because they were building the short of
nuclear power plant and the construction interest to her with
the Republicans wanted to so there was a recall effort
against Congressman Carney back in eighty two, this first reelect,
and he almost lost forty seven votes in the Machine county.
(15:47):
Give you an idea how long island works. Aldamato was
a local official there and they beamed him up to
the Senate to get out of the local stuff where
the careers were, you know, also too greedy. We'll make
them a senate or get them out of here. That worked, Yeah,
it worked great. It was kind of a fluke win,
but anyway, so it was time for the rematch and
(16:08):
nobody wanted to do it. Sure a loser, but you
know I'm a starving kid, right, So did the race.
It was only radio. We had a lot of money,
but we had no votes. So my big idea was
go on New York radio, and I remember the bosses
sent me down and said, we like to do yard
signs here. Here's my brother's card runs a printing company,
seventeen dollars each year. I said no. I said, we're
(16:31):
going to do New York Radio. We got money, and
they said, you're out of your mind. It's fifty congressional
districts here in New York Radio. I go, yeah, and
cleaning the one we're losing. So we did it, and
being young and irresponsible, we did the War of the
World spot. Okay, you know, ant, we interrupt this broadcast
for a test of the shorm nuclear emergency of vacuum.
You'll have six minutes to get to Connecticut. And we
(16:52):
mailed everybody a map with the circles the deadly radiation.
Because our opponent, the state rep had voted for a
state rescue plan for call the power company. They don't
share that would have turned the plan on for a
while to pay down the day. So as far as
we were concerned, he was for finishing and activating short
and we had more money. We had New York Radio,
so we and it was eighty four good year. We
(17:13):
killed the guy. That's great. Now my phone's ringing and
I maybe maybe great, maybe not.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
I'lation yeah, it worked, and I Uh, next thing, you know,
I'm in political I take a leave of absence from Georgetown,
which I'm still on.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
And one day I'll go back and they're not giving you,
like some degree from Georgetown. You haven't gotten something. You know.
I need to find the office they have in the
Middle East because I think I think there's some money
involved sometimes in them. I loved it was a wonderful
place Jesu, which taught me how to argue both sides
of anything, which is a valuable skill.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
That's what I did at UCLA, went to philosophy major,
and so it's all about knowing both sides.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, tremendous respect for a good argument, for sure.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And it's helpful as a writer that you do to
understand two sides of every argument, because your cares all
have different sides and different.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Points, and every character thinks they're a hero. So and
that led to a lot of races right mostly on
the media message side, you know, don't be alone.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
With Was it the rule then, or is it still
the rule? Or maybe it's an imagined rule that the
pack can't talk to the candidate in an independent expenditure.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
You're off in your own world trying to kind of
do this crescent thing where you want to know what
they're thinking and you try, so.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
How do you know that the thing that you're making
either is in the spirit of the candidate. Of the candidate,
we'll appreciate it, and or yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
A good question. So originally we invented it in the
stone age of this in the early eighties. We would
take our own polling and say, obviously, the vulnerability of
Congressman Bagatonas is missed eighty two votes to a junk in,
and so we're softening them up so that we're open
a hole because we're trying to help challengers beating comments.
(19:12):
Now there's some legality. It's become so huge that campaigns
spend a lot of efforts sending signals, and if you
go on a big campaign, a contested one's website, you
will find an unmarked page somewhere that's publicly accessible, and
they might put up an ad with a AI voiceover
(19:35):
that nobody's supposed to really see other than curious people
who've digging, But the Ie committee is supposed to see. Boy,
if only we if we had money to run this ad,
and then you go copy it and put it. I mean,
it's very you got to be careful. If you're smart,
you lawyer up tremendously. But there are ways that signals
of are sent. There's often a lot of those stress
(19:57):
between the campaign people. Those idiots at the super Pac
ran the wrong ad. That happened a lot with Airis.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Now as a consultant, you obviously make money the bigger
the campaign way you can, but you get the bigger
campaign than the bigger the consultant fee. And that kind
of I mean my era because I'm kind of winding
down now.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I'm doing a little, but I'm not doing Republican candidates
anymore can't take it and I'm no good for them.
