Get the Gavels Back: Adam Frisch Talks Centrist Politics and the Welcome Party!

David Wheeler: 00:00:05

Folks, welcome to muck you. This is David Wheeler up in Spruce pine, North Carolina. Delighted that you all could join us.

We have a very special guest today and for that intro I'm going to throw it over to my buddy colonel Mo Davis. Take it Mo.

Col Moe Davis: 00:00:20

Oh, thanks David. And welcome back everybody. Glad to have you with us heading into the fourth of July holiday and hope everybody has a good one.

Yeah, as David said, we do have a special guest today.

mber the name because back in: 2022

You know, Adam ran again in: 2024

She was afraid she was going to lose so she jumped over to another district and found some gullible voters there to, to send her back to, to Washington. And Adam's now working with a pack up in called the welcome party and we'll talk about that today.

But Adam, thanks so much for, for joining us and giving us some of your time.

Adam Frisch: 00:01:46

Honored to be with you Colonel and David, we spoke way back in those good old days. It was pretty wild times.

But I appreciate everyone's service here and trying to bring a what I call the pro normal party coalition to the forefront these days.

Col Moe Davis: 00:02:02

Right.

Hey listen, you know there's some politicians like, you know, Kennedy, the senator from down in Louisiana who kind of plays the, you know, the Oshucks, you know, kind of ignorant, you know, type, but he's actually a Harvard graduate. But you know there's some politicians that play dumb and there's some that actually are. So tell us a little bit about Lauren Boebert.

Adam Frisch: 00:02:26

Well, you know, going back a couple years, I never had planned to be running for U. S Congress. I'd done some city council work. My wife had done some school board work that is elected community service.

nts in the summer and fall of: 2021

I tell people, don't ask me what they exactly were, but they were very quote unquote on brand, you know, ignorant and homophobic and racist and some combination of just not focused on the district. She's kind of the leader of this anger tamen industry that you kind of see out there these days that she has figured out how to maximize.

And while she doesn't come from a formal education background, we never spent any time talking about that. You know, she dropped out of high school in 10th grade to work for her family, and I fully respect and honor that.

And the sad thing is, it's a sad story because she had some bootstrap upbringing and she could have had a great success story.

Not just success by getting into the US Congress, but success and actually showing a way forward that is more positive and inclusive and trying to do the right thing and being a good role model. And regardless of the views of her policies, I don't think that role model holds very well for her and a lot of other people out there.

Col Moe Davis: 00:03:50

imilarities. I. I ran back in: 2020

So if you recall, that was the class where, yeah, it was Bobert Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene kind of the, the. They all showed up in Congress at the same time, and he was kind of the same way. You know, he was in a.

In an auto accident and paralyzed and could have been a, you know, a real role model, you know, and a positive influence, but chose, you know, kind of the same thing. You're talking about the anger, tainment. You know, he's big on the, you know, toxic masculinity and all that stuff. And, you know, we were fortunate.

resident. So. Talk about the: 2024

You know, you got back in, you're going to run again and going to run against Lauren Boebert and what happened there.

Adam Frisch: 00:04:48

Yeah, I mean, to kind of summarize, the 22 that goes into 24, we had the closest.

Not only was it the closest race in the country, if we all remember the 538 political podcast, they did say that it was the biggest surprise in the history of their model. And their model had us losing by. We were supposed to lose by 40,000 votes, and we ended up losing by under 550.

And that's why this thing turned into a bit of a big deal when a lot of people kind of blew us off and we just, you know, my view is there's a lot of crazy people in the world. There aren't that many crazy people in the world. And a third of the Republican Party wanted their party back.

It's probably more so now I was independent for 25 years. I've always said if there was a good stuff done party, I'd be in the get stuff done party.

But that party has not done very well and our country's suffering because of that.

So I re registered as a Democrat and I would have entered the House as probably the most conservative, if not one of the most two or three conservative Democrats in the entire country. So going to 24, it was a bit of a no brainer. After taking a couple months of breathing room and reconnecting with the family to give it a go again.

And we got off to a great start on fundraising. I had good name recognition. We were driving all over the district.

