Bill Kristol: A Blue Wave vs. the Toxic Red Tide

0:00car salesmen are annoying. Ssss. Sign here please. Never talk to one again with FlexScar, the first and only month to month car sales. Oh no. Get a great car, switch anytime. FlexScar, you drive everything. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Hi, I'm Sean Evans from Hot Ones and I want to tell you about YouTube Premium. It has offline downloads, so you can watch without Wi-Fi. Background Play, so you can lock your phone and it still plays, baby. Oh, and it is completely ad-free. Yes, I said it ad-free. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. Hey everybody, just a real quick note. I pre-taped this upcoming pod with Bill and so, you know, assuming was a blowout LSU victory on Saturday night. That's why I didn't mention that because I don't know what has happened. I don't know what's happened in the world. So, you know, if we got the cheeseburger from heaven or whatever,

1:03I don't know about it. So it is a great show. We're talking a little bit about the midterms and it's a retrospective on 94 in 2006. I think that you're going to really enjoy it. Also, remind you we get these events coming up. Take it, so we're starting to go. So if you want to come join us at Liana, Columbia, Charlotte, the Borg.com slash events. And one last thing, I'm after the pods over. Let me know you think about kind of the retrospective part of this. I have another little brainchild for something that I think you guys might like that is in a similar vein and so I'm interested in your thoughts. So you can, if you didn't like it or who's boring or whatever, you can let me know. So I appreciate you guys very much. Have a great Labor Day. Stick around for Bill Crystal. Hello and welcome to the Borg Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday. It's Labor Day. And I have for you, of course, at our at large Bill Crystal. We have a very special episode by popular demand.

2:06It's the Labor Day kickoff getting ready for the midterms. And Bill and I on several episodes have been discussing the 2006 wave year that led to the Democrats taking the House in the Senate as well as some other midterms. And I've suggested kind of cheekily, like maybe we should dedicate a full episode to that. And people are like, yes, please do. We want that. And so we're going to do it right now for Labor Day. It'll treat a little holiday bonus. So that sounds good, Bill. Sounds good. So it's a 2006, which is the least modern history. Then we'll go back to 1994, the ancient times before you were born and I can discuss what happened then. And then you also told me you wanted just a little bit on your first campaign, 1948. Thank you. I said you up so well for that. I mentioned 1948 in Morning Shots this week. And that's why Tim is like a good time. Having a good time with that. I was not quite around yet. We also for the YouTube viewers and the Bollard Plus subscribers, we don't have a picture of me from 2006 in video, Bill, 1994. So you can go see what we looked like. We're both hands up at the never know. Before we do that, I thought it would be good just kind

3:06of set the table with a little bit of pure politicans, some prognosticating, looking ahead to this year's midterm. And then kind of we can talk about how our various experiences and past midterm sort of inform these projections. So I don't know. We need to go state by state. I'm kind of wondering what Bill, like your big picture thoughts are, as we sit here on Labor Day for how the November election will go and maybe specific states that are catching your eye. I thought it would be a big democratic year for quite a while, based on nothing other than just the obvious facts. And the main fact being that Donald Trump's approval rating has just got gone down steadily since he was inaugurated. And the approval rating of an incumbent president is a good predictor of what happens in the midterm election, especially when his party controls what has the Congress. So it is a referendum on do you approve of what they've been doing for two years? And more importantly, probably, do you want the Republican, especially when the Republican party in Congress is so attached to Trump, do you want them to continue rubber

4:06stamping what he's been doing for the next two years? Or do you want a party to check him? That was very much my experience in 2018, the last Trump midterm. And so I've always assumed Democrats had a pretty good shot at a pretty good victory. And then as Trump got into the Iran War and decided to mock you around with tariffs some more, and inflation didn't go down, and debate, generally seemed disconnected from people's lives. And so forth, and gas prices went up. And by quite a lot, I thought a good year could become a very good year for the Democrats. And that's kind of where I am. Yeah, so let's just do the House first. I'm I agree with you on all that, on the big picture. I'm a little bit of two minds at the House and the Senate. And it's a little bit because of the playing field. I do think that the Democrats are going to see big gains among the Tina voters. So in the parts of the country where there are a lot of the Tina's like Texas, that is maybe relevant for the Senate. But I think that they're going to overperform there. There'll be a lot of Trump backsliding. And I think the prognostications are wrong. A lot about what's happening in South Texas,

5:07maybe even South Florida, some places like that. And so I expect the Democrats to even overperform in the House for that reason. And if you look at a lot of the projections right now, Nate Silver, the Democrats need to win four seats to get to 18. A lot of these projections have them only netting like eight seats or something. And then you'll like to 22. And the reason for that is to won the cheating that Republicans did. The gerrymandering did work a little bit. That's going to offset some of the gains. That's one. And another reason for that is just this kind of, and you discuss this with, oh, shoot, it was a Doug Shone. It was on your side. Doug Sosick. Thank you, Doug Sosick on your crystal conversation. And just like the nature of this is very different than O6 and 94. And just how polarized we are. There aren't as many districts in play. And there's been gerrymandering, even before the cheating gerrymandering. There's regular old gerrymandering. And so I see that and I recognize it. But I just look at the map and some of these places that Cook, for example, has is leaning towards Republicans

6:09in South Texas, as I mentioned, in Eastern North Carolina and a couple of districts in Colorado, Florida. I think there would be a bunch of surprises. We'll get into why. So I think that the Democrats could net as many as like 16 seats and end up at 230, which would be less than still. Those other wave years we're going to talk about but more than what is being projected. So that's kind of where I'm at the house. I'm less bullish on the Senate. We'll get to that in a second. But what's your review on that? Yeah, same on the house. I just think people are underestimating. They look at a district that's gone Republican in the last few years. It's a Republican now called Republican plus six. Maybe Republican plus eight because Trump might have been strong in 2024. And they underestimate that if the whole country moves, Trump won't buy a point and a half, right? Let's say the generic ends up plus eight. That is the Democrats win the National House Goat by eight, which seems to be the whole. That's a nine and a half point move. That means that a lot of districts that are Trump, you know, plus six, seven, eight are in play, right? And in fact, not only in play, but might even maybe should be almost favor

7:12to go Democratic. So I tend to think also that people are being a little too, what's the word I'm looking for? Deterministic from the past in this respect and not understanding that when you get to a wave, you know, districts toppled that were a little beyond the, you know, of course they can win this one because it's only plus two Republican and or Republican is holding a seat that Harris actually won. There are some of those. So I'm sort of in the two. I've been saying just to be a little optimistic, just to make the numbers round two 35 to 200 in the house. Oh, well, the two 35 making me seem cautious with my two 30 job is to make you my job is to make you the same prudent, you know, reasonable. I just like this in these districts. I mean, I don't know. Anna pulling the loon isn't a close race in Florida. That's in the likely art category on cook. The fifth Jeff Crank has been in this Colorado spring seat forever. There's a lot of like sprawl into Colorado springs and from the rest of Colorado, you know, it's like places like this start to fall. The mills seat I've talked about a lot, Daytona Beach. I think that's potentially winnable.

