Get Trippi with Joe: Unmasking the Political Circus
We're diving deep today with the one and only Joe Trippi, a political maestro who's been in the game since the days of Ted Kennedy. Seriously, this guy's been around longer than some of us have been breathing! Joe gives us the lowdown on the wild ride from Howard Dean's infamous "Yeehaw!" moment to the current political circus that is Donald Trump. He breaks down how the Dems have dropped the ball in the messaging game, while the other side has built a killer propaganda machine that’s got everyone buzzing. Plus, we chat about new ways to get our voices heard and why we gotta stop renting our platforms and start owning our networks. Trust me, you don’t wanna miss this jam-packed convo that’s as informative as it is entertaining!
Diving headfirst into a whirlwind of political chaos, we kick things off with the legendary Joe Trippi—yeah, the guy who’s been shaping campaigns since the days of disco. From his beginnings with Ted Kennedy to his recent escapades with Tulsi Gabbard, Joe’s seen it all and isn’t shy about spilling the tea. We chat about how the political landscape has morphed from the era of Howard Dean’s passionate ‘Yeehaw!’ to the current circus we call politics, where a convicted felon can still pull a crowd. Joe lays it out: it’s not just about fundraising; it’s about building a direct line to the people and ditching the mainstream media’s middleman. He’s got some spicy insights on how the GOP has capitalized on grassroots connections while the Dems are left playing catch-up, relying too much on traditional channels. The conversation takes a turn as we dissect the shifting allegiances within minority communities and how the Democrats can reclaim their foothold. Spoiler alert: it involves being more aggressive and not letting fear dictate the messaging. Buckle up, folks, because this isn’t your average political chat!
Takeaways:
- Joe Trippi emphasizes the necessity for Democrats to create their own media networks instead of relying on mainstream platforms that are controlled by their opposition, illustrating how the right has built successful propaganda channels.
- Trippi recalls the evolution of political campaigning from the Dean campaign in 2004 to the current political landscape, noting that the lessons learned have often been misapplied by Democrats, particularly in terms of fundraising and outreach strategies.
- The conversation highlights the importance of effectively communicating through various channels, including social media and cultural events, to engage with audiences that traditional political messaging fails to reach, especially among younger demographics.
- Trippi discusses the shift in voter demographics, particularly among Hispanic and Asian communities, and stresses the need for Democrats to adapt their messaging to reconnect with these crucial voter bases.
- A key point raised by Trippi is the idea that simply rebranding the Democratic Party isn't enough; Democrats must also combat the relentless demonization tactics employed by their opponents to regain trust and support from the electorate.
- The episode underscores the need for a unified Democratic strategy that not only focuses on messaging and outreach but also on building community engagement through innovative platforms like the newly launched pro-democracy network, Sez Us.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Joe Trippi
- Ted Kennedy
- Tom Bradley
- Jerry Brown
- Walter Mondale
- Doug Jones
- Howard Dean
- Tulsi Gabbard
- Lincoln Project
- Breitbart
- Fox
- Elon Musk
- X
- Sinclair Broadcasting
- World Wrestling Entertainment
- Ultimate Fighting Championship
- Sez.us
- American Muckrakers
Transcript
All right, welcome back, folks, to muck you where we cut through the noise and dig into the truth.
Speaker A:No sugar coating, no spin, just the raw, unfiltered conversations that matter.
Speaker A:I'm David Wheeler and always I'm joined by my co host, the one and only Colonel Mo Davis.
Speaker A:Take it, Mo.
Speaker B:Thank you, David.
Speaker B:And good to be back.
Speaker B:Thanks everybody for tuning in and our string of interesting guests continues.
Speaker B:Today.
Speaker B:We're fortunate to have Joe Trippy.
Speaker B:If you've been following politics, you know, any length of time, you're familiar with Joe, you've seen him on cable news.
Speaker B: Ted Kennedy campaign back in: Speaker B:So for the past 45 years has been a pretty continuous engagement in the political process, working on campaigns for Tom Bradley and Jerry Brown and Walter Mondale and Doug Jones and Howard Dean and Tulsi Gabbard.
Speaker B:I want to ask you about, and Joe's also on the board of, you know, obviously Joe's part of the Democratic Party from that, that lineup I just read off, but he's also on the board with the Lincoln project and working with them.
Speaker B: lped with my campaign back in: Speaker B:So, Joe, thanks so much for taking some time to talk with us today.
Speaker C:Of course.
Speaker C:Well, good to be with you.
Speaker C:And David, great to see you again.
Speaker B:Oh, thanks.
Speaker B: onal campaign manager back in: Speaker B:And we've gone from that to a convicted felon and a notorious deviant.
Speaker B:How did we get there in 21 years?
Speaker B:How did we get from, from, from Howard Dean to Donald Trump?
Speaker C:Well, look, I've said this before.
Speaker C:I think the, that there's, there's two things that, well, Democrats learned from the Dean campaign.
Speaker C:Only really one thing, that you could raise a lot of money through email.
Speaker C:That's what they, that's what they took from it.
Speaker C:And Republicans back then, George W.
Speaker C:Bush didn't need money.
Speaker C:They, they never really had.
Speaker C:I mean, they, because they've got the billionaires and the millionaires and the big check writers.
Speaker C:So they weren't as interested in low dollar fundraising.
Speaker C:What they learned was, hey, you could build networks where you build a direct connection with your followers and you could just sort of over time circumvent mainstream media, circumvent any kind of truth.