I also don't want to travel. I'm busy in corporate
and the you know other stuff. In the old old days,
it still kind of exists. The media consultants would act
like the ad agency. So if you in ad agency
(20:39):
world traditionally, though everything's disrupted now, you spend a million
hours on advertising. You charge the client a million dollars.
The station has charge you eight hundred and fifty and
there's a fifteen percent commission, and you know, you have
certain costs to buy the media, which is a complicated thing.
The Commission would be negotiating. Were paid seven percent on
(21:01):
the first million, five percent on the second. So generally
a bigger campaign you charge more money, but you're also competing.
There's always somebody says, I'll do it all for two percent, right,
And so if you become known as somebody with experience
and you've won a lot of races, you're in demand
and you can say, yeah, look, get the guy who
does it in his basement, really good. This will be
(21:21):
his first Senate campaign. He'll learn a lot. I'll show
up for the concession speech. You know, don't go and
get that. That's my rank. You can charge a lot.
The key is the smart consumer would limit the number
of races, right, So I would get full Bote fifteen
on some things. But I said, I'm only going to
do two governor races. You're one of them. And I
do a lot of it myself. I had people there,
but I was the hands on person. And would you
(21:44):
pick if you could, a candidate who you thought was
going to be a winner, Like, well, how to have
more winners in your column? And yeah, but it's weighted.
It's kind it's just like credits, and you know, the
show biz world. So I'm I say, all right, i
can do four state wides, and this year I'm going
to go get two big, well paying tough ones. And
(22:07):
then I got an old buddy who's an easy reelect
won't make much money, but you know he's always used me,
and it'll be an easy thing to do, and I
can train a kid on it a little bit, and
then like I got one more slot, the greedy guys
will try to get a third huge race. But the
key to making money in this business is the longevity.
But I'll say, when I go get an easy re election,
(22:28):
you know, Illinois, a big market, maybe I'll have a
shot at a governor's race there because my stuff will
be good. They're seeing it on TV. So you can
be a little strategic. But generally, when people are looking
at hiring you, the pros are always amateurs who show up
with money and get rolled. You know it's a member.
Once I was pitching this crazy guy was a commercial
real estate developer in New Haven, Connecticut, and I just
(22:52):
signed my office lease. I said, yeah, you know, and
he goes, here's anything you know about office Leasa's kid,
you we do it five times a day. You do
it once every eight years. I probably didn't do that well,
you know. So there are people who get rolled by
political consultants a lot, but I, you know, it was
(23:13):
pretty good because you could have some price control, but
you didn't need to win. It helps to win, but
you didn't need. Yeah, but they judge you on a curve.
So winning an easy re elect and what a lot
of consultants would do is they would go take the
easy re elect incumbent senator, good Republican state, pretty easy,
and they'd lowball it just to get an excuse to
(23:34):
make some pretty spots for the real So there would
be incentives for marketing as well. But I got hired
because I would go do tough races, mostly in non
red states. My specialties were that Michigan back then, Wisconsin
still a swing state, but it was even a little
tough for blue. Florida was a swing state. Massachusetts. I
(23:55):
did Romney's race for governor there Arnold here in California.
