September 14, 2023 • 11 mins
The election is creeping up on us quickly. Did you know there is a deadline to run? Who will be throwing their hat in the ring?
To discuss, we turn to longtime friend of The Armstrong and Getty Show, Gary Dietrich. Gary is a non-partisan political analyst.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pressure from the left after a prominent liberal calumnist rights
President Biden should not run again in twenty twenty four,
setting voter concerns about age and the VP's unpopularity.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
That combination seems to me to be potentially dangerous for
the Democrats in fending off what would be a disaster
a revenge presidency by Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
David Ignatius getting so much heat from the left for
saying what everybody knows is true. Oh yeah, not self evident,
not the stuff about Trump being revenged whatever, all that crap,
but the fact that Joe Biden is the most likely
person to lose and Kamala Harris would lose two. But
(00:47):
he also points out in that column it's getting pretty
late to do anything about it, which is true on
the right. Also, all these conversations about who's gonna run
and who's gonna jump into a race, and is Michelle
Obama gonna get in or on the left or Glenn
Younkin on the right, or at some point you run
out of time, And I thought we should talk to
somebody about that. Yeah, how's all that work? Let's ask
(01:10):
Gary Dietrich, non partisan political analyst, longtime friend of the
Armstrong and get a show. You ought to follow him
on the Twitter machine at Gary Dietrich. Gary, Welcome, how
are you sir?
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Hey, Good morning guys. And so I've been waiting for
one of the two of you, I mean pretty much
every morning to throw your hat in the ring. But
time's a wasting, guys, It's time to get in. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I feel like the average person runs around with this
belief that any human being can just decide to run
for president the month before the election and surprise everyone.
But what's the reality of when you got to get
in before it's too late.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yeah, that's a great question, guys, And it is coming
up a lot right now for the reasons you mentioned,
And of course, you know, let's be clear also because
if Donald Trump's legal was in particular, you know, how
long before somebody else could get in? If somebody you know,
everybody kind of has sometimes their fantasy candidate, they're like
to see, this is the real key to the whole deal.
And this is why you also hear so much talk
(02:08):
pretty much every election cycle about you know, why does
an independent candidate get in and what would that take
and why is that so difficult? It boils down to
one very simple general fact, and that is, we do
not run national elections in the United States. We run
fifty separate state elections. Each state has their own filing requirements.
(02:28):
Some of those require a certain fairly sizable number of
voter signatures, others are just a filing fee. But they
all have deadlines. That's the real key, and so that's why.
For example, next month is the filing deadline for South
Carolina and Nevada. After that it's Arkansas and another state.
In December comes a whole slew of states, including the biggies,
(02:49):
California and Texas.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
So in other words, if Michelle Obama decided, you know,
I am going to run for president in November, she
can't get on the ballot in South Carolina, in and Nevada,
for instance. If she makes this decision in November, she
just couldn't well as an independent or as a Democrat.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Either way. You have to, I mean you have to.
You know, if you're gonna put your name on a ballot,
you have to go through this filing process. And that's
the real challenge. That's what people sometimes forget, and that
is why you know, now there would be a difference.
For example, if the president were to stay in the
middle of next spring, for whatever reason, he's incapacitated, he
(03:31):
has to leave office, and then the vice president, of course,
would assume his dude, he's now you're in a whole
different ballgame. Half the primaries are over. You'd have to
have the party itself begin to think about what they're
going to do about it. And keep in mind, you know,
there is always the option for the party to have
a still called broker convention that came up sometimes, you know,
when we are talking about people like Hillary versus Bernie Sanders,
(03:52):
et cetera. But the real bottom line is you've got
to go through a process of getting your name on
a ballot. Every candidate, of course, has a filing process,
doesn't matter whether you're running for city council or whatever
it is. And they're very specific requirements to attach to
each of those.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Okay, before we get off on that, So here's there
are a couple of scenarios I think are likely because
I am on the record saying Joe Biden will not
run again. He can't. HiT's absurd to think that he
could serve even part of another term. If if, for instance,
they go ahead and put off reckoning with that reality
until the convention he stands up and says, I really
(04:28):
can't be running. Let's have an honest debate here at
our convention of who we want the candidate to be.
