November 6, 2025 • 24 mins
Join Jim and Greg for a special Thursday 3 Martini Lunch! With the 2025 elections just completed, they reflect back on the best, worst, and craziest elections in their memories.
First, they start with their favorite elections. Jim looks back at one from earlier this century that not only brought satisfying results but was also a big boost to his career. Meanwhile, Greg feels old but excited in highlighting one from decades ago that was not only a fantastic night in the presidential race but that was also really good down ballot.
Next, they look back on the toughest elections and one in particular stands out as Republicans seemed poised for a win but ended up well short. But the lingering effects of that election cycle has reverberated in every election cycle since.
Finally, they think about the craziest elections they remember. Is it possible to have an election crazier than one major party nominee getting shot and the other being forced to drop out by his own party? Well, actually, yes there is.
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Get 20% off your first purchase of classic menswear. Visit https://MizzenAndMain.com with promo code 3ML20—shop online or visit a Mizzen and Main store in select states.
Sponsored by Quo, formerly known as Open Phone: Get started free and save 20% on your first 6 months and keep your existing numbers at no extra charge—no missed calls, no missed customers. Visit https://Quo.com/3ML
First, they start with their favorite elections. Jim looks back at one from earlier this century that not only brought satisfying results but was also a big boost to his career. Meanwhile, Greg feels old but excited in highlighting one from decades ago that was not only a fantastic night in the presidential race but that was also really good down ballot.
Next, they look back on the toughest elections and one in particular stands out as Republicans seemed poised for a win but ended up well short. But the lingering effects of that election cycle has reverberated in every election cycle since.
Finally, they think about the craziest elections they remember. Is it possible to have an election crazier than one major party nominee getting shot and the other being forced to drop out by his own party? Well, actually, yes there is.
Please visit our great sponsors:
Give your liver the support it deserves with Dose Daily. Save 35% on your first month when you subscribe at https://DoseDaily.co/3ML or enter code 3ML at checkout.
Get 20% off your first purchase of classic menswear. Visit https://MizzenAndMain.com with promo code 3ML20—shop online or visit a Mizzen and Main store in select states.
Sponsored by Quo, formerly known as Open Phone: Get started free and save 20% on your first 6 months and keep your existing numbers at no extra charge—no missed calls, no missed customers. Visit https://Quo.com/3ML
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch. Grab a stool next
to Greg Corumbus of Radio America and Jim Garritty of
National Review. Free Martini's coming up.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, so glad you're with us for a special Thursday
edition of the Three mar Tiny Lunch. This is one
of those rare days where both Jim and I roa
so we decide ahead of time, Hey, let's talk about
something special that day, and today we're going to be
talking about our favorite, least favorite, and craziest election nights
and election cycles in honor of the results on Tuesday.
(00:33):
We talked about the results yesterday, but we'll also both
be out tomorrow. We're talking about some more stories that
slipped through the cracks could have been Martini's, but other
bigger stories kind of push them off the top of
the bar. So get ready for that tomorrow. But today
we're going to be talking about our favorite, least favorite,
and craziest election cycles. And Jim, it seems like pretty
much for the most part of the century, they've been crazy,
(00:55):
and we'll get to all of it in a moment,
but you and I have been through quite a few
election cycles. That's the first thing that stands out.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of you.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
You used to be like a time like this's like
hit A two, three four big like oh no, I
coming back through we were now. Uh, it'll interest to
see where our choices align. I suspect you know, the
over chances for overlap are pretty good, particularly our perception
of good, perception of bad, and the craziest. Like I
think people most people already tell what the craziest one
is gonna be already.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
But yeah, let's go through this and see how they go.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Greg, Yeah, exactly. The good news is there are multiple
good election cycles for Conservatives, multiple bad election cycles, uh,
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select states. Well, Jim, as we've documented a few different
times here during our fifteen years on the podcast, there's
very few feelings professionally like the morning after a good
election night for conservatives and Republicans. But you and I
are older than we probably like to admit, so we've
seen quite a few. So there's a few to choose
(03:22):
from what's your favorite election cycle or election night that
you can remember.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
So a couple of strong contenders here really tempted to
go with either twenty ten or twenty fourteen. Twenty fourteen,
I was down in Dallas for Glenn Beck's The Blaze,
and they ended the show with a whole bunch of race,
like the Republicans hadn't stopped winning, So I had to
celebrate that, you know, portions of that one of my
hotel room live blogging and all that. But no, no,
for the best, I went back to two thousand and four.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
George W. Bush was.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Not only the winner of that, you know down to
the wire there were a lot of people who believed
John Kerry was going to win. I guess now that
he's passed away. If you've missed my piece, the Wan Kenobi,
who I quoted in those days was former Reagan's speech
chief speech writer Tony Dolan, who was my mentor then
and just a great guy. And he was at that
point working for the Office of Secretary of Defense, but
(04:11):
he was very plugged in with Bush Cheney campaign, and
he just had this serene calmness that the American people
were going to get this one right, that they'd understood
the stakes of the election. This was a post nine
to eleven election.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
And he won.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
But the second thing that made this like just the
best election night compared to all others, that was the
knight that I met my good friend Marshall Manson on
the NRA news program of my other really good friend
Cam Edwards.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I'm right in the carry spot.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Then I think I'm I'm a hot shot who really
knows about elections.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I've uncovering the race pretty intensely. I got Obi.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Wan Marshall, who was at that point working at a
individual rights and freedom organization, comes in with a five
inch binder and he just puts it down, and I
think I thought, I'm a good, big guy. Who is
this guy Marshall? Like if he were any more detailed
in his analysis, it would come down to, Yeah, Edwin
Shabotsky is voting for Bush. She usually votes for Democrats.