You know, I ended up driving over 75,000 miles, which is a third of the way to the moon. I realize in a district bigger than the state of Pennsylvania, you know, it takes 10 hours with no traffic to drive from point to point.

And we just connected with a lot of people and, you know, I think we were able to be very sincere and very authentic in what we wanted to talk about.

And we were laser focused on kind of local based politics as staying away from, you know, I kept on saying like, if there was a tagline for my campaign, it was I am focused on Team CD3. I'm not focused on team Red or blue or I'm not focused on team Democrat or Republican.

e there. And in the winter of: 2023

And while we don't know what the exact results were, we know what the questions were asked. And there was a polling outfit that she had paid for to figure out the viability.

And sure enough, she must have been down by a lot because she became the first person, I believe in 20 some years to literally bail on their district that was not due to redistricting against kind of a repeat challenger and myself. And so on one hand I was proud that we chased her out of the district. I was really hoping to see her being chased out of Congress.

And I tried to tell my, you know, kind of centrist, moderate Republican friends over in the Eastern Plains for sure where she moved. And that's like an art, you know, that was like a Republican 20 point district, not a Republican eight or nine point district.

And I said, listen, the only thing worse than a carpet bagger is an ineffectual, embarrassing carpetbagger. And you should probably run in that model. And unfortunately, the five of them did not trust straws to figure out who should run against her.

And so the five Republicans got 10 or 11% of the vote and Bobert got somewhere in the low 40s. And she's pretty set there now. We'll see what happens in this environment.

But when she left, we ended up running against this guy Jeff Heard, who's now in Congress. Trump won our district by 10 points and we lost it by five. So we had an over performance of about five points.

In 22, we had an over performance by eight or nine points. And so, you know, we've shown to the nation that we've had one of the better overperforming races, even without Lauren Boebert in the entire country.

And so I'm trying to share that kind of knowledge and experience and hard knocks with other candidates out there with this welcome Party Welcome Pack group that we're working with. We're trying to support centrist Democrats only focused in the US House and only running in Donald Trump districts.

And you know, to my super liberal friends, I'd say like, hey, listen, we're all on the same train, but we're in very different cars and we need a longer train. And I have a big belief that longer train is not coming from getting out the vote in New York City or Boulder, Colorado or San Francisco.

We need to figure out a way as Democrats to earn back a bunch of voters that used to vote for us a generation or half a generation ago and have since left the party and or have left voting for people that are running in Democrats outside of these 20 big cities.

David Wheeler: 00:09:39

So tell us a little bit more about the welcome Party. And before we go any further, what's the website so folks can take a look?

Adam Frisch: 00:09:48

Yeah, there's welcome, there's the WelcomeParty.org and Welcome Pack.org it's pretty much the same group of people, just five of us, six of us. None of us live in D.C.

and there are three founders that started this about six or seven years ago and they've been very, very focused on getting census Democrats elected in the U.S. house. There's a lot of bells and whistles to chase out there, but they've been very focused.

We've been very focused going forward on making sure that we try to get gavels.

So tactically, tactically, our plan in 24 and 26 is to win back the House and that's going to happen again from getting centrist Democrats to run and challenging districts strategically, we are also very focused on kind of building out A flywheel, if you will. That again, I don't want to get into binary conversations always between like there's liberals and there's centrists.

Because I think, Colonel, you know, and David, you know, everyone's kind of living like 15 dimensional lives.

Like I'm a husband and a father and an uncle and a nephew and an American and a Colorado in, and I'm Jewish and I grew up in Indian reservation, right.

And all of us are living all these multidimensional lives and we show up in this political conversation and there's a one dimensional question, right? You know, are you on Republican or Democrat? But my belief is that most people are between the 240 yard lines, if I will.

And that's where all kind of the action is to get these gavels. And so we're very, very focused on earning these gavels.

n the country, like literally: 1996

And then Obama won about 25% for his reelection and Biden and Harris won fewer than 8 or 10% of the rural counties in the country.