8:13Democrats were strung in that their bail Dalton. So I just think that there are a lot of potentially getable dem seats in this kind of likely dem category. There's the toss up category, the lean category, than the likely. I think there's a lot of potential dem seats to pick up there. So we're in the same page, even if not the same number on the house. Here's my nervousness about the Senate. We talk about this in a lot of people who listen to show should be pretty familiar with the playing field, but I'll just lay it out. Democrats need to pick up four to get to 51. And really they need to pick up five because John Federman's been acting pretty squirrely. And I don't know if you it's kind of one of those, Dan if you do, Dan if you don't, if you're Chuck Schumer, if you have 51, it's like either you got to pass everything by John Federman or John Federman switches parties and puts it back at 50, 50. So you really want to try to get to 52, which means you got to win five. Yeah, net five. Yeah, net five. So that means you have to protect Georgia, that seems safe at this point. And you have to protect Michigan,

9:14which seems other people think is less safe than me. I think that's pretty safe at this point. Okay, then you go into the pickups. You've got North Carolina, it's the one that it seems like you're gonna get that's one. You've got Maine, Susan Collins is tough. I think that Maine is gonna be a flip this year, but that's not a guarantee. Then you gotta get two more to get to four, three more of Ohio, Iowa, Texas, Alaska, three of those four the best four. Then after that, you get into like the cans, those things you and I have talked about in Nebraska, it's an independent running, Montana, it's an independent running Florida, maybe, you know, the map is tight. And a lot of those places, you mentioned eight nine earlier, most of those places are 11, 12 Trump states. See, one by 11 or 12. I'm a little nervous that they end up running up into running a bunch of really close races. And a bunch of losing by three points, a lot of 51, 48 losses in those center races. If I sat here today and you forced me to choose to prognosticate, I do think that they get Ohio,

10:17was shared brown. And I kind of look at Texas and Alaska. I think I don't think they're gonna get Iowa. That would be if you're just asking me today, you look at Texas and Alaska. I think those are pure coin flips. And you know, just to be cheery, I'd say they go with the Democrats, but I think that they're, I think both of them right now are like really neck and neck. So it's kind of the state of play. You'd win both of them. If you did win, hold the same seats. When North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Alaska and Texas, that does get you to 52 and a real majority that you can work with where, I don't know, who is the next biggest trouble making Senator after Fatimen? There really are, there really aren't any. I guess that would be Paltola probably. You have a pretty cohesive Senate conference where you're just kind of dealing with Paltola, you know, working with Paltola. And who knows, in that case, maybe Murkowski dips, honestly. So I think that would become a state of play. What about you on the Senate? I basically agree. And obviously predicting races that are basically 50, 50 is a fool's errand. So I mean, there's some historical precedent,

11:17I guess you'd say, for when you get a wave, things tend to tip over to 51, 49, your direction. You know, I mean, that seems like that's can't mathematically or scientifically be determined that way. It just happens, feels that way though, the car, whatever the weird dynamics of these races, they do tend to tip one way or the other for some reason. And so I kind of think that you could split those the big four, two to two, which is sort of what you were suggesting might be the piscinkal most likely outcome, but they could also go four zero either way, honestly. But if the wave continues, this is where it's so important what happens late. And you know, so if you remember, I told you where aren't that important in the sense that I feel like we know 90%, 95% of what's going to happen already. And I'm exaggerating a little bit. We know a lot of what's going to happen in 2026. But that last delta, that last bit is awfully important if you're looking at four, but I would even say five, maybe six very close. I mean, Kansas was closer than Iowa, I think, in 2024 in the presidential. They have a Democratic governor, so I like no one in Kansas is ever like, well, but for a Democrat, that would be crazy. So I kind of think that I put that almost the same category

12:19as those other four, make it five. Something I also think will be some surprise. Like the Democrats will lose the state they were supposed to win maybe Michigan in this case, but maybe Maine. And then still get the majority because Kansas and somewhere else will come through. You know what I mean, that's sort of what happens in these years. If it's a dynamic wave like year, if it reverts a little bit, I think you said this on the last podcast, I'm gonna, does the wave continue a little bit in those last two months? Or does it refer to the, to what's the pressure we're looking for? It referred to the mean, you know, it referred to in the last two months. And that makes all the difference. Does it go plus eight to kind of drift down to plus six? Or does it go up to plus nine? You know, that just makes a big, big difference in these close state Senate races. And that's a good transition to 2006 because I do think that the scale of that wave for the Democrats change based on what happened in October. And it went from what was going to be a really, really good year for the Democrats in no doubt, kind of like this year, to a bunch of seats falling. And producer Anzaly just kind of pulled this for me. If you kind of look at going back to that cook political report, which I referenced and we love Amy Walter and everything

13:21that they're doing there is really great at leave and no. And Osex, who was Charlie Cook, you know, at the end they looked at their own projections and saw like how many they got right and they got wrong. And in Osex, there were a bunch in that kind of likely Republican category that were surprising, dropped at the end. It gets attributed to this October, you know, kind of momentum for the Democrats. So we'll get to what happened in October in a second. I just want to start on both years of the basic facts. So the Democrats in Osex gained 30 seats in the house, which is more than we're both projecting for this time, but for the reasons we laid out a lot because of gerrymandering, they gained six seats in the Senate. Right. Now there's our gerrymandering in the Senate. So that's more of an apples to apples situation, right? Like if you match the Osex number, you should get about six, which is kind of what we're talking about. That would get you to 53 if you, then that's really what you're saying is this sweep maybe of Iowa, Ohio, Alaska and Texas, or maybe you went three of those and Kansas and you get to six. So that was the 2006 year.

14:21Compared to this year in both cases, the presidential approval rating is above this current president's W on election day of Osex was at 38 in Gallup, which is above where Trump is right now is 3856. So that's a say to play. I'll give you guys some names and then we'll do a big picture to get your mind in the right time space. In the Senate, Claremocascal, my MS now buddy, Beat Jim Talent, John Tester wins at your share. It has shared brown defeats Mike DeWine. So times of flat circle in Ohio, like I was a current governor, shared his back running. Sarah Strenerick Santorum goes down to Bob Casey. This was a devastating one for me personally. Sheldon Whitehouse to a feet of Lincoln Chafee. The running joke on that campaign that year, because I was always like the house moderate and it was like we need to moderate more, we need to moderate more more. And they called me a Lincoln Chafee Republican and I can't paint in that year. And then Jim Webb defeated George McCaca Allen in 2006. And I was set to that year. I was working in Iowa.

