Mike Murphy on Plan B for 2024
Each national political party should be thinking about their Plan B for the 2024 presidential election. Mike Murphy returns to the podcast to discuss each party's predicament and where they can go from here. Murphy has worked on a number of presidential campaigns and run 26 gubernatorial and US Senate races across the country. He was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He’s co-host of the critically acclaimed "Hacks on Tap" podcast. Mike is also co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] This is Joe Biden, looking at the mirror and looking at the constitution, deciding I've got to make the ultimate sacrifice here for the country, but he's taking a very reckless, reckless risk. And somebody ought to look him in the eye and tell him that
lots of news this week for the front runner and the Republican presidential primaries, Donald Trump, and also the front runner, I guess that's what we'd call them for the democratic nomination, president Joe Biden. So I think both parties are asking, is there a plan B? I mean, one party's asking it a little more vocally and publicly than the other, but it's definitely a conversation happening.
Is there a plan B for either of these parties and either of these candidates? To pick someone's brain who's been thinking a little bit about this, our old friend, Mike Murphy, fan favorite of the Call Me Back [00:01:00] podcast. Lots of demand for Murphy. We wanted to check in with him on what he's been thinking about the plan B for either party.
Mike, as our listeners know. Worked on 26 gubernatorial and U. S. Senate races across the country, including 12 wins in blue states, something that's getting harder and harder to do. He was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. In fact, you can see him in the new Arnold Schwarzenegger docu series.
He's a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. Mike is co host of one of my favorite political podcasts, Hacks on Tap, which if you're not a subscriber already, I highly recommend that you become one. He also pens a political newsletter. Which you can find on Substack. Just search for Mike Murphy in Substack and you'll find it.
A couple recent interesting posts. And Mike's the co director of the University of Southern California's Center for the Political Future. Mike Murphy on Plan B 2024. This is [00:02:00] Call Me Back.
And I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast my long time friend and a fan favorite on the Call Me Back podcast, Mike Murphy. Hey Dan, it's good to be here. I always call you back even when my friends and advisors say, uh, you know, this is getting a little stocky, might be time for the restraining order.
And I go, no, no, Dan has been through that before. I don't want to, I don't want to put him through that nightmare. We won't say the words Katy Perry, uh, but anyways, it's great to be here. It's not me, it's the listeners. It's the listeners. They're the stalkers. There's like three or four people that they, uh, that they can't get enough of.
And, um, And you are one of them. So anyways, but really why I wanted to touch base is, um, I would say two or three areas of panic that I hear from my friends. So I'm like a vessel for their anxiety. [00:03:00] That's right. That's the old evangelical trick. You know, how did I, how did I make you walk again? I'm just a vessel for the almighty.
Now, if you happen to have 200 for the prayer fund.
So Ernest Angley's old scam. No, but go ahead, fire away. Vessel, I'm a vessel for my friend's anxiety. And, um, and so I'm going to tell you some of the things they're anxious about. Well, there's a lot these days. So let's start with the first one. New York Times, Sienna Poll comes out a few days ago. You and I did a podcast right before the 20 Two midterms where you did a kind of master class on why you shouldn't overthink or over interpret or overworry polls, especially national polls in, uh, in the political campaign season.
So having said that, so we kind of strenuously resist The, the temptation to over interpret polls, but we are going to kind of, um, suspend that briefly here, at least to address the anxiety of, of our [00:04:00] listeners. What did that poll tell you? I mean, the headline is Biden and Trump are tied at 43%, but which is.
Which is sort of shocking, but what, what, what, what is everyone freaking out about this poll? Well, I, I saw it and I thought the New York Times is sure doing its job of, of setting the national agenda, uh, for everybody in politics to immediately, uh, it's an old Dennis Miller joke. Uh, it's, I know it's a bear market because I immediately run outside and crap myself.
So it's, it, it, I knew all hell would, all hell would break loose. Now let me say, My rant about national polls is about primaries. The old Milk Gordsman rule, who was a Kennedy operative, smart guy, passed away now. We used to always say, don't believe any national primary poll until after the first contest.
And I'll talk about that in a minute. The general election data is more telling. Uh, because one, you are testing two semi known quantities. They know who Trump is. You know, they tasted that dog food, about a hundred percent [00:05:00] of them are aware or close to, and these are registered voters. Uh, and they know Biden, he's the incumbent.
So the main number you want to start looking at is in most situations, you know, you never know when you're going to have the alien election and all the rules go out, but generally, uh, it, there's a revert to mean and a historical power to all this. You look at Biden's number, cause most presidential elections are first and foremost, a referendum in order.
Do we keep them or do we go for something new? And so Biden's sitting at 43 and then he got Trump, who's literally a barge load of political baggage, particularly among college educated white voters. It used to be the backbone of the Republican party. You know, there's been this weird switch of we now have blue collar working class voters, including Latinos at a higher rate, uh, than history would suggest, and then all the suburban.
You know, college educated voters are now doing far more democratic in their voting. So blah, blah, blah. That is by the way, that the, I [00:06:00] mean, not enough attention has been paid to that. And over the last eight to 10 years, how the Republican party has been the most multi ethnic, multi racial working class.
We've seen, I mean, it's, it's extraordinary, the transformation. Yeah. It turns out the answer to Jack Kemp's great dream is fascism. You know, we didn't get that in the lab. We can thank Trump, um, and resentments and grievance politics. But, uh, so 43, 43 is a tie between two products more than half the dogs have tasted and don't like.
Now there's still a lot of time. Biden has a very big microphone as president. They don't use it particularly well, but they may learn, but it points to the fundamental weakness he has as an incumbent. Well, people, and remember in politics, it's not the, Hey, the bond market's excited. No, no, it is what people perceive is going on in the economy.
And with interest rates creeping up, maybe appropriately to smash inflation, which seems to be happening, uh, people [00:07:00] see it in the car payment and, you know, the house payment and refinancing things. So there's economic anxiety. Petty out there in perception, even with the low unemployment rate, and they blame the president.
And then Biden's got this special problem, which is, you know, he's 108 and it's constantly discussed. It's not something, you know, you don't put out a photo op of, uh, here's Joe Biden doing his 200 pushup this morning. Uh, it doesn't really go away. So the problem they've got is there's a two plus two equation going on.
