08-20-24 Interview - Jason Rae from the DNC

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining us now is a man who, I mean, for
more than half of his life has been in Democratic politics.
Jason Ray was first a delegate at the age of seventeen,
the youngest person to ever be a delegate at the
I think anywhere. I don't recall hearing of any Republicans
that have done that younger. I have to ask, what

(00:22):
did your parents do to you to make you want
to go into politics at seventeen?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Jason?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
You know, my parents weren't into politics at all. They
always voted, They cared much more at the Green Bay
Packers than they did in politics. But for me, it
was just always something that was intrinsic. I remember, you know,
in elementary school, we would have to do biographies on someone,
and I chose John F. Kennedy right then and there.
And there was just something I fell in love with
with his idea of service to the party, service to
the country. And that's how I got involved, because I

(00:48):
really thought party activism was a way to create change
in my community.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
So when you said to your parents, Hey, mom, dad,
can you drop me off at this Democratic Party meeting?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
How did that go?

Speaker 3 (00:59):
I actually wrote my bike to most of them.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Actually, that's even better. I don't know why that's better,
but that's even better. They just trusted me.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
I knew a couple of local elected officials who'd invited
me to the meetings and just got to show up.
And here I was a fifteen sixteen year old going
to county party meetings, county party vice chair before I
could ever vote, and elected to the DNC before I'm
a graduated high school.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well you are.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Now we're now twenty years on. This is your sixth convention.
What in all the conventions you've been to give me
some takeaways that you see from this convention versus the
other ones.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
You know, it's really hard. I've been thinking about that
as we are preparing to kick off night two here.
And each convention really does have its own unique feel too.
I think my first one was two thousand and four
in Boston where Barack Obama was the keynote speaker. So right, yeah,
see yeah, and that was a really special moment, you know.
Here I was a young kid, had always had been
interested in politics, being at a national convention for the
first time for me, This one is going to be

(01:52):
a really special one tonight when we do the roll
call and as I went on stage on Sunday to
practice a little bit of that. There was just a
special moment for me there of being you know, a
kid a group and ruled northern Wisconsin who just wanted
to get involved in politics to make a difference and
to be a national party officer and getting to participate
in an historic event tonight.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
I haven't even mentioned the fact that you are the
secretary of the DNC and as such you will be
actually executing the role call, though this is a symbolic
role call, because you guys already wrap that up.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
We had to vote early because of some ballot access
laws in Ohio, so we did a virtual role call
vote back to the beginning of August to officially certify
Kamala Harrison Tim Walls as our nominee. So tonight's really
are a reaffirmation of that, and really the real purpose
of it is the purpose of convention is to really
come together as a party, for delegates to celebrate, to unify,

(02:41):
and we wanted to make sure that those delegates who
are ran and caucuses and conventions in their.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Home states got to be a part of it.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
You know, they fill up their ballot online, they send
it in but we really wanted to be able to
come together and unify the country and go state by
state through all fifty seven states and territories tonight to
really celebrate that moment.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
I was talking about that on the air.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
We also cover the RNC, and just like the DNC,
the RNC and the DNC, they are the roots of
the political parties. These are people who live, breathe, and
just live for democratic national politics or democratic politics. And
when you get them all together in a room like this,
what kind.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Of things do you guys see.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
When you look across the entire group of delegates that
are out on the floor. What do you feel when
you look out there at all of your fellow Democratic
I thanks for me.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
When I look at it, I see America out there.
My office is responsible for helping certify all of our
convention participants. So we've been working the last several months
to get demographic information on folks. And you know, near
fifty percent our first time convention delegates to this convention.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
That's really actually very impressive because there's a lot of return.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
There is.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah, and when you look out though, you see America.
You see people who this is their first or people
who've been coming for eight ten conventions already, you see
the wide array that really makes up the Democratic Party.
And I think that was actually one of my proudest
mom once last night, when we as officers were sitting
up on stage watching the speeches and just looking out
at the crowd and saying, this is America. Here the
Democratic Party represents America.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
You are thirty seven years old.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Do you feel like this convention maybe more than prior conventions,
we're seeing a generational shift.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
I think we saw it last night with President Biden
really passing the torch to the next generation. I think
we're seeing that through convention, and I think it'll be
a theme we heard last night. We were able to
celebrate his leadership and commitment to the party for five decades,
and I think as we continue now the next three nights,
we will talk about what this new generation of leaders
looks like. I think it's also the reason we looked
at speakers last night. We had some great folks early on,

(04:40):
lieutenant governors for example, who were up and rising stars
within the party, and I think we'll continue to see
folks like that take the stage over the next three nights.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Okay, I'm gonna ask you this, and I don't expect
you to answer the question because you are in politics.
Who do you thought? Who did you think last night?
Let's take Joe Biden out of it. We're just gonna
take him off. Who did you think really crushed it
last night? We have too that we thought crushed it
last night.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Oh it's really hard. I can't. I can't answer that.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Was like, hey, okay, actually, what if you knew someone
who would have an opinion, what would that opinion be.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
One of those that I thought did a fantastic job
was Ashley Biden. Actually introducing her father was just a
really moving, touching moment, and I think everyone in the
hall could see that for them, and I think it
was a culmination of celebrating his five decades of service
to the party and when you're the leader of the
free world like that, your family has to take sacrifices,
and hearing from the family and getting to celebrate them
as well, I think was really an important moment.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
I gotta say, I thought Hillary gave the best speech
of her life last night.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
She was fantastic.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
I mean, I really thought that was the best she's
ever been. She was really and odd that she's not
campaigning for herself, She's just throwing it out there. And
I just thought it was a really good speech by
her last night.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
She did really, really well and I brought the house down.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
How do you decide?

Speaker 1 (05:50):
And I don't know how intimately you are involved as
the secretary of the DNC with the planning, but.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
How do you guys decide what night people speak on?

Speaker 3 (05:58):
You know, there's a whole team that has focused on
that to figure out what the messaging is for each
day and how do speakers fit into that. But really
also then ensuring that we have the diversity of our
party represented on stage. We not only want the diversity
in our delegates and those who are coming to participating convention,
we want the speakers to reflect that so that as
folks are sitting at home, they can see themselves. You know,
for me, as a young young gay kid growing up

(06:18):
in Ryal, Wisconsin, trying to find those out elected leaders
like Tammy Baldwin who could take the stage and speak
and I could say, well, that could be me up
there someday. So that's I think one of our goals
we identify those speakers is to say who can inspire
folks to be active, engage and participate in the process.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
So should we expect to see candidate Jason Ray at
some point in the future out of Wisconsin.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
You know, I love what I'm doing for the party
right now. This is I feel like the best way
I can give back is to elect great candidates who
are going to fight for my values.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Jason Ray, it's a joy to talk to you.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
And although I think you're insane for spending your entire
life in the political process, I do admire your gumption
and forgetting I just can't even imagine being a seventeen
year old and writing my back to a political party meeting,
So part.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Of me thinks you're a little crazy.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
I think in politics is probably a little bit special here.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, well, congratulations. We look forward to seeing you do
the role. Call tonight and thank you for making time
for us.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Thanks so much. All right, that's Jason Ray.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
He is the secretary of the Democratic National Convention.