Speaker C: k in the Dean campaign in, in: Speaker C:That kind of gets to where we're at, right?
Speaker C:Because in a lot of ways while they were building Breitbart and Fox and Elon Musk was buying X and again, basically taking the power of these networks that were never built, the pro democracy side or the Democratic side, whatever you want to, never built any of those.
Speaker C:They don't exist.
Speaker C:Relying on mainstream media to fight propaganda is not going to work.
Speaker C:And so then you have Trump come along and now they've got these full scale propaganda networks and man, he is going to pump poison in there.
Speaker C:Like there's no, no to moral rate.
Speaker C:You know, get people, you know, basically use fear at every turn within those networks.
Speaker C:And frankly, Democrats weren't in a lot of them.
Speaker C:I mean, think about the World Wrestling Entertainment, the Ultimate Fighting, ufc, Ultimate Fighting Championship Rodeos.
Speaker C:These are all communities where people were paying attention not to politics, but to, you know, to wrestling or, or cage fighting or you know, whatever, you know, and, and of course Democrats wouldn't even think to go there, let alone communicate in those networks.
Speaker C:And so, but, but Trump, Trump, you know, he would go to UFC fights.
Speaker C:I mean he, he just knew that either the new game is to create attention, that any attention is good because if you get it, it keeps attention from anybody else.
Speaker C:And two, that so many people are not paying attention that you have to be where they are paying attention to some NASCAR or something else.
Speaker C:And so he went to all the pla and the Trump campaign was communicating in all the places where people were paying attention to something else other than politics.
Speaker C:We never communicated there.
Speaker C:I mean, weakness.
Speaker C:And then two took advantage of the, of the, of the networks that they had built and was able.
Speaker C:It's like when he goes on Truth Social and he makes a statement on truth Social.
Speaker C:Every reporter in mainstream media has to have a truth Social account.
Speaker C:Why?
Speaker C:Because they don't want to get beat by the other reporters that are on it.
Speaker C:So he basically creates this attention magnet.
Speaker C:We don't do that.
Speaker C:You know, I, I think the closest moment may have been when Joe Biden posted that he was withdrawing from the, you know, that he was not going to run again on X.
Speaker C:That's the, you know, it was like the one time thing and even then it was so rare that we did it that no one knew whether it was true or not because like, you know, maybe is, maybe he had been hacked.
Speaker C:So I, I think in a lot of ways that the, the, they learned some real important lessons that, that I've been kind of screaming about, you know, with, to, to our side of, you know, that we've got to, we, we, they own, we rent.
Speaker C:They own X, they own Fox, they own Sinclair Broadcasting.
Speaker C:Sinclair Broadcasting takes the profits and buys another local station that'll do.
Speaker C:Continue the propaganda in their news every night at 6:00.
Speaker C:And then you have the chairman of Sinclair Broadcasting buying the Baltimore sun.
Speaker C:So they, they, they use all that to, and they buy more and more media and more and more propaganda outlets and then what do we do?
Speaker C:We rent.
Speaker C:We rent.
Speaker C:We buy ads on Fox, buy ads on the local Sinclair station, buy ads on X, on Facebook, on all of it.
Speaker C:Make them, make them more money so they can buy more network and own more of the, the information flow and the propaganda flow that they have.
Speaker C:So you know, my thing is we've got to start owning, stop renting.
Speaker C:We've got to create our own networks.
Speaker C:That's what I'm doing with a new social network, pro democracy social network called says us, where we're now in app stores, both Google and Apple.
Speaker C:So I hope people will go check that out.
Speaker C:But that's just one thing we got to do.
Speaker C:Many, many.
Speaker C:Your, your podcast.
Speaker C:I mean that's, we've got to really start flooding the zone with our own, our own efforts and stop renting on theirs.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, you know, depending on the polling you look at, Democrats have a, either a 27 or 29% favorability rating with the American public.
Speaker B:So we've clearly done a horrible job of communicating.
Speaker B:And as you just described, it's gotten inordinately harder.
Speaker B:I mean they control social media.
Speaker B:They've beaten the mainstream media into submission.
Speaker B:So how do we punch through that bubble to, to get our message out there?
Speaker C:Well, that's my point actually.
Speaker C:Look, I think their networks have become so pervasive that it, you know, all this talk about, hey, we have to re, rebrand the Democratic Party or we have to, you know, become more left, more right, whatever, more centrist.
Speaker C:Doesn't matter.
Speaker C:It doesn't matter because they will so demonize whoever the candidate is or whatever the flavor that we end up over the next couple of years creating that by the time we launch that candidacy with that new message, they'll, they'll have been, you know, like you saw them do to Hillary Clinton what they did with Biden.
Speaker C:Even though the, you know, the jobs numbers were going up, they convinced everybody that there were no, there were no jobs and that the economy was, was, was garbage.
Speaker C:Certainly the economy needed, you know, needed to improve and all that, but not to the extent that they had convinced everybody.
Speaker C:And that's with the, by the way, with the mainstream media every week or every jobs report saying great jobs report but, but their insidious networks, propaganda networks were so, and that's where people are getting their messaging now.
Speaker C:Their, their information.
Speaker C:They're not getting it watching David Muir on abc.
Speaker C:I mean a few million are, but most of them are getting it from social networks so that they, they run.
Speaker C:So yes.
