Karl Rove's "Crystal Ball"
With less than 3 weeks to the mid-term elections, Karl Rove joins the conversation. Karl served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush and White House Deputy Chief of Staff. He was the architect of both of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. He is the author "The Triumph of William McKinley" and also "Courage and Consequence". He writes a weekly column for The Wall Street Journal.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] I think the country is looking for a generational change. You take a look at on both sides and some of the more exciting candidates that the Democrats and Republicans are putting up. Are no longer baby boomers. They're in their 30s. Both parties have a large number of candidates in their 20s and 30s I think I think we're sort of this is the 1958 election and 1960 is coming
less than three weeks until the midterm elections How is the electoral map shaping up as Mike Murphy told us a few weeks ago? The polls won't tell us much until mid october Well, here we are And the picture is becoming clearer. So let's digest these polls and other developments. Karl Rove joins the conversation.
Karl served as senior advisor to President George W. Bush and White House Deputy Chief of Staff. He was the architect of both of [00:01:00] President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns and the 2002 midterm election strategy for the Republicans. He's the author of two books, The Triumph of William McKinley, and also a book about his time in the Bush White House called Courage and Consequence.
He also writes a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal that I highly recommend. Towards the end of our conversation today, he has an interesting take on what we're already learning in 2022 about the 2024 presidential primaries. Yep, just around the corner. He talks about the likely candidates. In the emerging political environment heading into that national election.
Most importantly, he does his best at the end of this episode to persuade Campbell Brown to become a subscriber of my podcast, for which I'm personally grateful. Three weeks to election day. This is Call Me Back.
And I'm pleased to welcome my Longtime [00:02:00] friend, Karl Rove, who I worked with in the Bush administration, and whose columns and commentary I, uh, I follow religiously, whether you agree with him or disagree with him, uh, his voice and analysis are always important. Karl, welcome to the conversation. What, what, what, I'm now a minor deity or something?
You follow me religiously? I mean, I had no idea I was a cult. You know, Carl, I'm in the midst of these, of the Jewish holidays, right? We had Yom, we had Rosh Hashanah, we had Yom Kippur, we had Sukkot, now we have Simchat Torah, this is like the high season for Jewish holidays, so I I'm thinking in very, kind of, spiritual terms.
There we go. Bless you. Uh, speaking of, uh, uh, a high holiday season, we're also in a high political season. We are, uh, about three weeks out from, uh, the midterm elections. I want to talk to you a lot about what is going on and what we're learning from these midterm elections. But let me just start with you giving us a snapshot on where things stand now as we [00:03:00] enter this kind of really final, final, final phase of the midterm.
Well, we've got two things simultaneously going on. We've got the, uh, end of the election season as it would normally be, which is Uh, at this point, some of the voters who will play the most prominent role in deciding the outcome, namely independent and swing voters, are starting to pay attention and absorb a lot of information.
And, uh, as a result, we're going to have the candidates trying to push their respective final messages. Uh, the Democrats are going to be emphasizing abortion and, to a lesser extent, climate. And threats to democracy. And the Republicans will be talking about the economy, inflation, crime, and to a lesser extent, uh, the border.
Uh, but we also have, uh, an attempt, uh, you know, by, by players nationally to, to impact the message, uh, You know, we went through a thing where, uh, in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, [00:04:00] uh, the media were like, this is a complete game changer. And, uh, and they pushed that for a while. And then we had the August 8th search of the former president's residence in Mar a Lago.
And for, uh, you know, he began to dominate the media and to rally his the, People were in such a tribal moment that even that served to sort of, uh, stoke, uh, the fire, uh, underneath his troops. And then that, by early September, that sort of dwindled away. So, uh, in the last few weeks, uh, there have been an attempt, in part because of the National Democrats.
Uh, and in part because of the media to suggest that, well, the Democrats had a chance to do the unthinkable and that is to keep the House of Representatives and maybe to add to their numbers there and to keep the Senate. And, you know, it's just sort of born out of, you know, Nancy Pelosi goes on Seth Meyers.
