July 2, 2025 • 34 mins
Adam Frisch rolled into the Muck You podcast to spill the tea on his wild ride in politics, particularly his fierce showdown with Lauren Boebert in the closest elections in 2022. He’s back in the game for 2026, and let’s just say, he’s got some spicy insights on why Boebert bounced to greener pastures, and how he's aiming for a comeback with the Welcome Party. The convo gets real as they dive deep into the political landscape, pointing out how the Dems gotta step it up and reconnect with everyday folks in small towns who’ve kinda ghosted them. Frisch emphasizes that it ain’t just about party lines; it’s about getting back to what really matters for the community. Colonel Moe Davis and David B. Wheeler are all ears, ready to soak up Frisch’s wisdom that blends humor with hard truths about today’s political circus.
Takeaways:
- Adam Frisch's 2022 campaign against Lauren Boebert was a nail-biter, losing by just 546 votes, making it the closest race in the nation.
- The Welcome Party, which Adam is now involved with, aims to support centrist Democrats in Trump-dominated districts, focusing on local issues and community needs.
- Frisch emphasizes the importance of connecting with moderate voters who feel neglected by both major political parties, advocating for a more inclusive approach.
- The podcast discusses the need for Democrats to re-establish trust and relevance in rural areas where they have lost ground over the past few elections.
- Adam believes that while Democrats need to focus on economic opportunities, they also must reconnect emotionally with voters beyond just facts and figures.
- The co-hosts and Adam agree that the Democratic Party's branding issues have led to a disconnect with many voters who appreciate the party's policies but not its image.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Welcome Party
- Adam Gray
- Marie Guzen Compress
- Jared Golden
- Becca Cook
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Folks, welcome to muck you.This is David Wheeler up in Spruce
pine, North Carolina.Delighted that you all could join
us. We have a very specialguest today and for that intro I'm
going to throw it over to mybuddy colonel Mo Davis. Take it Mo.
Oh, thanks David. And welcomeback everybody. Glad to have you
with us heading into thefourth of July holiday and hope everybody
(00:28):
has a good one. Yeah, as Davidsaid, we do have a special guest
today. Adam Fresh is youprobably remember the name because
back in 2022 there, there are435 House seats and in 2022 the closest
election out of those 435races was out in Colorado where Lauren
(00:53):
Boebert I think everybody'sfamiliar with, you know, ended up
winning the race by 554 votes.It was the closest race in the country
and her opponent was AdamFrisch and you know, you know a fascinating
race. You know, Adam ran againin 2024 and actually ran Lauren Bovert
(01:19):
out of the district. She wasafraid she was going to lose so she
jumped over to anotherdistrict and found some gullible
voters there to, to send herback to, to Washington. And Adam's
now working with a pack up incalled the welcome party and we'll
talk about that today. ButAdam, thanks so much for, for joining
(01:44):
us and giving us some of your time.
Honored to be with you Coloneland David, we spoke way back in those
good old days. It was prettywild times. But I appreciate everyone's
service here and trying tobring a what I call the pro normal
party coalition to theforefront these days.
Right. Hey listen, you knowthere's some politicians like, you
(02:06):
know, Kennedy, the senatorfrom down in Louisiana who kind of
plays the, you know, theOshucks, you know, kind of ignorant,
you know, type, but he'sactually a Harvard graduate. But
you know there's somepoliticians that play dumb and there's
some that actually are. Sotell us a little bit about Lauren
Boebert.
Well, you know, going back acouple years, I never had planned
(02:31):
to be running for U. SCongress. I'd done some city council
work. My wife had done someschool board work that is elected
community service. It wasrepresentative Boebert made some
comments in the summer andfall of 2021. I tell people, don't
ask me what they exactly were,but they were very quote unquote
on brand, you know, ignorantand homophobic and racist and some
(02:56):
combination of just notfocused on the district. She's kind
of the leader of this angertamen industry that you kind of see
out there these days that shehas figured out how to maximize.
And while she doesn't comefrom a formal education background,
we never spent any timetalking about that. You know, she
(03:19):
dropped out of high school in10th grade to work for her family,
and I fully respect and honorthat. And the sad thing is, it's
a sad story because she hadsome bootstrap upbringing and she
could have had a great successstory. Not just success by getting
into the US Congress, butsuccess and actually showing a way
forward that is more positiveand inclusive and trying to do the
(03:40):
right thing and being a goodrole model. And regardless of the
views of her policies, I don'tthink that role model holds very
well for her and a lot ofother people out there.
All right. Yeah, you know,there's some similarities. I. I ran
back in 2020 here in WesternNorth Carolina against Madison Cawthorn.
So if you recall, that was theclass where, yeah, it was Bobert
(04:01):
Cawthorn and Marjorie TaylorGreene kind of the, the. They all
showed up in Congress at thesame time, and he was kind of the
same way. You know, he was ina. In an auto accident and paralyzed
and could have been a, youknow, a real role model, you know,
and a positive influence, butchose, you know, kind of the same
thing. You're talking aboutthe anger, tainment. You know, he's
(04:23):
big on the, you know, toxicmasculinity and all that stuff. And,
you know, we were fortunate.David and I, you know, worked hard
here to make sure he was oneand done. And so he's now, now a
Florida resident. So. Talkabout the 2024 race. You know, you
got back in, you're going torun again and going to run against
(04:44):
Lauren Boebert and whathappened there.
Yeah, I mean, to kind ofsummarize, the 22 that goes into
24, we had the closest. Notonly was it the closest race in the
country, if we all rememberthe 538 political podcast, they did
say that it was the biggestsurprise in the history of their
model. And their model had uslosing by. We were supposed to lose
(05:07):
by 40,000 votes, and we endedup losing by under 550. And that's
why this thing turned into abit of a big deal when a lot of people
kind of blew us off and wejust, you know, my view is there's
a lot of crazy people in theworld. There aren't that many crazy
people in the world. And athird of the Republican Party wanted
(05:27):
their party back. It'sprobably more so now I was independent
for 25 years. I've always saidif there was a good stuff done party,
I'd be in the get stuff doneparty. But that party has not done
very well and our country'ssuffering because of that. So I re
registered as a Democrat and Iwould have entered the House as probably
the most conservative, if notone of the most two or three conservative
(05:47):
Democrats in the entirecountry. So going to 24, it was a
bit of a no brainer. Aftertaking a couple months of breathing
room and reconnecting with thefamily to give it a go again. And
we got off to a great start onfundraising. I had good name recognition.
We were driving all over thedistrict. You know, I ended up driving
over 75,000 miles, which is athird of the way to the moon. I realize
(06:11):
in a district bigger than thestate of Pennsylvania, you know,
it takes 10 hours with notraffic to drive from point to point.