15:22We'll put this picture up. For Jeff Lamberti is running in Iowa three, which is a Des Moines district, challenging a vulnerable incumbent Leonard Boswell. So there it is. Whoa, look how much hands I'm around looking. Man, thanks to our friends at one skin. My plan there, there was a political consultant that I knew and it was just like, you should go to Iowa, you should meet the reporters. This was the first campaign that I got to do PR. I was before that, I was just kind of a little, little, little assistant, funky field person. And to be a comms person, to go to Iowa meet the reporters. And he's like, then whatever presidential campaign I end up running, he's in line to be a presidential campaign manager, I'll hire you to be the Iowa person. I was like, great, this is a great deal. And so he has looked like that was gonna be George Allen and then George Allen did a racial slur, on the campaign trail, kind of a weird one. McCaca, it's not like a common racial slur. And that was enough to crush him, different, simpler times in 2006, to think that that would be like, nowadays, George Allen would go up with the Republican voters after doing that, but he goes down and then that consultant

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18:31Before I go through the full timeline, what are your big picture memories of those six? Well, just on outside, lived there and I said, you're in town for a gin. Yeah, I knew George Allen some and thought well of him and it was a good governor and his father had been a great residence coach obviously. And a very affable guy and a very good politician, actually Jim Webb, I respect it. I knew him slightly too. He had been Reagan's secretary of the Navy, I think. And then a quick protest over something. It was sort of an arasable kind of old-fashioned democratic hawk sort of and kind of a populist. And we're got hero, like, do you write like Arotica? Do you see the Arotica guy? I can't remember which was exactly like that. I'm good, I'm good. He was a history of like the Irish, the Scottish Irish in America. Fighting something, I don't know. He was like an amateur historian. He was a smart guy, I think he's still there. Yes, Jim Webb did write Arotica. Okay, I don't know if that helped. Anyway, so George Allen was, I'm gonna say, I don't know what mid 50, I mean, the height of his career had been governor then senator, as you say, a lot of the smart money was on him for president, possibly an O.A. charity was VP.

19:33It wasn't gonna have meant to succeed, but I was obviously so wide open, raised on the Republican side. As Senator for Swingish State, more Republican than the Democratic unlike Nava Virginia, but sort of representative state. And everyone liked Allen. And then Webb had a pretty good campaign, but I remember thinking in the summer, what if this could be close? I mean, I wanna sum down to him easily. So Webb was kind of an odd candidate. It wasn't like the attractive 38 year old Talameco against the corrupt tax. And this was, that one liked George Allen and he hadn't defended anyone much. And then the wave happened, that was part of it, I think. I think Virginia is a state because it's got a lot of, so she north of Virginia, raised the stuff to both the waves, as it was later on in 2018 and so forth. You know, it's kind of a lot about primital class. It tuned into politics voters who were like more, had maybe voted for Bush in 04, had voted Republican at the Senate level and thought, oh man, this has gone really badly. So that helped. But then he did have the slur, which was crazy. So do you remember the story? Of course, yeah. This young guy was a tracker. He went to, he was from northern Virginia,

20:33he went to the same house, Gorson went to T.J. He's a lulter, he graduated. And it was 22 years old, I think. And it was, and, and, and, and Alan, he seemed to get along fine, actually. But then he was bothering Alan, the trackers, you know, the guys who go around everywhere and try to record everything and find you and catch you in some, step up. Yeah, look at the camera. And this is pre-i phone, but they got the little camera and all this. And Alan sort of, I can't wait to do something like, oh, come on, Makaka. We got Makaka over here. Yeah, got little Makaka over here. I mean, I think it's plausible, we didn't even know kind of what it meant. Like someone said, his mother had used this term about Indian, Indian Americans or Indian, you know, people from the South Asia, I don't know. Anyway, it became a big thing. And it kind of then, he handled it very badly. That's my man, memory. He didn't explain it. This is always the case, often the case with these things, right? And then the wave just kind of carried web onto a, onto a victory. But I remember, like around now, saying to someone, I guess, web will be fine, right? And this person who was older, and it had been around for 94 and for, and for a couple of other, digitial elections, Reagan, AD, I suppose, said to me, I don't know, Bill, you know,

21:35on a wave, the stuff that looks shaky on Labor Day, goes down, you know, that's sort of what it means to have a wave. And so that's my memory of the Virginia situation. I don't know if the time of it, just the house people, anyway, just because it's kind of fun to go back and OSEC. So here are some of the democratic winners that beat Republican incumbents. Gabby Giffords, B. Jim Colby, a Republican that year. Another race that I had a friend working on in Colorado 7, Ed Pearl Mudder, B. Bob Boe Praise, it's the start of Denver suburbs going blue. I've talked a lot about this race Iowa 2. I was working in Iowa 3, which was the big race already spent money. Nobody spent money on Iowa 2. Dave Lobsack was a professor in Iowa. Literally, I should have went to see where it wasn't cooked. It had to have been like, not lean or likely, but solid Republican. Like it was a solid Republican, Jim Leach had been there 100 years, moderate Republican, popular. He loses the Dave Lobsack. Minnesota 1. You know who won that one in 2006? Tim Waltz. Oh yeah. Goods and a beat skill.

22:36Good necked. Christian Gill Brand is that year. Fun for football fans. He's Schuller. Winds and that little North Carolina 11. District was the same one. I think the Democrats could surprise him again this time. Okay, here's the timeline of the 6-0-5. And I think this is part of what prompted this. We love this. Like, just kind of our memories were different. I'm like, I widened Bush Goods so in pop your on this period of what happened. So I'm going to run to the timeline. We can kind of go through our memories of it. He's real like to get in in January. And things were kind of good in Iraq. Actually, they hold their first parliamentary elections. I think that's the blue thumb election. Yeah, right. It's January. Purple thumb, sorry, January of 2005. But then like pretty much immediately after the counter, the insurgency intensifies some IEDs, suicide bombings. Then you get to August of 2005. And this is the last month where a majority of Americans approve of Bush and the polls. And this is like mostly Iraq stuff. Sydney Sheehan, like her big protest starts then, August of 2005. And then August 29th, Hurricane Katrina,

23:38which is like now, basically a year ago, the same time. Obviously, everybody knows I was there. My sleeper event of this time is October three, the Harriet Myers nomination. Everyone looks to Katrina because it was like, where you got such bad PR, like in the media. And I do think that like, you know, whatever, there's some swing voter types that, I don't think there are a lot of Republican voters. So like, I'm bailing on Bush over his handling of Katrina. That doesn't feel right. To me, there's some, you know, some of this kind of proto populist right, isolationist right, we're unhappy with the war. And the Myers thing, he gets just flayed and coding you and conservative media over this. You know, and I think this is where you start to get, maybe the Myers parallels like the Epstein files in a way. And it's in a weird way because like it upsets the base, right? And this for the base now is starting to get frustrated, followed the first year. Okay, John Murtha then first calls for withdrawal in November, a Scooter Libby indictment. So now you get into some, some controversies there.