Uh, late night and, and says that and the media sort of pick it up. So we've got, we've got what's actually happening in the campaigns that these [00:05:00] people are, that the voters are seeing and hearing. And then we're getting what the national media, uh, is attempting to do or what in, uh, Donald Trump is attempting to do.
And that is to sort of have their own messaging on top of what people are actually hearing. And you wrote in one of your recent Wall Street Journal columns that, that quote, nothing meaningfully is. Likely to change strategically strategically. Yeah, and explain that. Yeah. Well, look The the underlying dynamic this race is baked in and that's in the felt experience that Americans are having every day that's why the economy is such a big issue and inflation and You know, why the why those are dominating everything.
It's we're back to James Carville. It's the economy stupid Because people are feeling it. They go to fill up the car with gas and they bitch and moan about how more expensive it is than it was a year or two ago. They, they, they go to the grocery store, they, they get their paycheck and realize it's not covering as much as it used to.
They just put their kids back in school and they had to get them new clothes and all the [00:06:00] accoutrements to go back to school. And as a result, they're feeling this every single day. Their families are having to make decisions about this. They're going to work. They're hearing about continuing supply chain problems.
They're hearing about how the economy may slow down. Interest rates are going up. It's harder to buy a home, harder for their companies to sell. The companies are starting to sort of signal we're not going to add people and we may need to let some people go. All these things are causing people to feel a certain way.
27 percent of the American people in a recent survey suggested the country was going in the right direction. That, one out of four. And, and, and the personal views of how they're, of how the economy is. So just to slow down on that. So, so, so, so the right track, wrong track number, which is a common, uh, question asked in polling.
What, what, just can you drill down a little bit, what, what that question tries to actually measure, and then why. The, the number that, that the, the anemically low number that you just cited, uh, for the number of, uh, voters who think the country's on the right track right now is so devastating for Biden.
Yeah. [00:07:00] A good way to put this is this is sort of a global look at how people are feeling. Uh, if they, if they feel like the country's going in the right direction, they generally credit the incumbent administration and tend to reward it at the ballot box. You look back, for example, in 1982, the numbers were terrible.
They took out their, Uh, angst and their concerns on the, on the Republicans because Ronald Reagan was president. But by 1984, it was morning in America again. The economy had recovered. Things were going good. People felt the country was going in the right direction and they rewarded Ronald Reagan with a re election of 49 states.
So this is a, this is the simplest measure to indicate that indicates how people are feeling and they're not feeling particularly good. Uh, if you drill down for example on the economy Uh, the percentage of the people who think that their own personal circumstances have deteriorated is now over 50%. So you've got over half the people in the country saying, you know, I'm, I'm worse off today than [00:08:00] I was, you know, six months or a year ago.
That's a bad place to be when, uh, when, when you're the incumbent party holding the White House. And the president's approval rating, according to the Real Clear Politics, averages about 43%. Can you just put that in historical perspective? Compare it to other presidents who've been better at this point in the presidency or worse.
Yeah, well obama. Let's just be simple there I mean 2010 he was at I think 44, uh, and in 2014, he was at like 42. So they're in the same place that And those are the two midterms for Obama. So it is like a good comp tonight in which the Democrats got walloped. Uh, same in 2018. This is roughly where Donald J.
Trump was in 2018 and the Republicans got walloped. So look, I teach political science at the university of Texas. I'm sort of wonky here, but. But since the wonk out, we gotta, we gotta, we got a wonky crowd since the [00:09:00] creation of what political scientists call the second American party system between 18, 18 and 1824.
This is the emergence of political parties as we sort of understand 'em today, the Democrats and the, and the wis. And, uh, since that emergence, there have been two first midterm elections in which the party in power gained seats in the House of Representatives, two out of all the first midterm elections we've had, 1934 and 2002.
So Donald, excuse me, Joe Biden is going to lose seats. His party is going to lose seats in the House of Representatives. They don't know ifs, ands, or buts, and they only have five to give. I mean since okay, so let's let's say that so so so the republicans have 213 seats in the house To win the majority away take the majority away from the democrats.