Well, I don't think the economy is that good. By the way, most voters, even though they hate Trump, give him about a 20 plus percent advantage, or even generically the Republicans who have brand problems, they give them the advantage on handling the economy. So they think Biden is so weak on the economy, they actually.
Would rather have Trump who they hate. So, so anyway, that combines with age, which is, you know, grandpa's just not up to running the most complicated control board in the world that affects my car payment and mortgage. You know, we need something new. So Biden's only scraping 43 percent [00:08:00] of the vote together.
Why doesn't, why doesn't, why doesn't Trump suffer from the, the age issue the way Biden does, because, you know, I think over time, and that's the last. Right. No, you're, you're true. This is, this is like a battle royal in the courtyard of the, uh, the old, old people's home here. You know, it's just, they're arguing about the Korean War hitting each other with canes.
Uh, the, um, the, the Timeline is the other equation, you know, Biden stuff can happen. You know, it's more than a year to the actual general election. Uh, and both of them have a toolbox in front of them. Now, you know, there's the other topic of is Trump the nominee? So everybody read that poll and said, it's over.
Trump's the nominee. Um, you know, my dear friend, longtime friend and podcasting partner, David Axelrod is trying to quietly have me committed. Cause he sees the national polls. They are out of your mind. It's Trump. And. When I say, well, no, you're in a confirmation bubble. Cause you're trying to find a reason to think Biden can win.
Cause you're, you guys are going to [00:09:00] blow this presidential election. Maybe even the Trump, that's how bad the Biden situation is. So, okay. So now let's, all right. So that's, that's Biden. Now I just want to come back to Trump for a little bit. Why, I mean, is he, on the one hand, 43 percent for Biden seems really weak.
And for Trump, 43 percent seems really strong. Well, I don't know when you get the tribal Republicans and everything together, you break 40, you know, a bucket of, of horseshoes is going to get low forties against an unpopular democratic president. So the question is, can Biden grow to 49 or 48 and can Trump ever grow from 43?
And there's a lot of junk in front of both of them. But if the economy starts to come back, if there's a signal, interest rates tick down, the psychology of the economy changes. Biden has the Navy shoot down, you know, a Russian drone somewhere. I mean, there are things that can happen to Biden to move it back up.
The age thing [00:10:00] doesn't go away, but the other stuff could. And they, they have a weapon too. We, we can't underestimate the cordon roe. You know, the American kind of voter market is conditioned to the Supreme Court. On big things that penetrate popular culture, uh, saying, yes, right. You can do that. You know, this is the first time the court has been the elders and footloose and said, no dancing.
Nope, nope, nope, nope. Turn off that, that crazy beat. And that is electrified a lot of younger. voters, particularly younger men who are the most pro choice group, by the way, not women. So we Republicans have decided to shove reducing perceived abortion rights into the middle of a presidential campaign, which gives the Democrats a way to say, yeah, the economy is turning and this ought to be Biden's message.
We've done the hard work. Now it's starting to finally turn rather than let me read you statistics about how great I did, but they've now got this smoke bomb where they can say. Well, we're, we're, we've got a great plan in the economy, but look over there, they just arrested your [00:11:00] sister, um, you know, for kissing a boy.
So the Republicans just keep woodchipper on this because all the primary incentives, they think, I think there's a lot of misreading going on, are he's for an eight week abortion ban, ha! Squish, I'm for a six week abortion ban with armed enforcement, you know, drones monitoring women of ill repute You know, so it's it is the usual GOP modern era suicide instinct.
The only guy who's not really falling for it ironically Is the most powerful pro choice force in the Republican party, which is Donald Trump, who doesn't believe any of the abortion stuff, and he just adds it to the list of lies. And, you know, just to add one more layer of complexity, um, the people who are trying to beat Trump think the way to do it as evangelicals in Iowa.
Now, yeah, last point, the primary data was like 53 Trump, negative 12, everybody else, DeSantis 17, and so we did the thing we always do. You know, we, [00:12:00] we decided we can now see the future. So all the opinions changed. If the election were held tomorrow, it's an absolute fact. And this poll verifies it. Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee, but the election is not held tomorrow.
So the way the process works is Iowa, New Hampshire, and then a certain momentum. So, it's Trump's nomination to lose, but if he loses Iowa and New Hampshire, he can collapse quickly. And that vote doesn't move now. In 2016, the last big open Republican primary contest, the summer frontrunner in the respected Des Moines Register poll Which is the best traditionally anyway, media poll there with Scott Walker coming in number second, eight points behind him, Rand Paul, the unstoppable freight train and keep an eye on that number three candidate here in Iowa, which will do everything the great Ben Carson.
So, you know, you, you, you've got to be careful because it's very logarithmic there. If Donald Trump wins Iowa, New Hampshire, he's the nominee. If Donald Trump doesn't, he loses both of them, particularly to the same person. Then it's better than [00:13:00] even money. He'll implode and won't be the nominee. And so that's the argument I've been making.
I'd like to wait to have the dog stays to dog food in New Hampshire. Right now, the Republican dogs that know Trump, cause he is about a hundred percent dogs have eaten that dog food rating. He's pulling about 37 to 38%. I see a lot of the private polling, even though no candidate will admit to knowing me, I have a, you know, a fascinating cell phone bill.
And so, um, you know, you got one out of three now. So there's an open market in Iowa. It's a little better for Trump, but it's low forties. And the other thing is everybody's polling the old caucus, which is heavily Christian. You got 170, 000, excuse me, 162, 000 Democrats and Democrat leaning independents who now have nothing to do on caucus night in Iowa.
And there's no armed guard at the door. You show up, sign a card. Yeah, I'm Republican and you can vote. So yeah, there'll be some college Republicans, you know, with a case of beer in the car, we're going to vote for Trump to how we're helping Biden. But most of it will be good government. [00:14:00] Iowans who want to put it down on Trump.
So I think the caucus electric could be as big as 200, 000 instead of the normal one 70 and the Delta could be people who hate Trump and want to do the patriotic thing. So, you know, Trump's got to navigate his dirigible. Enormous as it is through a narrow mountain pass here. And then, yeah, he's the nominee, but I'm not ready to go there right now, based on summer noise meter from cable TV, national polling among voters who barely know there's a guy named Decalorius or something who's running against Trump.