They could do that right and get the candidate on
the ballot in all fifty sevents.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
And Joe he would have a lot of leverage to
do that, particularly if he'd already garnered enough of the
delegates to make him the nominate. You know what I mean.
I mean he'd be saying, basically, I'm stepping aside for
whatever reason, and I'm not going to, you know, utilize
my rights of having this many delegates. It becomes a
(04:59):
lot more I see of courses when again I mentioned
that one scenario where you get to a convention or
get close to a convention with no clear winner or
at least or at least looking like there's some serious
competition there. This, by the way, has also made more
dicey on the Democratic side, because for those people that
don't know, the Republicans are following the traditional mode. You've
got the Iowa caucuses coming up here in February, You've
(05:22):
got the then then followed by New Hampshire the first primary,
et cetera. Yeah, let's see, I'm just looking for January fifteenth,
Iowa Republican caucuses real quick. On the Democratic side, there's
a huge debate underway. The Democrats want to make South
Carolina their first primary. They want to do that on
February third. They say it's going to make for more
diverse representation because.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
They're they're that Biden could lose in some of those
other places. They want to start with a big win.
That's why. Yeah, let me clarify something. Get me real quick,
because I think we're confusing people. We talked about all
those filing filing deadlines in November and a slow in December,
blah blah blah. But now you're saying, yes, they could
switch the candidate in August of next year. So are
(06:05):
you filing to have like the party on the ballot
or what? How do you scare those two things?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Now you're filing, you're filing to have your own name
on the ballot, Joe, and what what's what ultimately happening.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I'm gonna jump it again because I'm I'm confused. So
are we talking about filing to run to be the
nominee of a party. Okay, but so okay, but you
could at the convention though, which is not till next summer.
Couldn't either party pick whoever the hell they want? Yes, okay,
(06:38):
So all of that is about the nomination process. But
once you get to the convention, because they make up
the rules at the convention, they can decide, you know what,
we do want Michelle Obama. That's possible, she's but she's
not on the ballot in any of the states. How
the hell does that work?
Speaker 4 (06:51):
But the dem what ends up happening is the party
ends up having a you know that they have rules
committees and the rules Committee to get together and say, well,
look for various reasons. You know, this has been this
has been surmised when you've talked about, well what people
always ask hypotheticals, what happens if somebody gets assassinated on
a campaign trail or whatever, but now they've already got
two thirds of the delegates, then what do you do?
(07:12):
You start the process all over. We have you know,
primaries again in all those states. No, that's impossible, of course,
and so there has to be machinations, you know, within
party bureaucracies for all kinds of scenarios so that that's
how it works.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
So they would just open it up and say, all right, you,
Gavin Newsom, you can file to run for president here
at the convention and we'll get you on the ballots.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Well, yeah, that's I'm glad you're bringing up a filing, Joe.
In that context. You now, you wouldn't file with the party.
The filing happens with each individual state, and that's why.
For example, okay, here's a good example. So this week
you had the Secretary of State for New Hampshire. People
have been trying to get bit Donald Trump's name. Listen,
reversus get Donald Trump's name kept from going on a
(07:59):
ballot because of the fourteenth Amendment and he's you know, insurrection,
et cetera, et cetera. The New Hampshire Secretary of State
came out this week and said, no, if he makes
the final requirements, I have no legal recourse. And the
ag in the state said the same thing about it,
I have no legal recourse to keep him off of
the ballot. That's Donald Trump filing to run in New Hampshire.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Okay, all right, I'm gonna try one more time. I'm
gonna try one more time. I do feel like I
know less than I did before we started. I'm not
blaming you for this, Gary, but I feel like I
know less than before. I'm gonna pick Gavin Newsom just
because his name is bandied about. Gavin Newsom, who has
not filed to be on any ballots anywhere, is tabbed
(08:42):
to be the nominee. When Joe Boden announces he's not
running at the convention, you said, yes, they can do that.
He can run, but he has not filed in the
way you described. So how can he be the nominee?
How does he get on the ballots? Has they'll change
the rules?
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Well, those that those filings I'm talking about, guys, are
just for the primaries in each of the individual fifty states. Okay,
I recognize why this is confusing. So he that's for
the primary elections. The general election is a separate as
a separate entity next November, of course.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Okay. So that's well, like the authorities in Pennsylvania, we
have finally found the suspect that we are looking for,
and that's the distinction between the primaries and the general.