(05:02):
That's going to be on twenty two elm Street in Sheboygan, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That's going to be Like it was just phenomenal, Like
I thought I was good at this.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Stuff, Marshall, But that was not necessarily Marshall's job. Marshall
was just that much of a political geek. So look,
big Republican win. John Kerry goes down in flames. He
first credit John Kerry was very good for my career,
So thank you, Senator, but just a you know, not
just having a great night, but meeting a good friend
who really knew politics backwards and forwards. Marshall has since
(05:32):
gone on to become the CEO of several companies, and
I'm here talking with you Greg Hey.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Congratulations to Marshall. Yeah, there's a number of cycles that
you could talk about. You could talk about very good
Republican midterms in twenty ten and twenty fourteen. I was
in college in nineteen ninety four when the Republicans won
both the House and the Senate. That was a big night.
And we had Margaret Thatcher on campus that week, so
that could not have been more exciting. The first election cycle,
(05:59):
I really remember nineteen eighty and so that that's gonna
be my choice. It's fuzzy, so I had to look
back at it. Originally, I remember I was, you know,
got the Weekly Reader pulled and the only name I
saw in the ballot that year was Carter. So I
announced at dinner that I had voted for Carter. That
was not a good thing to do, and so my
(06:20):
older brother spent time patiently explaining why I should have
voted for Ronald Reagan. And then the day before the election,
arc teacher took us into the room in the school
where the election would be taking place and said, okay,
if you're for Reagan, for Carter, or for John Anderson,
go to the year various corners, and I made a
bee line for Reagan. Really haven't turned back since. And
so so not only did Reagan win against Jimmy Carter
(06:43):
and John Anderson, but Reagan wins forty four states out
of fifty wins a majority of the vote as a
challenger in a three man race four eighty nine to
forty nine in the electoral college against an incumbent president.
But wait, there's the US Senate elections that year. They
flipped twelve seats at election, and among those that they flipped,
(07:09):
just listened to this lineup Wisconsin, Washington, South Dakota, Alabama, Alaska.
They beat Mike Gravelle, thankfully, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana. That's
dan Quayle, North Carolina, New Hampshire. And then a young
forty seven year old whipper snapper in Iowa named Chuck Grassley.
So everybody walks around with the eighty four Reagan Bush
(07:33):
t shirts. And that was a really fun election night
on the Republican side too, because you're just like, oh,
I'm gonna get a clean sweep of the actual states
here and then Minnesota narrowly went from Mondale, but there
weren't a lot of coattails in eighty four. The status
quo pretty much raned on the congressional side, and so
nineteen eighty was actually not only the Reagan Revolution for
Reagan himself, but actually got the people in who could
(07:53):
pass his tax cuts and some other things that were
important in his agenda. So a little fuzzier, but I
think that's still my favorite.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I was gonna say, Greg, thank you for that delightful,
happy stroll down memory lane. I did happen to go
across the coverage like a kind of a supercut of
the coverage of NBC and Tom Brokelaw announcing nineteen eighty
the winner of every race in nineteen eighty four, and
for those who remember, that was the year that Walter
Mondale got stomped like a narket a biker rally, as
(08:22):
Denis S.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Miller would put it.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
And so you just go through and once again, I'll
buy it. A little fun little fact. The Republicans as
the incumbent party were blue on the map. Another one
we're coloring blue for Ronald Reagan. Another one for Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I think this could be cut through it and by
the end of the nine he's like, loan, behold, Ronald Reagan.
Big surprise.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
There's not a lot of drama in a year when
one candidate was forty nine out of fifty.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yes exactly, and the fiftieth was really, really close too. Yeah.
I like the map better when it was that way
because the Democrats were more much more of the commy sympathizers,
and now yeah they're flat out commy, so they should
be the red ones.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Over in Britain, the Conservative Party is blue, and I
would gladly make that trade. You know, I don't think
red really fits us as well as people think it does.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Now the left is the reds. We're the true blue party. Man,
come on a lot of fun, so we'll get to
the not so fun stuff. It's just a second, because
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(10:25):
of course, of the euphoria of a good election night
for the right is a bad election night for the right,
and unfortunately we've had more than our share of those
as well. But which one's the worst?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
You know, thinking back to recent defeats for Republicans, you know,
I wasn't surprised by twenty twenty, which ironically came not
on election night, but you know, numerous nights before, numerous
days later, and at Obama, I feel like the handwriting
event on the wall for a while. So when it
was a made official, I think I was in the
(10:54):
NA News studio it didn't feel that big.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
No, no, the worst one. It wasn't.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I was surprised how quick and easy it was to
pick this one on twenty twelve. I as alluded to earlier,
I'd always wanted to be the Michael Barone on these
election nights, to be on some sort of network or presentation,
to be the guy looking at the early vote, doing
the math, calculating, and being able to say, you know,
if not working at a decision depth, then being able
(11:19):
to say, well, this looks really good for this candidate,
this guy. So twenty twelve, the Blaze calls and they say, hey,
can you come in and do that stuff?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Like yes, I'd love to do it.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And you know, also it's funny, like I look back,
I remember thinking Romney really had a good shot, and
people look at it as if it was a fat,
a complete and all that stuff. But did well in
the debates, and I remember like Superstorm Sandy hit and
Chris Christy hugged Obama. So it comes down and it
becomes very clear that not only is Romney not going
(11:49):
to win, the map is gonna be basically the same.