So I like to play on the other sides urf win,
you know. So there was was there is like a
filter through how hard was the job, and that's part
of it. So you want to take some tough ones
and they're more fun. But now that so you're winding
down from all of that, can we agree that this
(24:17):
I'm an apostate in the part.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
The money, the money that goes into these campaigns is
kind of ruining.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I don't know. Money is speech, and sometimes the only
speech the candidate has it's not through a filter, is
the money. Otherwise, Okay, I'm going to say something, I'm
going to rely on Fox News to interpret it for
the audience or the New York Times, you know. So
there's a lot of filters out there, and so money
is the blunt instrument that allows you to break through.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yeah, I mean, clearly it's a double edged sword because
that is speech and it is being heard, but it
also is all the politicians are now admittedly spending all
their time fundraising, spending all like so much of their time,
and sometimes it affects their policy and like fo Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Political contributions really well, they come from different pots. One
pot is a catalog business of people who give fifty
or one hundred bucks. That's all emotional appeal, that's ideological,
and it pays to send hot messages out. More money
comes in on the left or the right, right, I'm
overwhelmed with those hot messages. You've made the mistake of
(25:32):
giving before you know, this is this is the election,
this is the end of the world is nigh? You
know all that The old trick used to be when
it was all direct mail. Now with the Internet, the
cost of the communications so cheap, it doesn't cost anything
to email a million people. Back when they had the mail,
they'd spend eighty cents mailing you a letter and they'd
hope ten percent where five percent would give back and
(25:54):
they'd still make a little money. There used to be
the business reply you know, no most envelope.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So what.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Secret? And the trick, as we were all on the list,
is you take the business reply envelope, you stick in
there's a code on the laser printed letter you get
that they can track you with. That's the car. You
put that in. You tape it to a brick or
prefer sometimes a cinderblot, and the post office for eighty
two dollars will bring it back. And the first thing
you do is delete you from any other And some
(26:21):
misterevous campaigns would go get one hundred bricks on a
hundred that's almost a weapon. How much does it cost
to mail a brick back then, and you know, nineteen
ninety eight dollars or ninety six dollars. It was because
the bres are like faster. It was like seventy bucks
or it was lot. Sure, so you go do three
(26:41):
hundred bricks, you know it hurts. Yeah, yeah, So the
campaigns used to be a little more fun with that
kind of you know, PG rated chicanery, not now or
and there's no strategy now. Now it's chainsaws at two
feet and you don't have to tell the truth. Right.
You used to get in trouble in a political ad
if you lied more than like ten percent.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
As a diet in the wold Progressive I'm what, yeah,
I know how shocking, but as like we seem so impotent.
I mean, it seems like we're just we're staring at
the big bad wolf and going like, well, okay, burning
down the house.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
That's all right, you know it's what's pearls call a shrink. Yes,
the Democrat came. We're training a Republican party from age
three that when you're in one of these battles, grab
the sharpest thing you can and attack, right, don't don't
decide to have a group about our right everybody's feelings now,
and I think we really don't try to impress the
New York Times, we used to say, and it's like
(27:36):
confessions of a Republican political goon. Let them win the
smart editorial board argument. We're going to win the stupid
supermarket checkout line argument. Right. And that's a pretty good formula,
it does. It seems to have worked.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Could you have fathomed how dumb this country was until recently?
Did you always as a political consultant? Did you always
know and in your base that I'm going to kill myself.
You're because in my younger, angrier years, there was one
year under occupation on my taxes, I put Moron Wrangler
because I was out moving, you know, generally, I mean,
I have to back up. I did this by choice
(28:12):
because I care about policy.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Right. Two thirds of the people I helped get into
office and voters did the real work, and the candidates
did I'm very proud of they were tremendous, particularly some
of those Republican governors like Jeb Romney, John Engler and
Michigan and Tommy Thompson. Very proud because they were grown
ups and they did great stuff. Now that it's all performative,
they're a lot harder to find, right, And they were
(28:34):
also conservatives, So we're stupider than we were because again,
politics is not seen as that important. It's become entertainment
and sports. But well that's the thing about the media,
they cover politics like sports. Well, the focus groups show
that Hitler's message about immigrants and perhaps locking up all
the Jews tests very well with these key swing voters
(28:55):
they're in Dortmund. Well, yes it's true, but the Christian
Democrats do seem to have there's no loading to it, right,
it's all coach analysis and scorecard, which is nuts. So
many Americans who could have voted didn't vote. Like there,
Well that's a vote. Though not voting is an expression
of screwboat. Right. People choose not to vote. It's the
third choice. Right.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
People don't invest themselves into their civic duty. People definitely
want to hide from jury duty. They want to hide
from voting. They want to have a citizenship. The idea
that there is an obligation, there's a foreign idea. Now
speak of a good citizenship. Tell me about EV's and
tell me about that. I mean, we we have my family,
we have two electric vehicles and one hybrid vehicle. Okay,
(29:41):
and so we're doing your part, doing my part. But
but the thing is, one of our vehicles is.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
A Yeah, there you go America right now, Yeah, there
you go. So it's made by Chinese craftsmen. Listen, I'm
happy to somebody's getting work.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
But but like one of our one of our vehicles
is a Tesla, right, and so now that we felt like, well, okay,
well it really well.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
It was the must have car for a while. And
now what happened was I don't know if you heard
about this, but yeah, to go crazy South African.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah. So now I feel shitty about the paying eighty
thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
For my for my Tesla. Well let me. I'll give
you the ev story, and I'm going to kill your
entire audiencer as they get bored and tune out, but
I'll give you this short version. Yeah. So what, I'm
a motorhead from Detroit. My lifetime average is five miles
per gown, you know. But when I got out here
to California, I found all my prejudices against you know.