They need to get to 218, which means the democrats Are basically hanging on by a thread, right? Yeah. Okay. And the average loss of the, of the incumbent party is in midterm [00:10:00] since the thirties, basically the last virtually a hundred years has been 28 seats. And I don't think that it's going to be 28 seats.
I think it's going to be less than that. I think the Republicans are going to gain between 20 and 25. But the reason that a principal reason for that is, and in 2020, they did a weird thing. They lost the White House, but gained 14 seats in the U. S. House of Representatives between special elections and the November election.
That's very odd. About one out of between one out of every five, one out of every four times that the White House flips from one party to the other. Does the White House, does that party that's losing the White House pick up seats in the House? So that was 2020, where Republicans lost the White House but picked up seats in the House.
Yeah, yeah. Which means they won seats that they otherwise would have probably won in 2022, so it's, the, the swing is still probably the same in aggregate, it's just almost split up between two cycles. Right. And you mentioned the concept of swing. This is something that has not been much attention paid to what [00:11:00] happens between a presidential election.
The first midterm is is that there is a partisan swing. That is to say, the party out of power that that lost the presidential race gains, uh, in the in the midterm election. If you look at the last four presidential elections, the average swing is four points. Meaning that in a state that let's say Arizona, which Joe Biden won by three tenths of a percent, that the average swing over the last For midterm elections has been four points.
So that was on that math The the blake masters is the republican candidate. I mean of all things being equal as the republican candidate In arizona running against the incumbent democrat mark kelly. He should he should be the beneficiary of that is your point That's correct. He should win the race by like three points, right now You you said the important phrase all things being equal candidate quality is not equal in every race And money is certainly not equal in every race And the circumstances, the tempo, if you will, of a race [00:12:00] is not always the same in the case of Arizona.
For example, Mark Kelly, the incumbent Democrat, had no primary. He's had basically a year and a half to sort of build his image, strengthen his ties and connections to the voters without having to go through a bruising primary, et cetera. And on the other hand, masters had to go through a bruising primary that ended in August.
So he has not had the time to sort of create a image of himself and develop a relationship, if you will, with with the key voters in the state. He's been focused on the republican primary. Okay, so I want to talk about conventional some of the conventional conventional wisdom we've been subjected to over the last few months.
You have a contrarian take on a lot of the conventional wisdom. So I want to draw that out. So you alluded to the first one I want to hit you with, but I just want to come back to it. So As recently as this past summer, it was a combination of Dobbs, the overturning of Roe versus Wade by the Supreme Court, the, almost like the re emergence of Trump, uh, obviously the January 6th hearings brought a lot of [00:13:00] attention to Trump, the Mar a Lago raid.
So there was, Trump was very present in the frame. And, and the reason I think that's important is because to the extent that midterm elections are just a referendum on the incumbent president, Trump being so visible. Was in the Democrats interest because it wasn't just a referendum on Biden. It was like also like if you're not careful voters, Trump is going to return.
So suddenly it was a choice. Let, you know, at least the Democrats are trying to frame it as a choice. And then Biden also had this, this, uh, you know, this series of modest, but not unimportant legislative victories in Congress in this over the summer. So there was a sense that. There was like a new momentum and you, at the time, were very skeptical that it was actually real momentum.
And as you said, the press was going crazy. Oh my gosh, this is, this is gonna be unheard of. The, the Dem, Biden has his, his mojo back and um, and they're reorganizing and they're gonna defy the odds. Like, why was, why at the time did you think the conventional [00:14:00] wisdom was wrong? I get why now. But why at the time did you think it was going to be short lived?
Well, first of all, I admit abortion has had an effect in this election. But given the economic circumstances the country faces today, what matters most is the felt experience of voters. And even in the immediate aftermath of Dobbs, two things. One is, it went up the list of important issues. But even in Gallup, it was 8 percent at its height.