I think North Carolina and Indiana flipped and beyond that
every other state shook out the same way. Listeners may
recall Amy Homes the delightful who's every bit is delightful
and charming a person we finished taping for The Blaze,
it was very clear the top the topic quickly turned
into go went from is Romney going to win? To
(12:11):
where do Republicans go from here? Because, as you know,
Republicans were never going to win an election ever again.
And we just cleaned out our mini bars and it
was just this is you know, after the we just
we I think we went to bed at like four
or five am, and I had a flight the next
day to go back. It was just like drowning our
sorrows and reck knowing that second term Obama was going
to be a lot worse than first term Obama.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And he was.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
You know, it was one of those things like I
was glad I was not hanging out. If you're gonna
be through a miserable election cycle, being with like minded
people helps. And so yeah, that's that's the only happy
memory I have of otherwise deeply disappointing election cycle.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Now the ones where you kind of already know you're
going to lose are somehow less painful. It's like your
favorite team losing by thirty instead of on a last
second field goal. You knew Bob Doll was going to lose,
you knew John McCain was going to lose, and so
you know, Mitt Romney's the one who who really you know,
had a chance. And so twenty twenty was just kind
of a weird election in so many different ways. It
was COVID, it was you know, Biden dementia basically kicking
(13:13):
in on stage at various times, but of course nobody
acknowledged that in the mainstream media at the time. But
I think I think twenty twelve is the one. There
are also some disappointing midterm elections along the way. Twenty
twenty two did not go nearly as well as a
lot of people thought. We didn't take back the Senate.
We did get the House back, but barely. And so
(13:33):
I think twenty twelve is the one where we thought
we were going to get rid of Obama. That would
have been really nice. And then you just got to
that point where Virginia and Florida and New Hampshire and
Ohio and somebody said, you know, if you look at
the margins and add it all up. It's less than
half a million votes or whatever, and we didn't get them.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
That's nice, Yeah, you so can that get me a
couple of coffee at Starbucks?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
No, you know, yes, exactly. And but but you know what,
that night and that campaign is why we're where we
are because once, once the Democrats decided that Mitt Romney
gave people cancer and was a dog abuser and binders
full of women and all that stuff, Republican voters or
a lot of them, just said, you know what, we
can throw the nicest guy on the planet up there,
(14:16):
and they're going to demonize him and trash him all
the way, so we might as well put up the
biggest fighter who's willing to get in the mud and
slug it out. And I'm not going to say that's
entirely why we got Donald Trump now is the Republican
nominee and three straight cycles. But it's a big part
of it.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
It is that, you know, once it became clear that
any Republican nominee was going to be treated by both
the Democrats and the mainstream media, remember Candy Crowley correcting
you know, Candy bear Claw Crowley was going to correcting
Romney during the campaign, during the debate there, Look, if
every Republican nominee is going to get treated like the devil,
well then you might as well nominate the devil, or
(14:52):
at least somebody who fights like the devil, and who
you know, does who's been through everything. Rosie O'Donnell like
every conceiva the best sex I ever had on the
front page of New York. But there's no negative headline
about Donald Trump that's gonna scare him or intimidate him
or bother him or something like that. So you know,
like this, you know, like Dan McLaughlin had a very
(15:12):
good essay about how you look at the partisan divisions
and the seeming craziness of the Trump era. It all
got triggered by what happened in twenty twelve.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, exactly right. And you know, Trump's a bit of
a roller coaster. There are a lot of policies. I
like he's doing a fantastic job on the border. I
don't think anybody can dispute that. I love the fact
that he's extended the tax cuts. I think he's been
pretty good on a lot of cultural issues, not only
the transgender bathroom and sports debate. He's also by far
I think the strongest Republican in my lifetime, and appointing
(15:45):
actual conservatives to the US Supreme Court, which led to
the overturning of Roe v. Wade and several other excellent decisions,
and other are other things I disagree with him on.
I don't think the tariff approach that he's using is
particularly wise. But overall, we're getting some pretty big wins,
and in some ara is they're big wins we haven't
had in a long time.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
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since the year two thousand, including the year two thousand,
there's only been two presidential election nights where we actually
(17:13):
had the winner declared on election night, well, or at
least the Democrats didn't concede until the next day or
even slightly beyond. But over time, there have definitely been
a number of crazy election cycles. I think one obviously
stands out. But what's your number one?
