The Long Game

Joe Trippi is one of the most experienced consultants in Democratic politics. He's worked on campaigns in six of the last 10 presidential elections. He helped guide Howard Dean's historic 2004 candidacy. He's been a longtime adviser to Jerry Brown, one of the most consequential Democrats of the last half-century. And he helped Democrats win a Senate seat in Alabama in 2017 for the first time in two decades. Trippi says that in 2020, Democratic voters are going to be pragmatic and not purist, precisely because they want to beat Trump so badly. And he talks at length about the ways in which there are "laws of gravity" to a primary that will reduce the field dramatically after the first contest in Iowa. Nonetheless, he admitted, "we could blow this." Outro music: "Good Guy" by Julia Jacklin Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Kennedy family is one of the most legendary in American political history. It has long been involved in efforts to combat mental illness through public policy since President John F. Kennedy, spurred by the botched lobotomy on his older sister Rosemary, made it a focus of his presidency. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-MA, became a vocal proponent on the issue after disclosing his own battles with bipolar disorder and with drug addiction, and remains an advocate on the issue now that he is out of Congress. And now, Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, D-MA — the grandson of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy — has made mental illness a focus of his legislative efforts now that Democrats are in the majority for the first time in his six-year congressional career. Kennedy's push for mental health legislation is an example of his approach to seeking solutions while in the House majority that take advantage of their ability to control the agenda in half the Congress, but are more than just public relations proposals that cater to the Democratic base which have no chance of actually passing into law anytime soon. We discussed his approach to being a member of Congress, and how that contrasts with the more performative style of much in American politics, whether it be President Trump himself, or the new celebrity stars of Congress such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, or the image-driven, substance-free phenomenon surrounding Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke. He referred to the Green New Deal as an "aspirational" piece of legislation, in contrast to legislation that actually can pass into law now. "I do think that as you turn those values into policy, this is about building coalitions," he said. "That's the way that this discourse is supposed to work and yeah, I would love to see more of that rather than a, 'Just because I can, I will.'" He said that the calls by some Democrats – including some prominent presidential hopefuls – to increase the size of the Supreme Court are an example of a zero-sum approach to politics that he doesn't believe in. But he also talked about the frustration of dealing with a Trump White House and a Republican Senate led by McConnell that doesn't respect established process — as in the case of McConnell's refusal to give Merrick Garland a vote for the Supreme Court in 2016 — or the legitimacy of the Democratic party's voters and interests. Outro Music: "I Was There" by The War On Drugs Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When President Trump said there were "very fine people on both sides" after white supremacists and neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Sen. Tim Scott spoke up. He called the president's comments "indefensible" and said Trump had "compromised" his moral authority. That prompted a call from the White House, asking Scott -- a black Republican who in 2012 became only the seventh African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate -- to meet with Trump to talk about the issue. There, Scott said, he talked the president through issues of racial discrimination and explained why he found the response to Charlottesville so offensive. "What can I do to be helpful?" Trump asked Scott, according to the senator. Scott was ready with an answer. He had been working on an idea called "Opportunity Zones," designed to attract significant investment and capital to low-income areas through tax breaks as long as the money stayed for 7 to 10 years, and on the condition that it go toward creating something new that would bring vitality to those areas, such as new housing or retail. The question now is whether this program, which was signed into law as part of the 2017 tax cut bill, will work as intended. Scott and I talk about that, and more, including his views on whether he agrees with the Democrats' move to reinstate preclearance as part of the Voting Rights Act, in this episode of the Long Game. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jennifer Palmieri has been one of the party's most influential operatives for the last decade. Most recently, she was communications director and a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign, and came to that job after serving as White House communications director under President Obama for two years. As Jennifer told me during our conversation, Clinton's loss to Trump was like "the universe exploded." As part of the soul-searching process in the wake of that loss, Palmieri has been spending more time in the South since the 2016 election, to visit with and meet people who see the world differently, and to reconnect with old friends who are politically conservative. Palmieri explores her own sense of loss and disorientation after the election. But she also tells the story of how her grief was compounded by the loss of her older sister a few months after the election from early onset Alzheimer's at age 58. Palmieri connects her own pain to the pain of other Americans whose lived had been upended in recent years, namely Trump voters, and says the 2020 election will be a test of whether Americans can come to live at peace with those who see the world in radically different ways. Outro: "Exception to the Rule" by Phoebe Bridgers & Conor Oberst (Better Oblivion Community Center) Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Trent Lott was elected to the House of Representatives in 1972, and to the Senate in 1989, and operated inside the House and Senate at a time when bipartisan cooperation was more common. By the time he became Senate Majority Leader in 1996, however, Republicans were becoming more confrontational. I talked with Lott about growing up in the Deep South during Jim Crow, and about the controversy surrounding Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam over his wearing of blackface during medical school. Lott lost his job as the Republican leader in the Senate because of comments praising Sen. Strom Thurmond and lamenting that country would have been better off if Thurmond, a segregationist for much of his career, had become president. Looking toward 2020, Lott predicted that as of now, President Trump is in a strong position to win reelection. Only former Vice President Joe Biden, Lott said, would pose a threat. Outro music: "A Change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"When I got elected, I was the classic young man in a hurry. Classic," said Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Virginia Republican and one of the Republican