It's now at four. That is to say 8 percent of the people in America in the immediate aftermath of Dobbs said it's the most important issue in the country. Today, 4 percent do. Uh, you contrast that with the percentage who say the economy. Or crime or inflation and it, it, it's minuscule. The second thing is, is that the biggest impact I could see in the polling was it basically energized and brought [00:15:00] home mostly Democratic women, particularly Democratic women in the suburbs who had go, who were sort of soured on Joe Biden.
So it brought back some strength to them, but it wasn't the thing that was moving, you know, lots of Republicans and lots of Democrats. Now, it will have an impact, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying abortion is not going to have an impact, but it's particularly going to have an impact in a state like Michigan, where there is a constitutional referendum, in fact there are two measures on the ballot regarding abortion that everybody gets to vote on, but, um, I thought it was, I thought it was overrepresented.
I do think that the, that the August 8th search by the FBI of Mar a Lago basically hurt the Republicans by drowning out the issue of inflation and the economy and crime, and to some extent in some parts of the country, the border, all of which are issues that help the Republicans because everybody, you know, on the, on that side.
And a lot of other people were paying attention to all the drama that [00:16:00] was going on for, you know, but most of August and into the first week of September on Mar a Lago and the president's handling of classified material and so forth and so on. But, uh, look, at the end of the day, uh, people are gonna vote on what they think are the most important issues.
And, and Gallup asks an interesting question. It says, Gallup has been asking this since literally the 1940s. So we're talking about, you know, 80, you know, approaching 80 years, I think. They say, which party do you think is better able to handle the most important issue? Facing our country. So you get to decide what that is.
If you think it's climate or if you think it's inflation, if you think it's crime, if you think it's, you know, uh, abortion, you get, you get to decide. They don't tell you. It's just, what do you think is the most important issue and who does better? 48 hour. 37 D. That's an 11 point advantage. That is the largest advantage that the Republicans have had on that issue since [00:17:00] 1946.
We forget that in the aftermath of World War II, we're trying to demobilize the economy. People, people were coming home from the war. They didn't have jobs. They're trying to figure out how to get married. Could they get a house? You know, the country was still under rationing that we were the economic uncertainty because we're moving from a war economy to a peacetime economy.
And the Republicans had a 17 point advantage and took the Congress in 1946, overwhelmingly. I just think that that that's an indication that a lot of what we're hearing about. What's going on? Uh, and what's really happening? I mean, Nancy Pelosi, I have enormous respect for. She is one tough cookie. She is really savvy and for her to go on Seth Meyers and say, we're going to win the house, keep the house and add more seats is Almost semi delusional, but it's the kind of thing that the media wants to hear and that people pick up on and run with.
So, the Democrats and President Biden have made the future of [00:18:00] our democracy and threats to our democracy a large issue in these midterms. Obviously reinforced by the January 6 hearings, which is pretty powerful surround sound for the issue. You don't believe the issue has had, gotten much traction electorally, partly because, as you were saying, that it's not part of the lived experience of people's day to day lives.
They're not going, they're not starting their day, every day, thinking about that issue. Uh, so why, I mean, the Democratic strategists and leadership, you know, running these midterms, they're not, they're not stupid. Like, why are they Why are they choosing to elevate this issue? One it it energizes democratic voters and remember there'll be much fewer There will be many fewer voters in this election than there were two years ago So if you can bring out more of your own people That has an impact and and and second of all I look at Change the subject.
What are they going to talk about? You know, thank you know, please thank us for the inflation Please thank us for your economic concerns. Please. for the rising interest [00:19:00] rates. Please. Please. Thank us for you know, uh, High energy prices high utility prices. They got to change the subject I think it has had an impact but I think it's had more of an impact on the on the perception Of the former president Trump by the voters in September, in a September NBC poll, 42 percent of the respondents viewed president Biden as very, or somewhat positively.
So 42 percent 34 percent said saw Donald Trump that same way. So I think that it's had an impact on him is even, I think, had an impact in the inside the Republicans, because there was a recent poll that said something like 47%. Wanted him to be the nominee in 2024. That's down 20 points in less than a year.