(30:41):
I used to write Dentis jokes about it. Yeah, they
run on smugness. Melted away one thanks to our huge
tax regime here and other reasons. You know, we were
for a while pain six bucks plus a gown for gas.
But the elegance an internal combustion engine is an amazing thing.
About four hundred parts, many of them machine a lot
of work. We perfected the damn thing over one hundred
(31:03):
and twenty years. We make really good isations now. But
an electric power trains maybe seven moving parts. So just
the physics of it are more elegant. Yeah, And so
I became a nut for evs, a slow convert because
the technology of them. Then I took a look at
the world trends because I have kind of an OCD
personality where when I get interested in something, I want
to know everything about it, and so I go off
(31:24):
into a weird you know, deep dive. Good thing about
the campaign business is you learn how to take things
apart quickly, Like, all right, we're going to run a
Vermont governor's campaign. I know how governor campaigns work. Never
done Vermont. I'm gonna learn everything about I drive up there,
spend three days driving around. I've become a massive bore
about Vermont and the demographics. Sentrey think is how to
(31:45):
be a good consultant. Well from us, just New Hampshire
without the signs, right, yeah, it's here's the great thing
about Vermont. Very liberal, also kind of appellation redneck at
the same time, loosest gun control laws in a man
you want to own a gatling gun. Mood of Vermont,
most nuclear state, you know. So it's a lot of contradictions.
(32:07):
But went in doubt the mountain range there which it
becomes Appalatia. That strain is still still there. Anyway, it's
a pretty interesting state. The candidate I worked for there,
the governor, actually carried a thirty eight and an ankle holster,
you know, right, he was kind of a big guy.
I wasn't sure he could ever get to it. Anyway,
(32:28):
he almost killed me one night, and no way. This
is a new podcast. I think I'm going to do
funny campaign stories. Yes, about all the weirdos that you
deal with. How funny they all are. The human comedy
of it is. Oh god, I'll tell you one story
and then I'll get back to eving ern Our. Kirk
Castianos and I get a call from an up and
(32:48):
coming Republican politician who was a member of Congress clearly
going places. Had a somewhat tough district, so I had
to have a good team, but had their eye on
state wise governor president, good looking and smart, always wore
crisp white shirts in a perfect suit. So and he's
going to hire his first real consultants because the district
(33:08):
had got a little tougher. But he's got a plan.