And we just connected with alot of people and, you know, I think
we were able to be verysincere and very authentic in what
we wanted to talk about. Andwe were laser focused on kind of
local based politics asstaying away from, you know, I kept
(06:32):
on saying like, if there was atagline for my campaign, it was I
am focused on Team CD3. I'mnot focused on team Red or blue or
I'm not focused on teamDemocrat or Republican. I'm there
to represent the men and thewomen in the small business communities
and of the district. So we hadthat. So she started to struggle
there. And in the winter of2023, she did a poll. And while we
(07:01):
don't know what the exactresults were, we know what the questions
were asked. And there was apolling outfit that she had paid
for to figure out theviability. And sure enough, she must
have been down by a lotbecause she became the first person,
I believe in 20 some years toliterally bail on their district
that was not due toredistricting against kind of a repeat
(07:23):
challenger and myself. And soon one hand I was proud that we chased
her out of the district. I wasreally hoping to see her being chased
out of Congress. And I triedto tell my, you know, kind of centrist,
moderate Republican friendsover in the Eastern Plains for sure
where she moved. And that'slike an art, you know, that was like
a Republican 20 pointdistrict, not a Republican eight
(07:46):
or nine point district. And Isaid, listen, the only thing worse
than a carpet bagger is anineffectual, embarrassing carpetbagger.
And you should probably run inthat model. And unfortunately, the
five of them did not truststraws to figure out who should run
against her. And so the fiveRepublicans got 10 or 11% of the
vote and Bobert got somewherein the low 40s. And she's pretty
(08:10):
set there now. We'll see whathappens in this environment. But
when she left, we ended uprunning against this guy Jeff Heard,
who's now in Congress. Trumpwon our district by 10 points and
we lost it by five. So we hadan over performance of about five
points. In 22, we had an overperformance by eight or nine points.
(08:31):
And so, you know, we've shownto the nation that we've had one
of the better overperformingraces, even without Lauren Boebert
in the entire country. And soI'm trying to share that kind of
knowledge and experience andhard knocks with other candidates
out there with this welcomeParty Welcome Pack group that we're
working with. We're trying tosupport centrist Democrats only focused
(08:55):
in the US House and onlyrunning in Donald Trump districts.
And you know, to my superliberal friends, I'd say like, hey,
listen, we're all on the sametrain, but we're in very different
cars and we need a longertrain. And I have a big belief that
longer train is not comingfrom getting out the vote in New
York City or Boulder, Coloradoor San Francisco. We need to figure
(09:19):
out a way as Democrats to earnback a bunch of voters that used
to vote for us a generation orhalf a generation ago and have since
left the party and or haveleft voting for people that are running
in Democrats outside of these20 big cities.
So tell us a little bit moreabout the welcome Party. And before
(09:43):
we go any further, what's thewebsite so folks can take a look?
Yeah, there's welcome, there'sthe WelcomeParty.org and Welcome
Pack.org it's pretty much thesame group of people, just five of
us, six of us. None of us livein D.C. and there are three founders
that started this about six orseven years ago and they've been
(10:07):
very, very focused on gettingcensus Democrats elected in the U.S.
house. There's a lot of bellsand whistles to chase out there,
but they've been very focused.We've been very focused going forward
on making sure that we try toget gavels. So tactically, tactically,
our plan in 24 and 26 is towin back the House and that's going
(10:27):
to happen again from gettingcentrist Democrats to run and challenging
districts strategically, weare also very focused on kind of
building out A flywheel, ifyou will. That again, I don't want
to get into binaryconversations always between like
there's liberals and there'scentrists. Because I think, Colonel,
you know, and David, you know,everyone's kind of living like 15
(10:50):
dimensional lives. Like I'm ahusband and a father and an uncle
and a nephew and an Americanand a Colorado in, and I'm Jewish
and I grew up in Indianreservation, right. And all of us
are living all thesemultidimensional lives and we show
up in this politicalconversation and there's a one dimensional
question, right? You know, areyou on Republican or Democrat? But
my belief is that most peopleare between the 240 yard lines, if
(11:13):
I will. And that's where allkind of the action is to get these
gavels. And so we're very,very focused on earning these gavels.
And we just, we just know thatUnlike in the mid-90s, when Bill
Clinton literally won amajority of the rural counties in
the country, like literally1996, there's about 2,000 rural counties
(11:35):
in the country. Bill Clintonwon a little bit over 50% of them.
And then Obama won about 25%for his reelection and Biden and
Harris won fewer than 8 or 10%of the rural counties in the country.
So my, you know, my, it's asad joke, but like The Democratic
Party's 20 big cities, Aspenand Martha's Vineyard, basically
20 big cities that are notgetting the best version in the Democratic
(11:58):
Party. New York City to be isprobably a sad example of that, where
I used to live for a while.And so we're trying to figure out
how to get back to thosesmaller communities, working class
communities, kind of factorytowns, if you will. And certainly
in North Carolina, you know,outside of a couple of the big cities
(12:19):
of the college towns, theseare communities that used to vote
Democrat and don't do that anymore.
Well, Mo and I certainly knowthat unfortunately we've both been
on the ballot and haveexperienced what's going on there
as far as the loss ofDemocrats out in this part of the
(12:39):
world. But, you know, onequestion, I mean, you ran such a
great campaign in, in 22, andit was a pleasure to meet you and
your wife and be out there andtry and support and we were trying
to be the bad cop. I'm notsure that we helped that much. I,
I think we raised the volumeon our negatives a little bit. How.
(13:00):
And you're such a positiveguy, you're a business person, you've
had success in life You've,you've been great at getting elected
locally and doing some goodthings too. By the way. How, how
do you balance, you know,going after a scoundrel like Bobert
with, you know, yourpersonality and in your campaign,
(13:23):
which is, was so successful?
Yeah, no, it's a goodquestion, David, and thanks for that
and I appreciate you guys. Youknow, it was a, we need multifaceted
effort to try to win. Youknow, I, I, there's a couple thoughts
about this. You know, NancyPelosi or the recent speaker of the
House shared this comment andI, I, I agree with her some of the
time, not all the time. Butshe has a great line which is, listen,
(13:46):
winning is a decision to bemade. And once you decide to win,
every decision you make afterthat has to be on that goal of winning.
And you would think that thereason political parties are founded
is to win elections, toimplement policies, not just to win,
but implement policies thatyou think are better for your community
and the country. And theproblem is the more I get involved
(14:07):
in this political sphere, andit's not being completely sniped,
but not everybody actuallywants to win. And to me it's winning
a majority. There are someloud parts of both parties that are
probably able to raise moremoney, hire more people and, and
generate more notoriety forbeing a minority, allowed voice to
(14:31):
be a majority voice in aminority party. And to me, that's
not winning. To me, winning ishaving gavels and having a majority.
And so every day I wake up,I'm trying to figure out how do I
build those majorities. Anddepending on in my inputs of that
are a couple things. Sadly, intoday's state, in state of politics,
only eight or nine states areprobably in play in the US Senate,
(14:56):
which is also related to thepresidential elections. Eight or
nine, 10 states, okay, say,right. And in the house, there's
probably 30 to 40 seats thatare going to be in play in 2026.