So where the general election do the two major parties
basically have and they're already they're already in they have
an open slot. AD Democrat and AD Republican are going
to run in the general election. At the convention, either
(09:40):
through the primary process or some new process, they can
pick whoever they want.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Well, yeah, basically the parties control who their nominee is
the state. So yeah, so the parties get to select
who they want. And again this has been talked about
over the years. You know, again for all the hypotheticals
I threw out there, you know, what if somebody gets sick,
what if they find some huge problem you know, in
their in their whatever it is, and then the parties
don't want to put them up as their nominee, or
(10:07):
you have a so called brokeer convention. You get there
and you don't have nobody has enough delegates. Then the
party has to become involved at the convention. And that's
why you hear about the so called brokered convention.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
But whoever they pick, anybody is okay to run as
the Democrat or the Republican for the general election, Yes,
clearly so, so what I have been saying has been wrong,
I think for a long time. Then sol Michelle Obama
could drop in out of nowhere to the convention. They
decide to run her at the last moment. Mm hmm h.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Yes, and this is this is you know it probably
next year, guys, we're gonna hear more about this than
we ever have for the reasons you guys have already noted.
I mean, and the same is true, the same as
too a Donald Trump. Let's just say he goes through
and all of a sudden next spring, he collects three
convictions right on these four different trials. I'm just making
this up right, But he's got a whole bunch of delegates.
(11:01):
Republicans could decide. Listen, you know, we just cannot go
with this guy at the convention. That's that's possible to happen.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, We've got to be at both conventions because they
both brokeren conventions. Because I've been I've been mocking for years.
I remember Tim Russert and Meet the Press and always saying,
so we could have a broken conn There's not going
to be a brokered convention, you guys. Just your wet
dream is a brokeren convention all you old the journalists
or whatever, and we got a process. Well, this time
we could have two Wow, could be Gary Dietrich, non
(11:32):
partisan political analyst. Follow him on Twitter at Gary Dietrich. Gary,
thanks for the enlightenment. It was our bad our, confusion,
or just just towering ignorance as usual, but it's always
good to talk likewise. Thank you.
Pressure from the left after a prominent liberal calumnist rights
President Biden should not run again in twenty twenty four,
setting voter concerns about age and the VP's unpopularity.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
That combination seems to me to be potentially dangerous for
the Democrats in fending off what would be a disaster
a revenge presidency by Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
David Ignatius getting so much heat from the left for
saying what everybody knows is true. Oh yeah, not self evident,
not the stuff about Trump being revenged whatever, all that crap,
but the fact that Joe Biden is the most likely
person to lose and Kamala Harris would lose two. But
(00:47):
he also points out in that column it's getting pretty
late to do anything about it, which is true on
the right. Also, all these conversations about who's gonna run
and who's gonna jump into a race, and is Michelle
Obama gonna get in or on the left or Glenn
Younkin on the right, or at some point you run
out of time, And I thought we should talk to
somebody about that. Yeah, how's all that work? Let's ask
(01:10):
Gary Dietrich, non partisan political analyst, longtime friend of the
Armstrong and get a show. You ought to follow him
on the Twitter machine at Gary Dietrich. Gary, Welcome, how
are you sir?
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Hey, Good morning guys. And so I've been waiting for
one of the two of you, I mean pretty much
every morning to throw your hat in the ring. But
time's a wasting, guys, It's time to get in. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I feel like the average person runs around with this
belief that any human being can just decide to run
for president the month before the election and surprise everyone.
But what's the reality of when you got to get
in before it's too late.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yeah, that's a great question, guys, And it is coming
up a lot right now for the reasons you mentioned,
And of course, you know, let's be clear also because
if Donald Trump's legal was in particular, you know, how
long before somebody else could get in? If somebody you know,
everybody kind of has sometimes their fantasy candidate, they're like
to see, this is the real key to the whole deal.
And this is why you also hear so much talk
(02:08):
pretty much every election cycle about you know, why does
an independent candidate get in and what would that take
and why is that so difficult? It boils down to
one very simple general fact, and that is, we do
not run national elections in the United States. We run
fifty separate state elections. Each state has their own filing requirements.