Speaker C:Do we have to look at our messaging and our, and, and we have I think a, A, a lot of young aggressive potential candidates for the future.
Speaker C:And so I, I think the, the candidates piece will take care of itself.
Speaker C:I mean we can all get into whether that's, which one is your favorite right now.
Speaker C:But, and they're certainly going to have a big debate debate and someone will emerge and lead the party.
Speaker C:I'm not concerned about that as much as what we all need to do to build I think things like podcast networks, things like a pro democracy social network like we're trying to build.
Speaker C:It says us, it's sez us by the way, just in case anybody listeners want to want to check it out.
Speaker C:But my point is, you know, things like the Lincoln Project, we just launched Lincoln Square, which is a media platform substack again to start building that muscle that, that, that messaging muscle.
Speaker C:Because unless we do, there will not be a way to deliver the message in today's, you know, in today's media environment.
Speaker C:I, my point would be, you know, like says us, we have 10,000 people that joined because basically we kept it there on purpose to get the bugs out of it and that kind of thing.
Speaker C:You know, it's now something that, okay, people go, well geez, why would I post on a social network that only has 10,000 people on it?
Speaker C:Well, it's the pro democracy social network.
Speaker C:None of the other ones are going to do that.
Speaker C:And so yeah, can we get it to 100,000 in a couple of weeks, a month?
Speaker C:Can we get it to a couple million?
Speaker C: million by, by you know,: Speaker C:And the thing that people don't realize, 3, 310 of a percent of all social network accounts are toxic.
Speaker C:Only 310 of a percent.
Speaker C:Those 310 of a percent deliver 80% of the fake news and disinformation on this on all social networks.
Speaker C:So you have 80% of the lies being amplified and created and centered around by 310 of the percent of people on social.
Speaker C:How do you.
Speaker C:Let's kill the three, let's get the three 10 off ours.
Speaker C:Let's.
Speaker C:And let's try to start inviting more and more Americans into a civil, pro democracy social network that we built and we own.
Speaker C:So that's, I mean, that's sort of my, my case for why we, for why you're.
Speaker C:The things you're doing, the things that we're doing at the Lincoln Project at Lincoln Square and it says us are some of the most important things that, that people can do.
Speaker C:They listen to this, maybe they'll join the social network too, you know, and then on the social network, hopefully you guys will start posting there.
Speaker C:I know.
Speaker C:I think David has been or will be and, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll build it, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah, been posting quite a bit actually.
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker A:Sczus us.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker B:Hey, Joe, we had, we had David Jolly on not too long.
Speaker B:I think it was David Jolly.
Speaker B:David, correct me if I'm wrong, but we were talking about how, you know, on the Republican side, you know, on the Democratic side we want to run on our policies, you know, here's what we want to do to make life better.
Speaker B:And on the Republican side, it's it.
Speaker B:Their campaigns are centered around demonizing their opponent.
Speaker B:It's not so much policy, it's painting the other, the opposition candidate as a, you know, child molesting pervert, and it is working for them.
Speaker B:How do we get our side to be more aggressive and fight harder, you know, in the, in the trenches?
Speaker B:If we don't win the election, the policies don't matter.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think, look, the, the lesson in all this is that they, is what you said, the demonization is what, is what matters.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So that, like I caution people to not pay too much attention to Trump's low economic approval rating.
Speaker C:I mean, it's, you know, it's now, you know, I think the lowest it's ever been for just about anybody at this point in the presidency.
Speaker C:It's not, no one's.
Speaker C:So they're testing.
Speaker C:Where do you think, you know, what do you think of his handling the economy?
Speaker C:Well, that's not being tested against the candidate that's running against him is a, is a commie, trans loving pedophile, in other words.
Speaker C:So what I'm saying is, yeah, everybody gets, oh, look, he's, his, his approval's falling.
Speaker C:Yeah, well, that only increases the the vitriol and the demonization that's going to occur again to anybody who, who we stand up and again they have better delivery and networks, et cetera.
Speaker C:So we go to the same problem.
Speaker C:I think the other thing though, you're right MO is you know, well, a couple of things.
Speaker C:It turns out knocking on doors every two years in October is not going to stop.
Speaker C:It's not, it does not balance four years of demonization.
Speaker C:You're not going to undo that every two years at the doors.
Speaker C:Although the doors are important.
Speaker C:Important.
Speaker C:That's what it's, it's one of these things where we, and yeah, build that wall, Mexico will pay for it is something that's quick and easy and everybody get.
Speaker C:And then of course our response isn't a simple response that everybody, you know, easy to understand.
Speaker C:Very short.
Speaker C:It's the explanation, the reason.
Speaker C:The, the, the, the, the data, the, the charts that show that immigration is actually not as bad as they, you know, I mean it's all this explanation stuff.
Speaker C:And I look, we're in a world forget about our own networks.
Speaker C:You know, we're now down to the evening news.
Speaker C:The average sound bite is nine seconds.
Speaker C:Nine seconds.
Speaker C:That's look at X where you have to, you know, whatever 250 characters, blue sky, 300something characters.
Speaker C:There's not a whole lot of nuance or explanation that you can get through um, in that short attention span by the way.
Speaker C:And, and we as Americans have even shorter and shorter and shorter attention span as we're doom scrolling and all those other things.
Speaker C:So yes, we have to learn to deliver our message.
Speaker C:Short, tough again.
Speaker C:Remember what I said earlier, it's about getting attention.
