The Long Game

"In the pitiful early hours of Election Night [it] was the only credible resource Trump advisors had." That's CBS News' Major Garrett's description of the Republican National Committee's data and analytics apparatus, which was loaned out to the Trump campaign in the latter half of 2016. Newt Gingrich says Trump, who had no serious campaign of his own, would not have won without it. The work of building the RNC's data and ground game began four years earlier, and was overseen by Mike Shields, the chief of staff from 2013 to 2014. But Shields says that as he did that job, he realized he was doing more than trying to help the GOP beat the Democrats. He was trying to save the RNC from total irrelevance. My conversations with Shields in 2013 and 2014 were some of the first steps in my journey of beginning to think about political parties in a new light. We talk about what a party is, what a party committee should do, and how President Trump has stopped talking about a "red wave" because he finally listened to operatives who told him he was going to depress Republican turnout. I interviewed Shields in October 2013 and wrote about it here. I wrote about the RNC's efforts in April of 2014 at this link. Here's my piece on election night in 2016 on how the RNC's data operation helped Trump. 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.

It's intriguing to wonder what might have happened to the Republican Party if Mitch Daniels had run for president in 2012. He was finishing up his second term as governor of Indiana, and was widely respected for the job he'd done. He was articulate, thoughtful, and had a wide breadth of political experience, having served as White House budget director under George W. Bush, and as a high-level political operative for years prior to that. Mitt Romney won the nomination that year, but struggled as a campaigner against President Obama. Would Daniels have done any better? It's quite likely. And if he had won the presidency, the Republican Party would have been led by a politician who downplayed social issues, rejected grievance politics, and focused like a laser on fiscal responsibility (even if that meant increasing revenue through tax increases). Daniels ultimately chose not to run, largely because he and his wife did not want to revisit painful periods in their marriage under the scrutiny of the nation. By all appearances, Daniels put his family ahead of his own presidential ambitions in that moment. And for five and a half years now, he has been president of Purdue University. I asked Daniels to come on the podcast after reading his commencement speech to this year's graduating class at Purdue, where he exhorted the students to push back against growing tribalism in this country. "Life in a tribe is easy, in all the wrong ways. You don't have to think. Whatever the tribe thinks is right, whatever the other side thinks is wrong. There's no real responsibility; just follow what the tribe, and whoever speaks for it, says to do," Daniels told the students. And he said that "tribes always gravitate toward tyrants." I asked him to explain that comment, and we talked about his belief that healthy institutions protect the most vulnerable from injustice, and the nation from violence. We also talked about whether he regretted his decision not to run for president. Tech pioneer and analyst Jaron Lanier recently echoed some similar themes on Ezra Klein's podcast: "The way you become a autocrat or a dictator is you get everybody into pack mode, and you get them all afraid that they'll all end up at the disadvantaged slot, that they'll be the one who's humiliated, the one who the pack turns on. And then everybody has to get in line," Lanier said. Here is the Al Hunt article in Bloomberg News where Daniels was quoted as saying he felt politically "homeless." Outro music: "Golden Kettle" by Mipso 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.

"A key part of our task," Yuval writes, "is simply to see what we lack." "And when you step back and listen, an awful lot of what's distinct about this moment in America seems like a response to a certain kind of suffering: a response to being left behind, disrespected, robbed of place and dignity and hope ... The absence we feel looks like isolation and mistrust and alienation, and so it looks like a shortage of belonging and confidence and legitimacy ... When we look for solutions, we tend not to look to institutions but to individuals, to movements, to ideals, or to maverick outsiders." "The transformation of our understanding of the role of institutions does not simply explain all this. It is not the cause of our broad social crisis, and it doesn't offer the answer to the challenges that crisis has posed for us. But it is the cause we tend to be most blind to, and is it is worth seeing and articulating. And it also does point toward an answer to one of the deepest quandaries that now confront us." "And by failing to see the formative purpose of institutions, we undermine that purpose, and so we advance an idea of institutions as not molds but platforms, and contribute to a set of social transformations that tend to separate people in the very attempt to unite them, to undermine our aptitude for freedom in the very act of liberating us, to eat away our capacity for patient toleration, our decorum, our forbearance, our restraint; to cause us to mistake expression for reflection, affirmation for respect, reaction for responsibility, and empty celebrity for an earned reputation." Yuval Levin is editor in chief of National Affairs, a right-leaning quarterly journal. He is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. And he is the author of four books. In April, he delivered three lectures at Princeton University as part of its Charles E. Test, M.D., Distinguished Lectures Series. Yuval titled his talks, "Why Institutions Matter: Three Lectures on Breakdown and Renewal." The videos of the lectures can be viewed by clicking on this link. You can listen to my first interview with Yuval for the Long Game podcast, on July 19, 2017, by clicking here, or on iTunes here. Outro music: "Cudi Montage" by KIDS SEE GHOSTS, Kanye West & Kid Cudi 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.