And within those geographicalboundaries, my view is only about
15% of the people in thosedistricts are probably up for grabs
(15:19):
because so many other peoplein this district in the country,
they're probably ready to votein the 2064 election, right? Just
like they show up in teamDemocrat and team Republican. And
I kind of kind of parks inboth houses, if you will. And so
every day I'm waking up now,and every day I was waking up in
(15:39):
22 and 24 is how do I make aconnection on policy, but also on
values with those voters thatare able to be won over beyond Party
affiliation. Right. And so inmy view is there's a couple characteristics
that I believe that these 15%of these voters in a subpart of the
(16:03):
country have. And again I'mnot a political scientist, I'm not
a pollster but I feel likeI've done a 75,000 mile focus group
over the, you know, over theyears of 21, 22, 23 and 24. And this
is a district that was isregistered 22% democrat and we've
got 49.99% of the vote onetime and you know, 47.5% of the vote
(16:25):
the other. And to me is those15% of the people are, they're probably
more moderate if you will.They're probably between the 245
yard lines and they probablyhave opted out of politics more than
they've opted into politics.They probably do not know who the
Vice President of the UnitedStates is. They probably do not know
(16:45):
there's an election until amonth or two before. And for good
reason. They don't likepolitics. And so I'm always thinking
and we at welcome are alwaysthinking about how do we earn the
trust and support of thesepeople that are going to decide a
lot of important issues andpolicies for the entire country going
(17:05):
forward. And so it's a littleanalytical in my thinking but it's
important for people to kindof know what my assumptions are as
we try to fill, how to buildand well, I appreciate there's a
role to be played for pushingback. You use it yourself. David,
good cop and bad cop I justlook at is what's the most effective
(17:27):
way to earn trust withsincerity with these people that
have the ability to still bepretty open minded about looking
for someone that's going tolook after their families interests
as well as the community'sinterests. And to me it's more than
just as important aspocketbook issues are. And I said
this a lot. As important aspocketbook issues are pride and dignity
(17:52):
trump pocketbook issues allday long. And the Democratic Party
in my mind has botched thevalue connection, the cultural connection
with people that do not livein big cities at the end of the day.
Yeah, I couldn't agree morewith that, my friend. So let's switch
gears here. I've got onequestion and then I'll throw it back
(18:12):
to Mo. What give us two namesof centuries good candidates that
are besides Mo Davis who'srunning against Chuck Edwards here
in West North Carolina, twoother candidates that our listeners
ought to take a take a look at.
Yeah. Well, if I could havespeakers prerogative, I'm going to
(18:32):
talk about four that areofficially on the welcome.
You got it.
That's okay. So we've, we'veendorsed three incumbents. Adam Gray
out California's 13 district.He's in a, he's not in LA or San
Francisco or San Diego. He isin the Central Valley. And he will
tell you that his district hasproduces more dairy and milk than
(18:55):
the entire state of Wisconsin,which I'll get to in a minute. We
have Marie Guzen Compress upin Washington third, and we have
Jared golden in Maine. Andwhile some classic Democrats get
frustrated sometimes withthese incumbents, they're locally
focused candidates that trulybelieve in what they say. They don't
(19:20):
always vote with theDemocratic Party, but they are Democrats
and they're proud Democrats,but they're laser focused on the
district and thecharacteristics that they have. And
the same characteristic isthis woman Becca Cook has, who ran
in Wisconsin's 3rd district,overperformed but came up a little
bit short against the DerekVan Orton who is part of this anger
(19:44):
tament, you know, electiondenying group of people Republicans.
And she's back at it again.And we really are big fans of Becca.
And to talk about themultidimensional aspects of these
races, Becca Cook just gotendorsed by Bernie Sanders. Right.
And so you have somecommonalities of people that are
focused on economics populismor economic realism or economic reality
(20:09):
that 75% of the country is notpartaken in the upside that some
of us have in there. And Ithink Donald Trump maliciously tapped
into that in 16 and again in24. And I think that if the Democratic
Party can spend more timetalking about economics and less
about some of these culturalissues where they're just off base
with the majority of thecountry, I think we can do well.
(20:30):
So Adam and Becca and Jaredand Marie have our full support and
we'll be coming out with theslate of another four or five candidates.
And obviously we're watchingwhat's happening in North Carolina
as well. There's a coupledistricts and Moses is in one of
them that we will keep an eyeon and probably have something more
to do in the late fall. Andwelcome is working on not only raising
(20:53):
money as other PACs do, butwe're also there to provide some
advice for people. You know,usually I tell people like, you know,
free advice is worth what youpay for it, especially for me, but
I do have 75,000 miles offocus group in me that has a Pretty
proven track record of beingable to overperform in a certain
(21:15):
level with. There's somecommonalities of these Trump voters
that as opposed to vote forTrump because of who he is. There
are people in my mind thathave voted for Trump in spite of
who he is. The DemocraticParty just has not had the right
alternative. And I'm hopingthat these candidates and what MO
is working on, they show thatthere's a way to earn back some of
(21:38):
those prior voters that arenot happy with the current administration
and all the yelling andscreaming that are going on in the
country.
You know, we've had AdamKinzinger, Joe Walsh, David Jolly,
Anthony Scaramucci, they'veall been on the podcast and, and
they've all said that, youknow, they're, they're, they're outcast
(21:59):
from the Republican Party andthey've all said that, you know,
the Democratic Party had a,could open the aperture up a little
broader, you know, not justthe left, but you know, like from
the center to the left, thatthey could see themselves being Democrats.
In fact, you know, since then,you know, David Jolly's running for
governor in Florida now as aDemocrat and Joe Walsh, you know,
(22:23):
announced a couple weeks backthat he's running registered as a
Democrat. So how's, how areyou finding it with the party on
trying to get them to take abroader view, like you mentioned,
extending the train. How'sthat going?
It's frustrating, without adoubt. I also, in January and February,
I ran for one of the threevice chair roles of the dnc, the
(22:46):
Democratic National Committee.And a month before, I didn't really
know too much about what theDNC did. And it's made a lot of noise
lately because of the workthat David Hogg has been doing in
my view is, you know, gettingrid of older Democrats for new Democrats
or blonde hair Democrats forred headed Democrats is not really,
or older, you know, or is notreally adding to the conversation.
(23:08):
But all these Democrats thatwe've been backing, they're being
challenged, they've beenchallenged in the past and some of
them will probably bechallenged again by kind of more
liberal, quote, unquoteDemocrats. And my view is you can
have 0% of what you want oryou can get 85 or 90% of what you
want in this purity test isfailing. You know, one of the things
(23:30):
on an optimistic note, I willtell you is after 75, 000 miles of
driving, and this is not justa pitch like I truly believe 80%
of us agree on 80% of the samestuff. Right. Which is economic opportunity
for people and really economicopportunity for the next generation
for the kids. Good safeschools, good safe neighborhoods.
(23:52):
Understanding immigrants playa vital role to communities and economics.
But we need to secure ourborders and have a rul laws after
that. There's a lot of noiseout there. So if you have 80% of
the people that agree on about80% of the same stuff, there is a
64% approval rating platformand neither party, neither party
(24:14):
seems to have any interest ingrabbing that 60% of the voters out
there. And to me, that'sheartbreaking for the country. It's
heartbreaking as a Democrat,but it's more importantly heartbreaking
as an American to focus onthat. It's like literally just staring
and poll after poll,conversation after conversation shows
(24:37):
that. And both parties seem towork very, very hard to win all these
contested districts by liketwo votes. And then they get thrown
out when there's a red waveand then they get thrown out when
there's a blue wave. And itgoes back and forth. And so I think
there is a 60% sustainablemajority about these policies. And
(24:57):
for a party as the Democratsare, that talk about diversity, the
diversity of thought issomething that has not made it up
the diversity ladder for allthe other attributes that are there.