Speaker C:We have to get people's attention.
Speaker C:We have to do things or say things that get.
Speaker C:That's what Trump does.
Speaker C:But that's the world also that we're in that he gets and we don't.
Speaker C:I talking about a lot of our candidates and a lot of our, our committee, you know, committees, campaign committees out there.
Speaker C: ts presidential candidate for: Speaker C: This, no,: Speaker C: n and announce our nominee in: Speaker C: on leader leading us into the: Speaker C:What I'm saying, I'm not saying that's the idea we should do, but what I am saying is it's clear, it's easy for you and me and David and our listeners to understand how much attention that fight for among, you know, whether it's Newsom, Web, Westmore, Whitmer, you know, Doug Jones, whoever, all these people running the attention that that would bring to our, to what we're projecting to what into any change in message that we were projecting.
Speaker C: nominee being the nominee in: Speaker C:So that becomes the shadow cabinet taking on everybody else.
Speaker C:What I'm talking about here isn't that that's the idea that that attention is something that we have to figure out because even the best ideas, if we don't, if we can't grab people's attention and I think so we have to create mechanisms to do that.
Speaker C:They do that all the time and also start communicating where people are paying attention and that's places that, you know, NASCAR, WWE, UFC, etc.
Speaker C:Etc.
Speaker C:We've got to figure ways to do that while we create, while we create our own network to, to distribute our ideas out there.
Speaker C:The way Elon can amplify on X all the, all the bad ideas and, and the division in anger that that's fomenting and, and tearing at the fabric that of trust and community that that democracy depends on.
Speaker A:So Joe, I grew up in Iowa and Warren county around Tom Harkin and Phil Davitt, John Culver and other good Democrats.
Speaker A:Let's hearken back to the old days if you don't mind.
Speaker A:What's one of your favorites Mondale days or the Dean days when you were running those campaigns?
Speaker A:Give us, give us a little color on what it was like to be.
Speaker C:With look, back then, Iowa was like a place where I would have told you if we only, if you could only, only one state would decide who the nominees or who the president would be.
Speaker C:I would have said Iowa.
Speaker C:It was, it was just an amazing host.
Speaker C:You know, a host place where they would listen to everybody and, and weren't playing politics and like would, would.
Speaker C:Would I, I think always pick the right person, you know, even if it wasn't my guy, you know, but so, you know, I think that that the, you know The Dean campaign was.
Speaker C: ning that, that, that year in: Speaker C: In: Speaker C:Um, and I mean, for instance, in the Dean campaign on the.
Speaker C:This.
Speaker C:I think it was the Saturday before the election, before the caucuses, if you.
Speaker C:Every single Dean supporter was called like 16 times and it was like, hey, this is, this is the Dean campaign.
Speaker C:Just wanted to make sure you're going to vote on, you know, go to the caucus.
Speaker C:Fifteen minutes later, hey, David, this is the Dean campaign.
Speaker C:Just want to make sure you want to go to the caucus.
Speaker C:By the time we made the one call to remind them to go to the Dean can go for us, we were literally.
Speaker C:Our own supporters were screaming at us, if you, I'm not voting for you.
Speaker C:I'm not going.
Speaker C:Don't call me ever again.
Speaker C:Which I think had a lot to do with why we went from first to third.
Speaker C:But that's the, That's.
Speaker C:We were already.
Speaker C:That had already happened before the scream happened.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:And look, I don't know which campaign did it, but you know how Iowa works, David.
Speaker C:You.
Speaker C:Every campaign goes in, calls through the entire state, identifies the Kerry voters, the Dean voters, the gap part voters, or whoever's, you know, Obama and Hillary and Edwards.
Speaker C:And then you go to work on the undecided as well.
Speaker C:They had.
Speaker C:Somebody had a nice file of when they had recorded people who said they were for Dean and they did everything they could to.
Speaker C:To mess with those people.
Speaker C:And that's where I think you started to see the turn in my view of where it.
Speaker C:It, you know, where the party later on starts to decide, which I think was a huge mistake to walk away from Iowa being first.
Speaker C:I just, I.
Speaker C:I was so against that because I still would trust the people of Iowa before I.
Speaker C:Even in this polarized, crazy time we're in, before I turn it over to any other state.
Speaker C:Obviously you don't ever want one state to decide, but that's how much I believe in.
Speaker C:In the people of Iowa still.
Speaker C:I was just back there.
Speaker C:I was Frankel.
Speaker C:The.
Speaker C:The was running for the Senate and I was out there with Doug Jones, campaigning for him with him and for him.
Speaker C:And I still felt that, I mean, he lost, but I still felt that, that, that, you know, it's a fair.
Speaker C:You get a fair shake.
Speaker C:There is, I guess, the, the best, you know, but I do think the innocence of the place in terms of how polit conducted changed somewhere not obviously wasn't Gore Bradley.
Speaker C: tarted, in my view to turn in: Speaker A:Yeah, it was probably related to money too.
Speaker A:Remember, that was when money started to come into politics.
Speaker A:I mean, I grew up when, you know, when you're in politics, the only people that made money was the radio and the TV stations and yeah, maybe the newspaper.
Speaker A:And now, I mean, look at the consultant class that I say very disparagingly, the amount of money these feet people.
Speaker A:What, what are your thoughts on consultants and taking on races they know are going to lose just for the fees.
Speaker A:What are your thoughts?