And then a few people I've never heard of. Okay, so Ron DeSantis, in that same poll, in the New York Times Siena poll, is, he's got a net favorable rating of, uh, what is it, it's 31, what, 3147 versus Trump's 4155. So, something's happening with DeSantis. Yeah, I mean, again, noise meter effect. I get it, I get it.
And he's a lousy candidate. That, that doesn't help. So let's spend a minute on that. So what's [00:15:00] going on there? Because, because you need an alternative. Right, right. So the press decided and a bunch of the donor class who follow this stuff like a hawk they're really trying to play the futures market of who's gonna be president so they can tell their friends at the cocktail party, I KNEW IT!
I was on that Vivek Ramachandran thing from the beginning. I could see the future. Um, you know, I've been to some of those parties. Uh, careful, don't knock over the Ming vase. You know, I went short on plastic coat hangers, and well, now I'm That kind of insight is what I brought to the presidential thing.
So, you know, DeSantis was the guy, cause he had the easy real estate to appoint him the guy. He's got money in the bank, governor of Florida. Now, he became governor of Florida by beating two stiffs. That's the thing people forget a little bit. He didn't ever really have a hard, uh, state race. You can argue cause it was close, his first race.
Against the mayor of Tallahassee, ran hard left and had all kinds of problems, got jammed up later, and then was acquitted eventually. Uh, [00:16:00] wow, Gillum, Andrew Gillum, he only won that by a point. Yeah, because he was terrible then, too. Um, and then It was also a horrendous year for Republicans. Right, right, right, exactly.
But he won, he gave him points, his new name is governor, and then he beat Charlie Crist, who is kind of the Harold Stassen of Florida. Um, Had a few, it's kind of a wily operator, but he never had enough money to get in the race and he was a party switcher. He had, he had some problems. So, you know, DeSantis is now as the early front runner, big Florida guy, obviously younger, plays the Trump.
Well, he's kind of running as a dime store version of Trump, which is in my view, not a great strategy because how do you out Trump Trump? Uh, but anyway, he was appointed the front runner. He got the cable noise. He went up in the national polls, noise meter. And, uh, then, then it turned out that like, you know, he tries to kiss a baby.
The baby pokes him in the eye, you know, smears the ice cream on his face. Cause he's not Mr. Charisma. Now that said, the media wanted to [00:17:00] hate him culturally. Cause you know, the, the people who work hard to present impartial news are culturally much more into kale and PBS than they are into Republican primary culture.
So he instantly died there. That stuff seeps through. They ran a pretty incompetent campaign out of the box on the ground in Iowa. He's doing a little better than people are giving them credit for it. At the big jamboree the other day, I had a couple old hack buddies there, and I talked to them afterward, and they'd say, Eh, Santas was better than Trump on his feet, got a huge ovation.
So I haven't ruled him out completely. Um, but, but, he's definitely on the downslide. He was one of the most important political leaders in, you know, 20 20, 21, 20 22. And, and certainly other than Donald Trump, you know, one of the most important Republican player because of what he did with Covid and how he mm-hmm, , how he led and navigated and governed covid, whereas the [00:18:00] whole.
country seemed to be, most of the country seemed to be zigging and he zagged and he was excoriated for his zagging and the public authorities were, you know, waving, you know, wagging their fingers at him and, you know, he was, and all these, all these people at the time, you know, at the peak of COVID, you know, Tony Fauci, Andrew Cuomo, Gavin Newsom, they were like gods, they were demigods, like everyone was listening to every word they say and they were saying this guy is, you know, Ron DeSantis is like murdering people and he stuck to his guns, more or less.
Um, And he turns out on, at least on COVID to have been largely vindicated. He opened schools. I would say semi right, but yes. Now you don't know if it was inside or just, Hey, I can be the contrarian and get the Republican culture right. Whatever the motivation. Yeah. He was the COVID star of the Republican party.
I mean, in September of 2020, he opened schools like, and he said, we're going to, that's like a. You know, that was not, I mean, and now in retrospect, it seems like totally logical at that time he was, he was literally, you know, he was being [00:19:00] excoriated. So I actually think he's got an extraordinary story to tell.
And that obviously was like jet fuel for him. Nobody wants to talk about COVID. Well, there's less news value in it and he decided, you know, now that I've defeated the virus, at least in perception, I'm going to take on the shareholders of the Walt Disney Company, you know, and he starts throwing monkey wrenches, hunting for cultural fights.
Hey, I'm going to, it turns out being a slave wasn't so bad. Three squares a day and you learned how to work an ax and a shovel, you know, we don't, they didn't even charge him for job training. You know, he goes down that, which he thinks he's, he's trolling the media. But he doesn't understand that it's the old George Lakoff thing.
Don't think of an elephant. So even though, yeah, yeah. We all hate the liberal media and the Republican party, et cetera, et cetera. The messages still seep in. DeSantis hates people. DeSantis is a lousy candidate. DeSantis is a loser. You see DeSantis big kryptonite against Trump should have been, I'm a winner.
I handled COVID. [00:20:00] I beat every Democrat in Florida. I get Latino votes. I'm the future of culture war conservatism, and I'm younger than those two old fools who are running. Instead, he's gotten off on all these side battles and the larger narrative has been lost, particularly because all the process coverage, which we're now in an epidemic of, it's all the media really wants to talk about is about the super PACs at war.
The, the Casey DeSantis behind the scenes is lady Macbeth, you know, blah, blah, blah. But it makes them look like he's going to lose. And if you're trying to tell the Republican primary voters, I'm the guy who can beat Biden. Yet your campaign has big red clown shoes. It's self defeating. So he's doing dime store new deal and he's a loser.
So yeah. Oh, the donors can hardly wait to run. Now. The problem is Tim Scott. Okay. Before we get to Tim Scott, I just want to, I want to mention that. So the campaign super package. Issue is interesting. So, and I guess we're, you know, here we are, you know, um, complaining about process analysis, but I want to do a [00:21:00] little bit of process analysis.