And just mathematically, Ijust do not see how Democrats get
gavels, how Democrats get amajority without getting candidates
(25:23):
reelected or elected that arelaser focused on their district's
needs that sometime come inopposition to what the Democratic
Party brand is doing andsometime it's not. And it's like
that. It's almost like theRepublicans are focused on the economic
elites and the Democrats arefocused on the cultural elites. And
(25:44):
so basically the entire middleclass gets left out of a conversation
because no one's fighting forthem. Yeah.
Well, listen, let me ask whatwhat's the future hold for Adam Frisch?
What's next? On your, on your,you know, I.
I've said, you know, I'm notsaying over my dead body I'm never
going to run again, but I'mone of these people that is willing
(26:07):
to run, but I don't have torun and I'm not planning on running
in, in Colorado's thirddistrict and I'm not gonna get up
and move to a differentdistrict or anything else like that.
I've said that, you know, ifin, you know, six or eight months
there's rampant inflation andrapid unemployment and sadly, these
rural hospitals that areprobably going to get hammered, get
(26:28):
hammered because of thelegislation that's being talked about
as we speak. And no one who'srunning in CD3 is connecting. I can
have that conversation, but Ithink there'll be enough people that
are going to be running thatwill make the connection. And I'm
very happy to focus onhelping, you know, 10 fellow centrist,
(26:50):
moderate, you know, locallylocal based politics candidates get
elected or reelected. That Iam about my own personal desire.
Like I'm, I said I'm willingto be in Congress but I don't have
to be in Congress. And I waswilling to do that at one point and
now I think that window mightor might not have closed. But I'm
(27:10):
very happy to focus on tryingto kind of steer the Democratic Party
in a better way place becauseI do believe the best way we get
a better Republican Party,it's not going to come out of self
enlightenment, it's going tocome out of pure competitive juices
that if the Democrats startwinning seats, the Republicans will
have to have some type ofcourse correction. But there's not
(27:31):
going to be any coursecorrection until Donald Trump is
not part of the conversation.I think that's been very, very clear.
And so I think the best pathforward is to try to kind of enhance
and reform the DemocraticParty from within side. As much as
I appreciate kind of the thirdparty and those conversations, I
think we're better off tryingto make the Democratic Party better
(27:53):
for all sorts of reasons. Andso that's what I'm going to focus
on between now and 26 andafter that we'll have another conversation
about what else to do outthere in the world.
Yeah, well, listen, I thinkyou know that David and I are totally
behind you. We certainly are.You know, we're proud Democrats,
but we're disappointed in theparty and we know the party can do
better. So you know, we reallyappreciate your efforts and what
(28:14):
you're doing and you know,hopefully, you know, we need to play
the long game and, and get theparty back on the right track and
you know, do better forAmerica than what we've been doing
of late.
So I, I hear you, Colonel. Youknow, one last thing is that when
you see Ohio, which keeps onvoting for Republicans, support reproductive
(28:38):
rights by lot and you seeminimum wages get passed in red states,
one starts to realize that theDemocratic, some of the Democratic
policies are not the problem.But when you, when you attach some
of the Democratic policies tothe Democratic brand, it literally
drops between 15 and 22%. Soit's not to say people don't like
(29:00):
some of our policies. Theyjust don't like us. And us is the
brand. Right, right. And thatbrand needs to get fixed. And right
now the loudest voices of thebrand are not going to be added,
not going to be additive tolong term majority. And it's, that's
a longer conversation abouthow to try to figure out how to add
(29:23):
more trains, how to add morecars to the train for people that
want to do that.
Yeah.
We want to be on that trainwith you, Adam. And we'll post all
of those candidates names andlinks to them on our show notes.
(29:44):
We'll also post moreinformation about the welcome pack
And Adam, but thank you foreverything you're doing. What you're
doing, I think is a model thatcould probably be picked up, either
scaled or picked up on aregional basis. And we're doing that
to a certain extent. We're,we're going to narrowly focus on
(30:05):
a couple races and hopefullyadd to what you guys are doing across
the country. And you're right,we got to get the gavel back to the
Democrats. I think HakeemJeffries would be a terrific leader
of the Democrats in the Houseand maybe we can stop some of the
(30:25):
that's going on with Trumpthese days.
Yeah, no, I appreciate that.You know, on the, on the COVID page
of the welcome party.org isgrowing a big tent Democratic Party.
And that's exactly what Ithink we can all agree that needs
to happen. And we're excitedabout the movement and we have a
lot of allies that are focusedkind of on winning gavels and been
(30:48):
very focused on that. There'sother organizations out there focused
on kind of this quote unquotecentrist movement. But again, if
people want gavels, you needone needs to be probably broader
in their thoughts than theyhave been in the past about what
it is to be a Democrat.
Yeah, but you know, this, thatwas how you remember Clinton. That's
how he was successful. He hadthe dlc, you know, which was a more
(31:13):
moderate centuristorganization back when he, he was
running for president. And,and look what he got two terms out
of that and did a hell of alot of good for the country. So I
agree with you. Get back to amore moderate view and, and, and
frankly, you know, the farleft, when I hear Genocide Joe, those
guys don't even deserve to bein the party, frankly. They don't,
(31:34):
as Carville said, start theirown damn party.
It's, it's hard. I mean, onelast thing. If we have the time and
it's hard because if we dowant to have this binary conversation,
which is a little frustrating,but if you want to say that there's
kind of the progressive leftand then there's the centrist moderate
convers, the problem is thisis a time of very emotional, driven
(31:55):
politics conversation, right?And overall, the Republicans have
been very emotionally focusedand the Democrats have been very
fact based focused. And toooften we show up as technocrats,
right? And the Republicans areshowing up with emotion. And you
know, the Republicans, theDemocrats show up with cookbooks,
the Republicans show up withbrownies, like we need some sincere
(32:16):
brownies, like there's that.But the problem within the Democratic
Party now is those of us thatkind of come from the centrist movement,
we're not pitchfork people.And every, a lot of people want to
see pitchforks because they'reso frustrated, and rightly so, about
the state of the country andeverything else like that. So another
problem is, is that, you know,there's this anti establishment movement
(32:37):
out there as well. And I thinkthose of us that are centrist are
as frustrated with theestablishment of the Democratic Party
as those on the progressivemovement. It's just that sadly, right
now the establishment andcentrism, those two words are too
linked together that ourfellow centrists are being kind of
dragged down by thisassumption that we don't want to
(32:58):
see sincere change within theparty and sincere change for the
country's betterment. And sothat's the environment of at least
what we're trying to work onto make sure that we find candidates
that are bold. And what wewould say is we don't need any more
mushy middle people. We needto find people that are bold in their
conviction to represent whatit is to be a Democrat, but also
(33:22):
what it is to represent theirdistrict. And that's why it's not
easy for us to find theseadditional candidates. But that's
what we're really laserfocused on. And we understand that
what happened in the mayor'srace in New York was, gosh, awful.
But we just know that thebranding, even within the centrist
movements is not where a lotof people are. But I think we just
(33:45):
need to do a better job withinthat group and explaining that conversation.