So my, you know, my, it's a sad joke, but like The Democratic Party's 20 big cities, Aspen and Martha's Vineyard, basically 20 big cities that are not getting the best version in the Democratic Party. New York City to be is probably a sad example of that, where I used to live for a while.

And so we're trying to figure out how to get back to those smaller communities, working class communities, kind of factory towns, if you will.

And certainly in North Carolina, you know, outside of a couple of the big cities of the college towns, these are communities that used to vote Democrat and don't do that anymore.

David Wheeler: 00:12:26

Well, Mo and I certainly know that unfortunately we've both been on the ballot and have experienced what's going on there as far as the loss of Democrats out in this part of the world.

But, you know, one question, I mean, you ran such a great campaign in, in 22, and it was a pleasure to meet you and your wife and be out there and try and support and we were trying to be the bad cop. I'm not sure that we helped that much. I, I think we raised the volume on our negatives a little bit. How.

And you're such a positive guy, you're a business person, you've had success in life You've, you've been great at getting elected locally and doing some good things too. By the way.

How, how do you balance, you know, going after a scoundrel like Bobert with, you know, your personality and in your campaign, which is, was so successful?

Adam Frisch: 00:13:26

Yeah, no, it's a good question, David, and thanks for that and I appreciate you guys. You know, it was a, we need multifaceted effort to try to win. You know, I, I, there's a couple thoughts about this.

You know, Nancy Pelosi or the recent speaker of the House shared this comment and I, I, I agree with her some of the time, not all the time. But she has a great line which is, listen, winning is a decision to be made.

And once you decide to win, every decision you make after that has to be on that goal of winning.

And you would think that the reason political parties are founded is to win elections, to implement policies, not just to win, but implement policies that you think are better for your community and the country. And the problem is the more I get involved in this political sphere, and it's not being completely sniped, but not everybody actually wants to win.

And to me it's winning a majority.

There are some loud parts of both parties that are probably able to raise more money, hire more people and, and generate more notoriety for being a minority, allowed voice to be a majority voice in a minority party. And to me, that's not winning. To me, winning is having gavels and having a majority.

And so every day I wake up, I'm trying to figure out how do I build those majorities. And depending on in my inputs of that are a couple things.

at are going to be in play in: 2026

probably ready to vote in the: 2064

And so every day I'm waking up now, and every day I was waking up in 22 and 24 is how do I make a connection on policy, but also on values with those voters that are able to be won over beyond Party affiliation. Right. And so in my view is there's a couple characteristics that I believe that these 15% of these voters in a subpart of the country have.

And again I'm not a political scientist, I'm not a pollster but I feel like I've done a 75,000 mile focus group over the, you know, over the years of 21, 22, 23 and 24. And this is a district that was is registered 22% democrat and we've got 49.99% of the vote one time and you know, 47.5% of the vote the other.

And to me is those 15% of the people are, they're probably more moderate if you will. They're probably between the 245 yard lines and they probably have opted out of politics more than they've opted into politics.

They probably do not know who the Vice President of the United States is. They probably do not know there's an election until a month or two before. And for good reason. They don't like politics.

And so I'm always thinking and we at welcome are always thinking about how do we earn the trust and support of these people that are going to decide a lot of important issues and policies for the entire country going forward.

And so it's a little analytical in my thinking but it's important for people to kind of know what my assumptions are as we try to fill, how to build and well, I appreciate there's a role to be played for pushing back. You use it yourself.

David, good cop and bad cop I just look at is what's the most effective way to earn trust with sincerity with these people that have the ability to still be pretty open minded about looking for someone that's going to look after their families interests as well as the community's interests. And to me it's more than just as important as pocketbook issues are. And I said this a lot.

As important as pocketbook issues are pride and dignity trump pocketbook issues all day long.

And the Democratic Party in my mind has botched the value connection, the cultural connection with people that do not live in big cities at the end of the day.

David Wheeler: 00:18:05

Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that, my friend. So let's switch gears here. I've got one question and then I'll throw it back to Mo.

What give us two names of centuries good candidates that are besides Mo Davis who's running against Chuck Edwards here in West North Carolina, two other candidates that our listeners ought to take a take a look at.