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Well, I'm gonna actually I'm going I'm gonna go not
with the choice. I suspect everyone is expecting me. Look,
I'll leave it to you if you want to discuss
twenty sixteen. I think twenty twenty four. If you're looking
at the numbers. A Trump victory wasn't shocked. Maybe surprising,
you know, I think the fact that he went seven
to oh the Swing States was surprising. Winning the popular vote,
that might be surprising. But you know, in the end,
(17:53):
you know, if you were like Kamala Harrison, utterly flabbergasted
by Trump's victory, it's a sign you probably weren't paying
close enough attention. I'm going to go with two thousand
because I'm thinking back to that year. I was working
for a dot com. The troubles in the dot com
economy had just started to shake in there in November
two thousand. I was then in charge of Policy dot
(18:15):
com and Intellectualcapital dot com, and we were going to
put something up on election night.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
And I'm working there late. I am the loan I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
At that point, I was the loan conservative in the office,
the only person rooting for Bush, and everybody was convinced,
not just that Gore was going to win, Gore was
going to win by a wide margin. I had gone
in feeling really good, and then people remember the Bush
di happens, and Carl Rove said years later that probably
took anywhere, you know, anywhere from one percent to four
percent off Bush's victory in any given state. So this
(18:44):
election turned out to be much closer than expected. But
if you remember, this is the year that they announced
Florida had Gore had won Florida. Well, the Panhandle polls
were still open. Absolutely unforgivable. Boy, the networks like by
a map, guys, look, look look at the time zones.
This is not, you know, some obscure or something. But they,
you know, they originally they called Florida for Gore. Flip
(19:04):
it back, doudl. Then it goes for Bush. And then
like two am, the network's announced George W. Bush will
be elected the next president of the United States.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Aha.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Great, it's two thirty in the morning. I'm exhausted. I'm
still in downtown Washington. Type up, you know, headline George W.
Bush elected next President of the United States. Put like one
paragraph thing on the website. And then I go home
and I'm you know, to sleep, probably at like three
thirty in the morning. I'm still living in DC then,
but I still you know, and somewhere early morning hours
(19:34):
by my wife and by that point we just gotten married.
My wife's in sleep, She's like, what happened I'm like
Bush one, it's like, you know, my wife was not
written for Bush back then.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
And I go to.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Sleep, and then around six am, honey, honey, they're saying
it's the Bush didn't win well. And I go up
and I'm like, crap, there's wrong information on the website
right now.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
And this was not the era of working from home
where I could get access into there.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
So I'm like, I got to get into the office
right now and change that headline because it's wrong. Run
into the office, get it there, change it and say
because you know, that was the year where I was.
It was was William Daily Was came out on behalf
of Gore and said our campaign continues now. There were
a lot of reasons to not like that, but among
them campaign was over. Everybody cast their ballots by then, right,
(20:16):
like the idea of oh, well we've cast our ballots
and now we continue campaigning for president.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
No, no, you don't. Voting's done.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Votings, but you and obviously a lot of problem a
lot of suspicions about elections, a lot of sisions about
vote counts, a lot of suspicions about.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Are they reliable. Hanging Chad's and the bug eyed guy.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Look like a lot of bad stuff came out of
that election cycle. So I mean, we've said the idea, like,
you know, it's think a month before they finished the
recount Supreme Court decision. There are still people who insist
that Al Gore that was the true winner. There's not
the case. I remember Michael Moore's I think it was
Fahrenheit nine eleven, but one of his documentaries, he said
(20:55):
he runs a headline Miami Herald recount proves Gore would
have won a life and.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
People look at that.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
You You're like, ohly, it was a headline in a
letter to the editor, and he made it look like
it was in news. Like Michael Moore is a big,
fat losing idiot who in a lot of way like
stuff like that is why you should not He's a propagandist.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
He's not a documentarian.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
But anyway, so those are my memories from two thousand,
which I think as high as the bar is set
by twenty sixteen and twenty twenty four, even twenty twenty,
I think the craziest it has got to be twenty
It's got to be the year two thousand.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Oh, it has to be.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
It absolutely has to be because yeah, you've got the
hanging chads, which was fun. Then you had the butterfly
ballot and Palm Beach County, which supposedly used for Buchanan,
use from Buchanan's when they voting for him. When they're
trying to vote for Ali Gore, it doesn't matter they
voted for Pat Buchanan. Then you had the Brooks Brothers
riot as they did the recants, and Miami Dade. And
(21:48):
one of the big mistakes there were really two that
the Gore campaign made here was wanting to do hand
recannts in only four counties that were at the time
deep blue, Miami Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Volusia and
so and then for weeks on end al Gore was
out there, this is America. In America, we count the votes.
And so the Florida Supreme Court, which leaned heavily left
(22:10):
at that time, if that's possible to believe, at this point,
kept siding with Gore. The US Supreme Court, as much
as it got involved, generally sided with Bush. And eventually
there were different standards for counting votes in different counties,
and what counted with all these punch cards and so forth,
and finally the Supreme Court just said, now there's got
to be a single standard. You have till then to
(22:30):
do it, which that they didn't have enough time, and
just amazing. There were obviously crazy moments in other campaigns.
Twenty sixteen was also the year of Brexit and the
year that the Cubs got off the schneid and won
the World Series. And my boss at Radio America is like,
it's a crazy year, man. Every poll was showing Hillary.
All the projections were like, oh, a ninety percent chance
(22:51):
to win. We're doing election night, count your time style.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Right by the end of the night, everybody who reads
the New York Times was putting the needle from the
dial into their vein because.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
They just yes, exactly. And so my boss texts me
at like two thirty and just says, Cubs win. And
so he says that, and you know, you and I
do the best and worst political theater in our year
end awards. The meltdown at the jam At Center that
year when they just walked in assuming it was going
to be a walk in the park. They lost to Trump.
(23:22):
It's still just just an epic moment for the collapse
of the Hilary campaign.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
You know, for listeners.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
If you think we did this entire exercise today just
so Greg could do an Al Gore impression, stay tuned
for later this week when we will have Andrew Cuomo
debated Al Gore and Greg will do all the voices.