Speaker C: le for what, what happened in: Speaker C:And I mean, it's, it's again, like who you're running a presidential campaign or you're the media consultant for a presidential campaign that's got like $600 million in the bank or whatever it is.
Speaker C:Who's going to tell them to get out?
Speaker C:I don't mean that in a, you know, I mean, there's lots of other reasons.
Speaker C:You don't tell somebody that you like a lot and they've been working for it for years not to, not to do something.
Speaker C:But I'm just saying it's like I did the, the fascinating thing so in, when Jerry Brown ran for governor in the, you know, the second comeback for governor against Meg Whitman.
Speaker C:So meg Whitman spent $187 million against Jerry Brown.
Speaker C:Jerry Brown raised $37 million.
Speaker C:So she's spending $187 million.
Speaker C:She has a 14 point lead.
Speaker C:14 points on Labor Day because she spent $100 million.
Speaker C:While I had to beg Jerry to like, not spend any money.
Speaker C:We're not going to do anything because then we'll get to a place on Labor Day where she's got 87 million and we've got 37 million.
Speaker C:It won't, won't be a fair fight, but that's a lot better than 187 to 37.
Speaker C:So we waited.
Speaker C:She built up a 14 point lead.
Speaker C:We beat her by 14 points, 28 point swing, while she still had 87 million and we had 37 million.
Speaker C:Now, let me get you the punchline.
Speaker C:The punchline was I did that race for a flat $300,000, which is nothing.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:The consultants who worked for Meg Whitman.
Speaker C:Oh, my God, 5%, 10% of that.
Speaker C:10%.
Speaker C:Yeah, whatever.
Speaker C:You're talking about.
Speaker C:18 million.
Speaker C:You know, I don't, we don't know but just making it, you know, you know, relatively fair.
Speaker C:Guess I think there was some report that it was like 20 something million after the.
Speaker C:They checked the FEC reports.
Speaker C:That's not my, My point isn't.
Speaker C:Isn't whether it was 10 million or 20 million.
Speaker C:It's that.
Speaker C:No, it's totally because of the vast amounts of money swimming around out there.
Speaker C:The, the kind of mercenary for money thing in the consulting class on both sides has I, I think, done a lot of damage.
Speaker A:I agree.
Speaker A:And it, and it's eroded donor confidence.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because who.
Speaker C:You.
Speaker C:You get snookered into giving, you know, raising.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:$16 million into the Marjorie Taylor Greene race in Georgia.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:We lose by 35 points.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Not only in 18, but 20 and 22.
Speaker A:And the guys are walking away.
Speaker A:And here's the other thing that's really irritating that people probably don't know those mailing lists become property of that candidate.
Speaker A:They sell them off.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:They're off selling them.
Speaker A:So, you know, you got candidates and consultants that are making money off of lists that.
Speaker A:From that race they knew was going to lose from the start.
Speaker A:And listen, I, I'm all for entrepreneurs making money.
Speaker A:If you win.
Speaker B:Hell yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, pay.
Speaker A:Would you pay $20 million to win the California governor's race?
Speaker A:Yes, that'd be.
Speaker C:Jerry would not.
Speaker C:Jerry wouldn't.
Speaker A:Well, Jerry wouldn't.
Speaker A:But, you know, if you but had somebody and they won, that would have been terrific.
Speaker A:But no, but it's also.
Speaker C:How much do you need?
Speaker C:It's like, you know, at some level, like, you know, hit Whitman said, I'll pay you 3 million to do my race.
Speaker C:They're paying trippy 300,000.
Speaker C:I mean, like, okay, you know, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker C:But that just doesn't happen.
Speaker C:A lot of it is like you said, because it's at the front door.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:How much is Meg Whitman willing to pay to be the U.S.
Speaker C:the governor of California?
Speaker C:Well, she raised, she wrote $187 million check.
Speaker C:Therefore, why wouldn't she write a $20 million check to the, to the, quote, consultant who is telling her she could win?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I mean, that's the other thing.
Speaker C:You go in, no one's going in to see these people and saying, like, there's no chance for you to win.
Speaker C:That's happened once in my career.
Speaker C:Seth Moulton against Tierney in Massachusetts.
Speaker C:He was behind in the first poll by like 59 point.
Speaker C:And Mark Melman was the pollster.
Speaker C:And God bless Mark.
Speaker C:Mark Melman, who I, I believe his Numbers and would, you know, trust in the trench at any time, go into the battle with him.
Speaker C:But he told, he started the, the call saying, seth, this was going to be a poll briefing, but we have to talk about how we get you out of the race with some dignity.
Speaker C:And what, what happened was pretty amazing though.
Speaker C:And this is another thing that doesn't happen.
Speaker C:You very rarely now run into many candidates that will tell, that will, you know, do something the poll says you should or shouldn't do.
Speaker C:You know, the poll says, say this, there's, you know, a lot of candidates just go, oh, okay, sure, that's what I'll say.
Speaker C:Seth turned to Mark and just said, I don't care.
Speaker C:I'm a Marine, damn it.
Speaker C:I've had bullets flying over my head.
Speaker C:I don't, you know, I don't need to get out of anything with dignity.
Speaker C:There's nothing they can do to me.
Speaker C:I'm running.
Speaker C:And so we, and Mark and put his ore in the water and we all put our or in the water and guess what happened?
Speaker C:A guy who actually believed in what he was saying and believed in what he was fighting for won that election.