No, that's why we're here. I mean, it's our job with our 200 listeners, right? So, so 220. 200, 000, sorry. Yeah. So, um. By the way, do you ever do the pod ranking thing? You should, because you find out your podcast is the number two podcast about American politics in Estonia or Kenya or somewhere. We do it with Hacks on Tap for laughs, and we figure out that there are 30 people at the embassy in Romania who listen, so that Alright, Alon, listen up.
We gotta, we gotta About the English language, uh, Romanian podcast ranking. Okay. So, um, DeSantis, I mean, DeSantis is running a pretty unconventional campaign structure, which is is, you know, historically, um, most of the decision making and most of the infrastructure is at the campaign, at the candidate campaign, and then there'll be this other vehicle, the SuperPAC, that operates quote unquote independently, that is doing the paid media and some of the digital media, and they can take unlimited donations to do that, but they can't coordinate under FEC rules under federal law [00:22:00] with the campaign, and they're supposed to sort of follow publicly the campaign's lead, they can't speak privately once the, once the candidate becomes a candidate, and um, and they spend this unlimited money, unlimited donations.
to amplify the candidate's message through PAY TV. DeSantis has, has kind of flipped it, where he's moved much more than a lot of the PAY TV and digital to the SuperPAC. He's moved the ground game. He's moved this bus tour he's doing in Iowa right now. A lot of, like, a lot of the sort of tactical, um, ground game infrastructure to the SuperPAC.
So the SuperPAC is really the show. I mean, I guess there's, there's not, there's not much precedent for this. I, I was struck that J. D. Vance, when he ran for Senate in Iowa, did a version of this too. Whereas the candidate, the candidate campaign for Vance and now DeSantis is like this tiny little operation and most of the action is over at the Super PAC with Christian Kowski and Jeff Rowe.
So First of all, when [00:23:00] folks around DeSantis were describing this to me, I understood the logic of it, because the candidate gets a discount on paid media, so they want to be spending most of their money on paid media, and let the super PAC kind of do everything else. Yeah, in their case, they like to spend it on aircraft charter, but keep going, because their FTC when I was listening to it, I was thinking, okay, I get it, I get it in I get the theory, but in practice, it seems like hell never worked on a campaign.
Yeah. I mean, I've run a huge super PAC. I've been, I've been to this movie here. Here's the problem. Super PAC money. If you've got heat, uh, is much easier to raise than federal money because it's not limited. So yeah, you can get 3, 200 from an individual for your individual campaign, super PAC, you can take a hundred thousand or whatever.
So money piles up. So of course the campaign is like, well. How do we use all that money effectively? Well, you go to your lawyer and say, we're the super PAC. We can't coordinate, but can we rent the hall and draw and have a crowd and the candidate [00:24:00] shows up and then we vote. I understand when you say we can't coordinate just cause I want, what, what this actually means is.
The super PAC cannot communicate privately with the campaign and say hey, given the message you're pushing this week Why don't we handle the ag radio you guys do this and on Thursday, we're hitting with an ad So the next day the press is on the the pumpernickel issue and then that's when we pivot.
Yeah. Yeah, you can't do any of that It's highly illegal. They all kind of have to operate independently, but here's the problem. The rules are murky So what you do in the camp, you go to your lawyer and you say, Hey, can we do this? And it's like pornography and the lawyer kind of stares at us and says, I don't know.
So the, the it's, it's murky law and it hasn't been tested much in court. So you have to decide, do you want a conservative lawyer? Do you want Sidney Powell? So last time in 2016, right, right, right. The legal, legal. So, last time, Kasich pushed it the farthest, because the candidates who are broke have the five donors back in Akron who will write a big check to the Super PAC.
And then they can also have a [00:25:00] C4 committee, which is how Marco did it last time, which is undisclosed money that you can semi use for politics. Yeah, not as efficient. Not nearly as efficient, but you've got donors who want to give to five candidates. They like it because then nobody can know who they're for because they're trying to be for everybody.
Um, so the DeSantis guys have thrown the old, they got Sidney Powell and they're like, we're going to push this thing to the max. Now I've told Jeff Rowe, uh, who's a friend of mine that, you know, you're a little too good looking to go to prison. Uh, but they're trying it. And what they're trying to do is all the Iowa field.
They're throwing events that DeSantis shows up in. Um, it, it is. It, it, it is the most aggressive ever and the problem is some, uh, what happens is a clever kid in the campaign shows up and says, Hey, the deputy scheduler of DeSantis has a personal Twitter account with three followers and I'm one of them.
And I have an account with two followers and I'm one of them. So when I put next Thursday, we're going to have a rally of a thousand people, uh, in, in [00:26:00] India, in Ola, uh, I'm publicly communicating it. You know, phony press releases. Campaigns even put out little 200 ads they make with a robot voice on Google, hoping the Super PAC will see it on a YouTube channel with 10 people, and then put 2 million behind a professional version of the ad.
And it's all very aggressive, and the next time Fox Just for our listeners to understand, that is the way The campaign or, you know, or the super PAC basically, um, passes the test of, we, all our, it's public. We're throwing up on Twitter. Now, we put out a strategy release, you know, which says, boy, if our plan is next week to have a hell of a lot of radio, the campaign put out a memo saying that, that we need to be advertising in the Boston market in order to, to play in New Hampshire, which.
You know, many in the press interpret it as the hey, hey, super PAC. It was like a bad signal to the super PAC. But, but the dementia, you're totally right. So they're trying very aggressive stuff. The next [00:27:00] political prosecution, quote unquote, which apparently has replaced cut taxes in the Republican You know, uh, glossary is going to be when the justice department starts going after the Santa's campaign staff, because they're running wild with this and, you know, maybe it'll work.
Uh, maybe it'll pass legal muster. I'll be shocked because these rules are going to be written by the enforcement attempts after this cycle and the Dems do all this stuff too. But the Santa's has sat on a presidential primary campaign, a much more aggressive standard. The other problem is the super PAC and the campaign apparently hate each other.
You know, normally the Super PAC watches the campaign and does two things. Try to hurt the opponents with advertising. Try to help the candidate. And send out little hints, but really follow the can't like a hawk and try to, as you said earlier, amplify what they're saying. So if we read the campaign, Oh yeah, next week is going to be metric system week.