He's one of these very serious guys, not a big
sense of humor, kind of little pretentious. Everything was said
with great important like I made brownies the other day
with walnuts, you know a little. So anyway, we're having
(33:30):
the conversations to get to know, you think right after
we got hired. And then he finally said, and we're
on the regulation blue navy blue congressional couch and he's
by his desk in the ornate office, probably his fourth
term in Congress or thirty. It's one thing I want
you to know. Long pause. I only have one testicle, okay,
(33:53):
And we like look at each other like it's just
a test Is this guy crazy? And we both want
to say the same thing like Hitler, but we don't. Anyway,
it didn't last on that campaign, sure, but yeah, I
used to heal in he did. I think for a while,
but he never You never know what he could have
done with two testicles. Yeah, I know it'd be president fantastic, absolutely,
(34:16):
But EVS so grew up around the auto industry, and
the more I learned about it, I was attracted dv's
and I was not a big climate guy. Yeah, I
believe in it and everything. Climate is actually the problem
with EV's, which I'll explain in a minute. But what
I liked about them, other than the tech side of it,
was the future of the world auto industry. The US
(34:38):
is only ten percent of the world auto market currently
is twenty five percent EVS in the world today, twenty
five percent of the cars are going to be pure electric,
and it's taken over the Chinese that made him move
eighteen years ago approximately where they said to the European
American automakers, you know what, we need cars. We can't
make good cars. We're going to open the market. You
(34:59):
guys are going to make billions over here, but you
got to do a joint venture and teach local guys
how to make a car. And Volkswagen, Mercedes, General Motors,
Ford everybody went running over there and built a ton
of car planks and minted money billions of dollars. Exactly
how to do it. Showed them how the boy these
young engineers are so nice they want to learn. They
(35:19):
cut my lawn on weekends the same in Bite Me
to a feast. GM used to sell more cars in
Asia than they do in the US, and it's only
recently it's backed off a little. And it worked. Everybody
made a fortune. Chinese learned how to make good cars.
So now, of course the foreign brands were all being
killed in China. China is capable of making fifty million
(35:40):
cars a year. They made thirty million. Last year, we
made ten million. Most Americans don't know the Chinese auto
industry is three times our size. They are eating the
world market four years ago, both electric and ice, you know,
combustion cars. Mexico imported fifty thousand Chinese cars this year
probably six hundred thousand. Oh, they're going to wipe out
(36:01):
the US auto industry. I had the CEO of the
famous car company say, it's even money whether we're going
to exist in ten years if we can't get EV's right.
So there were a lot of execution flaws, but Biden
was essentially right about subsidizing our industry. The Chinese are
particularly good at batteries. They have an MIT all about
battery tech. Funny thing is, the godfather of the Chinese
(36:25):
battery industry was a GM engineer, an American who after
the early GM electrics were sheld, they put them in
the fan belt. Thing of nothing to do. He flies
to China to give a speech one hundred young engineers.
One is photo autographed, and the chairman of this young
Chinese startup saying, you ever want to come here and
work on batteries, Sure a GM. I can't even get
(36:45):
a parking space anymore. That began CAATL, the dominant world
battery company. So it drove me crazy that Republicans just
reflexibly hated EV's. They've become partisan. So I took my
own dough and I did some campaign style polling about evs,
what the divisions about, and what to do about it,
And you know, Automotive News picked it up. And then
(37:07):
I'm getting car CEOs calling and come on it. So
I've become kind of an EV activist advisor. And I'll
give you the one headline. It's not about the environment.
We are a country you can say This is terrible,
it's crazy. I'm going to call the New York Times
and write a letter. You can do all that, and
then you can join Kamala in the concession. You know,
(37:28):
you got to go to people where they are, then
you might be able to move them. We ask questions
on our polling, what you know, which of these statements
do you agree with? Climate change is a serious problem,
and we've got to take action, serious actions. Climate change
is overhyped by the media and it's no big deal.
The car market will tell you it's about fifty two
(37:49):
percent serious action and about forty eight percent no big deal.
I'm sorry, fifty eight serious action, forty two no big deal.
Very partisan. So when you do the white pole bear commercials,
the original Nissan leaf where the polar bear's mad and
swims to American hugs a guy by a leaf, you're
alienating half the market. The more evsers in as political,
(38:10):
the worst they do elon who is now pre the
latest feud is favorable unfavorable Republicans with like seventy over
ten Democrats five favorable eighty unfavorable. No wonder the brand's
blown up, right, you know, because he's politicized. The other
way his brand. So the way to see electric cars
is faster, fun to drive, save two grand a year
(38:32):
in gas. You don't have to pay anymore. Average family
spends two grand a year. The electric costs about seven
hundred thirteen hundred a head, and they're more American made by.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
The way, don't be alone.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
The China started, the government started like twenty more. There
are one hundred ev companies essentially.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Right, and they just figured out which ones would do great,
and only three make money, right, And so pretend you're
the CEO of Ford.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
You got to compete with guys who have more scale.