Party's top leaders in Congress. "I can see it vividly. My first three years I did everything wrong you can do wrong as a member of Congress that is neither unethical nor illegal ... I was going to be a warrior, without regard for fighting what. Basically I'm going to fight Democrats." McHenry was elected to Congress at age 28, but he is now 43, and ascended into a top leadership position four years ago. When the GOP was in the majority, he was chief deputy whip, the Republican in charge of knowing whether former House Speaker Paul Ryan had enough votes to pass key pieces of legislation. McHenry is a fan of the paradigm that Yuval Levin has laid out on this podcast before, the idea that while we often treat institutions as platforms for self-promotion, we will accomplish more and be more fulfilled if we approach institutions as molds, organizations with a mission larger than ourselves that we can join, serve, and be formed by in the process. In this episode, McHenry talks about the lessons he learned that transformed his approach to being a member of Congress. It took him four years to undo the damage he had done in his first three, he says, and it's a lesson he tries to convey to new members now as they enter the House of Representatives. You can read the 2005 profile of McHenry that I talk about in the intro here. Outro music: "Fools" by James Supercave Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

An update on where I've been for three weeks, and on the release of my new book today. And then I share a few clips from my 2015 interview with Joe Biden for the book. When I went back through the interview recently, I realized he was just as nervous about Elizabeth Warren then as he might be now if he runs for president. I wrote about the Biden & Warren tensions here. BOOK STUFFf: here's the link to the Amazon page for CAMELOT'S END. Here's the link to my interview on Fresh Air last week. Info on my author appearances is at jonwardwrites.org. But I'll be at Politics and Prose tomorrow, then Carter Library Thursday the 24th, in NYC on the 28th, and at East City Books on Jan. 30. There are 3 different excerpts you can read: Vanity Fair - https://bit.ly/2AYlpmr Yahoo excerpt - https://yhoo.it/2sDVjk9 Politico excerpt - https://politi.co/2W7a3FQ "I got my hands on a copy the other day, and @jonward11's new book on the '80 Dem primary fight is just a terrific read -- deep research matched with captivating storytelling" - @SteveKornacki Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Albert Mohler is president of Southern Theological Seminary in Louisville, the flagship training ground for the Southern Baptist Convention, which is one of the largest evangelical denominations in America, with roughly 42,000 congregations across the country and 15 million members, though Sunday attendance is estimated to be far less than that number. Mohler and Southern released a 67-page report titled, "Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary." The report was the result of a year-long study by six-member committee into the seminary's history, going back to its founding in 1859. Among the report's findings: Southern's four founding faculty members all owned human beings — 50 in all — and abused them as slaves. Mohler wrote a three-page introduction to the report, and said this: "We have been guilty of a sinful absence of historical curiosity. We knew, and we could not fail to know, that slavery and deep racism were in the story. We comforted ourselves that we could know this, but since these events were so far behind us, we could move on without awkward and embarrassing investigations and conversations." "The founding faculty of this school—all four of them—were deeply involved in slavery and deeply complicit in the defense of slavery. Many of their successors on this faculty, throughout the period of Reconstruction and well into the twentieth century, advocated segregation, the inferiority of African-Americans, and openly embraced the ideology of the Lost Cause of southern slavery." What prompted this study? What does he make of criticism that the study should not just have stopped in 1964, but should have commented on matters of racial justice in our current moment? And has all this introspection caused Mohler to question his views on other topics, such as the ordination of women? You can read Southern's report here. Mohler's statement from May 2018 on the "Humiliation of the Southern Baptist Convention" is here. Mohler's account of how he changed his mind about the ordination of women to positions of leadership is here. And there is a lengthy profile of Mohler in Christianity Today from 2010 that is here, though it requires a subscription to read. Outro music: "Difficulties - Let Them Eat Vowels" - Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ron Shaich, the founder of Panera Bread, the ultra-successful fast-casual chain, resigned from his CEO job in 2017 and is now talking more about what he sees as one of the unique plagues in American business, as well as politics: short-term thinking. We talk in this conversation about how Shaich, a college student with no interest in business, got interested in his line of work, and how his lessons learned in business apply to business. We also touch on whether Shaich himself, who spoke recently at a political event in New Hampshire -- a key presidential primary state -- has any interest in running for office himself. We talk about his time working on political campaigns in the 1980 cycle for a Democratic consultant, which I found fascinating. Of President Trump, Shaich is critical, but he told me he has "profound respect for those that are voting for Trump [and] for what they're trying to communicate." But, he says he thinks Trump is doing a "poor job of delivering" for the people who voted for him. "He's the antithesis of everything I believe a business person to be," Shaich said. "Trump is not a solution. Trump, as I said, is a human hand grenade that was meant to drain the swamp. The problem is, is the solution draining the swamp, or fixing the environment we call Washington so it better serves us?" Shaich believes the core problems in business and politics is that "we've lost the patience to take the long view, and we have found ourselves in this place where our structures don't support it." Outro Music: "Mvmt I, "Rejoice! Rejoice!" by the Oh Hellos Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Michael Bennet is a 54-year old Democrat from Colorado who was elected to his second full term in the U.S. Senate in 2016. He's deeply disturbed by the demise of the Senate, but he told me he doesn't think the Senate can be fixed from the inside. He said running for president may be one way to try to reverse the decline of American political institutions. "There is not a substitute toward trying to ... build pluralistic constituencies that will support the kind of change that we need to make ... You need to engage people in their living rooms to do that and maybe people running for president can engage people to do that. I think you can do it when you're in the Senate as well ... You need to be willing not to believe that you always have a monopoly on wisdom." The New Yorker profile of Bennet from 2007 is here. A 2010 profile of Bennet in the Denver Post is here. And here's a 2009 Rocky Mountain News profile. Outro music: "Sucker MC's" by Run DMC Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.