I talk with Adam Wren about what it's like to be a journalist entrepreneur, covering national politics from the Midwest while also starting a state news-focused newsletter. And Adam shares his observations of Vice President Mike Pence, and how the Indiana Republican establishment is now shaping the future of America. And we talk about our mutual experiences writing profiles of Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly, a Democrat who's up for reelection this fall. 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.

Republican political operative Terry Sullivan discusses the move away from issue-based campaigns, toward contests based around personality and image, whether Sen. Jesse Helms was a racist, and how bad advice to Marco Rubio led to the moment that became the downfall of his presidential candidacy. For examples of people losing touch with their senses, read the mentions below these tweets: My tweet on Michelle Wolf is here. Jake Tapper's tweet about "Camelot's End" is here. On Jesse Helms: David Broder's 2001 piece on Jesse Helms, headlined "Jesse Helms, White Racist," is here. Broder's piece on Byrd when the former Senator died in 2010 is here. You can watch video of Chris Christie's kneecapping of Marco Rubio here. Here is the transcript. I talked to Christie the day of the New Hampshire primary about why he never went after Trump the way he did Rubio, and wrote about it here. Outro music: "Palmetto Rose" by Jason Isbell 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.

I'm beginning to think that ranked-choice voting might be a way for voters to exercise quality control in a party primary in a way that party bosses used to. The way it works, if no one gets 50 percent then the candidate with the least support gets eliminated, and the votes they got go to the candidates who their supporters ranked second. In 2016, Donald Trump won most GOP primaries with 30 to 35 percent, meaning that 2/3 of Republican primary voters wanted another candidate. How many of those voters do you think would have ranked Trump second? And there is a fight over ranked choice voting happening right now. It is being used for the first time in a statewide election tomorrow, June 12, in Maine, in primary contests for Congress and governor. Lee Drutman, of the New America Foundation, joins me to talk about it. Here's a good New York Times piece on how ranked choice voting works. And here's a good NPR report on what's happening in Maine. Lee's piece on multi-member congressional districts is here. David Brooks praised Lee's idea in this piece. Here's a link to the Jennifer Lawrence ad supporting ranked choice voting. Outro music: "Future Suite" by Stephen Malkmus & 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.

Voters in five states will go to the polls today to vote in primary elections, but in California, Democrats are facing an unexpected challenge. They need 23 seats to retake control of the House of Representatives this fall, and there are as many as 6 or 7 seats in California alone that are prime targets for flipping from Republican to Democrat. But because of California's unique rules for primaries — crafted with the intent to increase participation and fairness — the very intensity of enthusiasm among Democrats in the Trump era might be their undoing. Amy Walter, National Editor at the Cook Political Report and host of WNYC radio's The Takeaway Fridays, talks about how this reform -- like so many others -- has had unintended consequences. Here's Amy's piece on the California primary, "The Party *Doesn't* Decide," in the Cook Political Report. Here's Amy's colleague, David Wasserman, with a more detailed piece on the districts in which Democrats are in danger of being shut out. Here's the piece by Jonathan Rauch that Amy references during the show: "How American Politics Went Insane" 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.

AB Stoddard, associate editor and columnist at Real Clear Politics, has been a working journalist for two and a half decades. She started covering Congress in 1994, and so she has seen the institution go through most of the big changes that have turned it into such a dysfunctional place. We talked about her work with the group No Labels to get rid of the Hastert Rule in the House, about her father's role in bringing "Roots" to television, and about how she's balanced motherhood with her career. 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.

"At some point, they need to channel that energy into really tangible electoral activity if they're going to actually get power back from Trump and the Republicans, and to do that, the best place for that is two political parties and working in concert with our candidates up and down the ballot ... I believe that political parties matter, that they still matter. They're very important, and I would say, in a weird way, probably even more important now, as you start to think about the outlets for all of this energy out there," said Martin, the chair of the Minnesota Dems (the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party) and Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee. We talk super delegates, caucuses, and how the Democratic party grew weaker under Obama. 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.

Tim Roemer is a former Indiana congressman and was President Obama's first ambassador to India. He now represents a group that believes American democracy is broken and is trying to bring Republicans and Democrats together to fix it. Issue One is working on Capitol Hill with lawmakers to push a handful of reforms. One would require the largest digital platforms such as Google and Facebook to disclose and publicize any entity that pays more than $500 to promote its content online, with an aim toward shining a light on any attempts by foreign entities to influence American politics. We talked about what it means to him when we say that money in politics is a problem, and what the solution is. 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.