Adam Frisch: 00:18:29

Yeah. Well, if I could have speakers prerogative, I'm going to talk about four that are officially on the welcome.

David Wheeler: 00:18:35

You got it.

Adam Frisch: 00:18:35

That's okay. So we've, we've endorsed three incumbents. Adam Gray out California's 13 district. He's in a, he's not in LA or San Francisco or San Diego.

He is in the Central Valley. And he will tell you that his district has produces more dairy and milk than the entire state of Wisconsin, which I'll get to in a minute.

We have Marie Guzen Compress up in Washington third, and we have Jared golden in Maine.

And while some classic Democrats get frustrated sometimes with these incumbents, they're locally focused candidates that truly believe in what they say.

They don't always vote with the Democratic Party, but they are Democrats and they're proud Democrats, but they're laser focused on the district and the characteristics that they have.

And the same characteristic is this woman Becca Cook has, who ran in Wisconsin's 3rd district, overperformed but came up a little bit short against the Derek Van Orton who is part of this anger tament, you know, election denying group of people Republicans. And she's back at it again. And we really are big fans of Becca.

And to talk about the multidimensional aspects of these races, Becca Cook just got endorsed by Bernie Sanders. Right.

And so you have some commonalities of people that are focused on economics populism or economic realism or economic reality that 75% of the country is not partaken in the upside that some of us have in there. And I think Donald Trump maliciously tapped into that in 16 and again in 24.

And I think that if the Democratic Party can spend more time talking about economics and less about some of these cultural issues where they're just off base with the majority of the country, I think we can do well. So Adam and Becca and Jared and Marie have our full support and we'll be coming out with the slate of another four or five candidates.

And obviously we're watching what's happening in North Carolina as well. There's a couple districts and Moses is in one of them that we will keep an eye on and probably have something more to do in the late fall.

And welcome is working on not only raising money as other PACs do, but we're also there to provide some advice for people.

You know, usually I tell people like, you know, free advice is worth what you pay for it, especially for me, but I do have 75,000 miles of focus group in me that has a Pretty proven track record of being able to overperform in a certain level with. There's some commonalities of these Trump voters that as opposed to vote for Trump because of who he is.

There are people in my mind that have voted for Trump in spite of who he is. The Democratic Party just has not had the right alternative.

And I'm hoping that these candidates and what MO is working on, they show that there's a way to earn back some of those prior voters that are not happy with the current administration and all the yelling and screaming that are going on in the country.

Col Moe Davis: 00:21:47

You know, we've had Adam Kinzinger, Joe Walsh, David Jolly, Anthony Scaramucci, they've all been on the podcast and, and they've all said that, you know, they're, they're, they're outcast from the Republican Party and they've all said that, you know, the Democratic Party had a, could open the aperture up a little broader, you know, not just the left, but you know, like from the center to the left, that they could see themselves being Democrats.

In fact, you know, since then, you know, David Jolly's running for governor in Florida now as a Democrat and Joe Walsh, you know, announced a couple weeks back that he's running registered as a Democrat. So how's, how are you finding it with the party on trying to get them to take a broader view, like you mentioned, extending the train.

How's that going?

Adam Frisch: 00:22:38

It's frustrating, without a doubt. I also, in January and February, I ran for one of the three vice chair roles of the dnc, the Democratic National Committee.

And a month before, I didn't really know too much about what the DNC did.

And it's made a lot of noise lately because of the work that David Hogg has been doing in my view is, you know, getting rid of older Democrats for new Democrats or blonde hair Democrats for red headed Democrats is not really, or older, you know, or is not really adding to the conversation.

But all these Democrats that we've been backing, they're being challenged, they've been challenged in the past and some of them will probably be challenged again by kind of more liberal, quote, unquote Democrats. And my view is you can have 0% of what you want or you can get 85 or 90% of what you want in this purity test is failing.

You know, one of the things on an optimistic note, I will tell you is after 75, 000 miles of driving, and this is not just a pitch like I truly believe 80% of us agree on 80% of the same stuff. Right. Which is economic opportunity for people and really economic opportunity for the next generation for the kids.