And in the auto business, the more you make that
you for the cost to make and don't have to
make a profit. So when they come into Australia, here's
a twenty three thousand dollars electric car that we lose
money on. How do you compete with that without going bankrupt?
Speaker 3 (39:31):
But in the United States we've regularly helped companies. The
government now has been helping subsidies of companies to do better.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
At least that's what used to happen. I go. I
don't know if trying to kill it now the Senate is,
but basically you go out today to lease an EV
and I would tell our loyal listeners always lease. Why
most of the time of cars you want to buy
with EV's because the battery is improving every twenty four months.
Your resale is not good, so when you own it,
(40:04):
the car will depreciate too quick. Lease it three years
you'll get seventy five hundred off the top from Uncle Sam.
And the Republicans are trying to kill that. They probably
will by the end of the year. I'm a pre
enterprise guy. I hate terrorists, and I don't like subsidies.
But in the short term our companies are good, and
the new evs are tremendous, not just Tesla. The Cadillac
(40:26):
stuff is great, the key of stuff which is made
in Hyundai, which has made here. Rivian and Tesla are
great cars. The Rivian and Lucid Tesla. I'm kind of
bitchy about for crazy Detroit reasons. And then you got
the elon right. You know, you got to decide if
you're on that Vandwagon. But fundamentally, if we get a
couple of years support here so it's not a one
(40:46):
sided fight, well we keep the Chinese out, our guys
will be strong enough to compete with the Chinese worldwide,
or we're going to lose an auto industry. So here's
what I close my little duh congressman powerpoints with. It's
one state. I want you to know. Stop thinking this
is green dogma. This is US manufacturing jobs and not
just the Big three. The most successful auto plant in
(41:09):
America for exports, Number one is BMW in South Carolina.
It's the biggest BMW plant in the world. American workers.
I'm for NATO Allies or Japan or the Koreans building here,
and also Canada, Mexico. It's all integrated in World War
Two in the late thirties. Before the start of the
war in thirty nine, the British Empire, Britain and Canada
(41:34):
which small part of it but I include them, made
half a million light cars and trucks cars and light
trucks vehicles. The French made about three hundred and forty thousand,
Germans made about four hundred and twenty thousand. The US
and the year before Pearl Harbor made four point seven
million light vehicles. And that was the industrial backbone that
won the Second World War. The Russian Army ran an
(41:55):
American trucks, ammunition and locomotives. Third of the British Army did,
and all our army because the assembly line is one
of the few things that can build big, complicated machines
at speed and volume. In fact, in the war, it
was autogism took over making airplanes right because they didn't
know how to make a lot of them right, and
so it was production line techniques. So I don't care
(42:16):
if it's drones or what we're making. It's that manufacturing
muscle that is key to our national security. And right
now again, the Chinese in a production war would beat
us five to one. One of the reasons I'm very
excited that you were here is though I could talk
to you about this, well, you're ready for downal surgery now,
because I bored you to know. Know.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
With VS, it's to that point, which is, you know,
Democrats are very good, and I speak as a Democrat.
Democrats are very good at over regulating things to death
so that nothing works right or it can't get done.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Can't get done. There's too many regulations and too many
we got to help.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
This commuittey in that community thing, and we can't push forward.
And this is one of the issues. So I wanted
to ask you. You seem very you know, reasonable and
smart and all convinced me to be more of a conservative.
Tell me why I should be more of a conservative,
because I'm sure, okay, so tell me.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Well, it's been fun to be in la I mean
here since two thousand pe people have been very nice
to be particularly in show business. But there is what
I call the Lord Greystoke factor, which is your Republican right.
Look at that he can use a front his pants
swinging from the chandelier. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Two plus two is he can do math? You know,
(43:33):
there's kind of this stuff that's fine. Well, yeah, no,
thank you. And there's also ten percent who pulled me
into the hallway. I'm a Republican. I just I want
to have a career. We visited Saturday Night Live once
with a candidate in the mid nineties and three writers
pulled me under the bleachers and said, we're the only
(43:54):
three Republicans working on network TV in New York City.