It's not easy, but we're goingto continue to work on that as you
guys are as well. So thank youfor your time.
Okay, well, this has beenanother episode of Muck you. Our
friend Adam Frisch from Aspen,Colorado has been on the phone with
us today. And on behalf of myco host Mo Davis. Thank you for joining
(34:09):
us and we'll.
Talk to you next time.
This has been Muck You!, cohosted by Colonel Mo Davis in Asheville,
North Carolina and DavidWheeler in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
Thanks to our guest today,Adam Frisch with the welcome Party.
Please visitthewelcomeparty.org for more information.
(34:30):
Muck U is produced by Americanmuckrakers. Copyright 2025. You can
learn more and donate atamericanmuckrakers.com thanks for
listening and come back forthe next episode of MUCK YOu!
Folks, welcome to muck you.This is David Wheeler up in Spruce
pine, North Carolina.Delighted that you all could join
us. We have a very specialguest today and for that intro I'm
going to throw it over to mybuddy colonel Mo Davis. Take it Mo.
Oh, thanks David. And welcomeback everybody. Glad to have you
with us heading into thefourth of July holiday and hope everybody
(00:28):
has a good one. Yeah, as Davidsaid, we do have a special guest
today. Adam Fresh is youprobably remember the name because
back in 2022 there, there are435 House seats and in 2022 the closest
election out of those 435races was out in Colorado where Lauren
(00:53):
Boebert I think everybody'sfamiliar with, you know, ended up
winning the race by 554 votes.It was the closest race in the country
and her opponent was AdamFrisch and you know, you know a fascinating
race. You know, Adam ran againin 2024 and actually ran Lauren Bovert
(01:19):
out of the district. She wasafraid she was going to lose so she
jumped over to anotherdistrict and found some gullible
voters there to, to send herback to, to Washington. And Adam's
now working with a pack up incalled the welcome party and we'll
talk about that today. ButAdam, thanks so much for, for joining
(01:44):
us and giving us some of your time.
Honored to be with you Coloneland David, we spoke way back in those
good old days. It was prettywild times. But I appreciate everyone's
service here and trying tobring a what I call the pro normal
party coalition to theforefront these days.
Right. Hey listen, you knowthere's some politicians like, you
(02:06):
know, Kennedy, the senatorfrom down in Louisiana who kind of
plays the, you know, theOshucks, you know, kind of ignorant,
you know, type, but he'sactually a Harvard graduate. But
you know there's somepoliticians that play dumb and there's
some that actually are. Sotell us a little bit about Lauren
Boebert.
Well, you know, going back acouple years, I never had planned
(02:31):
to be running for U. SCongress. I'd done some city council
work. My wife had done someschool board work that is elected
community service. It wasrepresentative Boebert made some
comments in the summer andfall of 2021. I tell people, don't
ask me what they exactly were,but they were very quote unquote
on brand, you know, ignorantand homophobic and racist and some
(02:56):
combination of just notfocused on the district. She's kind
of the leader of this angertamen industry that you kind of see
out there these days that shehas figured out how to maximize.
And while she doesn't comefrom a formal education background,
we never spent any timetalking about that. You know, she
(03:19):
dropped out of high school in10th grade to work for her family,
and I fully respect and honorthat. And the sad thing is, it's
a sad story because she hadsome bootstrap upbringing and she
could have had a great successstory. Not just success by getting
into the US Congress, butsuccess and actually showing a way
forward that is more positiveand inclusive and trying to do the
(03:40):
right thing and being a goodrole model. And regardless of the
views of her policies, I don'tthink that role model holds very
well for her and a lot ofother people out there.
All right. Yeah, you know,there's some similarities. I. I ran
back in 2020 here in WesternNorth Carolina against Madison Cawthorn.
So if you recall, that was theclass where, yeah, it was Bobert
(04:01):
Cawthorn and Marjorie TaylorGreene kind of the, the. They all
showed up in Congress at thesame time, and he was kind of the
same way. You know, he was ina. In an auto accident and paralyzed
and could have been a, youknow, a real role model, you know,
and a positive influence, butchose, you know, kind of the same
thing. You're talking aboutthe anger, tainment. You know, he's
(04:23):
big on the, you know, toxicmasculinity and all that stuff. And,
you know, we were fortunate.David and I, you know, worked hard
here to make sure he was oneand done. And so he's now, now a
Florida resident. So. Talkabout the 2024 race. You know, you
got back in, you're going torun again and going to run against
(04:44):
Lauren Boebert and whathappened there.
Yeah, I mean, to kind ofsummarize, the 22 that goes into
24, we had the closest. Notonly was it the closest race in the
country, if we all rememberthe 538 political podcast, they did
say that it was the biggestsurprise in the history of their
model. And their model had uslosing by. We were supposed to lose
(05:07):
by 40,000 votes, and we endedup losing by under 550. And that's
why this thing turned into abit of a big deal when a lot of people
kind of blew us off and wejust, you know, my view is there's
a lot of crazy people in theworld. There aren't that many crazy
people in the world. And athird of the Republican Party wanted
(05:27):
their party back. It'sprobably more so now I was independent
for 25 years. I've always saidif there was a good stuff done party,
I'd be in the get stuff doneparty. But that party has not done
very well and our country'ssuffering because of that. So I re
registered as a Democrat and Iwould have entered the House as probably
the most conservative, if notone of the most two or three conservative
(05:47):
Democrats in the entirecountry. So going to 24, it was a
bit of a no brainer. Aftertaking a couple months of breathing
room and reconnecting with thefamily to give it a go again. And
we got off to a great start onfundraising. I had good name recognition.
We were driving all over thedistrict. You know, I ended up driving
over 75,000 miles, which is athird of the way to the moon. I realize
(06:11):
in a district bigger than thestate of Pennsylvania, you know,
it takes 10 hours with notraffic to drive from point to point.
And we just connected with alot of people and, you know, I think
we were able to be verysincere and very authentic in what
we wanted to talk about. Andwe were laser focused on kind of
local based politics asstaying away from, you know, I kept
(06:32):
on saying like, if there was atagline for my campaign, it was I
am focused on Team CD3. I'mnot focused on team Red or blue or
I'm not focused on teamDemocrat or Republican. I'm there
to represent the men and thewomen in the small business communities
and of the district. So we hadthat. So she started to struggle
there. And in the winter of2023, she did a poll. And while we
(07:01):
don't know what the exactresults were, we know what the questions
were asked. And there was apolling outfit that she had paid
for to figure out theviability. And sure enough, she must
have been down by a lotbecause she became the first person,
I believe in 20 some years toliterally bail on their district
that was not due toredistricting against kind of a repeat
(07:23):
challenger and myself. And soon one hand I was proud that we chased
her out of the district. I wasreally hoping to see her being chased
out of Congress. And I triedto tell my, you know, kind of centrist,
moderate Republican friendsover in the Eastern Plains for sure
where she moved. And that'slike an art, you know, that was like
a Republican 20 pointdistrict, not a Republican eight
(07:46):
or nine point district. And Isaid, listen, the only thing worse
than a carpet bagger is anineffectual, embarrassing carpetbagger.