Then after that I'll do Donald Trump versus Donald versus
tid Cruise.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
The fun part of this is I don't think Jim
and I did hardly any like outside prep. We just
remember this stuff. So I did look up that. I
looked up the nineteen eighty cent at elections to see
how many seats we got flip by. Other than that,
this is just what we love.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
It's just all of these moments are just tattooed on
our brains.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Amazing. So Jim, tomorrow we'll take a look at more
stories that slipped through the cracks. But until then, have
a great date. See you tomorrow, Greg, Jim Garretty National Review.
I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks so much for
being with us today. Please be sure to subscribe to
the podcast if you don't already, tell your friends about
us as well. Thanks also for your five star ratings
and your kind reviews. Please keep those coming get us
on your home devices. All you have to say is
(24:18):
play Three Martini Lunch podcast. Follow us both on X
He's at Jim Garretty, I'm at Greg Corumbus. Have a
great Thursday. Join us again Friday for the next three
Martini Lunch
Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch. Grab a stool next
to Greg Corumbus of Radio America and Jim Garritty of
National Review. Free Martini's coming up.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, so glad you're with us for a special Thursday
edition of the Three mar Tiny Lunch. This is one
of those rare days where both Jim and I roa
so we decide ahead of time, Hey, let's talk about
something special that day, and today we're going to be
talking about our favorite, least favorite, and craziest election nights
and election cycles in honor of the results on Tuesday.
(00:33):
We talked about the results yesterday, but we'll also both
be out tomorrow. We're talking about some more stories that
slipped through the cracks could have been Martini's, but other
bigger stories kind of push them off the top of
the bar. So get ready for that tomorrow. But today
we're going to be talking about our favorite, least favorite,
and craziest election cycles. And Jim, it seems like pretty
much for the most part of the century, they've been crazy,
(00:55):
and we'll get to all of it in a moment,
but you and I have been through quite a few
election cycles. That's the first thing that stands out.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of you.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
You used to be like a time like this's like
hit A two, three four big like oh no, I
coming back through we were now. Uh, it'll interest to
see where our choices align. I suspect you know, the
over chances for overlap are pretty good, particularly our perception
of good, perception of bad, and the craziest. Like I
think people most people already tell what the craziest one
is gonna be already.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
But yeah, let's go through this and see how they go.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Greg, Yeah, exactly. The good news is there are multiple
good election cycles for Conservatives, multiple bad election cycles, uh,
and a whole lot of crazy, especially lately. So anyway,
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select states. Well, Jim, as we've documented a few different
times here during our fifteen years on the podcast, there's
very few feelings professionally like the morning after a good
election night for conservatives and Republicans. But you and I
are older than we probably like to admit, so we've
seen quite a few. So there's a few to choose
(03:22):
from what's your favorite election cycle or election night that
you can remember.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
So a couple of strong contenders here really tempted to
go with either twenty ten or twenty fourteen. Twenty fourteen,
I was down in Dallas for Glenn Beck's The Blaze,
and they ended the show with a whole bunch of race,
like the Republicans hadn't stopped winning, So I had to
celebrate that, you know, portions of that one of my
hotel room live blogging and all that. But no, no,
for the best, I went back to two thousand and four.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
George W. Bush was.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Not only the winner of that, you know down to
the wire there were a lot of people who believed
John Kerry was going to win. I guess now that
he's passed away. If you've missed my piece, the Wan Kenobi,
who I quoted in those days was former Reagan's speech
chief speech writer Tony Dolan, who was my mentor then
and just a great guy. And he was at that
point working for the Office of Secretary of Defense, but
(04:11):
he was very plugged in with Bush Cheney campaign, and
he just had this serene calmness that the American people
were going to get this one right, that they'd understood
the stakes of the election. This was a post nine
to eleven election.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
And he won.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
But the second thing that made this like just the
best election night compared to all others, that was the
knight that I met my good friend Marshall Manson on
the NRA news program of my other really good friend
Cam Edwards.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I'm right in the carry spot.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Then I think I'm I'm a hot shot who really
knows about elections.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I've uncovering the race pretty intensely. I got Obi.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Wan Marshall, who was at that point working at a
individual rights and freedom organization, comes in with a five
inch binder and he just puts it down, and I
think I thought, I'm a good, big guy. Who is
this guy Marshall? Like if he were any more detailed
in his analysis, it would come down to, Yeah, Edwin
Shabotsky is voting for Bush. She usually votes for Democrats.
(05:02):
That's going to be on twenty two elm Street in Sheboygan, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That's going to be Like it was just phenomenal, Like
I thought I was good at this.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Stuff, Marshall, But that was not necessarily Marshall's job. Marshall
was just that much of a political geek. So look,
big Republican win. John Kerry goes down in flames. He
first credit John Kerry was very good for my career,
So thank you, Senator, but just a you know, not
just having a great night, but meeting a good friend
who really knew politics backwards and forwards. Marshall has since
(05:32):
gone on to become the CEO of several companies, and
I'm here talking with you Greg Hey.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Congratulations to Marshall. Yeah, there's a number of cycles that
you could talk about. You could talk about very good
Republican midterms in twenty ten and twenty fourteen. I was
in college in nineteen ninety four when the Republicans won
both the House and the Senate. That was a big night.