I can't recommend the current populis republished. But here's the
point of conservatism, all right, have some faith in people
to make decisions. Give them the freedom to do that
incentivize good decisions, don't make bad decisions that easy, because
(44:15):
generally when you try to do good by amassing power,
you know the Leviathon, as Hobbs would say, there's a
good book by Hia called Road Deserved Them. When you
create a big colossus of power to make everybody's lives better,
that power tends to corrupt. It's or well, all pigs
(44:37):
are equals, some more than the others. And so if
you achieve a few things, which is empowered choice, be
very good at civic ladders, upward self education, public libraries,
all this stuff to give people who choose to a
route to self improvement. So the institutions of upward mobility
(44:59):
work for every If you're a math genius born on
the East side of Detroit, now you do not have
the same shot and the success you ought to have
as a math genius born in Scarsdale, New York, public education,
which is tragic. And by the way, every year the
Chinese have five times as many math genius is born
as we do, so we got to take advantage of
(45:20):
the ones we have. If you do this big government stuff,
then you take choice and freedom away and you get
into statism, which is not good at getting things done
and stifles human creativity. The difference between us and this
is hard to say in la where dogs are people,
but dogs we can think and choose right and wrong.
Our choices have power and impact. So build a society
(45:43):
that rewards that. And the infrastructure you're talking about. Where
schools were great and everybody had we leveled the sort
of the playing field to start with, so everybody has
a great option to begin with, and then each person
to his own ability. We didn't. We turned teachers' unions
into British steel mill unions. They're about the teachers, not
(46:04):
about the kids. There is a Fred Siegel wrote a
great book about this in the nineties about that. You
can look it up, about the New York City Teachers Unions,
which started out as a professional organization. By the end
of it it was carpltanol I need a year off,
and the kids got left behind, and it went from
the best public school system in the world to quite mediocre,
(46:26):
and he traces the decline it. Central control does not
work very well. Yes, it's hard to find an example
where we're going to take dictatorial power of the economy
and over people's choices and save them from themselves. It
seems that central control. Maybe not, but the government, big
government has a place in saving people who are the
(46:51):
most disenfranchised, who are the most problematic.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
I would say that that the bleeding heart liberals like
myself would rather have money spent on helping starving people
and poor people and sick people, and let that some
of them. I'd rather have that system be corrupted or
scams put on it, or people then people being left behind.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Every kid in Newark, do they get a ten thousand
dollar voucher to go to any school, including good ones,
or do you just subsidize the twenty grand they're spending
right now on incredibly mediocre schools. But if the people
leave the school system, the public school system doesn't the
public school system collapse. Well, if the public school system
doesn't work, they will migrate to the better school system
(47:37):
that will be funded by the portable money. Because right
now what we do is patch mediocrity and defend it,
and what the institutions get good at. The incentive right
now for a teachers' union is not to improve schools. No,
it's to defend their political power, to their salaries and
their everything else. It's just the union. Yeah right, I'm
for private sector unions. Public sector unions are in the
(48:01):
old days to deal was you're going to take the
post office job and you're going to get a good pension,
but you're not going to have great wages, but you're
gonna have a lot of security. Now the public sector
unions want a lot of security. They want a massive pension,
good health care and high wages. And what do they
do They elect their bosses by turning out in democratic
(48:21):
primaries to pick the school board, you know. So it
becomes a feedback loop. That's about everything. There is no
incentive for them to do stuff right. I'm for safety
nets and I'm for public infrastructure. I prefer spending money
on bridges and electric charging stuff that works, and street
lights and all that. Then I am on transfer payments,
which is I'll pay you not to work. Fair enough
(48:43):
incentives work. Now, if you go too far, you get dickens.
I get it. But we've tried the noble experiment. We
have written the work houses could be good. Besant E's
got some ideas. Little fingers they can assemble quick, you
can decorate them. Yeah, yeah, this is now time.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
For question time is question, who is the most surprising
candidate you ever worked for?
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Wow, it's a great question. Been lucky. A lot of
them fun are surprising either one. McCain was fun. Yeah,
John McCain two thousand straight truck express, I'll never get
election night in New Hampshire. We won, and McCain at
that moment he figured out, you know, we're on rocket field.