Speaker C:It was like the huge upset.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:But that's a rare thing now.
Speaker C:That's really rare.
Speaker A:And the candidate went in, Candidate went in.
Speaker A:Eyes wide open though too, because you guys were honest with him up front.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, but that's what I'm saying.
Speaker C:That's, that doesn't, that's.
Speaker C:I've never, I can't recall being in another meeting where a consultant said, no, you know, keep your check, don't.
Speaker C:We should end this now.
Speaker C:Don't spend the money you've raised.
Speaker C:Get out of the race.
Speaker C:It doesn't, that doesn't happen anymore.
Speaker C:And like I said, the one time that happened, the candidate told us to go to hell.
Speaker A:Right, right, right, right, right.
Speaker C:And then one.
Speaker C:So yeah, it's a.
Speaker C:So no, that.
Speaker C:But those are the kinds of things that you see, you know, coming up from 79.
Speaker C:It started in 79.
Speaker C:Both the shift in the way the media fragmented at every level.
Speaker C:I mean, look, I was there in, in 92, Joe Costello and I, because we were still frustrated with TV being a one way thing, you know, where you could yap at people but they couldn't interact.
Speaker C:Decided to.
Speaker C:We talked Jerry Brown into using an 800 number when he, whenever he was talking to the press or talking.
Speaker C:And so in the middle of the NBC debate, He's holding this 800 number up and urging people to call the 800 number and then we had put it in our ads.
Speaker C:We raised $8 million and then $8 million that way in 92.
Speaker C:And then the Internet came along.
Speaker C:So I've been sort of part of this.
Speaker C:How do you build these networks?
Speaker C:How do you get people engaged?
Speaker C:Even when all we had was a phone and a T, you know, a TV screen, we were still.
Speaker C:I was still trying to figure that out.
Speaker C:Now I've watched what they've been able to do.
Speaker C:I'll tell you this.
Speaker C:This is the one Howard Dean had.
Speaker C:Blog for America.
Speaker C:We.
Speaker C:We started Blog, we launched the blog.
Speaker C:About 650,000 peop.
Speaker C:Americans were on that blog.
Speaker C:And every morning Howard would come on, post something, and then like, you know, they.
Speaker C:People who are following us would.
Speaker C:Would say, howard, you know, that's great.
Speaker C:And somebody else would say something by noon.
Speaker C:I'd come on and say, David, that's a great idea.
Speaker C:You just posted.
Speaker C:Howard's going to say it tonight in the.
Speaker C:In his speech.
Speaker C:And then Howard would do it in the speech one day.
Speaker C:No one's ever done that.
Speaker C:No one in our party.
Speaker C: n has ever done that until in: Speaker C:His guy on social and running IT posts, hey, Frank, that's a great idea.
Speaker C:And tonight Donald's going to use it in his speech.
Speaker C:And I'm sitting there saying, crap.
Speaker C:The only guy who ever.
Speaker C:Who got this, I mean, who got that.
Speaker C:You could build that kind of connection in all of politics.
Speaker C: From: Speaker C:Twitter was Donald Trump's blog for America.
Speaker C:And that should scare the living daylights out of it.
Speaker C:Should convince people we got to build our own network like we did with Blog for America.
Speaker C:Because all the rest are owned by Zuckerberg or Elon or soon to be owned by a vc.
Speaker C:You know, who's more interested in the.
Speaker C:The Whatever needs to.
Speaker C:Whatever anger division creates more eyeballs and more hysteria.
Speaker C:That creates more.
Speaker C:More energy.
Speaker C:That's what they're gonna.
Speaker C:That's what they're gonna.
Speaker C:That's what's destroying.
Speaker C:That's literally what's destroying our democracy right now.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:His capacity to use it.
Speaker A:And, and a little bit I know about parscale.
Speaker A:I assume he went back and studied your campaign and stole that idea.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:No, no, well, I, Well, I.
Speaker C: tely, I can tell you, like in: Speaker C:And Ax just turned to me with a little smirk on his face and said, yeah, you know, I read that in a book somewhere.
Speaker C:So yeah, probably the biggest.
Speaker C:And so yeah, like, you know, we, I, I, I'm sure that those guys all, you know, look, they, they went to school on what was working.
Speaker C:I'm sure they went to school on the, on the Obama campaign.
Speaker C:You know, they went to school on what we were doing, what worked and they perfected it while the rest of the, you know, while the, like I said, I think the only lesson that pervaded from Dean to Obama, and then of course, because Obama raised did raise a half a billion dollars from 3 million people.
Speaker C:That's what, that's what kind of like took, you know, took the focus of every other campaign out there.
Speaker C:I mean, in, you know, including Mo.
Speaker C:Hey, how much money can we raise in my campaign on the Internet?
Speaker C:You know, I mean, I'm not condemning anybody for that.
Speaker C:I'm just saying that's what our success in that actually I think blinded us to, to probably the most.
Speaker C:The more important lesson out of that campaign didn't blind me, but it was hard convincing others other campaigns to Mo was, Mo's into building the community.
Speaker C:But I'm just saying that's not the focus of most staffs out there and definitely not the focus of consultants.
Speaker C:They, they want to, they want to hire the best like who could raise us $30 million on the Internet, right?
Speaker C:So I think that overwhelmed our side while their side again, you know, you got Elon Musk, you got all these billionaires, you had, you know, all the millionaires with H.W.
Speaker C:bush and George Bush and W.