So I do think that the, that the, that the, uh, January 6th commission's had an impact, but I think it's had more of an impact directed at Trump than it has had at the normal Republican. [00:20:00] And I spoke to one Democrat who's not on the ballot, but he is an officeholder, uh, earlier this week in Congress, and I, and he's very close to Biden, has a favorable opinion, uh, of Biden, and I, and he's more of a centrist Dem, and I said, look, why, why Biden ran in 2020 on bringing the country together, breaking the polarization, and, And he, in some respects, has a good story to tell, right, if you think about the gun control bill that went through Congress, bipartisan votes, there was an infrastructure bill that went through the Senate that got something like 17 Republican senators voting for it.
He's got some other initiatives that have been, the CHIPS Act had a lot of Republicans voting for it, uh, in both the House and Senate. This is what he said he was going to do. He was going to break the logjam and bring down the volume. In Washington, and instead, it's a midterm about Dobbs and threats to democracy.
So, I put it to this one Democrat, and he said, Look, I completely agree with you, and I think if Biden runs for re election, he will run [00:21:00] on the guy who passed the CHIPS Act, and took on China, and had an industrial policy, and brought Democrats and Republicans together on these issues. Right now, it's a turnout game, and Democrats don't turnout.
And he was saying basically a version of what you're saying. Do you think that was ultimately hopeless? And they should have gone with the kind of how Biden ran in 2020? Think about all three of the things that you talked about. Gun, infrastructure, chips. None of those came out of the White House. Gun started with Chris Murphy and John Cornyn, Democrat from Connecticut, Republican from Texas, saying in the aftermath of Uvalde, we want to try and do what we did a couple of years ago after the Sutherland Springs killings in Texas and that is find a common sense solution that will incrementally make us safer.
And in this instance, it was a passive bill to encourage states to do red flag laws and to help provide resources if they decide to go down that. But the key part of it was to say if [00:22:00] you're a juvenile offender and you commit an act that would, that would makes it under state law or federal law makes it Uh, impossible for you to buy a weapon that were, that the news of that does not get expunged at the age of 18, uh, for the purpose of future of future purchase purchases.
The kid in U Valley had committed acts that would normally have cost him if he committed him at the age of 19 or 20 not to be able to purchase a weapon. But instead, because that was all expunged at the age of 18, he went out after his 18th birthday and bought a weapon and killed a lot of people. So that happened because two guys said, we're going to do it.
Infrastructure happened because the house, the house transportation committee chairman, Peter DeFazio proposed the five year reauthorization of the highway trust fund. We've done it every five years since 1957. He says we're going to have the house. Democrats on the transportation [00:23:00] committee are going to propose a reauthorization of the highway trans, uh, the highway trust fund that says that no funds appropriated under this act may be used to increase capacity on any Existing federal interstate highway or to create any new mile of any new federal interstate highway Think about that for a minute and what happened is the Democrat and Republicans on the Senate Transportation Committee said those people over there are nuts We're going to reauthorize the highway Trust fund in the normal way and oh incidentally while we're at it since we got 750 billion dollars of highway money Being reauthorized in the highway trust fund.
Can we agree upon us an amount be above and beyond that for sensible? Needed infrastructure whether it's ports or roads or bridges or or airports or broadband Can we agree upon some additional infrastructure spending again? The white house was stiff armed at him In fact, they said we don't want you to bring that up for a vote until after we pass build back better Same thing happened on the chips bill mark warner democrat of virginia Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, were [00:24:00] concerned about China.
They were the guys that got the ball rolling. And again, the White House was like absent from it. So the, so the first, my first point is those things happen because there is a growing sentiment inside the United States Congress that we did not come here, Democrat or Republican, to be cable news figures or to get engage in daily food fights.
We came here to get good things done for the country. Let's try and get that done. The, and you're saying there's, there's critical mass on both sides of the aisle who believe that? Yeah. Well, we see it in those three things. Now, whether they're, it continues after November, I don't know, but I'm hopeful that it will.