24:41That is, that's October. And then the Abramoff lobbying scandal is December. So O5 was a rough year. Lots happening there for Bush. Not a ton then, in O6 happening. I mean, Iraq keeps getting worse. As approval ratings keep going down a little bit, gas prices arise a little bit. So maybe there's the gas price issue. It's a parallel to this issue. And then really, you know, kind of nothing of note as far as like scandals or whatever until October, until a month out. And Bush's numbers are low, but they really, the bottom falls out late September, October 1st, where the Mark Foley page scandal happens. Mark Foley was sending inappropriate texts, to young male pages, he resigns, House Republican leadership had covered it up. One of the House Republican leaders had covered it up, pedophile Danny Hastert didn't know that. At the time, Republican circle the wagons around him. I remember this ruined the last month of the campaign for my candidate, Jeff Lamberti. It's like every interview, you know, what do you think about this? Like we do go to a local news interview. We'd want to talk about whatever, you know,

25:43national security and the clip that they'd show in the local news is whatever his response to was to Mark Foley, you know, sending messages to teenagers. So deaths in Iraq go up that month. And then maybe a final two days, Saddam is convicted and sentenced to death two days before the midterm, so I forgot. And that's a final breath of optimism maybe, but now November 7th was the bloc, and then November 8th from Stelder's side. So, note what is not there is much economy talk. Gas prices were up a little bit, and you point that to the war, so it's a little bit of a parallel to now. But inflation was 2.5% in06, like math. I mean, standard, what you're looking for, unemployment rate was low, economy's pretty good in 2006. So this is a lot of foreign policy, scandal, disappointing the base, you know, wanting to have a check, looking like things are out of control. That's kind of my overview,

26:44but what jumped out to you in that timeline? No, that sounds absolutely right and for some of those things. I think as you spoke, I was thinking to myself, the economy wasn't that bad, no 506. And so all the talk about it, it's all kitchen table, you know, it's all businesses. I don't know, yes, sort of, somewhat. It wasn't great as I recall, but we didn't know 07 and 08 was coming, right? I mean, I don't think, I don't think people felt that way, didn't feel ominous or anything. It's just, the only two tiny points I'd make is Harry and Maya, I think it has slight, this is not crazy. It's a little bit like Trump with the ballroom or something like that in the sense that it was bush indulging his personal like juices counsel from back in Texas, and then he made a right house counsel, and she didn't have the normal qualifications for Supreme Court justice, I mean. And so it's a little bit like Trump, just, you know, feeling like, I'm not gonna just go with the kind of normal practices of the president, I'm gonna put my personal friend in there. I may be exaggerating that, I don't know how much hurt anyway, but it feels a little bit, a little bit, and just like, I just wanna expand on the Epstein thing. To me, it's like obviously poor Harry and Maya, she's still alive.

27:45So I'm not like comparing you to, I know, to me it's like, to me it's like, midterms are different than presidential's and several effects, but one of them is like, turnout is important in both, but turnout really matters. Like turnout is a little bit more important. And so depressing your base matters. And I do think it did. It happens that you're coming off for the first summer, it's the fall of the first year. Like there are other things to be worried about. And then it's like, what we wanna do to follow, like one of the things we cared about being the Republican base, the MAGA base, this time is like, to deal with this Epstein issue. Like you said you were gonna do, we wanted you to do it. And I think that the Republican base at that time, in Essex was like, we want good Supreme Court justices. Like this is our stand-in for social issues. Like we care about the court, you ran on the court, ran on anti-game marriage stuff, whatever. And it's like, okay, we wanted you to do, we don't want another suitor. Like this was a big thing then. And it's like, okay, and now you're just like, oh, you're gonna give it to your friend. You know, and that's seeing things horrifying with these young women. But like, in just the way of kind of letting down

28:46of something that they expected. No, I think that's well, that's a good point. But I think it's, I mean, he began, people began this the second term by saying, let's privatize social security. Now, it should have been, it's perfectly reasonable. Respectable, I don't know if it's reasonable to that. No, and the think tanks loved it, the sort of things, he had not mentioned it to my knowledge during the entire campaign. And it had this weird, and I remember saying, I will say to him. That's kind of like the Iran war. Paralyzed. One of the few things it is, one of the few things I got right, an early on in Fox, I was on the Fox Sunday round table for you, which every week then. And I said, February, for Pear to frit, it's such an easy issue for the Dems, the screaming yell about social security, it's like they're, they go to issue was back then, even more than it is now. You know, protect the social security, they'll gamble it away in the stock market, he's just rewarding his rich stock market friends. The idea was not a crazy idea, and you can make it. Well, it's actually a really good idea, and it would have been wonderful with a much better place if they're assigned it right now, but okay, whatever. Right, I mean, we're our savings that are in our IRAs, and for our one case, probably ended up growing fast in social security, whatever. But anyway, but I think it's just like this,

29:46little like 20 or so. 10% of your 20% going from memory. I think it was a good idea. The Democrats did an excellent job of attacking it. The Republicans weren't ready to defend it, because then what I even talked about, it sort of got popped out of the Treasury Department, and I don't know, sometimes February is like, and so I remember early on saying, this is a political damage, and it had that same character though of, hey, we re-elected you, we sort of thought you were better than the other, kind of likes the direction you were going more or less, they weren't thrilled with everything, but, you know, and we wanted you to kind of do more stuff along those lines, maybe, and it was just the surprise that kind of willfulness of I think, willfulness of it hurt. And as you said, it's a little more like a run. It wasn't exactly the need, it promised not to do it, so that was like, it's not quite like no more forever wars, but it's a little like just what the hell where'd that come from. So I think it did some damage. It probably did hurt. It did hurt. Right, it didn't, yeah, that's good. It didn't hurt Bush in the sense that people left him, but I think it prevented him from having any momentum at the beginning of the second term. And at the other point, just make way you make about this. Is a smaller part, what is it?

30:47To turn out in an off midterm elections, what two thirds of our presidential sometimes even less, which does mean almost by definition that what the basis of each party think matter more, because that missing third is gonna be less involved voters. Because if you can turn out 90% of our Republicans, like, or wherever, or Democrat, you're gonna win. You're gonna have a good year. Right, because it's the reason that you don't give it a persona. You don't get all those other voters in the middle who are kind of diluting as it were the true believers. And so the best thing you can have going for you is you persuade some people, that's good. Then you turn out your base big time, and then you depress the other, something the other party does, as usually as something you do in the opposition, depresses its base. So in 26, just to bring it back to the press if it were one second, that would be if people are furious by some Democrats are furious by a million things Trump has done, and correctly, and they'll turn out. There's some swingish voters who don't like particular policies, and then he's got a little crazier. I can't maybe you should check him, not support him. Yeah, that's right, it's the economy. Yeah, that's good. And then some Republican voters, you still will probably vote Republican in 2028,

31:48still thinking this also Republican, but just, I don't know, just stay home. So you get the Democratic turned out up, and the Republican turned out down. If you can get that, both of those happening at the same time, you know, electric, the two-thirds of size of presidential electric, that's where again, that 2024 number plus 11's a little misleading, but some of that plus 11 for Trump, in Iowa, in Kansas, in Ohio, are voters who will not vote this time. Correct. So yeah, I think it was, I apologize to whoever it is. One of the data people I saw on social media was putting this out, and they're like, well, what if, what if the electorate in Iowa was actually only a plus five elect? That's the right way to put it. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah. It's a plus 11 Trump state, but the term because of the depressed turnout and the increase in on the Democratic side, then I'll say, you know, can you get enough independent voters to get there across the line? And I think that, you know, the Harriet Myers thing, which is why I wanted to talk about it, was part of that depressing, the Republican way said that, but I think Iraq was part of that as well. Like we are seeing that this time on both sides.