Then all right. Among the key primary electorate of 3 million people in South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Iowa, let's, let's go put out [00:28:00] 7 million of, you know, only Ron DeSantis stood up to the French metric system. So, you know, it's, it's, it's still, here's what you can't do. You can't teach the candidate how to debate.
If you're running the super PAC, you can't put the candidate in the ads and candidate driven ads are more effective often. Um, and you can't drive the schedule. So now there's all this backbiting between the two because the donors have lost faith in the campaign. There's been nutty spending in each, each of them.
The press is having a field day with the FEC report. And it is well known, at least by rumor, because I've never worked for him, but in the political consultant bar room gossip, that Governor DeSantis and the First Lady, his wife Casey, hate consultants. So I'm sure they're sitting around thinking those idiots at the Super PAC have blown all this money, and DeSantis has even publicly kind of indicated, how come I'm not seeing more TV ads about me in the metric system?
So And the super PAC [00:29:00] has got the message and said, they're morons. We're doing it our way. So it is yet another part of the process train wreck along with candidate tone that has kind of crippled the Santa's in the national narrative, but he's still selling some culture where tickets in Iowa. So we're, we're see everything is right now a little premature because the, the media just, and, and, and large donor, everybody wants to be Kreskin and know the future and it just doesn't work that way.
It just seems like the structure. It was a little too clever by half, but way too clever. Okay. So now you mentioned tips, Tim Scott, before we went on, I derailed this conversation with the process analysis of a super PAC structure. So, so Tim Scott and I want to talk about Nikki Haley. Yeah, well, look, I kind of like Scott, because he's the only opportunity consultant running.
Uh, I don't love him, you know. The only opportunity candidate. Uh, yeah, yeah, and cons I didn't mean consultant, I meant conservative. But yeah, and candidate. Uh, and he knows better, and he's interesting. The problem is he's doing a lot of what these [00:30:00] candidates do. They're, they're the king of their state. And then they go to the show and all of a sudden it's a little more complicated.
It's not like talking to the South Carolina press core for people, you know, and he's in a safe Republican state. So yeah, it doesn't have a lot of general election experience. It doesn't really know the national media. So he shows up and he's like, I'm an evangelical. If I crank that all the way up, I can win Iowa.
And that, you know, President Huckabee did that, President Santorum. Now, as I said earlier, Iowa might be different this time, but putting that aside, if you win Iowa, you really damaged Trump. Again, my equation is Trump lose Iowa and New Hampshire. He's going to lose the nomination. If he wins them, he is a lock.
So. The only problem is you immediately go lose New Hampshire, which is far more secular a week later, and to kill Trump, you need the one two punch. The worst thing that can happen is you beat Trump in Iowa, but you're so glow in the dark for more secular, independent, Republican hybrid primary, which is how New Hampshire work.
And [00:31:00] again, you got a lot of bored Democrats there, too, with the Biden RFK thing. No enthusiasm for Biden. Anyway, you go out and get clobbered there. I mean, Huckabee, all those guys got 10, 11. 13 points, Cruz, the Iowa winners tend to get slaughtered when they do the pure Christian deal. And then what happens?
Trump gets a comeback. Trump, the biggest loser, lost to Biden, lost the house, loses everything, is now a winner. He will rock it onto the nomination. Scott is told, it was secondhand reported to me. Scott pitched a donor because he's doing a good job of poaching disillusioned, dishonest people. I'm going to win Iowa with the Christians just the way, you know, they've done it for years.
Again, might be a bad assumption. And then somebody else quote unquote is going to win New Hampshire and then I'll clean up in South Carolina, which is the other bad thinking. I've got a fortress, you know, in South Carolina. No, he doesn't. He's behind Haley right now. And she's barely in the race. So, you know, if Trump.
It's going to be alpha, alpha, alpha, who beats Trump twice. That's how you kill the old [00:32:00] lion. So Scott ought to be borrowing a page from governor George W. Bush, which was, he, he did well in 2000 in Iowa. He won the thing by being Christian friendly with his own story, but running a much wider campaign. What Scott could do, Scott's opportunity and hope thing is his advantage, not a two minute abortion ban, which is going to kill him and then he'll be a loser after being a winner for a week, uh, and, and Trump will get the nomination back.
So they're, they're making, in my view, a huge strategic mistake. And then finally, I, and I had written all this, I was going to post it on this sub stack thing I'm playing with because I like Scott. Some of his people are old, you know, it worked for me in the past. I like them. They're smart. He, uh, he went out and did the toady thing on the.
Trump indictment where it's time for, and Scott's so perfectly positioned to say, look, Donald Trump has many of the right enemies. I know who they are and they're wrong, but character counts in the Republican party, it doesn't count with Hunter Biden and the Democrats. It counts with us. And Donald Trump [00:33:00] has failed the character test.
He can't be president again. It's time to make that play because unless you out alpha Trump. Your, your toothpaste. And Scott of course, put out the wimpy statement of well, two justice systems, the fake one with all that evidence about subverting democracy. And then, you know, uh, the political one, and then there's the special one for a Hunter Biden.
Cause on Thursday, he talked to a hooker about missiles who then later had a date with the president of Belarus, you know, it's just, and so he's. Committing suicide. He he's moved up in the polling. He's really close to the Santa's now in Iowa and almost as close to New Hampshire, but he is forgetting alpha on alpha.
He needs to beat Trump twice. That means the narrow plan in Iowa is not enough. It is a. Ric Victory at best. And you agree that the only four candidates generally that matter right now are Trump DeSantis, Scott and Hailey? Well, I'm not sure. I think third is up for grabs. I think there's Vik, Vaan, Raman?[00:34:00]
Yeah. I I I'm sorry. Say Vi. I haven't learned his name. Yeah. Yeah. Vivek. And by send all your angry letters to Dan s I'm sorry. I'll learn his name. He could be be the Ramas Swami Vivek Ramas Swami Ramas Swami. Um, uh, not a Swami. I like the Swami angle. Uh, you know, uh, not a sinner, a Swami. I got to tell you, I was, I was in a, I was in a business meeting yesterday with someone who was like, who I, you know, you never, never talked politics with him before.