But here's the other point. You're absolutely right. We elected Joe Biden as president because we thought he would be the normal guy. We did not elect him to be the transformational guy who has the, who's gonna transform our economy and transform this and transform that, and blah, blah this, and blah, blah.
That he was gonna be the normal Democrat and in and, and instead. The American rescue plan and build back better. He got caught up and his staff got caught up in their own press releases and own, own, [00:25:00] uh, in the, in the commentary meetings with, with historians telling him he was going to be LBJ and FDR.
Yeah, that's right. I'm going to be. And they, and, and look, read his biography. He knows what, what the people in the Obama White House thought of him. He's very bitter about it in his own, the, the, the memoir that he wrote after being vice president. And, and he knew that the, the team Obama thought he was a doofus and remember all the people that surround him today in the White House, most of them.
We're part of the vice president's staff when he was in, in the Obama White House. So they know what they, that what the Obama people thought. So when they, when the press started saying he is more transformational than Obama, at least trend as transformational as LBJ, maybe even as transformational as FDR.
They loved it and it just fed on it. And as a result, he made a critical mistake. Where's the free trade deal with, with Britain? Where's the bipartisanship at the beginning? There isn't, it's like, you know, a party line vote on. The American [00:26:00] rescue plan, because they didn't want to, they were, they didn't want to ban.
They didn't want to compromise. They wanted to be ram it through. They had the votes. Screw it. We're going to do it. And, and just one minute, just because you, I, I do have the professor and you hear the difference between Biden's congressional majorities versus FDRs and LBJs, just in terms of if you, if you wanted to be that kind of figure and pass these big landmark.
Uh, pieces of landmark legislation. You didn't have the congressional Oh, come on. 50 50 Senate and a five vote margin in the House. Do anything you want. I mean, no. You're absolutely right. This is, this is not 1933 and gigantic majorities in the House and Senate. It's not LBJ in the aftermath of the 64. Uh, debacle when Goldwater drags down the Republican Party.
This is a guy who came into office having lost seats in the House of Representatives, 14, and having had the Senate end up being 50 50. Okay, uh, I want to hit [00:27:00] two other, uh, congressional, uh, conventional wisdom themes. The second is the Democrats have a considerable fundraising advantage. Uh, by your count in the Wall Street Journal, I think they are at something like 1.
3 billion. Is that right? Versus 1. 1. Yeah, okay, so 1. 3 billion versus 1. 1. So first of all this myth that you know money buys elections You you take a shot at yeah, look we saw it in in 2020. There's not a single Republican incumbent who outraces his Democrat challenger in Texas I John Cornyn respected senior member is outraised.
I defy you to tell me quickly here Here's it one second response who is his opponent in the Republic a Democratic opponent in 2020? Her name was MJ Hager. I mean, she had lost a congressional race. That's, that's all. She's now disappeared from the scene, moved out of state. I've been told, uh, you know, same thing happened in Kentucky where they got behind a.
A, a, a, a Democrat challenger to, [00:28:00] to, uh, Mitch McConnell and got waxed. Yeah. And, uh, South Carolina. And raised tens of millions of dollars. Tens. Well, a hundred, over a hundred million dollars in order to defeat Mitch McConnell, same thing as South Carolina. So look, in politics. Having the most money doesn't is no guarantee of victory.
The question is does the Republican candidate Facing this big checkbook from the Democrats have sufficient money to get their message across and in some instances They do in lat in 2020. They did and why do they have that? Why do they have a fundraising advantage now? Is it because of Dobbs and and the Trump that's just No.
Okay. They have it for tactical reasons. In 2004, a couple of guys up in Massachusetts set up a non profit fundraising entity called Act Blue. And when Howard Dean lost the Democratic nomination to John Kerry, uh, which I always, uh, you know, regret. That's one of my, one of my, Great disappointments in life that we [00:29:00] did not face to Howard Dean 2004 election, but Howard Dean gave his list to act blue to get started.