32:49And to me, this is why I'm kind of even 18, again, because of the nature of the map, and Jerry meandering and how we're, you know, like a big part of the 18 gains for the Democrats, when 18 gains were about this kind of realignment to the suburbs for the Democrats and places that, you know, you were probably gonna just do well, because the Trump, and so they did better there, but like, the Trump base was still pretty excited in 18. So I do think that was a little different. So that's probably the reason why I'm more bullish and think that Democrats are gonna overperform their polls. So anything else there, and Katrina is something that everybody talks about, when they kind of reflect back in that time, obviously, of course, like here in New Orleans, of course, and such a traumatic and visual event, and then there's the W, the flyover, and Kanye saying W doesn't care about black people, and so like there's all this, I don't know, I'm, maybe I'm, and this is counter-conventional wisdom, but I think that that ended up actually

33:49mattering less than the economic stuff, the Abraham off and page scandals, and then Myers. But where are you on that? People have the sense that the Iraq war wasn't being fought well, whatever the justification, the moral case for it almost, might have been, I think Katrina made it more plausible to say they're kind of, you know, they pushed, sold themselves, it's confidence, toughness, but also commitment, but not just toughness, kind of confidence, condolence, arise, serious people calling power, it was, you know, grown-ups administration, and suddenly like, she's the Iraq war, they didn't power leaves, of course, after the first term, and suddenly grown-ups, little less grown-ups in charge, and then Katrina total just screw up just in terms of execution, obviously, as well as they talked about it and handled it. Without a Iraq Katrina, it wouldn't have made as much difference, and without Katrina, Iraq would have, maybe, but they felt that it came together in a pretty bad way. And then the scandal, you don't really want incompetence and some bad policies and scandals all happening at the same time. Yeah.

34:49And you're right on such a security. I over looked at it, I think that was another key inflection point. November 8th, Rome's self-resigned, is that kind of a relic of an older time where somebody has to fall on the sword, or is that, oh, do we possibly get a Heggie's hat resignation this November? I remember that at the time, I was very anti-Rome's self-added, cold-ended to be fired, after the victory in November 04. So I thought he had mismanaged Iraq and it could get a fresh chart and fed things from getting worse. They kept Rumsfeld and Casey, things got worse over the next two years. I think Bush planned to fire him for months, but just felt somehow couldn't do it until after the election. I don't know to this day, I understand why he felt. What did it get better to do in September? I mean, I don't know. But somehow it was like some weird, I don't know, you can't do it. Or honestly, after the marked fully scandal in retrospect, gosh, we need to get rove on here. Something was there ever meeting, you know, to do this. Was there a meeting about that? It wouldn't fire Rumsfeld be a better news story than talking about Congressman Dittel and teens? Things like it. I'll say in slight defensive Bush, which I'm telling him quite a while, but I have the sense that I saw Bush a few times

35:52in those, and that's the term of this. He, first time I never saw him because I was a McCain guy, but second term, I was a supporter of the war. So I got, I got an indication for these swallish meetings with people like me, magazine editor types, think tanks types. And he, he really did care about the troops. He was cared about the morale. And I think, I remember one point having a weird argument with him where I think, I think it, I'm not sure it was Rumsfeld exactly, but it was something about acknowledging that they'd made mistakes in the first three years of the war in terms of the strategy. And he said, I can't do that. It'll make people feel like they're, they're loved ones to, to died in vain somehow. And I, I just need to suck it up. And I'll take the hit, I understand people think I was wrong, but I just, I can't say to people. I was a kind of weird, I don't think he's right psychologically exactly, but on the other hand, I sort of respect it. He thought a lot about that. And so I think maybe he thought just dumping Rumsfeld where it would have looked like he was doing it to help in the midterms with not- It was like we, for a political. Yeah, yeah. He should have done it. He should have done it. He was kind of like an honor and principle guy. Whatever you think about him.

36:52And it's almost like he did, like that stuff did matter to him. Interesting. Okay. Well, there's 2006, God willing. I mean, a 30-seat house game, that would be the dream. But that's even better than your eye. It's a little better than my projection. I have a 240, 240, 240, something like that. That'd be exciting. Yeah. Okay. Let's move to 1994. This is the classic year people talk about when they talk about waves. I was in short pants back then. I was just after my last Democratic vote that I had done before Trump came around, which was actually this and true. My last Democratic votes were 92 in the school election. I voted for Bill Clinton and bet my grandmother $1 on it. It was very proud when she sent me the dollar. Then I started to get red-pilled there later in the middle school. And then I did vote against our own Lieutenant Governor candidate in the 2004 race that I was in turning on, because he was such a dick. But that's neither here nor there. Those are my two other Democratic votes. 94.

37:52I really found out that I didn't remember anything. And I was totally wrong about a lot of stuff. So we'll see if other people agree. I knew the gist about the fact that it was a big wave. The 54 House seats gained. New House majority was 230 to 204 then. So that Republicans were coming out of a big hole. I should have mentioned this in 06, because this is what I was in wave years. In neither year did an incumbent of the party that was doing the waving lose. So no Republicans lost in the House or Senate in 94 or in 2006. Because of the redistricting mid-cycle this time, there will be some exceptions this time. But to me, that is again where I kind of fall on Michigan, Georgia, Oswald. It's just like when you're in a wave, the people that are in incumbents are the incumbent party usually stays through. So 54 House seats gained for Republicans defeated 34 Democratic incumbents that gained eight Senate seats. The New Senate majority was 52, 48. The total House popular vote, this shows you

38:52how different things are. It was only 53% in favor of Republicans. Isn't that amazing? This year, if the Democrats only got 53%. I mean, they'd be squeaking out of five vote majority, probably. Those are kind of the facts. I mean, the most interesting anecdotes, like the two things I knew about 94, were big waves in contract with America. And the contract with America was unveiled. Everyone listening to this to gas bill might know. So I'm not going to quiz him. When do you think it was? The answer, September 27th, 1994, not three. The contract for the America came out like right now, like three weeks before the election, which goes, show you the Democrats could still do something. And maybe this is a little bit of, I don't know. To my, my view, just learning that now, as I look at it and it just made me completely changed my whole thinking about Gingrich and the strategy. It was just like, Gingrich might have just like jumped in front of a parade. Total. It was already happening. So anyway, Bill, take the floor. I think it was good because it gave for public interest.