And he's asking about the presidential race and, and he said, you know, can you believe, I mean, I'm sort of surprised with this. Can you believe what the indictments against Trump, you know, Biden and, you know, his justice department going after his opponent for 2024, I'm sort of like taking it back. He immediately was, was going down this path.
And then, uh, I was just listening and I was like, well, what if Trump fades, you know, who, who could, who would be interesting to you? And I was shocked. He says, well, you gotta, this guy Vivek, you know, he's really, I was like, really, I was really struck. Well, you know, it's, it's time for more vowels in the white house.
Oh, I'm going to get [00:35:00] canceled. Um, you were not on this podcast. You are uncancelable. Yeah, I am in, I'm in a safe space here. Well, look. There's always room for a sideshow candidate, Alan Keyes, Herman Cain, Andrew Yang, they always have a unified field theory. They've always never held public office and you know, he's got enough money to, he could be a little fat, Maury Taylor, you know, there's some room, but no, I think the guy who I thought had real potential on paper and is fizzled sadly is Doug Burgum.
Because as a self funder, he can pay his own way to Iowa and not have to worry about donors calling up and saying on Fox, they called you a name, you know, Oh, we need an emergency panic call. He can just launch. And his first video was great. He was doing Reagan. He's a Western guy, ready to lead us on old school conserved, but then he's in the race and all he won, he, he's not prepared for the national media.
You know, he's North Dakota. He's never had a fastball real problem, uh, with them. And so he doesn't know how to set on a [00:36:00] narrative. And all he wants to do is talk about North Dakota energy policy, you know? So he's running for deputy undersecretary of petroleum exports. Uh, which is too bad because I think if they had stage managed it off the video right and done the common sense conservative from the West, who's had it with the crap time to move on and beat Biden, he could have sold some tickets.
And he's still, he spent more on TV than anybody. And he's creeping up there. You know, he's got a little motion, particularly in New Hampshire. Uh, Haley. Her she's got a lot of problems. One is she's she's money wise you look at cash on hand. They managed to their credit I thought it could have been worse to put seven million together But it's nothing like the cash power Scott has who won campaign cash on hand on the report led everybody Not just not just cash and primary cash on hand, which is important because right right real money They play games by raising general election money From their fans, but they can't spend it, and the top line number looks bigger than it is.
So the key question in these primaries is to look at [00:37:00] what the primary numbers are. Dollars. Right. Now, Haley will have some Super PAC money. They all will. They're, they're all buy TV at Super PAC dollars, and that's an auction process. So they bid the TV up where the 300 spot on Cedar Rapids Wheel of Fortune is now going to be 4, 000.
So it's a money bonfire. But on actual hard Candidate money, the best money. Scott's well funded Haley has one third, the dough, and I don't know what her magic trick is. You know, um, the debate is everything for her. She's got to have a star making turn there to, you know, re energize their donors or her third quarter is going to be horrible.
And she could be in the Scott Walker museum as didn't make it to Christmas. January 15th next year is the big date. So it's the fourth quarter cash on hand that really counts. Cause that's your real spending when I went to Hampshire, tune in and the numbers start moving. Last thing is people, you know, people don't do this.
That's when, that's when we'll have the Iowa caucus. Yeah, that's, that's the peak there and there's no early [00:38:00] voting. It's a, it's an old school thing where one day peak at the right second. Last thing, um, when people look at a polling point, I forgot to make when people including half or seven eighths of the people gabbing around on cable television, repeating cliches, they look at polls, they think of a general election poll and how it moves general elections in the typical competitive state, maybe 40.
5 percent are Republican, 47 Democrat, you know, everybody else, whatever's, uh, left nine, 10, eight, nine points that moves around and that number is smaller than it used to be. So when you have 20 percent of that movable, 8 percent changing its mind, you get a two point movement, which is meaningful in the general election.
In a primary, it's herd animals. There may be different colored spots, slight differences, but fundamentally they're all. You know, goats. So when 20 percent of the goats changed your mind, you get a 20 point swing. [00:39:00] And so primary numbers at the end, a 15 point swing is not a big deal. And so that's why primary polls are more fluid than general election polls are much more untethered, much more of a herd instinct.
So. That, that's why this stuff gets bumpy at the end. You look at the history of primaries, there's, you know, not always, but usually something like that in the last four weeks or so, five weeks. Sometimes it happens twice. The herd moves one way, eight weeks out and then moves another way, three weeks out.
So, you know, that, that's the one missing equation we got to get through. And I think there's Trump indictment. The conventional wisdom is every time he's indicted, he gets stronger because national polls that based on his name ID that show him winning also say. No, we're, we're, we're with our guy. We're not with the New York times and the liberals against them with their trumped up charges, but quietly, anybody who's out there in the field, these candidates would tell you the doubts are there.
They think Biden could beat them. They think he's old. They think he's crazy. There's fatigue. So the right shiny object, and I was hoping Tim [00:40:00] Scott could get his act together and the time's running out. Yesterday was very bad because it was his opening. Um, uh, still could. Still could have a moment there.
Okay. So, none of them are exploiting it right, which is heartbreaking to, uh, somebody like me who thinks the number one priority in politics is no Trump in the Oval. Okay, so before we wrap, we just got a couple of minutes. One question. You wrote a, your, so your piece is on sub, you have a Substack newsletter.
I highly recommend it. The former Hacks on Tap, uh, newsletter. Um. Yeah, just go, it's like MikeMurphy1 or MikeMurphy9, whatever the computer is. Yeah, just google, just google MikeMurphy in Zubstack and it'll come up. Okay, so And at MurphyMike on Twitter, I promo it there. Oh, there you go. And we'll put all this in the show notes.
So you have a piece up that basically Joe Bi you could say Joe Biden needs a friend. And you, you argue that no one is giving him the straight talk, quote unquote, um, that, that it's in his best interest and the country's best interest for him not to run. So, isn't it obvious? What do you mean, like, what, what do you mean [00:41:00] he needs a friend?
Well, no, I, what I write about, and I use the movie The Last Hurrah, which is a great old sentimental John Ford picture about politics, that Candidates by nature are consumers of friendships. You know, they want a lot of friends and then they lean on their friends for things, and then they tend to break their hearts later.