And we had Margaret Thatcher on campus that week, so
that could not have been more exciting. The first election cycle,
(05:59):
I really remember nineteen eighty and so that that's gonna
be my choice. It's fuzzy, so I had to look
back at it. Originally, I remember I was, you know,
got the Weekly Reader pulled and the only name I
saw in the ballot that year was Carter. So I
announced at dinner that I had voted for Carter. That
was not a good thing to do, and so my
(06:20):
older brother spent time patiently explaining why I should have
voted for Ronald Reagan. And then the day before the election,
arc teacher took us into the room in the school
where the election would be taking place and said, okay,
if you're for Reagan, for Carter, or for John Anderson,
go to the year various corners, and I made a
bee line for Reagan. Really haven't turned back since. And
so so not only did Reagan win against Jimmy Carter
(06:43):
and John Anderson, but Reagan wins forty four states out
of fifty wins a majority of the vote as a
challenger in a three man race four eighty nine to
forty nine in the electoral college against an incumbent president.
But wait, there's the US Senate elections that year. They
flipped twelve seats at election, and among those that they flipped,
(07:09):
just listened to this lineup Wisconsin, Washington, South Dakota, Alabama, Alaska.
They beat Mike Gravelle, thankfully, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana. That's
dan Quayle, North Carolina, New Hampshire. And then a young
forty seven year old whipper snapper in Iowa named Chuck Grassley.
So everybody walks around with the eighty four Reagan Bush
(07:33):
t shirts. And that was a really fun election night
on the Republican side too, because you're just like, oh,
I'm gonna get a clean sweep of the actual states
here and then Minnesota narrowly went from Mondale, but there
weren't a lot of coattails in eighty four. The status
quo pretty much raned on the congressional side, and so
nineteen eighty was actually not only the Reagan Revolution for
Reagan himself, but actually got the people in who could
(07:53):
pass his tax cuts and some other things that were
important in his agenda. So a little fuzzier, but I
think that's still my favorite.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I was gonna say, Greg, thank you for that delightful,
happy stroll down memory lane. I did happen to go
across the coverage like a kind of a supercut of
the coverage of NBC and Tom Brokelaw announcing nineteen eighty
the winner of every race in nineteen eighty four, and
for those who remember, that was the year that Walter
Mondale got stomped like a narket a biker rally, as
(08:22):
Denis S.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Miller would put it.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
And so you just go through and once again, I'll
buy it. A little fun little fact. The Republicans as
the incumbent party were blue on the map. Another one
we're coloring blue for Ronald Reagan. Another one for Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I think this could be cut through it and by
the end of the nine he's like, loan, behold, Ronald Reagan.
Big surprise.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
There's not a lot of drama in a year when
one candidate was forty nine out of fifty.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yes exactly, and the fiftieth was really, really close too. Yeah.
I like the map better when it was that way
because the Democrats were more much more of the commy sympathizers,
and now yeah they're flat out commy, so they should
be the red ones.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Over in Britain, the Conservative Party is blue, and I
would gladly make that trade. You know, I don't think
red really fits us as well as people think it does.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Now the left is the reds. We're the true blue party. Man,
come on a lot of fun, so we'll get to
the not so fun stuff. It's just a second, because
there were some bad election nights too. But let's talk
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(10:25):
of course, of the euphoria of a good election night
for the right is a bad election night for the right,
and unfortunately we've had more than our share of those
as well. But which one's the worst?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
You know, thinking back to recent defeats for Republicans, you know,
I wasn't surprised by twenty twenty, which ironically came not
on election night, but you know, numerous nights before, numerous
days later, and at Obama, I feel like the handwriting
event on the wall for a while. So when it
was a made official, I think I was in the
(10:54):
NA News studio it didn't feel that big.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
No, no, the worst one. It wasn't.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I was surprised how quick and easy it was to
pick this one on twenty twelve. I as alluded to earlier,
I'd always wanted to be the Michael Barone on these
election nights, to be on some sort of network or presentation,
to be the guy looking at the early vote, doing
the math, calculating, and being able to say, you know,
if not working at a decision depth, then being able
(11:19):
to say, well, this looks really good for this candidate,
this guy. So twenty twelve, the Blaze calls and they say, hey,
can you come in and do that stuff?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Like yes, I'd love to do it.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And you know, also it's funny, like I look back,
I remember thinking Romney really had a good shot, and
people look at it as if it was a fat,
a complete and all that stuff. But did well in
the debates, and I remember like Superstorm Sandy hit and
Chris Christy hugged Obama. So it comes down and it
becomes very clear that not only is Romney not going
(11:49):
to win, the map is gonna be basically the same.
I think North Carolina and Indiana flipped and beyond that
every other state shook out the same way. Listeners may
recall Amy Homes the delightful who's every bit is delightful
and charming a person we finished taping for The Blaze,
it was very clear the top the topic quickly turned
into go went from is Romney going to win? To
(12:11):
where do Republicans go from here? Because, as you know,
Republicans were never going to win an election ever again.