39:54And say, we're not just running against Clinton. We have a positive agenda. The agenda itself was mostly silly, if you look at the 10 points. And a lot of it was for free minor, it's a procedural stuff and what I've termed limits, stuff that wasn't going to happen. And a couple of semi-series things, including I think producing the, you know, greater growth of Medicare or something, which got the ones that trouble a year later when they actually got in the fight with Clinton. So that was sort of a not as important. It was helpful at the end to allow all these candidates. Well, there's a lot of stupid stuff in here. You're right. Yeah, not totally. The number of house committees. Right, it was really, I remember looking at it at the time, I had nothing to do with it. And I knew, I was pretty involved in some of the fighting in 94. I'd been fighting against Clinton. But yeah, I remember thinking, oh, come on, but it did help a little rhetorical. I'm sorry, I have to read all of them. I have to read all of them. That's just, it helped by like half a point. It was not important. It would have had, there would have been a wave anyway in 94, but go ahead and read it. Please, let's, because again, I don't, my memory, this was totally wrong. Okay, eight major reforms. It's like, it's literally nothing. Require all laws that apply to the rest of the country,

40:56also apply to Congress. I don't even know what that's. What is that? It's like banking privileges and some better health care plans. That kind of thing, you know. Okay. Select a major independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud and abuse. Great. Cut the number of house committees. Limit the terms of all committee chairs. Band the casting of proxy voting in committee. Require committee meetings to be open to the public. Require a three fifths majority to pass a tax increase. Guarantee an honest accounting of the federal budget by implementing zero baseline budgeting. There's the Fiscal Responsibility Act. This is balanced budget, truth and sensing. So there are, there are additional other, a 500 hour per child tax credit. So there are, you know, some job and wages stuff. But no, that was just the congressional accountability point of it. And then a citizen legislature act, which is a term limit to your reference. I mean, they were trying to capitalize and they did on the anti incumbent anti. There were some congressional scandals, some of them real, some of them slightly fake. I mean, they had some like bank they could use.

41:58It was just a banking, they weren't like ripping off the taxpayer. But they got a little bit, I don't know, it was nice. They got cheated. If you got to the little congressional bank, you got, I don't know what, you could float your check for a week or something. And it wasn't just like dealing with your local branch bank where they were not so nice to you. Anyway, there were these minor scandals, the pretty wider retrospect that happened. Jim Wright had been forced out as earlier as Speaker. I mean, there was, the Democrats were vaguely tainted with congressional scandals having been there forever in Austin, Kowski, right? Committee chairs who had been in, there were no term limit sign for committee chairs. They'd been there for 10, 20 years. They'd been in Congress 30, 40 years. So I think that was the, the part of it you read, the account of the congressional accountability is really pretty small ball. But it captured a little bit. They ran, I'd say this is one analogy. So they did run against the status quo in a pretty big way. Now, how can they do that? So let me just go back to 94 for one second. If you want, I mean, it's just, it was different from 2006, or for that matter, 2010 or 2018, which were sort of waves and many ways if you want, within the context of the modern series,

43:00the Democrats had to control the House for 40 years. They had controlled the Senate for 34 of the preceding 40 years, except for that six year stretch in the first six years of Reagan. Congress was democratic. I came to Washington in 85. That was how it was. Republicans had won the presidency Eisenhower eight years, then the Kennedy Johnson Nixon eight years, then Carter for, then Bush Reagan Bush for 12 years. How did Reagan not take a House? He took the Senate. He took the Senate in 80. Yeah. The House was so, because those Southern seats were still democratic. That's one thing that happened in 94. 34, I believe, Democratic and Congress lost. That's pretty amazing in 94. And about half of them were in Southern seats where they'd been there forever. And then finally, people just decided, well, I was very nice. You've done a great job bringing pork to this gesture for 25 years, but you know what? With someone who's actually a conservative like us and not part of this Hillary Clinton, health care, Bill Clinton, pro-God knows. So, you know what I mean? There was kind of a certain cultural caricature of the dams with Clinton, especially. And the really tried to cap us in that. So it was a big change in that respect.

44:01I mean, Congress, when I was studying politics, then first got into it, the presidency was often Republican. The Congress was democratic. The House was really dem- it was the bulwark of old Democratic power, powerful committee chairs, Rostin Kowski, and all these characters. And then obviously, and speakers and so forth. And when Dutes started to say two years out, we can win the House. People just thought, well, no, that's not gonna happen. And one reason they thought that it's an at least, there was no precursor to this. 1990 had been a mediocre year for Demp for Republicans. That off-year election didn't lose much. They didn't pick up much. 92, two years before Bush had gotten 38% of the vote. Bush had gotten 54% in 88. The Republican Party was an utter disarray. The incumbent Republican president had gone from 54 to 38%, that's partly a perot thing. But still, it was- That's not what he just mean that the House Republicans end up being Bush plus per- Pretty close, yeah, yeah, pretty close. And yeah, then with a differential turnout sort of thing there too, yeah.

45:02So they expected a by September 94, but no one expected it in early 93. When Dutes started to say this, people thought you're crazy, the House is been 40 years. That's two generations of political operatives cycling through what. There were people in Washington who had come as very young people to work in the Hale or in the executive branch. And literally had never, of course, seen a Republican majority just seemed incoherent. Even the Senate had only been that one six year period. So I think this degree of surprise was just novelty of what was happening. It really can't be overestimated. It just felt so different from these more modern swings, which once you have one of them, then you have another one, right, 2006, 2010. Okay, well, that's another just kind of counterwave. It didn't feel like that. Clinton was in the low 40s. He wasn't that unpopular though. And then we weren't fighting some terrible war. There'd been some really minor scandals. I mean, well, white water was beginning to bubble up and all this, but it was funny how people turned against them though. I mean, how much they did. But having said that a lot of it was catching up to what had happened. I mean, it was like these districts had democratic

46:04incumbents who had been there a long time, Tom Foley, the speaker of the house who lost. I think maybe the only time, or one of the very few times that speakers lost the victim of his own seats, you know, had a district in Eastern Washington, I believe, which was becoming quite conservative. It's not Seattle, you know, it's like, and he'd been there forever and they loved him. And he'd, you know, God knows a speaker or before that is what Jury leader brought a ton of pork there and all. And it didn't matter. They wanted a sort of Republican, you know. This was the end of old interest group pork barrel politics, I think in some ways. And the beginning of modern ideological parties, ideological waves. And that respect, it really wasn't precursor of what we were going to see from federal worse, maybe mostly worse over the next three decades. So that's, so my memory is just what a surprise it was, not at the very end though. I think I was on stuff on, I don't know, some show, I think it was me to press maybe or with Stefan Opel, who was then the White House spokesman. And I was running this little project for the Republican future, but I'd become sort of prominent as a critic of Clinton and a Republican strategist.