Hey, I called him twice. I can't get a call back from the Senator. I knew him when he was nobody. Uh, they're in that crude business. So often the only true love they get is from long suffering staff who've been with them forever, who they often treat kind of badly, like a toddler to me. I'll make sure my parents love me.
I'll act badly. Uh, so I said, Biden's got people like that. Where his real true, who, where he gets his real love. They've been through the ups and downs of humiliations for 30 years. They owe it to them to look them in the eye and say, this is a bad idea. This second term. Now they're going to get a pair of Ray Bans bounced off their heads.
They're going to get chewed out Irish politician style, but Biden needs to hear it from somebody he trusts because once you kill yourself [00:42:00] through all the humiliations to get to where he has gotten, you don't want to give it up. Hey, I want to go to California, bring that mansion with wings that I fly around in.
Hey, I, you know, I, I want to talk to Spielberg. He's online too. You know, you're, you're, Hey, I rule the world. Hey, they all laughed at me is pretty boy Joe who plagiarized, Oh, look at me now. That's Mr. President to you. You know, it's, it's a thing you get in because you pay such a price to get there. He, he, from a democratic point of view, he's been a pretty effective.
President you can argue has more accomplishments than Obama. Although that it doesn't go over so big on hacks on tap um You can say declare victory man uh Otherwise your re elect numbers are crap and you have a good chance of losing and by the way If it was a regular election, we'd be with you boss We're give it the old fight the last hurrah you deserve it if you're governor of delaware or even a normal presidency But the threat this time is big We have a Mussolini Madman on our hands Who [00:43:00] you're so weak, even he might be, Oh, no, I can beat him.
Why take the risk hedge? You got a bunch of young tigers in the primary. You still have a couple of weeks in the clock is ticking where you can open it up. They can have a savage fight and somebody will rise to the top and the party will be in better shape against if it's Trump, then it will be with you.
That's not cold, hard fact. And then again, you know, Traitor and they're thrown out of the office, but somebody owes it to Biden to make that case. Cause if he runs and loses to Trump, it destroys his legacy and it puts the country's democracy at risk. But you take someone like Governor Shapiro in Pennsylvania, or Governor Whitmer in Michigan, or Governor Newsom in California, or Cory Booker, or whomever.
Aren't you surprised that one of them, both for the sake of the country and for the sake of their careers, being a little entrepreneurial, you know, and risk taking. I think if someone jumped in, in the fall, there would suddenly be this, like, quiet. Universal sigh of relief among Democratic Party activists and donors because when I [00:44:00] every Democrat I talk to every single one I say you think it's a good idea that Biden's running for re election Not a single one says yes, nobody but no one will say it out loud And I think if well, someone jumped in and said it out loud Who's not Marianne Williamson and it's not RFK jr Who by the way are collectively polling at about 30 percent the Democratic primary my dad Uh, if someone serious jumped in and said this, you know, this really could be a Eugene McCarthy moment in 68.
Yeah, I think you need a bigger catalyst like the Vietnam War. Um, the problem is, I agree that appetite's there, particularly with the, the donor's smart class. And, you know, you're well acquainted with those folks, so am I. The, the problem is a president, an incumbent president, has such control over the levers and gears of the process.
It is hard, you know, labor doesn't walk and African American voters in the South who are now in the new calendar, even more powerful, they're not going to walk. You think the Vietnam War, I mean, you don't think [00:45:00] Trump, No, no body bags are coming back from the kid next door for years. Remember the um, In the 79 primary season, Jimmy Carter beat Ted Kennedy, the strongest brand in the democratic party.
I know Kennedy had flaws, but this was still in the shadow of the Jack and Bobby era. So it, it, it, when you're, it is hard to uproot an incumbent president in a primary. This is Joe Biden looking at the mirror and looking at the constitution, deciding I've got to make the ultimate sacrifice here for the country.
And I doubt he will, because I doubt he feels that way. These guys don't have small egos. I can beat them. I did before. They need me to save the country. But he's taking a very reckless, reckless risk. And somebody ought to look him in the eye and tell him that. Yeah, okay. Maybe they have. Maybe Ron Klain did it or his sister, but they, they owe it to him.
That was my argument on Substack. So I'm getting all these calls from donor friends, and they're probably listening so they know who they are, but I won't say their names, who are [00:46:00] saying, you know, if you really got to take a look at this, no labels, this third, this third party effort to, to save the country, um, from Trump or Biden, um, and given that we're heading into a world in which, I know you disagree, but the conventional wisdom is that those will be the nominees.
I know you disagree on the Trump front, and you wrote a substack Very skeptical of no labels. Uh, and so tell those people listening why. So I get it. I don't want to vote for Biden. I won't vote for Trump and I'm not enthusiastic about voting for Biden though. And I think, you know, the Democrats could do far worse.
So why not load no labels? I don't get to vote for anybody I don't like. And I get a medal cause I'm saving the country with the thoughtful ticket of, you know, Gandhi and, uh, and Albert Schweitzer, we're going to [00:47:00] save the country. Well, here's the problem in politics. It doesn't matter if your voters are happy or not.
This is one of the great myths. I'll take a grumpy voter votes for me. Cause he hates the other candidate more is worth as much to me arithmetically as a voter who hops and skips to the polls and can hardly wait. So what no labels does is it gives people who hate Trump and just can't abide them, but don't like Biden and escape valve to go get a halo.
And essentially escrow and waste their vote. Uh, that's very good net net for Trump because it gives people an escape from, of course they don't like Biden, but when forced most people who hate both of them break three to one for Biden. And so Biden's given up his dissatisfied voters, particularly his ex Republican.
You know, college educated, thoughtful people, voters. So they can all go watch PBS and congratulate each other. And what a magnificent symphony that all makes them great. A lot of politics now is about self expression, [00:48:00] you know? Um, and I mean, it's so easy to be a Democrat now. Well, we're not the party of destroying democracy.
We're pretty excellent. You know, it's such easy virtue signaling and no labels is a virtue signaling escape valve for, for Republicans and conservative or more. Center right, uh, independents who know Trump is poison, but are not happy with Biden. So this gives them a nice little waiting pool to go waste their vote in and net net help Donald Trump.