(02:28):
Some of those require a certain fairly sizable number of
voter signatures, others are just a filing fee. But they
all have deadlines. That's the real key, and so that's why.
For example, next month is the filing deadline for South
Carolina and Nevada. After that it's Arkansas and another state.
In December comes a whole slew of states, including the biggies,
(02:49):
California and Texas.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
So in other words, if Michelle Obama decided, you know,
I am going to run for president in November, she
can't get on the ballot in South Carolina, in and Nevada,
for instance. If she makes this decision in November, she
just couldn't well as an independent or as a Democrat.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Either way. You have to, I mean you have to.
You know, if you're gonna put your name on a ballot,
you have to go through this filing process. And that's
the real challenge. That's what people sometimes forget, and that
is why you know, now there would be a difference.
For example, if the president were to stay in the
middle of next spring, for whatever reason, he's incapacitated, he
(03:31):
has to leave office, and then the vice president, of course,
would assume his dude, he's now you're in a whole
different ballgame. Half the primaries are over. You'd have to
have the party itself begin to think about what they're
going to do about it. And keep in mind, you know,
there is always the option for the party to have
a still called broker convention that came up sometimes, you know,
when we are talking about people like Hillary versus Bernie Sanders,
(03:52):
et cetera. But the real bottom line is you've got
to go through a process of getting your name on
a ballot. Every candidate, of course, has a filing process,
doesn't matter whether you're running for city council or whatever
it is. And they're very specific requirements to attach to
each of those.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Okay, before we get off on that, So here's there
are a couple of scenarios I think are likely because
I am on the record saying Joe Biden will not
run again. He can't. HiT's absurd to think that he
could serve even part of another term. If if, for instance,
they go ahead and put off reckoning with that reality
until the convention he stands up and says, I really
(04:28):
can't be running. Let's have an honest debate here at
our convention of who we want the candidate to be.
They could do that right and get the candidate on
the ballot in all fifty sevents.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
And Joe he would have a lot of leverage to
do that, particularly if he'd already garnered enough of the
delegates to make him the nominate. You know what I mean.
I mean he'd be saying, basically, I'm stepping aside for
whatever reason, and I'm not going to, you know, utilize
my rights of having this many delegates. It becomes a
(04:59):
lot more I see of courses when again I mentioned
that one scenario where you get to a convention or
get close to a convention with no clear winner or
at least or at least looking like there's some serious
competition there. This, by the way, has also made more
dicey on the Democratic side, because for those people that
don't know, the Republicans are following the traditional mode. You've
got the Iowa caucuses coming up here in February, You've
(05:22):
got the then then followed by New Hampshire the first primary,
et cetera. Yeah, let's see, I'm just looking for January fifteenth,
Iowa Republican caucuses real quick. On the Democratic side, there's
a huge debate underway. The Democrats want to make South
Carolina their first primary. They want to do that on
February third. They say it's going to make for more
diverse representation because.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
They're they're that Biden could lose in some of those
other places. They want to start with a big win.
That's why. Yeah, let me clarify something. Get me real quick,
because I think we're confusing people. We talked about all
those filing filing deadlines in November and a slow in December,
blah blah blah. But now you're saying, yes, they could
switch the candidate in August of next year. So are
(06:05):
you filing to have like the party on the ballot
or what? How do you scare those two things?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Now you're filing, you're filing to have your own name
on the ballot, Joe, and what what's what ultimately happening.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I'm gonna jump it again because I'm I'm confused. So
are we talking about filing to run to be the
nominee of a party. Okay, but so okay, but you
could at the convention though, which is not till next summer.
Couldn't either party pick whoever the hell they want? Yes, okay,
(06:38):
So all of that is about the nomination process. But
once you get to the convention, because they make up
the rules at the convention, they can decide, you know what,
we do want Michelle Obama. That's possible, she's but she's
not on the ballot in any of the states. How
the hell does that work?
Speaker 4 (06:51):
But the dem what ends up happening is the party
ends up having a you know that they have rules
committees and the rules Committee to get together and say, well,
look for various reasons. You know, this has been this
has been surmised when you've talked about, well what people
always ask hypotheticals, what happens if somebody gets assassinated on
a campaign trail or whatever, but now they've already got
two thirds of the delegates, then what do you do?