And you should probably run inthat model. And unfortunately, the
five of them did not truststraws to figure out who should run
against her. And so the fiveRepublicans got 10 or 11% of the
vote and Bobert got somewherein the low 40s. And she's pretty
(08:10):
set there now. We'll see whathappens in this environment. But
when she left, we ended uprunning against this guy Jeff Heard,
who's now in Congress. Trumpwon our district by 10 points and
we lost it by five. So we hadan over performance of about five
points. In 22, we had an overperformance by eight or nine points.
(08:31):
And so, you know, we've shownto the nation that we've had one
of the better overperformingraces, even without Lauren Boebert
in the entire country. And soI'm trying to share that kind of
knowledge and experience andhard knocks with other candidates
out there with this welcomeParty Welcome Pack group that we're
working with. We're trying tosupport centrist Democrats only focused
(08:55):
in the US House and onlyrunning in Donald Trump districts.
And you know, to my superliberal friends, I'd say like, hey,
listen, we're all on the sametrain, but we're in very different
cars and we need a longertrain. And I have a big belief that
longer train is not comingfrom getting out the vote in New
York City or Boulder, Coloradoor San Francisco. We need to figure
(09:19):
out a way as Democrats to earnback a bunch of voters that used
to vote for us a generation orhalf a generation ago and have since
left the party and or haveleft voting for people that are running
in Democrats outside of these20 big cities.
So tell us a little bit moreabout the welcome Party. And before
(09:43):
we go any further, what's thewebsite so folks can take a look?
Yeah, there's welcome, there'sthe WelcomeParty.org and Welcome
Pack.org it's pretty much thesame group of people, just five of
us, six of us. None of us livein D.C. and there are three founders
that started this about six orseven years ago and they've been
(10:07):
very, very focused on gettingcensus Democrats elected in the U.S.
house. There's a lot of bellsand whistles to chase out there,
but they've been very focused.We've been very focused going forward
on making sure that we try toget gavels. So tactically, tactically,
our plan in 24 and 26 is towin back the House and that's going
(10:27):
to happen again from gettingcentrist Democrats to run and challenging
districts strategically, weare also very focused on kind of
building out A flywheel, ifyou will. That again, I don't want
to get into binaryconversations always between like
there's liberals and there'scentrists. Because I think, Colonel,
you know, and David, you know,everyone's kind of living like 15
(10:50):
dimensional lives. Like I'm ahusband and a father and an uncle
and a nephew and an Americanand a Colorado in, and I'm Jewish
and I grew up in Indianreservation, right. And all of us
are living all thesemultidimensional lives and we show
up in this politicalconversation and there's a one dimensional
question, right? You know, areyou on Republican or Democrat? But
my belief is that most peopleare between the 240 yard lines, if
(11:13):
I will. And that's where allkind of the action is to get these
gavels. And so we're very,very focused on earning these gavels.
And we just, we just know thatUnlike in the mid-90s, when Bill
Clinton literally won amajority of the rural counties in
the country, like literally1996, there's about 2,000 rural counties
(11:35):
in the country. Bill Clintonwon a little bit over 50% of them.
And then Obama won about 25%for his reelection and Biden and
Harris won fewer than 8 or 10%of the rural counties in the country.
So my, you know, my, it's asad joke, but like The Democratic
Party's 20 big cities, Aspenand Martha's Vineyard, basically
20 big cities that are notgetting the best version in the Democratic
(11:58):
Party. New York City to be isprobably a sad example of that, where
I used to live for a while.And so we're trying to figure out
how to get back to thosesmaller communities, working class
communities, kind of factorytowns, if you will. And certainly
in North Carolina, you know,outside of a couple of the big cities
(12:19):
of the college towns, theseare communities that used to vote
Democrat and don't do that anymore.
Well, Mo and I certainly knowthat unfortunately we've both been
on the ballot and haveexperienced what's going on there
as far as the loss ofDemocrats out in this part of the
(12:39):
world. But, you know, onequestion, I mean, you ran such a
great campaign in, in 22, andit was a pleasure to meet you and
your wife and be out there andtry and support and we were trying
to be the bad cop. I'm notsure that we helped that much. I,
I think we raised the volumeon our negatives a little bit. How.
(13:00):
And you're such a positiveguy, you're a business person, you've
had success in life You've,you've been great at getting elected
locally and doing some goodthings too. By the way. How, how
do you balance, you know,going after a scoundrel like Bobert
with, you know, yourpersonality and in your campaign,
(13:23):
which is, was so successful?
Yeah, no, it's a goodquestion, David, and thanks for that
and I appreciate you guys. Youknow, it was a, we need multifaceted
effort to try to win. Youknow, I, I, there's a couple thoughts
about this. You know, NancyPelosi or the recent speaker of the
House shared this comment andI, I, I agree with her some of the
time, not all the time. Butshe has a great line which is, listen,
(13:46):
winning is a decision to bemade. And once you decide to win,
every decision you make afterthat has to be on that goal of winning.
And you would think that thereason political parties are founded
is to win elections, toimplement policies, not just to win,
but implement policies thatyou think are better for your community
and the country. And theproblem is the more I get involved
(14:07):
in this political sphere, andit's not being completely sniped,
but not everybody actuallywants to win. And to me it's winning
a majority. There are someloud parts of both parties that are
probably able to raise moremoney, hire more people and, and
generate more notoriety forbeing a minority, allowed voice to
(14:31):
be a majority voice in aminority party. And to me, that's
not winning. To me, winning ishaving gavels and having a majority.
And so every day I wake up,I'm trying to figure out how do I
build those majorities. Anddepending on in my inputs of that
are a couple things. Sadly, intoday's state, in state of politics,
only eight or nine states areprobably in play in the US Senate,
(14:56):
which is also related to thepresidential elections. Eight or
nine, 10 states, okay, say,right. And in the house, there's
probably 30 to 40 seats thatare going to be in play in 2026.
And within those geographicalboundaries, my view is only about
15% of the people in thosedistricts are probably up for grabs
(15:19):
because so many other peoplein this district in the country,
they're probably ready to votein the 2064 election, right? Just
like they show up in teamDemocrat and team Republican. And
I kind of kind of parks inboth houses, if you will. And so
every day I'm waking up now,and every day I was waking up in
(15:39):
22 and 24 is how do I make aconnection on policy, but also on
values with those voters thatare able to be won over beyond Party
affiliation. Right. And so inmy view is there's a couple characteristics
that I believe that these 15%of these voters in a subpart of the
(16:03):
country have. And again I'mnot a political scientist, I'm not
a pollster but I feel likeI've done a 75,000 mile focus group
over the, you know, over theyears of 21, 22, 23 and 24. And this
is a district that was isregistered 22% democrat and we've
got 49.99% of the vote onetime and you know, 47.5% of the vote
(16:25):
the other. And to me is those15% of the people are, they're probably
more moderate if you will.They're probably between the 245
yard lines and they probablyhave opted out of politics more than
they've opted into politics.They probably do not know who the
Vice President of the UnitedStates is. They probably do not know
(16:45):
there's an election until amonth or two before. And for good
reason. They don't likepolitics. And so I'm always thinking
and we at welcome are alwaysthinking about how do we earn the
trust and support of thesepeople that are going to decide a
lot of important issues andpolicies for the entire country going
(17:05):
forward. And so it's a littleanalytical in my thinking but it's
important for people to kindof know what my assumptions are as
we try to fill, how to buildand well, I appreciate there's a
role to be played for pushingback. You use it yourself. David,
good cop and bad cop I justlook at is what's the most effective
(17:27):
way to earn trust withsincerity with these people that
have the ability to still bepretty open minded about looking
for someone that's going tolook after their families interests
as well as the community'sinterests. And to me it's more than
just as important aspocketbook issues are. And I said
this a lot. As important aspocketbook issues are pride and dignity
(17:52):
trump pocketbook issues allday long. And the Democratic Party
in my mind has botched thevalue connection, the cultural connection
with people that do not livein big cities at the end of the day.