47:04You know, it's great how you could be a Republican and had one like one failed Senate campaign had been quills. Chief of Stafford, in a presidential campaign, we got a part, but I nonetheless got to call myself a Republican strategist and get the guy around on TV. And as a Republican strategist, I said, we're all against the government, both houses. And so everyone just like Stefan Opel said, of course, he didn't say that wouldn't happen because he was a Republican Clinton. But actually the people there, I can't really guess who's rostered probably, we're like, come on, Bill. I mean, really, I mean, maybe take up seats, sure, but win both houses. That's something we, it's hard to recapture the degree of surprise and kind of novelty about what was happening. Interesting. There again, not a economically challenging time, good economy. And now you three and a four, you mentioned a couple of the scandals. I mean, some of these Clinton, you know, the white water, you mentioned the cattle futures. Like that stuff was being investigated, and the news, they're like, you know, I mean, nothing at all like this. I mean, the thing that people point to is the failed health care plan.

48:07So I think you're kind of looking at two things, really. One, and that's since it's like Bill, it's a feeling that the administration was not competent. Maybe that's the Katrina parallel, but I just was like, they're not going about their business well. And then I do think that there's this kind of demographic, like, you know, these sort of populist right people are aligning with Republicans and then some of the races. So they're white people are aligning with the Republicans. But talk about you're involved in the health care stuff. Like what was, was this just kind of like a big government? Little government was this a feeling that Bill betrayed his voters because they thought he was going to focus on other stuff, he ended up focusing on this. Like how do you judge that? I mean, I think a little about it. I think it was a big government thing. It was, I mean, Hillary's plan, I was pretty big critic of it, but it was a pretty big overhaul the system. It wasn't really like Obamacare, which, you know, at the end of the day was insurers for 30 million people who couldn't otherwise buy it on individual markets. It was a complicated plan. It was a big deal, Obamacare. But Hillary's thing really was embracing pushing people

49:09into HMOs, again, I can remember honestly the details, but it was a bigger overhaul. It was huge hoopla, Hillary big speech around Labor Day year before in 93, Hillary Clinton testifying to Congress as the first lady. It put his wife in charge of the task force to devise this. It all had a slate, you know, she's more polarizing than Hillary. She's much more polarizing than that. And then some of this is misogyny, but also just like culturally, he is governor of Arkansas. You know, she comes off as very liberal and like putting that up first. As a policy thing is like more of a signal that like, no, this is not a DLC governor of Arkansas. Right, and she was more liberal and it was the inside baseball, his wife in charge. And moderates who would vote for Clinton, which they were, you know, some obviously some, some bush voters, mediators who would desert a bush, not all somewhat to pro, but somewhat to Clinton. They thought welfare reform, that was the kind of signature DLC moderate democratic. We're willing to take on the welfare state and we're going to reform welfare and you know, it'd be a little tougher on welfare.

50:10Such a big issue for Reagan, you just have a Democrats over it. And putting healthcare ahead of welfare was as became symbolically very important as he's gone to the left. The trade has moderates supporters. And there's some truth to that, is it? And in that case, kind of in a weird way, that is depressing the democratic vote, but not in the way we were talking about in O6 and this year because it's not depressing the base vote, right, because they were presumably mostly for that, but it's depressing this kind of other part of the coalition, the Southern Democrats, the rural, the more popular Democrats, you know, that we're thinking it was going to be something different. Yes, I think that's right. And then the healthcare proposal was sort of funny because in, I don't know, they thought they could get Bob Dole and moderate establishment of Republicans on board. Those people had often been in favor of reforming healthcare in that direction as Romney was later on, right? And with Obama, you know, sort of precursor of Obamacare. Right, sure. And there was a lot of talk about compromise and I was running this little project for the future and I advised them not to compromise. The healthcare system was not that broken.

51:11There was no healthcare crisis. That was a memo that I wrote and we sort of argued to Republicans that she's just hanged up. And that was a contrary interview, I will say. And most people with you, you're killed if you just don't do nothing, you can't do nothing. There's a healthcare problem. Republicans have lost the 1991 Special Senate election in Pennsylvania over healthcare. That was Carvel's first great upset victory against Thornburg. And so Clinton had talked a lot about it in 92. This wasn't a case. It wasn't a case where he was doing something he hadn't, he said he wouldn't do, but the big government character of it and the Hillary character of it, I think. And so whatever the government Republicans ended up going in the do nothing, just say no position on healthcare. And the one inside I had was, if you ask people in poll, this is the thing about polling and shows why people shouldn't take posters, shouldn't take one polling result to care too seriously or too literally. Two thirds, three quarters of Americans wanted healthcare overhaul. Two three quarters of Americans were unhappy with the healthcare system. Three quarters of Americans had gripes with the insurance companies or you know, it would say whatever cost obviously.

52:12So to say two thirds of or three quarters of Americans like their own health insurance. That's because they mostly work for businesses and corporations that provided decent health insurance. And so they didn't have to see there's any great need if you were working for General Electric or Coca-Cola, you know, your health insurance is adequate. You're a big university, big state government. And so what and I sort of had the insight that the Republicans should run on that second half, that second poll result. He's endangering your health insurance that you're satisfied with. And there's a way, as we've seen this in a lot of public policy areas, both from the right and the left, right? The status quo is easier to defend than to say. Let's risk everything by overturning, overturning the whole thing. And you know, maybe you won't get insurance for your employer, but we got a better idea in my design up by this fancy think tank. And Hillary Clinton's got an old work down for you. And we were able to caricature it honestly in that way pretty successfully, I think. Well, we talked about the October surprise in06 in 1984 Clinton tried to drop an October surprise to protect himself, but I don't know that it landed.

53:13Let's watch. When we started, they helped care to it. They said it was secretive. No, that's not true. We met with him in advance. We even offered to work with him on drafting a bill. We were told, no, you go ahead and put your bill in, then we'll put our bill in, and then we'll work. They announced an approach where more than half the Republican senators supported universal coverage. The bill never came, but the time came to talk about the bill, there were zero senators from the Republican Party on that. So, and by the way, then they released the memo of their strategist Bill Crystal. He wasn't even ashamed to release the memo and say, you must not cooperate on health care, because if the middle class ever gets security about health care, they'll probably support the Democrats again. Whereas if we keep them all torn up and upset and angry, we can either keep them home or get them to vote for us. So, I want, let me just say this, I want more than anything to have a bipartisan effort. He blame you. He also has a different clip. I saw just the text of where he tried to go after you

54:15in the final days, because you came out against farm subsidies, which is anti-farmer welfare bill. That was acceptable. That was on the tarmac in Iowa five days out. I remember like, why is it kind of a, and this is pre-cable really, I mean, this was Larry King. See, it was the one cable network. That was like the one political show basically that anyone watched. Yeah, and then that was two days before election day, I think where he's kind of amazing. Yeah, I'm their top political shadow. I was running this little 12, 14 person, you know, so quasi think tank there, project for the public in the future. I was not really the top Republican strategist, but it was nice that President Clinton, probably knew we're talking, New Caldjah. Yeah, that's true. No, I was involved, but anyway, that was a funny moment. But so the dynamics were pretty different, honestly. I think that was in all these different respects, the historical character at 40 years in the house, the novel, the fact that a lot of it was history catching up to the Southern Democrats, the fact that Clinton hadn't done, it was more that they had tried to do something that scared people, and that we were honestly helped scare people about. That's all what did him in.