And we just cleaned out our mini bars and it
was just this is you know, after the we just
we I think we went to bed at like four
or five am, and I had a flight the next
day to go back. It was just like drowning our
sorrows and reck knowing that second term Obama was going
to be a lot worse than first term Obama.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And he was.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
You know, it was one of those things like I
was glad I was not hanging out. If you're gonna
be through a miserable election cycle, being with like minded
people helps. And so yeah, that's that's the only happy
memory I have of otherwise deeply disappointing election cycle.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Now the ones where you kind of already know you're
going to lose are somehow less painful. It's like your
favorite team losing by thirty instead of on a last
second field goal. You knew Bob Doll was going to lose,
you knew John McCain was going to lose, and so
you know, Mitt Romney's the one who who really you know,
had a chance. And so twenty twenty was just kind
of a weird election in so many different ways. It
was COVID, it was you know, Biden dementia basically kicking
(13:13):
in on stage at various times, but of course nobody
acknowledged that in the mainstream media at the time. But
I think I think twenty twelve is the one. There
are also some disappointing midterm elections along the way. Twenty
twenty two did not go nearly as well as a
lot of people thought. We didn't take back the Senate.
We did get the House back, but barely. And so
(13:33):
I think twenty twelve is the one where we thought
we were going to get rid of Obama. That would
have been really nice. And then you just got to
that point where Virginia and Florida and New Hampshire and
Ohio and somebody said, you know, if you look at
the margins and add it all up. It's less than
half a million votes or whatever, and we didn't get them.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
That's nice, Yeah, you so can that get me a
couple of coffee at Starbucks?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
No, you know, yes, exactly. And but but you know what,
that night and that campaign is why we're where we
are because once, once the Democrats decided that Mitt Romney
gave people cancer and was a dog abuser and binders
full of women and all that stuff, Republican voters or
a lot of them, just said, you know what, we
can throw the nicest guy on the planet up there,
(14:16):
and they're going to demonize him and trash him all
the way, so we might as well put up the
biggest fighter who's willing to get in the mud and
slug it out. And I'm not going to say that's
entirely why we got Donald Trump now is the Republican
nominee and three straight cycles. But it's a big part
of it.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
It is that, you know, once it became clear that
any Republican nominee was going to be treated by both
the Democrats and the mainstream media, remember Candy Crowley correcting
you know, Candy bear Claw Crowley was going to correcting
Romney during the campaign, during the debate there, Look, if
every Republican nominee is going to get treated like the devil,
well then you might as well nominate the devil, or
(14:52):
at least somebody who fights like the devil, and who
you know, does who's been through everything. Rosie O'Donnell like
every conceiva the best sex I ever had on the
front page of New York. But there's no negative headline
about Donald Trump that's gonna scare him or intimidate him
or bother him or something like that. So you know,
like this, you know, like Dan McLaughlin had a very
(15:12):
good essay about how you look at the partisan divisions
and the seeming craziness of the Trump era. It all
got triggered by what happened in twenty twelve.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, exactly right. And you know, Trump's a bit of
a roller coaster. There are a lot of policies. I
like he's doing a fantastic job on the border. I
don't think anybody can dispute that. I love the fact
that he's extended the tax cuts. I think he's been
pretty good on a lot of cultural issues, not only
the transgender bathroom and sports debate. He's also by far
I think the strongest Republican in my lifetime, and appointing
(15:45):
actual conservatives to the US Supreme Court, which led to
the overturning of Roe v. Wade and several other excellent decisions,
and other are other things I disagree with him on.
I don't think the tariff approach that he's using is
particularly wise. But overall, we're getting some pretty big wins,
and in some ara is they're big wins we haven't
had in a long time.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
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your first month subscription. Jim, I was just thinking that
since the year two thousand, including the year two thousand,
there's only been two presidential election nights where we actually
(17:13):
had the winner declared on election night, well, or at
least the Democrats didn't concede until the next day or
even slightly beyond. But over time, there have definitely been
a number of crazy election cycles. I think one obviously
stands out. But what's your number one?
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Well, I'm gonna actually I'm going I'm gonna go not
with the choice. I suspect everyone is expecting me. Look,
I'll leave it to you if you want to discuss
twenty sixteen. I think twenty twenty four. If you're looking
at the numbers. A Trump victory wasn't shocked. Maybe surprising,
you know, I think the fact that he went seven
to oh the Swing States was surprising. Winning the popular vote,
that might be surprising. But you know, in the end,
(17:53):
you know, if you were like Kamala Harrison, utterly flabbergasted
by Trump's victory, it's a sign you probably weren't paying
close enough attention. I'm going to go with two thousand
because I'm thinking back to that year. I was working
for a dot com. The troubles in the dot com
economy had just started to shake in there in November
two thousand. I was then in charge of Policy dot
(18:15):
com and Intellectualcapital dot com, and we were going to
put something up on election night.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
And I'm working there late. I am the loan I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
At that point, I was the loan conservative in the office,
the only person rooting for Bush, and everybody was convinced,
not just that Gore was going to win, Gore was
going to win by a wide margin. I had gone
in feeling really good, and then people remember the Bush
di happens, and Carl Rove said years later that probably
took anywhere, you know, anywhere from one percent to four
percent off Bush's victory in any given state. So this
(18:44):
election turned out to be much closer than expected. But
if you remember, this is the year that they announced
Florida had Gore had won Florida. Well, the Panhandle polls
were still open. Absolutely unforgivable. Boy, the networks like by
a map, guys, look, look look at the time zones.
This is not, you know, some obscure or something. But they,
you know, they originally they called Florida for Gore. Flip
(19:04):
it back, doudl. Then it goes for Bush. And then
like two am, the network's announced George W. Bush will
be elected the next president of the United States.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Aha.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Great, it's two thirty in the morning. I'm exhausted. I'm
still in downtown Washington. Type up, you know, headline George W.