Good safe schools, good safe neighborhoods. Understanding immigrants play a vital role to communities and economics. But we need to secure our borders and have a rul laws after that.

There's a lot of noise out there.

So if you have 80% of the people that agree on about 80% of the same stuff, there is a 64% approval rating platform and neither party, neither party seems to have any interest in grabbing that 60% of the voters out there. And to me, that's heartbreaking for the country.

It's heartbreaking as a Democrat, but it's more importantly heartbreaking as an American to focus on that. It's like literally just staring and poll after poll, conversation after conversation shows that.

And both parties seem to work very, very hard to win all these contested districts by like two votes. And then they get thrown out when there's a red wave and then they get thrown out when there's a blue wave. And it goes back and forth.

And so I think there is a 60% sustainable majority about these policies.

And for a party as the Democrats are, that talk about diversity, the diversity of thought is something that has not made it up the diversity ladder for all the other attributes that are there.

And just mathematically, I just do not see how Democrats get gavels, how Democrats get a majority without getting candidates reelected or elected that are laser focused on their district's needs that sometime come in opposition to what the Democratic Party brand is doing and sometime it's not. And it's like that. It's almost like the Republicans are focused on the economic elites and the Democrats are focused on the cultural elites.

And so basically the entire middle class gets left out of a conversation because no one's fighting for them. Yeah.

Col Moe Davis: 00:25:53

Well, listen, let me ask what what's the future hold for Adam Frisch? What's next? On your, on your, you know, I.

Adam Frisch: 00:26:00

I've said, you know, I'm not saying over my dead body I'm never going to run again, but I'm one of these people that is willing to run, but I don't have to run and I'm not planning on running in, in Colorado's third district and I'm not gonna get up and move to a different district or anything else like that.

I've said that, you know, if in, you know, six or eight months there's rampant inflation and rapid unemployment and sadly, these rural hospitals that are probably going to get hammered, get hammered because of the legislation that's being talked about as we speak. And no one who's running in CD3 is connecting.

I can have that conversation, but I think there'll be enough people that are going to be running that will make the connection.

And I'm very happy to focus on helping, you know, 10 fellow centrist, moderate, you know, locally local based politics candidates get elected or reelected. That I am about my own personal desire. Like I'm, I said I'm willing to be in Congress but I don't have to be in Congress.

And I was willing to do that at one point and now I think that window might or might not have closed.

But I'm very happy to focus on trying to kind of steer the Democratic Party in a better way place because I do believe the best way we get a better Republican Party, it's not going to come out of self enlightenment, it's going to come out of pure competitive juices that if the Democrats start winning seats, the Republicans will have to have some type of course correction. But there's not going to be any course correction until Donald Trump is not part of the conversation. I think that's been very, very clear.

And so I think the best path forward is to try to kind of enhance and reform the Democratic Party from within side.

As much as I appreciate kind of the third party and those conversations, I think we're better off trying to make the Democratic Party better for all sorts of reasons.

And so that's what I'm going to focus on between now and 26 and after that we'll have another conversation about what else to do out there in the world.

Col Moe Davis: 00:28:01

Yeah, well, listen, I think you know that David and I are totally behind you. We certainly are. You know, we're proud Democrats, but we're disappointed in the party and we know the party can do better.

So you know, we really appreciate your efforts and what you're doing and you know, hopefully, you know, we need to play the long game and, and get the party back on the right track and you know, do better for America than what we've been doing of late.

Adam Frisch: 00:28:28

So I, I hear you, Colonel.

You know, one last thing is that when you see Ohio, which keeps on voting for Republicans, support reproductive rights by lot and you see minimum wages get passed in red states, one starts to realize that the Democratic, some of the Democratic policies are not the problem. But when you, when you attach some of the Democratic policies to the Democratic brand, it literally drops between 15 and 22%.

So it's not to say people don't like some of our policies. They just don't like us. And us is the brand. Right, right. And that brand needs to get fixed.

And right now the loudest voices of the brand are not going to be added, not going to be additive to long term majority.