Now we had a good shot at president. And he
was like, holy hell, they fell for it right, you know.
(49:34):
And he was a troublemaker and a wonderful guy. Miss him.
What happened with Sarah Palin? Well, you know he called
me up about it that morning and I told him
he was nuts, And I mean, I'm trying to figure
the short way to say it. They there's an addition
(49:54):
American politics that when the other side is having their convention,
you go underground. I mean, you know. So they were
in Sedona, where McCain had a house, watching the convention,
and most of the commentary you hear about politics from
experts is stupid and wrong. And the people who were
better at makeup than working in politics. It's gotten worse
now too. So people don't remember this, but all the
(50:16):
talk was Obama beat Hillary. Women hate Obama for doing that,
and they were interviewing Democratic Hillary delegates who were all
going to vote for Obama in the end. But yeah,
he's got to prove to me that i'm And so
they're watching all that McCain world. This is a two
thousand and eight campaign wouldn't have happened to mine. And
(50:37):
we got to get a woman, and they went and
they found this charismatic, unvetted woman in Alaska, and they
were so mad at the media that was rough around
McCain in two thousand and eight than they were in
two thousand that we're going to surprise them. It's like
Dana Gool's joke about dumb things to say, watch me
surprise the president, you know. And so we're going to
(50:59):
surprise the media is unvetted unknown. And also I used
to have what I called the Robert Redford rule of
vice presidents, which is, if you represent Robert Redford, you're
the agent. You get the golf in the studio. Hey,
we think it's time for a marvel oscar. So we're
going to do iron Man five and we want Redford.
(51:21):
Well he's eighty two, I know, but your agent. You know,
he's parasitic right now, and then he's got his Karate lessons.
You know, Bob will get you in the greatest Yeah,
he's ready. Well it's a two hander. He's got a sidekick,
titanium man. We're about to close the deal with Brad Pitt.
If you're Redford's agent, you know, I'm thinking a va gooda.
Because you don't want to be better or different. Then
(51:43):
it's about the differences. That's why Clinton was so smart.
All pick another Southern white Protestant, forty year old governor
who's not as good as me Al Gore and now
I'm two feet taller. Arnold was smart. I remember we
had a party when I started working for him for
stuntman at his house and I looked around and every
under five nine stuntman in Hollywood was there. Yeah, you know, yeah, sure.
(52:04):
Bobby Goodman, the great consult when he had John Tower
the Center from Texas to do the re elect shot
the ads in the old Centate chamber with all the
small furniture because Tower was about five five, so Texas giant,
you know, because it was all doll I was furniture.
So that's what happened with pale. Well, thank you for
being here man, you really enjoyed it. Can I do
a plug? You're awesome? Sure? Please? Do you want to
(52:25):
follow me on Twitter at Murphy Mite. You want to
learn about all this crazy ev stuff and get your
own beer cozy, go to ev politics dot org. All
the polling is there. We have an active blog. Uh,
there's even a way to put in a zip code,
find jobs, click a button, send your congressman email, don't
screw the subsidy. Ev politics dot org and can I
(52:45):
do a plug? Yes? Tacks on Tap is a fantastic,
great show. I listened to it every week. Well, it's
like old coaches. You know, it's an inside what's really
going on? And you know, we're two old coaches who've
been to the top level of it, and we pick
her a little. We're old friends, but it's it's done
with love and we're not you know, I tease them
(53:05):
about being a left winger, but we we tell you
what's really going on by how it works. It's a
great show. I listen to it.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
I love I get true insight and it makes me
feel better about the world.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
Well, thank you, that makes us happy. We designed it
so You're on the campaign trail in Iowa a month
before the caucus, and generally all the campaign people from
the different parties and all go to the same bars,
and you walk in like a reporter would or another hack,
pull up a stool, and you have the insight conversation.
I like it, and I really appreciate it. I appreciate
you being here podcast. I'll be plugging it, and.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Thank you for being here, and thank you for joining us,
and please feel free to share the show whenever you
want to and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Don't be alone with
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