55:15So I do think in this respect, the double back, I think 2006 is more of a similar situation. 94 was kind of a, 94 was the end of an era. It was an important election, just a little different from a kind of a normal reaction against the incumbent president. And incidentally, as 94 also shows something that O6 doesn't, which is it doesn't, it's not always a precursor of what happens next. If you're a Democrat and you look at O6, and you think this is gonna be like O6, what's the good news? The next, they win the presidential election by seven or eight points two years later. So hey, it's great to double header to O6 in O8 to pick up a lot of more seats. 94 was great. And then Clinton probably won re-election by seven or eight points with something in 96. So kind of a good cautionary tale there that you can do well in a midterm. Yeah, it is. And also O6 is also more comparable, even though this is none subsequent terms, the second midterm in O6 versus the first one in 94, there's a difference in the dynamics between the second midterm and the first. I don't know, to me I have the 94 lesson. As, and some of this is just things outside of strategist hands,

56:19like this is just the kind of changing, tectonic plates of politics and trends and media and it's global, a lot of stuff that's happening here is having another country. But like, if you look at that number that, you know, the Democrats had before in 92, that included these other parts of a country. Like, if they want to get to a place where like they're really advancing like permanent policy changes and big policy changes, it's like people that want progressives that want big policy changes should want this the most, right? Is like, there has to be a way to reconnect with these, you know, parts of the country that they've lost. Like, they had managed this coalition from like FDR through LBJ, like all the way through Tip O'Neill, like all the way to Bill Clinton's first term and it finally collated, like, but it's fucking a half century, right? Where it's very different ideological and demographics

57:19of people in the coalition and at the sorting of the parties that started in 94 has been very bad for the Democrats and it might be feel unfair and asymmetric and I hear JBL whining about it already, but like, if the Democrats want a governing majority, like they do need like a more diverse coalition, like they had before 94. And, you know, then they lost the House in 94, they lost, they stayed lost for 12 years, people, you know, and then they got it back by doing exactly what you just said, right? Rahm Aman, you're over recruited a lot of candidates for the House and then some Senate candidates appeared on their own who desorbed from the sociological test. I'm not sure if the Democrats are going to be too people running in O6 and winning and the Democrats and then they held those seats and increased them in O8 with Obama, which is a little more complicated, but they had the advantage of a massive financial crisis, obviously. Even Tim Walls, right? Like, think of the different kind of race that Tim Walls runs and it has six from how he runs his commos VP and he runs as a very moderate kind of

58:21rural farmer teacher guy, that's Minnesota one, but you know, look, they went in Kentucky that year. I already mentioned he's Schuller, Redneck kind of football player in North Carolina, two Texas seats. They beat, well, you'd mentioned how Foley lost, Delay lost in that O6 year in Texas, took on a Nick Lampson. That's a good Jeopardy trivia question. I would have never been able to pull that, but you know, three Indiana seats. So like, that's the way back. Okay, what do we forget? 1948 and the 1948 most of us. I mentioned that in morning, Shas was I was trying to make the point that Mike Johnson such as went noodle as we said in the headland of the piece and he said a couple of idiotic things about how we don't really have a view on anything, you know, if Pete, I trust Pete, I trust the Secretary of War. I trust Trump. I'm not gonna, I don't know anything about the Iran war, why I'm just Secretary of the House. And I do think they should pummel the Republicans. I should think what's the treatment pummel the Republican Congress, the 80th Congress, as the do nothing Congress.

59:21He was in combat pressure running for reelection. The do nothing Congress had failed to pass any legislation that he wanted, including on health care and certainly on other things. And he famously hit them as they do nothing Congress. And one of famous come back victory, obviously against Tom Dewey in 1948. And the Democrats, this was a different era, right, with more party switching and less, you know, less forward. Democrats picked up 75 seats in 1948 in the House and took the Senate. And so that was a wave with Truman beating Dewey in incumbent president. So it doesn't really, it's president for years. It doesn't quite compare what we've been talking about. So what's the equivalent of the do nothing Congress? I mean, the Republican Congress now is kind of more like a rubber stamp Congress, I guess. And maybe it's a better term. So we could think of it. So rubber stamp and do nothing. Well, the truth is, there's another two weeks on a very good point who gets this much of vacation. Speaking about health care, you know, in my health care issue, all these guys get a free health care without working. I'm an internal conno, what kind of health care is system C on? No, we don't even know what's happening with them. They're not even working. It's crazy how little that they've worked. I do think calling it a yeah, rubber stamp and do nothing

1:00:23Congress, that's not been set up in a way for the democratic challenges. They should run it. They got to run against Trump. They also have to run against the Republican Congress as a debling Trump and is doing nothing to check Trump and will check Trump and also making it worse in some ways. It exists at the bedding on which members of Congress I wanted to find a quote of true when using do nothing Congress. Okay, but gosh, just the thumb speed. You used it all the time, of course. So you just get a thumb speech, you gave somewhere. And in the thumb speech, the two issues on which he most complains that the Republican Congress did nothing, are health care and housing prices. Isn't that amazing? Health care. And so, and he also throws it in inflation actually. So I feel like the Democrats, they're looking around for the message. They always have the inter-handless internal, hand-ringing about the message. They should go read Harry Truman's speeches in 1948. They're excellent. They're economically populist. He's big on the people versus the corporations and versus the elites and versus the big shots. But the Truman also of course was a Cold Warrior and a middle American guy. He wasn't some lefty kind of cultural stuff.

1:01:24So I feel like they should run his Harry Truman for the next two months. That's a great place to leave it. Bill Crystal, appreciate you. I hope everybody enjoyed a little holiday pod content. And we'll be back tomorrow. We got a double header. We got another guy tomorrow that is very keen on this. And this kind of, he's tired of this talk about the Democrats like getting to 52 Senate seats. He's like, why not 60? Why not 58? So we'll talk to him about how the Democrats get that done tomorrow. And we got one of our buddies coming on the show. It's gonna be a good one. Bill Crystal. Thanks so much for all the, we'll see you next week. Great, thanks. All the billion annotations. Yeah. I got me everywhere. I'll be everywhere. Got me everywhere. Wait. Got me everywhere. Got me everywhere. Got me everywhere. Wait. Got me everywhere. Got me everywhere. The board daily is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzali Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco,

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