(07:12):
You start the process all over. We have you know,
primaries again in all those states. No, that's impossible, of course,
and so there has to be machinations, you know, within
party bureaucracies for all kinds of scenarios so that that's
how it works.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
So they would just open it up and say, all right, you,
Gavin Newsom, you can file to run for president here
at the convention and we'll get you on the ballots.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Well, yeah, that's I'm glad you're bringing up a filing, Joe.
In that context. You now, you wouldn't file with the party.
The filing happens with each individual state, and that's why.
For example, okay, here's a good example. So this week
you had the Secretary of State for New Hampshire. People
have been trying to get bit Donald Trump's name. Listen,
reversus get Donald Trump's name kept from going on a
(07:59):
ballot because of the fourteenth Amendment and he's you know, insurrection,
et cetera, et cetera. The New Hampshire Secretary of State
came out this week and said, no, if he makes
the final requirements, I have no legal recourse. And the
ag in the state said the same thing about it,
I have no legal recourse to keep him off of
the ballot. That's Donald Trump filing to run in New Hampshire.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Okay, all right, I'm gonna try one more time. I'm
gonna try one more time. I do feel like I
know less than I did before we started. I'm not
blaming you for this, Gary, but I feel like I
know less than before. I'm gonna pick Gavin Newsom just
because his name is bandied about. Gavin Newsom, who has
not filed to be on any ballots anywhere, is tabbed
(08:42):
to be the nominee. When Joe Boden announces he's not
running at the convention, you said, yes, they can do that.
He can run, but he has not filed in the
way you described. So how can he be the nominee?
How does he get on the ballots? Has they'll change
the rules?
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Well, those that those filings I'm talking about, guys, are
just for the primaries in each of the individual fifty states. Okay,
I recognize why this is confusing. So he that's for
the primary elections. The general election is a separate as
a separate entity next November, of course.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Okay. So that's well, like the authorities in Pennsylvania, we
have finally found the suspect that we are looking for,
and that's the distinction between the primaries and the general.
So where the general election do the two major parties
basically have and they're already they're already in they have
an open slot. AD Democrat and AD Republican are going
to run in the general election. At the convention, either
(09:40):
through the primary process or some new process, they can
pick whoever they want.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
Well, yeah, basically the parties control who their nominee is
the state. So yeah, so the parties get to select
who they want. And again this has been talked about
over the years. You know, again for all the hypotheticals
I threw out there, you know, what if somebody gets sick,
what if they find some huge problem you know, in
their in their whatever it is, and then the parties
don't want to put them up as their nominee, or
(10:07):
you have a so called brokeer convention. You get there
and you don't have nobody has enough delegates. Then the
party has to become involved at the convention. And that's
why you hear about the so called brokered convention.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
But whoever they pick, anybody is okay to run as
the Democrat or the Republican for the general election, Yes,
clearly so, so what I have been saying has been wrong,
I think for a long time. Then sol Michelle Obama
could drop in out of nowhere to the convention. They
decide to run her at the last moment. Mm hmm h.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Yes, and this is this is you know it probably
next year, guys, we're gonna hear more about this than
we ever have for the reasons you guys have already noted.
I mean, and the same is true, the same as
too a Donald Trump. Let's just say he goes through
and all of a sudden next spring, he collects three
convictions right on these four different trials. I'm just making
this up right, But he's got a whole bunch of delegates.
(11:01):
Republicans could decide. Listen, you know, we just cannot go
with this guy at the convention. That's that's possible to happen.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, We've got to be at both conventions because they
both brokeren conventions. Because I've been I've been mocking for years.
I remember Tim Russert and Meet the Press and always saying,
so we could have a broken conn There's not going
to be a brokered convention, you guys. Just your wet
dream is a brokeren convention all you old the journalists
or whatever, and we got a process. Well, this time
we could have two Wow, could be Gary Dietrich, non
(11:32):
partisan political analyst. Follow him on Twitter at Gary Dietrich. Gary,
thanks for the enlightenment. It was our bad our, confusion,
or just just towering ignorance as usual, but it's always
good to talk likewise. Thank you.
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Joe Getty
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