Yeah, I couldn't agree morewith that, my friend. So let's switch
gears here. I've got onequestion and then I'll throw it back
(18:12):
to Mo. What give us two namesof centuries good candidates that
are besides Mo Davis who'srunning against Chuck Edwards here
in West North Carolina, twoother candidates that our listeners
ought to take a take a look at.
Yeah. Well, if I could havespeakers prerogative, I'm going to
(18:32):
talk about four that areofficially on the welcome.
You got it.
That's okay. So we've, we'veendorsed three incumbents. Adam Gray
out California's 13 district.He's in a, he's not in LA or San
Francisco or San Diego. He isin the Central Valley. And he will
tell you that his district hasproduces more dairy and milk than
(18:55):
the entire state of Wisconsin,which I'll get to in a minute. We
have Marie Guzen Compress upin Washington third, and we have
Jared golden in Maine. Andwhile some classic Democrats get
frustrated sometimes withthese incumbents, they're locally
focused candidates that trulybelieve in what they say. They don't
(19:20):
always vote with theDemocratic Party, but they are Democrats
and they're proud Democrats,but they're laser focused on the
district and thecharacteristics that they have. And
the same characteristic isthis woman Becca Cook has, who ran
in Wisconsin's 3rd district,overperformed but came up a little
bit short against the DerekVan Orton who is part of this anger
(19:44):
tament, you know, electiondenying group of people Republicans.
And she's back at it again.And we really are big fans of Becca.
And to talk about themultidimensional aspects of these
races, Becca Cook just gotendorsed by Bernie Sanders. Right.
And so you have somecommonalities of people that are
focused on economics populismor economic realism or economic reality
(20:09):
that 75% of the country is notpartaken in the upside that some
of us have in there. And Ithink Donald Trump maliciously tapped
into that in 16 and again in24. And I think that if the Democratic
Party can spend more timetalking about economics and less
about some of these culturalissues where they're just off base
with the majority of thecountry, I think we can do well.
(20:30):
So Adam and Becca and Jaredand Marie have our full support and
we'll be coming out with theslate of another four or five candidates.
And obviously we're watchingwhat's happening in North Carolina
as well. There's a coupledistricts and Moses is in one of
them that we will keep an eyeon and probably have something more
to do in the late fall. Andwelcome is working on not only raising
(20:53):
money as other PACs do, butwe're also there to provide some
advice for people. You know,usually I tell people like, you know,
free advice is worth what youpay for it, especially for me, but
I do have 75,000 miles offocus group in me that has a Pretty
proven track record of beingable to overperform in a certain
(21:15):
level with. There's somecommonalities of these Trump voters
that as opposed to vote forTrump because of who he is. There
are people in my mind thathave voted for Trump in spite of
who he is. The DemocraticParty just has not had the right
alternative. And I'm hopingthat these candidates and what MO
is working on, they show thatthere's a way to earn back some of
(21:38):
those prior voters that arenot happy with the current administration
and all the yelling andscreaming that are going on in the
country.
You know, we've had AdamKinzinger, Joe Walsh, David Jolly,
Anthony Scaramucci, they'veall been on the podcast and, and
they've all said that, youknow, they're, they're, they're outcast
(21:59):
from the Republican Party andthey've all said that, you know,
the Democratic Party had a,could open the aperture up a little
broader, you know, not justthe left, but you know, like from
the center to the left, thatthey could see themselves being Democrats.
In fact, you know, since then,you know, David Jolly's running for
governor in Florida now as aDemocrat and Joe Walsh, you know,
(22:23):
announced a couple weeks backthat he's running registered as a
Democrat. So how's, how areyou finding it with the party on
trying to get them to take abroader view, like you mentioned,
extending the train. How'sthat going?
It's frustrating, without adoubt. I also, in January and February,
I ran for one of the threevice chair roles of the dnc, the
(22:46):
Democratic National Committee.And a month before, I didn't really
know too much about what theDNC did. And it's made a lot of noise
lately because of the workthat David Hogg has been doing in
my view is, you know, gettingrid of older Democrats for new Democrats
or blonde hair Democrats forred headed Democrats is not really,
or older, you know, or is notreally adding to the conversation.
(23:08):
But all these Democrats thatwe've been backing, they're being
challenged, they've beenchallenged in the past and some of
them will probably bechallenged again by kind of more
liberal, quote, unquoteDemocrats. And my view is you can
have 0% of what you want oryou can get 85 or 90% of what you
want in this purity test isfailing. You know, one of the things
(23:30):
on an optimistic note, I willtell you is after 75, 000 miles of
driving, and this is not justa pitch like I truly believe 80%
of us agree on 80% of the samestuff. Right. Which is economic opportunity
for people and really economicopportunity for the next generation
for the kids. Good safeschools, good safe neighborhoods.
(23:52):
Understanding immigrants playa vital role to communities and economics.
But we need to secure ourborders and have a rul laws after
that. There's a lot of noiseout there. So if you have 80% of
the people that agree on about80% of the same stuff, there is a
64% approval rating platformand neither party, neither party
(24:14):
seems to have any interest ingrabbing that 60% of the voters out
there. And to me, that'sheartbreaking for the country. It's
heartbreaking as a Democrat,but it's more importantly heartbreaking
as an American to focus onthat. It's like literally just staring
and poll after poll,conversation after conversation shows
(24:37):
that. And both parties seem towork very, very hard to win all these
contested districts by liketwo votes. And then they get thrown
out when there's a red waveand then they get thrown out when
there's a blue wave. And itgoes back and forth. And so I think
there is a 60% sustainablemajority about these policies. And
(24:57):
for a party as the Democratsare, that talk about diversity, the
diversity of thought issomething that has not made it up
the diversity ladder for allthe other attributes that are there.
And just mathematically, Ijust do not see how Democrats get
gavels, how Democrats get amajority without getting candidates
(25:23):
reelected or elected that arelaser focused on their district's
needs that sometime come inopposition to what the Democratic
Party brand is doing andsometime it's not. And it's like
that. It's almost like theRepublicans are focused on the economic
elites and the Democrats arefocused on the cultural elites. And
(25:44):
so basically the entire middleclass gets left out of a conversation
because no one's fighting forthem. Yeah.
Well, listen, let me ask whatwhat's the future hold for Adam Frisch?
What's next? On your, on your,you know, I.