Bush elected next President of the United States. Put like one
paragraph thing on the website. And then I go home
and I'm you know, to sleep, probably at like three
thirty in the morning. I'm still living in DC then,
but I still you know, and somewhere early morning hours
(19:34):
by my wife and by that point we just gotten married.
My wife's in sleep, She's like, what happened I'm like
Bush one, it's like, you know, my wife was not
written for Bush back then.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
And I go to.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Sleep, and then around six am, honey, honey, they're saying
it's the Bush didn't win well. And I go up
and I'm like, crap, there's wrong information on the website
right now.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
And this was not the era of working from home
where I could get access into there.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
So I'm like, I got to get into the office
right now and change that headline because it's wrong. Run
into the office, get it there, change it and say
because you know, that was the year where I was.
It was was William Daily Was came out on behalf
of Gore and said our campaign continues now. There were
a lot of reasons to not like that, but among
them campaign was over. Everybody cast their ballots by then, right,
(20:16):
like the idea of oh, well we've cast our ballots
and now we continue campaigning for president.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
No, no, you don't. Voting's done.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Votings, but you and obviously a lot of problem a
lot of suspicions about elections, a lot of sisions about
vote counts, a lot of suspicions about.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Are they reliable. Hanging Chad's and the bug eyed guy.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Look like a lot of bad stuff came out of
that election cycle. So I mean, we've said the idea, like,
you know, it's think a month before they finished the
recount Supreme Court decision. There are still people who insist
that Al Gore that was the true winner. There's not
the case. I remember Michael Moore's I think it was
Fahrenheit nine eleven, but one of his documentaries, he said
(20:55):
he runs a headline Miami Herald recount proves Gore would
have won a life and.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
People look at that.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
You You're like, ohly, it was a headline in a
letter to the editor, and he made it look like
it was in news. Like Michael Moore is a big,
fat losing idiot who in a lot of way like
stuff like that is why you should not He's a propagandist.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
He's not a documentarian.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
But anyway, so those are my memories from two thousand,
which I think as high as the bar is set
by twenty sixteen and twenty twenty four, even twenty twenty,
I think the craziest it has got to be twenty
It's got to be the year two thousand.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Oh, it has to be.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
It absolutely has to be because yeah, you've got the
hanging chads, which was fun. Then you had the butterfly
ballot and Palm Beach County, which supposedly used for Buchanan,
use from Buchanan's when they voting for him. When they're
trying to vote for Ali Gore, it doesn't matter they
voted for Pat Buchanan. Then you had the Brooks Brothers
riot as they did the recants, and Miami Dade. And
(21:48):
one of the big mistakes there were really two that
the Gore campaign made here was wanting to do hand
recannts in only four counties that were at the time
deep blue, Miami Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Volusia and
so and then for weeks on end al Gore was
out there, this is America. In America, we count the votes.
And so the Florida Supreme Court, which leaned heavily left
(22:10):
at that time, if that's possible to believe, at this point,
kept siding with Gore. The US Supreme Court, as much
as it got involved, generally sided with Bush. And eventually
there were different standards for counting votes in different counties,
and what counted with all these punch cards and so forth,
and finally the Supreme Court just said, now there's got
to be a single standard. You have till then to
(22:30):
do it, which that they didn't have enough time, and
just amazing. There were obviously crazy moments in other campaigns.
Twenty sixteen was also the year of Brexit and the
year that the Cubs got off the schneid and won
the World Series. And my boss at Radio America is like,
it's a crazy year, man. Every poll was showing Hillary.
All the projections were like, oh, a ninety percent chance
(22:51):
to win. We're doing election night, count your time style.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Right by the end of the night, everybody who reads
the New York Times was putting the needle from the
dial into their vein because.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
They just yes, exactly. And so my boss texts me
at like two thirty and just says, Cubs win. And
so he says that, and you know, you and I
do the best and worst political theater in our year
end awards. The meltdown at the jam At Center that
year when they just walked in assuming it was going
to be a walk in the park. They lost to Trump.
(23:22):
It's still just just an epic moment for the collapse
of the Hilary campaign.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
You know, for listeners.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
If you think we did this entire exercise today just
so Greg could do an Al Gore impression, stay tuned
for later this week when we will have Andrew Cuomo
debated Al Gore and Greg will do all the voices.
Then after that I'll do Donald Trump versus Donald versus
tid Cruise.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
The fun part of this is I don't think Jim
and I did hardly any like outside prep. We just
remember this stuff. So I did look up that. I
looked up the nineteen eighty cent at elections to see
how many seats we got flip by. Other than that,
this is just what we love.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
It's just all of these moments are just tattooed on
our brains.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Amazing. So Jim, tomorrow we'll take a look at more
stories that slipped through the cracks. But until then, have
a great date. See you tomorrow, Greg, Jim Garretty National Review.
I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks so much for
being with us today. Please be sure to subscribe to
the podcast if you don't already, tell your friends about
us as well. Thanks also for your five star ratings
and your kind reviews. Please keep those coming get us
on your home devices. All you have to say is
(24:18):
play Three Martini Lunch podcast. Follow us both on X
He's at Jim Garretty, I'm at Greg Corumbus. Have a
great Thursday. Join us again Friday for the next three
Martini Lunch
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