And as a result, and then when in 2016 when Bernie Sanders lost the democratic nomination, he cut a deal with act blue to provide access to his list. Did it the same after 2020 and as a result, the Democrats have basically a 16 year history of building this gigantic, uh, small dollar fundraising machine with lots of data.
So they can figure out, Oh, well, well, you know, this guy likes to give money to veterans. This gal likes to give money to people of color, particularly women. This guy likes, you know, blah, blah. And they have all that. They have 16 years of big data that allows them to, uh, you know, push the right buttons with the right people to get gigantic flows of money into campaigns.
And the Republicans have begun to do that. But for a bunch of, you know, first of all, it takes a time to get it to scale. And they basically have, have had. This same kind of an entity called [00:30:00] win red for essentially two years or four years depending on how you define it And uh, and as a result they got some catching up to do candidate quality another theme in conventional wisdom republicans have uh Picked unwisely in their prime of some of their primary, uh, outcomes.
And it is weakened Republican chances in November. I think to some degree that's accurate, but let, but, but everybody, both parties picked knuckleheads. I mean, John Fetterman, for example, who everybody thought, well, Oh my God, he wears a hoodie and shorts in the middle of winter. Well, he's turned out to have extreme views that are making him unpopular in the state of Pennsylvania.
Mandela Barnes, oh my God, the wonderful lieutenant governor of the state, well, he's even being criticized by elected Democrats. Right, so he's the, he's the, he's the Democratic nominee in Wisconsin, he's the lieutenant governor. Right. And, and, and, and he's got extreme views that are now being dissected by, by Ron Johnson.
So, uh, Look, we have more than our share of knuckleheads on the Republican side, in part because the former president of the United States does not do a [00:31:00] good job of, of, uh, you know, vetting his prospective nominees. Take, for example, he endorses J. R. Majisky in a, in a new district in Ohio that has been drawn to elect a Republican.
It's now held by Marcy Kaptur, a longtime Democrat. And Trump endorses him because in 2020, this, uh, uh, uh, Uh, ne'er do well, Majisky took his giant lawn and turned it into a, a, a, uh, a garden of Trump paraphernalia and Trump saw it. And so the guy announces for Congress and, and he gets an endorsement from Trump.
Well, it turns out. He claims to be a combat veteran and who in reality was a loader on the flight line in Qatar And then he said I was reduced in rank because I got involved at first a bar fight and then it was a dormitory fight No, no, it turns out that it after 9 11. He was caught driving a gigantic truck on an Air Force Base drunk And, uh, you know, but nobody, you know, Trump endorsed him because he'd had a [00:32:00] nice law display for him, not because he was the best candidate to run and win.
And we're seeing some of that elsewhere. Uh, I want to ask you, uh, two more questions before we let you go. One is what are the lessons both parties should be learning? from these midterms as it relates to 2024 and, and the, and their, and the presidential election. Well, this is my, uh, crackpot theory. I, I think the country is looking for a generational change.
You take a look at on both sides and some of the more exciting candidates that the Democrats and Republicans are putting up are, uh, are, are, are no longer baby boomers. I, they are, they're, they're in their, They're in their thirties. Both parties have a large number of candidates in their twenties and thirties.
I think I think we're sort of this is the 1958 election and 1960 is coming Dwight Eisenhower in 1958. It was it turned out to be the last president who was born before World War one and in 1960 Uh, every other candidate [00:33:00] who had been born before World War I was passed over because the country wanted to choose between the two young veterans who had fought in World War II, the greatest generation, both of them in their 40s, early 40s, JFK and Richard Nixon, and that kicked off a decades during which we were governed by the great generation.
Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, 41, and then in 1992 we said, To the as a country. Thank you very much for your service greatest generation, but we're now going to go to the baby boomers And, and we went with Bill Clinton, and when, when Bob Dole was nominated in, in 1996, one of the reasons he was defeated was the country had moved on.
Well, now we're, I think, to the end of the baby boomers. And I think one of the things is, is that it's being expressed by both parties nominating a significant number of newer, younger faces, uh, of greater diversity in both parties. Uh, and I think that's an expression of, that, that is going to, going to be.