I've said, you know, I'm notsaying over my dead body I'm never
going to run again, but I'mone of these people that is willing
(26:07):
to run, but I don't have torun and I'm not planning on running
in, in Colorado's thirddistrict and I'm not gonna get up
and move to a differentdistrict or anything else like that.
I've said that, you know, ifin, you know, six or eight months
there's rampant inflation andrapid unemployment and sadly, these
rural hospitals that areprobably going to get hammered, get
(26:28):
hammered because of thelegislation that's being talked about
as we speak. And no one who'srunning in CD3 is connecting. I can
have that conversation, but Ithink there'll be enough people that
are going to be running thatwill make the connection. And I'm
very happy to focus onhelping, you know, 10 fellow centrist,
(26:50):
moderate, you know, locallylocal based politics candidates get
elected or reelected. That Iam about my own personal desire.
Like I'm, I said I'm willingto be in Congress but I don't have
to be in Congress. And I waswilling to do that at one point and
now I think that window mightor might not have closed. But I'm
(27:10):
very happy to focus on tryingto kind of steer the Democratic Party
in a better way place becauseI do believe the best way we get
a better Republican Party,it's not going to come out of self
enlightenment, it's going tocome out of pure competitive juices
that if the Democrats startwinning seats, the Republicans will
have to have some type ofcourse correction. But there's not
(27:31):
going to be any coursecorrection until Donald Trump is
not part of the conversation.I think that's been very, very clear.
And so I think the best pathforward is to try to kind of enhance
and reform the DemocraticParty from within side. As much as
I appreciate kind of the thirdparty and those conversations, I
think we're better off tryingto make the Democratic Party better
(27:53):
for all sorts of reasons. Andso that's what I'm going to focus
on between now and 26 andafter that we'll have another conversation
about what else to do outthere in the world.
Yeah, well, listen, I thinkyou know that David and I are totally
behind you. We certainly are.You know, we're proud Democrats,
but we're disappointed in theparty and we know the party can do
better. So you know, we reallyappreciate your efforts and what
(28:14):
you're doing and you know,hopefully, you know, we need to play
the long game and, and get theparty back on the right track and
you know, do better forAmerica than what we've been doing
of late.
So I, I hear you, Colonel. Youknow, one last thing is that when
you see Ohio, which keeps onvoting for Republicans, support reproductive
(28:38):
rights by lot and you seeminimum wages get passed in red states,
one starts to realize that theDemocratic, some of the Democratic
policies are not the problem.But when you, when you attach some
of the Democratic policies tothe Democratic brand, it literally
drops between 15 and 22%. Soit's not to say people don't like
(29:00):
some of our policies. Theyjust don't like us. And us is the
brand. Right, right. And thatbrand needs to get fixed. And right
now the loudest voices of thebrand are not going to be added,
not going to be additive tolong term majority. And it's, that's
a longer conversation abouthow to try to figure out how to add
(29:23):
more trains, how to add morecars to the train for people that
want to do that.
Yeah.
We want to be on that trainwith you, Adam. And we'll post all
of those candidates names andlinks to them on our show notes.
(29:44):
We'll also post moreinformation about the welcome pack
And Adam, but thank you foreverything you're doing. What you're
doing, I think is a model thatcould probably be picked up, either
scaled or picked up on aregional basis. And we're doing that
to a certain extent. We're,we're going to narrowly focus on
(30:05):
a couple races and hopefullyadd to what you guys are doing across
the country. And you're right,we got to get the gavel back to the
Democrats. I think HakeemJeffries would be a terrific leader
of the Democrats in the Houseand maybe we can stop some of the
(30:25):
that's going on with Trumpthese days.
Yeah, no, I appreciate that.You know, on the, on the COVID page
of the welcome party.org isgrowing a big tent Democratic Party.
And that's exactly what Ithink we can all agree that needs
to happen. And we're excitedabout the movement and we have a
lot of allies that are focusedkind of on winning gavels and been
(30:48):
very focused on that. There'sother organizations out there focused
on kind of this quote unquotecentrist movement. But again, if
people want gavels, you needone needs to be probably broader
in their thoughts than theyhave been in the past about what
it is to be a Democrat.
Yeah, but you know, this, thatwas how you remember Clinton. That's
how he was successful. He hadthe dlc, you know, which was a more
(31:13):
moderate centuristorganization back when he, he was
running for president. And,and look what he got two terms out
of that and did a hell of alot of good for the country. So I
agree with you. Get back to amore moderate view and, and, and
frankly, you know, the farleft, when I hear Genocide Joe, those
guys don't even deserve to bein the party, frankly. They don't,
(31:34):
as Carville said, start theirown damn party.
It's, it's hard. I mean, onelast thing. If we have the time and
it's hard because if we dowant to have this binary conversation,
which is a little frustrating,but if you want to say that there's
kind of the progressive leftand then there's the centrist moderate
convers, the problem is thisis a time of very emotional, driven
(31:55):
politics conversation, right?And overall, the Republicans have
been very emotionally focusedand the Democrats have been very
fact based focused. And toooften we show up as technocrats,
right? And the Republicans areshowing up with emotion. And you
know, the Republicans, theDemocrats show up with cookbooks,
the Republicans show up withbrownies, like we need some sincere
(32:16):
brownies, like there's that.But the problem within the Democratic
Party now is those of us thatkind of come from the centrist movement,
we're not pitchfork people.And every, a lot of people want to
see pitchforks because they'reso frustrated, and rightly so, about
the state of the country andeverything else like that. So another
problem is, is that, you know,there's this anti establishment movement
(32:37):
out there as well. And I thinkthose of us that are centrist are
as frustrated with theestablishment of the Democratic Party
as those on the progressivemovement. It's just that sadly, right
now the establishment andcentrism, those two words are too
linked together that ourfellow centrists are being kind of
dragged down by thisassumption that we don't want to
(32:58):
see sincere change within theparty and sincere change for the
country's betterment. And sothat's the environment of at least
what we're trying to work onto make sure that we find candidates
that are bold. And what wewould say is we don't need any more
mushy middle people. We needto find people that are bold in their
conviction to represent whatit is to be a Democrat, but also
(33:22):
what it is to represent theirdistrict. And that's why it's not
easy for us to find theseadditional candidates. But that's
what we're really laserfocused on. And we understand that
what happened in the mayor'srace in New York was, gosh, awful.
But we just know that thebranding, even within the centrist
movements is not where a lotof people are. But I think we just
(33:45):
need to do a better job withinthat group and explaining that conversation.
It's not easy, but we're goingto continue to work on that as you
guys are as well. So thank youfor your time.
Okay, well, this has beenanother episode of Muck you. Our
friend Adam Frisch from Aspen,Colorado has been on the phone with
us today. And on behalf of myco host Mo Davis. Thank you for joining
(34:09):
us and we'll.
Talk to you next time.
This has been Muck You!, cohosted by Colonel Mo Davis in Asheville,
North Carolina and DavidWheeler in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
Thanks to our guest today,Adam Frisch with the welcome Party.
Please visitthewelcomeparty.org for more information.
(34:30):
Muck U is produced by Americanmuckrakers. Copyright 2025. You can
learn more and donate atamericanmuckrakers.com thanks for
listening and come back forthe next episode of MUCK YOu!
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