And the mission here is to defeat Donald Trump first at almost any, well, in my view, at any price, no labels. And it's a, you know, don't trust any do good organization run by fundraisers to professional fundraisers. All right, finally, before you go, I keep saying before you go, um, You, you bought an electric car.
You sold out. You bought an electric car. Yeah. I got friends and then you've got sucked into this. You're telling me you're like. You believe [00:49:00] now people in the EV world are like the happiest people, you know, they're models for like, healthy living. Well, I didn't say that, come on, I'm not crazy. Um, yeah, it lured me into Substack because I wanted to write something about an editor saying, you know, we'd really like Trump in the lead.
That's how the clicks come. Uh, so yeah, I'm a Detroit Motorhead. I grew up in. I'm a car guy, I can tell you all about Holley carburetors, and I've been snorting at EVs. Detroit guy, Detroit, Detroit auto guy. Yeah, yeah, no, no, a lot of UAW in the family, I mean, uh, uh, believe me. Um, I'm the first Murphy in three generations that hasn't worked in a car plant.
So Though my dad, night law school, and then on to, on to a great legal career, but that's where he started. Same with my grandfather, was an elected machine, Paul, in Detroit. Uh, became an elected, uh, probate judge after several attempts to pass the bar. And, you know, the machine said, alright, we got Goldberg, your controller, Smith.
We need Murphy and Cagliano for judges. You know, the old days. We have a great letter from [00:50:00] James Farley about Roosevelt's campaign. But anyway, he was, you know, putting the Hudson's together, law school at night. So. Car guy, but the tech is amazing and I've been watching it. I'm obsessive about it. And even though I've constantly been, Oh yeah, hybrids, they run on smugness, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, I'm driving around LA with our high gas taxes and our supply issues looking at 6, cent gas. And I, you know, cursing the house of sod every time, let alone everything else. And I was driving a gas guzzling Porsche, uh, which I loved GTS. So, you know, I'm getting two miles to the minute, um, uh, a gallon. So I snapped, I wouldn't buy a Tesla, even though the engineering is often quite elegant.
I bought a BMW IX. I love the damn thing. It is magnificent and it makes me happy. So I of course dove into the world of charging and all that, because I'm interested in infrastructure and how we do it right. And the charging problems are very tricky to solve. And there's massive revolution. Basically Elon built a [00:51:00] big network, which is quite good, but it's only for his car, which is one of the reasons it's quite good, easier to engineer the other network.
Volkswagen built with. Money they had to spend on this kind of stuff out of the diesel settlement and their network doesn't work as well because it's got to work with the Kia, Ford, GM, Mercedes, everybody, but it's getting better. And now everybody's going to go to Elon standard. And of course, Biden is throwing huge subsidy money at it, which is both good and bad.
So blah, blah, blah. There are a million YouTube channels of these young engineers and people. And what noticed and what I wrote, the sub stack. But it wasn't a big pitch for EVs. It was how happy they all are. They're finding purpose in solving really tough technical problems. You figure out how to put overnight charging at low cost into an apartment building, by the way, figure that out.
And you've solved most of the charging problem. Um, and it just struck me. It's like the Apollo program. You know, they're young smart kids. I mean, I, I knew a very high ranking engineer at SpaceX Who I met at one of the launches and a genius level [00:52:00] person, you know, it's like here I give him a straw instantly He's you know, build an atom with it model and I said what how does this feel?
You know a Couple hours for lunch. It goes. Yeah, I built this Designed this tricky thing because before this, I was at one of the big defense contractors figuring out how to, how to drop a nuclear warhead within a hundred yards of a target. And I'm glad I did it. Love my country. Defense is important, but this is a lot more fun than, you know, planning nuclear weapons.
And it was the same sense there. So it, it, it just is a purpose bigger than people than your own self interest as McCain would say. And I was just. Impressed by how a sense of mission solving tough problems for net benefit And in a free market way, they're competing all this stuff kind of coming together I used to know a lot of engineers have worked in the auto companies and we're kind of somewhere but a little downbeat Yeah, they won't approve the better lock for three years cost cuts, but now they're all excited We're going to build an electric, you know ram [00:53:00] pickup truck and it's going to be better than the ford one the ford Oh, no, ours is Just the excitement of it Uh, that sense of purpose really impressed me.
So I'm telling you, TV's are fun. Try it out. It sets a purpose, and it's a community. Yeah, exactly. Totally. Totally. It's a real community, and I, and I just, I see this with my kids. Not to digress, but I see this with my kids, and I see so many of their peers, and the ones that seem the most lost or distraught, leaving aside You know, some have very serious, you know, or legitimate issues, you know, there's, that, that young people are dealing with these days, you know, various emotional challenges and whatnot, but the ones that don't have those, you just, if you see kids who don't have a passion and don't have a community, they're the ones who, who are like you.
You know, the most lost, and, you know, um, Totally, totally. We're social animals, you know, normally. Alright, we gotta build a fence to keep the bears out, you know? Yeah. Who's good at chopping wood? And somebody is gonna trip onto the rocket fuel bringing this to politics. I [00:54:00] thought it might have been Scott.
By the way, this is for all the complexity in Israel. Because it is there to be harnessed. For all the complexity in Israel, and there's obviously a lot of tension there right now, I keep coming back. It's a country with a purpose, and it's a country that's based on a real community. Why are people happy there?
Why do people, why are they engaged? I mean, and you just see this throughout life, all over the, you know, when people have a community and they have a passion that kind of, you know, undergirds or, or you, you know, unifies that community, it's extremely powerful. And your, I feel, I felt like your piece captured the community part as much as the as much as this kind of sense of purpose part.
Um, so Well, thank you for the plug. They're free. I don't charge the monthly thing. Yeah, yeah. So I will encourage our listeners to go to Murphy's Substack. We'll post it in the show notes, and we will let you go, Mike, because I know you've got many more important things to do than to, you know Oh, this is always the most fun I thoroughly enjoy it.
You let me bloviate on, uh, race is getting interesting. Let's talk again in the fourth quarter when it starts to mean something. All right. Sounds good, Mike. Thanks for doing this. Thank you, pal.[00:55:00]
At Substack, just go to Substack and search for Mike Murphy or the site is substack. com forward slash at Mike Murphy one, a couple of ways to find him. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.