Speaker C:I mean they're, they're, they weren't as interested in that.
Speaker C:Now the, the, the, the counter thing that I'm sure has happened is if you build that kind of network, the low dollar money comes in.
Speaker C:So because they concentrated on building those networks, Breitbart x truth, social, etc.
Speaker C:Guess what?
Speaker C:Guess what's happened, right?
Speaker C:They, they, they're now swamping us with low dollar money as well.
Speaker C:On top of whatever the bill, you know, elon writing a 45 million dollar check a week or whatever the hell he was doing during that thing.
Speaker B:Hey Joe, I don't know if you saw Ezra Klein had a piece this week.
Speaker B:It was an Interview with David Shore.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:Which I found really interesting.
Speaker B: ow, stats showed that between: Speaker B:And it also pointed out that 10% of the electorate are immigrants and Biden carried that, that group BY I think 23 or 24 points.
Speaker B:But four years later, Trump wins it by a point or two.
Speaker B:We're losing, seems like we're losing the bubble in minority communities.
Speaker B:And how do we, how do we tap back into them?
Speaker C:Well, I mean I think we're, I think, excuse me, I think both things are true, right, that we, we have to do a better job of, of, of communicating with blue collar working whites and, and people, you know, regardless.
Speaker C:I mean we, I just think we've lost a lot of that, our support among less educated whatever, you know, and, and, and middle income or lower working folks.
Speaker C:So I think that's, that.
Speaker C:I don't know what, what Shore showed about that, but I think that's clear a problem.
Speaker C:I also, you know, Stuart Stevens was saying from the very beginning that Trump's coalition is really fragile and the reason it's fragile is because of what you just talked about that he had done so well with Hispanics and Latinos and is now going to try to mass deport several million of them.
Speaker C:That's not going to go over well even with a lot of the legal, you know, folks that are here in terms of, it's not going to go over just the, just the images of it are going to heard is favorable.
Speaker C:That has happened already.
Speaker C:I mean he's already, you know, dropped big time with, with both Asians and, and Hispanics.
Speaker C:So that part of the co.
Speaker C:And the problem is if he doesn't deport, deport millions of them, then his, the white nationalist maga, you know, racial racist group.
Speaker C:He, he, yeah.
Speaker C:Oh, you bullshitting us.
Speaker C:So he's kind and that's just one area.
Speaker C:But there's, you see it with Elon Musk and HB1 visas, you know, pushing up against the mega.
Speaker C:No, you got to keep them all out.
Speaker C:Why are you letting the rich ones in?
Speaker C:You know, all that stuff that creates the, the dissonance.
Speaker C:It exists and, and I think the, by the way, we have to count on a bunch of things, right?
Speaker C:We have to count on, we get our act together on messaging, we build better vehicles to message better networks, our own networks.
Speaker C:We own them.
Speaker C:We don't Rent and we have to have them overreach and, and, and make mistakes and be incompetent at what they're doing.
Speaker C:I mean, in other words, we need them to fail.
Speaker C:They're doing a pretty good job of that or at least dividing self, kind of have some warfare between themselves and the different divisions that's happening.
Speaker C:But we need that to happen.
Speaker C:It won't just be, it's not going to be enough for us to come up with a better messenger and even to start building those networks.
Speaker C:They, they've got, I think every day they prove that they shouldn't be in government, that they're trying to destroy government and they're impacting enough people that he's probably already in trouble and the other in trouble in terms of his, his support.
Speaker C:But the other thing we got to remember is there's always been a big difference between when he's on the ballot and when he's not on the ballot.
Speaker C: he won't be on the ballot in: Speaker C:Every one of those midterms where he hasn't been on the ballot, we've, we've been able to make the, the gains that we needed to make.
Speaker C: ems have been, you know, like: Speaker C: So one: Speaker C:Look, folks, there'll be some senators that are going to need help.
Speaker C:We had to.
Speaker C:But there, there are like maybe 10 House seats, maybe 12 that are going to matter.
Speaker C:And that's where if you're going to help, if you're going to write postcards, if you're going to send money, be, you know, those are the places that you, you've got to be there.
Speaker C:There certainly will be some fights in the Senate, and I'm not arguing about not supporting a Senate candidate by any means.
Speaker C:We need to win them all.
Speaker C:But we've got to take the House back.
Speaker C: if we take the house back in: Speaker C:Where there'll be, you know, they won't be able to get their agenda through without, without, you know, the House signing on.
Speaker C:Right now they got all three.
Speaker C:I don't, you know, we might be able to gain something in the Senate.
Speaker C:Doesn't look likely given the maps, but the House is the place where we have to focus.
Speaker C:I think I'm Just curious.
Speaker B:Speaking of the House, you help get Tulsi Gabbard elected to the, the hell happened to her?
Speaker C:You know, she, when, when we worked for her back then, the first, her first race for the, for the House is when she was elected.
Speaker C:Man, she was a rising star in the party.
Speaker C:I mean, a big rising star.
Speaker C:I think everybody agreed on that.
Speaker C:And, and then she didn't run.
Speaker C:I think maybe she ran for reelection one time, but she left the House pretty, pretty quickly after that.
Speaker C:And I, and I, you know, I remained, you know, email once in a while, but I didn't see it coming at all.
Speaker C:I mean, I cannot tell you.
Speaker C:I wish I could tell you what happened or, or why she's, you know, became so enamored with Trump and, and the hard right.
