Michael McDonald, Senate Impeachment Predictions and a Democratic Candidate Report Card
University of Florida Associate Professor of Political Science Michael McDonald discusses the astounding growth of interest in the 2020 Presidential Election. James and Al deliver their Democratic Candidate Report Card. During Christy 'Numbers' Harvey's segment, we handicap Impeachment in the Senate. Last, but not least, a farewell to Bob Greenstein on the 'Back Page'.
January 2, 2020
Al Hunt (Washington, DC)
James Carville (New Orleans, LA)
Michael McDonald (Gainesville, FL)
Al Hunt: 00:06 Welcome to 2020 Politics War Room with James Carville and Al Hunt. We want to wish everybody a Happy New Year and ask you to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts.
James, the political season is here and our guest has special insights. He's professor Michael McDonald of the University of Florida and the foremost expert on voting and voting turnout in America. Last time, 2016, only a little over 55% of eligible voters turned out and since the 18 year olds were given the right to vote, there's been a generally... A steady decline. And even before that the last time that percentage of voter turnout topped 65% was 1908 when even Carville and Hunt weren't following that election. So Michael, first of all, thank you for joining us and let's start. What's it going to look like this November do you think?
MichaelMcDonald: 00:59 Yeah. Great to be with you and in the new year. So thanks for having me on. I think we're still looking at an exceptional turnout rate election. We just got some new numbers, just this morning, about small donor activity to the campaigns and we're seeing eye-popping numbers in the number of people who are giving just small amounts of money to candidates. Now of course the campaigns have changed their strategies on doing fundraising to small donors and other things, but small donor activity would be one among many indicators that we would be looking at to read the tea leaves and what may be happening in 2020. We can see survey data where interest is running like it's in October of 2020 not January. We can see high turnout rates in the midterm elections and other special and general elections in 2019, so just every indicator just seems to be hitting it full power at the moment, to suggest that we're going to have a very exceptional turnout rate in November 2020.
Al Hunt: 02:08 What's exceptional mean, Michael? Over 60? Could we get as high as 65%, 1908?
MichaelMcDonald: 02:16 Well we weren't over 60% in 2016 among those who were eligible to vote. Now the voting age population was a lower number that... 55%-
Al Hunt: 02:28 Let's keep apples to apples, and compare it to-
MichaelMcDonald: 02:31 Yeah. And that's what I do. I calculate the turnout rates for those who are eligible to vote, not the voting age population. I've got a time series that goes all the way back to the country's founding, so the first presidential elections in 1790. Looking at those numbers and looking at the apples to apples comparisons, yeah I think it's possible we can go over 65%. It's just hard to predict because this is out of sample behavior from a math standpoint. And it's always hard to predict what's going to happen when you don't have a good-
Al Hunt: 03:12 But it could go over 65% which would be stunning. And let me turn to James, but first to ask you, just briefly, does it favor, at this stage as you look at it, one party or the other?
MichaelMcDonald: 03:23 That's a really hard question to answer and I could go into the weeds, but the high level view is it looks like we could be on balance, that there's a pool of voters both who would be Trump supporters and who would be supporters of the Democratic nominee. They have a very similar size to these pools of people who didn't vote and so it's going to come down to which group is... Which party is going to be able to more activate their voters and both are going to be activated. So it's just going to be a matter of which one's going to be activated more. And so I don't... It's really hard to tell at this point which party is going to be benefited by having higher turnout. And then you have to look even below the national numbers and you have to start looking at the states and thinking about, well, what's going on with the states and where are these... The potential for activating certain types of voters within the states. So it's a very complicated question that you're asking here.
Al Hunt: 04:24 James.
James Carville: 04:24 So first of all, welcome Dr. McDonald, and the choice of you as our first guest of this year was intentional. And intentional to the... We believe that the levels of voter engagement, the levels of voter turnout, are the dominant story entering American politics in 2020. I want to ask you before we look forward to 2020, let's try to put 2018 in perspective in just how high was that turnout and how high were the levels of engagement and what does that say, pushing forward?
MichaelMcDonald: 04:59 Yeah. 2018 was highly unusual. We had a turnout rate over 50% of those eligible in the midterm election. Now in comparative perspective, you look at other countries, that's not a great number, but in American politics that is a very unusual number. You'd have to go all the way back to 1914 to have a turnout rate that was over 50%. So that was 100-year high turnout rate for a midterm election in 2018. And again, it's just another one of these indicators why we think something special's going on with voter engagement right now in the country.
James Carville: 05:42 Okay I hate to do this math, turning around and different numbers... Of 65, of eligible, of registered, but let's try another way to look at this. I think 136 million voted in 2016. Is that... Ballpark right?
MichaelMcDonald: 06:00 A little bit less, but yeah, it was over 130 million.
James Carville: 06:04 Okay. So what is the range that you're looking at in terms of raw numbers in 2020？
MichaelMcDonald: 06:11 You know, I haven't done those calculations yet, but if we look at the numbers I think we'd be looking around 160 million or so.