Uh, [00:34:00] pay attention at both parties as you, as you approach 2024. So you're thinking about people like, not that you're necessarily supporting any one of these individuals, but people like Glenn Youngkin, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Tom Cotton, they're all of a younger generation. Yeah, Mike Pompeo, et cetera.
And I see it in the House. I mean, you know, Juan Siscobone. Republican in, in Tucson, uh, uh, Barb Kirkmeyer, Republican in suburban North, uh, North Denver. I mean, I just, we're seeing a much different, much, uh, much more diverse group of candidates, particularly on the Republican side. And on the Democratic side, you're seeing Pete Buttigieg, you mentioned Chris Murphy, this Senator from, from Connecticut, some of these younger.
Yeah. And look, Newsom wants to run Polos of Colorado Pritzker Whitmer of wine, uh, of, of Michigan. Um, Mitch, Mitch land. Andrew wants to run. Uh, you know, we're gonna see, we're gonna see a, a, you know, uh, Amy Klobuchar wants to run again. I, I wouldn't be surprised to see Cory Booker enter it. And we're, I, I suspect we're likely to see, [00:35:00] uh, particularly if Biden doesn't run a new group of faces.
But even if Biden does run. Which I find it highly unlikely. We're not going to, as a country, nominate an 82 year old who's already struggling. But I wouldn't, if he decides to run, he's going to have somebody who will respectfully say, uh, I'm running too. You know, it's interesting, you think about the presidents, you mentioned that previous generation.
Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, who was vice president with Clinton, Al Gore. These guys have been out of office for 10, 15, 20, 25 years. And they're still younger than the current president, and the most recent president. Exactly, exactly. It says something about our country. Do you, in terms of the future, I just want to ask you one quick, the political implications of a foreign policy issue.
I know you care about American engagement in the world. Uh, and the Republican Party's historically commitment to American engagement in the world. [00:36:00] Do you worry about where the debate over Ukraine and helping to defend Ukraine goes on the Republican side? Yes. I absolutely do. I think there is a wing of our party, which are neo isolationists, and they range from being simply neo isolationists, come home America, as George McGovern said, or they are sympathizers with Putin, people who immediately jumped to the defense of Putin and say, well, it was in the United States that might have Uh, or the West that might have blown up Nord Stream two pipeline, and it was us who are responsible for the invasion because we didn't take his concerns serious.
Putin's concerns. Yeah, I mean, that those that's dangerous. And, uh, you know, Putin is a, uh, If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, we will live for the next several decades in a much more dangerous world in which other bad actors, whether they're in North Korea, Iran or China, will be encouraged by his example to engage in adventurism [00:37:00] that will, that will lead to the loss of Uh, many lives and much treasure and much security and America will be at risk and our relationships will be at risk.
The idea that a Europe that is subservient to Vladimir Putin is a good thing for the United States of America boggles my mind. And yet that's what some inside the conservative movement and the Republican Party seem to believe. Well, I'd certainly agree with you on that. Carl, we'll let you go. Uh, I know there's this incredibly busy time for you, uh, three weeks out.
So I am grateful for your time and we'll. Probably rope you into back at the coming back on the show sometime after the election. There we go, Dan. And I will do so only if you convey my best wishes to the missus. I absolutely will. That's what it takes. You know what? That's what it takes. You know, it's, it, to me, it's always been a mark of your character that you realize that people tolerate you because of your wife.
I mean, it's just, you know, if, I mean, it's true and you know it. It's [00:38:00] incredible. It's incredible. And you seem to be able to Incredible humility. Yeah. Humility. Exactly. Humility. Groundedness. Yeah. Comfortable in my own skin. I don't know who I am. I don't know about those, but the humility thing is well deserved.
Exactly. A lot to be humble for. All right. Take care. All right. Thanks. All the best.
That's our show for today. To keep up with Karl Rove, you can follow him on Twitter at Karl Rove, and you can also read his weekly column in the Wall Street Journal. Just go to WSJ. com. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.