And it's, that's a longer conversation about how to try to figure out how to add more trains, how to add more cars to the train for people that want to do that.

Col Moe Davis: 00:29:30

Yeah.

David Wheeler: 00:29:33

We want to be on that train with you, Adam. And we'll post all of those candidates names and links to them on our show notes.

We'll also post more information about the welcome pack And Adam, but thank you for everything you're doing. What you're doing, I think is a model that could probably be picked up, either scaled or picked up on a regional basis.

And we're doing that to a certain extent. We're, we're going to narrowly focus on a couple races and hopefully add to what you guys are doing across the country.

And you're right, we got to get the gavel back to the Democrats.

I think Hakeem Jeffries would be a terrific leader of the Democrats in the House and maybe we can stop some of the that's going on with Trump these days.

Adam Frisch: 00:30:27

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. You know, on the, on the COVID page of the welcome party.org is growing a big tent Democratic Party.

And that's exactly what I think we can all agree that needs to happen. And we're excited about the movement and we have a lot of allies that are focused kind of on winning gavels and been very focused on that.

There's other organizations out there focused on kind of this quote unquote centrist movement.

But again, if people want gavels, you need one needs to be probably broader in their thoughts than they have been in the past about what it is to be a Democrat.

David Wheeler: 00:31:04

Yeah, but you know, this, that was how you remember Clinton. That's how he was successful. He had the dlc, you know, which was a more moderate centurist organization back when he, he was running for president.

And, and look what he got two terms out of that and did a hell of a lot of good for the country. So I agree with you.

Get back to a more moderate view and, and, and frankly, you know, the far left, when I hear Genocide Joe, those guys don't even deserve to be in the party, frankly. They don't, as Carville said, start their own damn party.

Adam Frisch: 00:31:37

It's, it's hard. I mean, one last thing.

If we have the time and it's hard because if we do want to have this binary conversation, which is a little frustrating, but if you want to say that there's kind of the progressive left and then there's the centrist moderate convers, the problem is this is a time of very emotional, driven politics conversation, right? And overall, the Republicans have been very emotionally focused and the Democrats have been very fact based focused.

And too often we show up as technocrats, right? And the Republicans are showing up with emotion.

And you know, the Republicans, the Democrats show up with cookbooks, the Republicans show up with brownies, like we need some sincere brownies, like there's that. But the problem within the Democratic Party now is those of us that kind of come from the centrist movement, we're not pitchfork people.

And every, a lot of people want to see pitchforks because they're so frustrated, and rightly so, about the state of the country and everything else like that. So another problem is, is that, you know, there's this anti establishment movement out there as well.

And I think those of us that are centrist are as frustrated with the establishment of the Democratic Party as those on the progressive movement.

It's just that sadly, right now the establishment and centrism, those two words are too linked together that our fellow centrists are being kind of dragged down by this assumption that we don't want to see sincere change within the party and sincere change for the country's betterment. And so that's the environment of at least what we're trying to work on to make sure that we find candidates that are bold.

And what we would say is we don't need any more mushy middle people. We need to find people that are bold in their conviction to represent what it is to be a Democrat, but also what it is to represent their district.

And that's why it's not easy for us to find these additional candidates. But that's what we're really laser focused on. And we understand that what happened in the mayor's race in New York was, gosh, awful.

But we just know that the branding, even within the centrist movements is not where a lot of people are. But I think we just need to do a better job within that group and explaining that conversation.

It's not easy, but we're going to continue to work on that as you guys are as well. So thank you for your time.

David Wheeler: 00:33:55

Okay, well, this has been another episode of Muck you. Our friend Adam Frisch from Aspen, Colorado has been on the phone with us today. And on behalf of my co host Mo Davis.

Thank you for joining us and we'll.

Adam Frisch: 00:34:11

Talk to you next time.

Marilyn Muckraker: 00:34:14

This has been Muck You!, co hosted by Colonel Mo Davis in Asheville, North Carolina and David Wheeler in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Thanks to our guest today, Adam Frisch with the welcome Party. Please visit thewelcomeparty.org for more information.

merican muckrakers. Copyright: 2025