James Carville: 06:21 Jesus.
MichaelMcDonald: 06:22 Yeah.
James Carville: 06:22 All right. And I'm going to turn back over to Al, but there's no reason that we wouldn't expect that we're going to have astronomical levels of turnout during the democratic primaries and caucuses, is there?
MichaelMcDonald: 06:35 Oh, I think we're going to start seeing it first in the primaries. That's going to be our early indications. What happens in Iowa, the levels of engagement there at the caucuses. Are we seeing huge lines? Are we seeing delays? Are we seeing people being turned away because they can't get into some of the the caucus locations because they're just overcrowded. Those are going to be our very, very earliest indicators that we're seeing high levels of engagement. And it's likely going to also happen on the Republican side too, I think, because there are going to be a lot of Republicans who are just going to show up either to vote or to show up to a caucus just simply because they want to express their support for Trump, even if he's the only candidate on the ballot in that particular state.
James Carville: 07:23 It's going to be interesting to see what the turnout is just to come out and say I support Trump. That's a... Be a very fun number to watch as we go forward. Thank you for that tip because we're going to look at that.
Al Hunt: 07:37 Yeah, it will be. And Michael, I mean this expected high turnout, even looking back to what happened in 2018, most of the credit of that probably goes to Donald Trump, doesn't it? Both for and against. I mean, he has been the energizer on both sides.
MichaelMcDonald: 07:57 Yeah. We saw turnout go up in just about every state from 2014 to 2018. I say just about every state, the ones that may have missed just by a slight, like a 10th of a percentage point, those are just small misses. We saw levels of engagement go up everywhere. And yeah there were some more competition in some states, but we actually saw decreasing levels of competition in some states as well because of timing of which U.S. Senate elections are on the ballot. Whether or not the state actually has statewide elections for the state offices in the midterm election years. So like in North Carolina, actually saw a higher level of turnout in 2014 despite having no U.S. Senate election and they don't have their state governor's elections on midterm years. So what the heck can explain that? That you would have higher turnout despite not having a marquee statewide election on the ballot. And the only explanation is Trump. It's the only thing that could explain this.
Al Hunt: 09:07 Yeah, yeah.
James Carville: 09:08 I think Louisiana's got kind of a little bit of the same case.
MichaelMcDonald: 09:11 It happened to Louisiana too, yeah. It's just incredible that you see this across the country. There were some counties in 2018 in places like Montana that had higher turnout than in the 2016 presidential election. That's just insane. You don't see higher turnout from a presidential to a midterm election. That just doesn't happen. Except it did happen in 2018.
Al Hunt: 09:36 Let me go back to your answer a few minutes ago. I can clearly understand that there are a number of non-college educated white males who did not vote last time, who are likely to be energized by Trump this times... And man, he's doing a great job, [inaudible 00:09:56] there. It just... This is as a total amateur, it strikes me that yeah, that's a good-sized group but a much larger group would be young voters that didn't vote last time. Latinos that didn't vote last time, maybe to a limited extent. Yeah. African Americans who didn't vote last time. So I guess what I'm asking you and tell me why this is wrong, that if both sides do a great job, it has to tilt the Democrats favor.
MichaelMcDonald: 10:23 Well, I've run the numbers. New York Times has run the numbers. FiveThirtyEight's run the numbers. We've all run the numbers on this. There's about an equal-sized group of those low education whites, and I don't mean that in any derogatory sense, I just describing demographically who they are and looking at those other groups, the younger people, higher education people... But they vote at high rates anyways.. But poor people, persons of color, when you look at those two groups, we still are, whites are still the largest group within the country. And so those tend to balance out with one another. And especially if you go to some of these places like Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania. If anything, the numbers are tilted a little bit more into the ... Trump's favor about his potential pool of activating some folks. Now at the same time, we are seeing these changes to our country that, despite the best efforts to put up walls and other things, they're just baked into the numbers in terms of births and deaths and the fact that white people don't have babies the same way that other groups do.
So we're seeing a changing demographic profile of the country and so there are places actually beyond those three, the Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, like places like Arizona and Georgia are actually moving faster demographically. And we could talk about Texas, I... You know... Maybe Texas-
Al Hunt: 12:16 When you say, Michael, moving faster demographically, you mean moving faster in that... In those cases in the Democrats favor?
MichaelMcDonald: 12:23 Correct. Yeah. When you get below the national level, you start looking down at the states, and things become even more complicated because they're... Different regions of the country are moving different directions in different ways than what the national numbers are.
Al Hunt: 12:41 James, you've been fascinated by Texas for a while so pick up on that with the professor.
James Carville: 12:45 Oh I am. The only people that don't believe that the Democrats have a chance to win Texas in 2020 are the people who are not Republicans. If you listen to the Texas Republicans, they are scared to death and the thought of... Conventional democratic view is we're probably four years away. I mean, we're definitely going to be competitive in Texas in 2020. I mean highly, highly competitive.