Speaker C:Because I saw no signs of it at all.
Speaker C:None.
Speaker C:And even like the attacks on her religious beliefs and things like that, I mean there were those, some of those were occurred in that campaign.
Speaker C:But back then, I mean, I basically, and I still believe this, we're a country where, you know, you know, I thought we got over that with jfk.
Speaker C:I mean, the way I thought about it was, I thought we got over that with JFK and you know, you know, was he going to listen to the Pope, you know, that your religious beliefs don't have anything to do with, you know, it's not a.
Speaker C:As long as you're like he did saying, hey, I'm, I'm.
Speaker C:You're.
Speaker C:I represent you.
Speaker C:Not, not, not my church.
Speaker C:And she was like that.
Speaker C:And I still think she is.
Speaker C:So I don't know.
Speaker C:I cannot tell you what I saw.
Speaker C:No signs at all.
Speaker A:It's unfortunate.
Speaker A:She seems to have gone off the deep end and I agree with you, she was a rising star.
Speaker A:She had one of the keynote addresses.
Speaker C:Dnc, the only thing, I mean, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker C:I don't know, like, because I also don't know if something behind the scenes where she, you know, like she realized she wasn't going to be, you know, be rising the party or something.
Speaker C:I don't.
Speaker C:But I never got any, anything like that.
Speaker C:I thought, wow, like Seth Moulton, like Ro Khanna, I've helped elect another, you know, rising star in the party and then, you know, again, you can look.
Speaker C:That's the spectrum, right?
Speaker C:I mean like you, you, you, you, you.
Speaker C:I, I've always tried hard to, to be more in tune with what's going on in the district and what was going on nationally.
Speaker C:Like does, you know, how do you Elect somebody in Hawaii.
Speaker C:Well, you know, Hawaii got Hindus.
Speaker C:It's got all kinds of, you know, different religions.
Speaker C:And so I never.
Speaker C:So that was, you know, and then, you know, Rokhana in Silicon Valley, Seth Mollie, you know, in Massachusetts, and there's several other members of Congress.
Speaker C:And, you know, Ron Wyden up in Oregon.
Speaker C:I did his race with the Packwood Special.
Speaker C:In fact, Doug Jones and Ron Wyden.
Speaker C:Ron Wyden won my first special Senate election.
Speaker C:And the last one, you know, years later, was Doug Jones.
Speaker C:I've won two of those.
Speaker C:They don't come up very often, but, you know, Doug Jones is very different than Ron Wyden.
Speaker C:And you had to run a race that would win in Alabama.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I don't know.
Speaker C:Again, I just.
Speaker C:All I can say is, gosh, he was a rising star and.
Speaker C:And then became a rising star in.
Speaker C:In Trump land.
Speaker C:And I just.
Speaker A:Trump.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Makes you wonder.
Speaker A:Yeah, Makes you wonder.
Speaker A:I wonder how many other people are going to bounce over there.
Speaker A:Who knows, someday.
Speaker A:But, you know, you've done this with such integrity over the years, though, Joe.
Speaker A:I commend you for that.
Speaker A:You've never been in the headlines for bullshit or for ratting out a client of yours or stealing their money, and I really respect that of you and you.
Speaker A:But you've also, you know, won some really terrific races.
Speaker A:And so I want to thank you for, for joining Mo and myself today.
Speaker A:It's been a terrific conversation.
Speaker A:You're a man of your word and, and a man that gets shit done, and that's very valuable these days.
Speaker C:Do you mind if I plug my.
Speaker C:My own podcast?
Speaker A:Absolutely, yes, please.
Speaker C:It's that trippy show, so if you thought this was interesting and you want to hear more, I'll probably have David over on it.
Speaker C:Okay, cool.
Speaker C:We'll do some cross promotion.
Speaker C:But if you.
Speaker C:You get a chance, check out that trippy show wherever you find your favorite podcast.
Speaker A:Terrific.
Speaker A:Well, and.
Speaker A:And I also, I am a user over at Sezsez Us and I encourage folks to go over there, check it out again.
Speaker A:Joe's a man of his word and integrity.
Speaker A:He wouldn't ask us to go there if a piece of Jun.
Speaker A:And I've been posting there the last couple weeks and getting lots of good response and it's easy to use.
Speaker A:So I encourage folks to go over there and help Joe out.
Speaker C:And you can get it in your app stores for your iPhone or your Android by going to your apps, Google or Apple Store as well.
Speaker C:So thanks.
Speaker C:Thanks a lot.
Speaker A:David well that's a wrap for this episode of mucu where we cut through the crap and call it like it is.
Speaker A:If you like what you heard, subscribe, share and spread the word, please go, says Sec us and set up your account show.
Speaker A:I'll catch you next time with more facts and a whole lot less bullshit.
Speaker A:All then, on behalf of Mo and myself, Muck you.
Speaker D:This has been Muck you, co hosted by Colonel Mo Davis in Asheville, North Carolina and David Wheeler in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
Speaker D:Thanks to our guest today, Joe Trippy, co founder of SEZ us, the host of that Trippy show and an advisor to the Lincoln Project.
Speaker D:Muck U is produced by American Muckrakers.
Speaker D: Copyright: Speaker D:You can learn more and donate at americanmuckrakers.
Speaker D:Com.
Speaker D:Follow us on xsezes Us and Blue sky under American Muck.
Speaker D:Come back soon for a new episode.