MichaelMcDonald: 13:11 Yeah. An interesting anecdote here is about a month ago I got a call from the data people from the Texas Republican party and they were very concerned about the quality of data that they're getting from the data trust, which is the Republicans data organization. And they were trying to do voter registration drives and mobilization drives into the people who aren't currently registered to vote and they were getting back basically crap when they went... Sent people out and they wanted... They were asking me how do we improve our voter targeting efforts? And... First reaction is I can't believe you're asking me these sorts of questions. I tried to give them as good advice as I could because I want people to be engaged. I don't care which party they are. But still, I think it's very telling that, here we have the Republican party of Texas very worried about registering new voters.
James Carville: 14:10 Right, they're very... The Republicans are very up-front about the trouble that they have in Texas. The Democrats, at least the Democratic high-end community, loves to put, "Oh no, James, that's 2024." No, it's not. I don't know... Again... Other place to look is Georgia. Brian Kemp is moving to the left as fast as he can.
And so Mike, we talk about overall vote, 160 million, and that's what you study and you do it better and with more credibility and authority than anybody else. You're looking at our overall vote, I'm a political consultant. We tend to look a lot of chairs and... Of course, you always want a Democratic demographic to over perform a chair and I'm specifically thinking of African Americans. And I'm looking at the off-year election in Alabama where the... For the Doug Jones. Now this was historic and it was Roy Moore... Was breathtaking. They got like a 31... I mean it wasn't high, it was breathtaking high.
I look at Louisiana in 2019 where in a high turnout runoff, it was 31 contribution in Louisiana, which, I don't want to call that breathtaking high, but it's pretty damn high. And then I see this poll that looks pretty good. Just polls African-Americans, and it shows what you would expect some really stellar levels of interest here. Now if I look at North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, even, Michigan for sure, maybe to some extent... If you get a enhanced African American turnout you're going to do pretty well in some of these places and I don't think that's outside the realm of possibility to expect it. We might get a little bit more like an Obama '08 African American share than say, Hillary '16.
MichaelMcDonald: 16:18 Well I agree with you. African American turnout did dip a little bit after Obama left the scene in 2012, in the 2016 election, but... Comparing 2012 to 2016, but it didn't really go back down to the same lower levels that was before Obama hit the scene. And so there's continuing levels of engagement that we're seeing among voters. There's a lot of research that says once you vote once, you're much more likely to vote again. And so what we're seeing here is that I think partially is that people have been engaged, they've been activated under Obama, and they're continuing to be activated. They've registered to vote. They now know where their polling location is. They can navigate the system. Politics isn't so mysterious to them anymore. And so that leads to higher levels of engagement. And I think that we're seeing that with African Americans, but also lots of other groups too that don't traditionally vote.
Al Hunt: 17:15 Well, let's foc- We've talked about Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Let's talk about your home state or where you reside now, Florida, because every close election it ends up that Florida is key. It would seem to me that in 2020 Florida is a must win, probably, for Donald Trump. But tell us, give us the dynamics in Florida about this huge turnout if it occurs.
MichaelMcDonald: 17:41 Well, Florida's much more, I think, like the country as a whole than it is any individual state. And I know that a lot of pundits look back to the 2018 midterm election and say, wow, the Democrats lost very, very narrow margins, that governor's election and the U.S. Senate elections, so therefore, if Democrats are doing well elsewhere, it means that Florida is no longer a battleground state.
And I think that's just a bunch of bunk because look, we've got a changing demographic profile just like every other part of the country. We've also got a large influx of retirees and they're coming from all parts of the country. Some people said, well, they're shifting from the Northeast to the Midwest. There's not any evidence of that happening either. People just come to Florida to retire and so it's this, the changing demographic profile is offset by the influx of retirees into the state. And it's another one of these sort of balancing acts. And I don't think that Florida is lost to the Democrats. I think it's going to be a very closely contested state and there's a reason why Donald Trump moved to Florida and says his residences now in Florida. They see this as a must win state. If the Republicans don't win Florida, then they don't win the presidency. I mean that's just end game for the Democrats so-
James Carville: 19:07 Right. How stupid are some Democrats? We lose a Senate race in 2018 by 10,000 votes and we're going to write the state off? Is being hopelessly Republican? I mean it's so colossally dumb, the commentary that Florida's moved away from... I mean, it's certainly been a disappointment for Democrats any number of times, higher hopes, and dimple fulfill, but it's not like it's a real big difference either. It's not like you can't win if you run a smart campaign. I mean I agree with you, Dr. McDonald. I don't buy this, Florida's irredeemably red.
MichaelMcDonald: 19:49 Yeah. And what Scott and DeSantis did very well is they accorded the Puerto Rican community in Florida and there was some drop-off among some of the African American communities too, which is kind of surprising with Gillum being on the ballot. But I don't know, there's just something going on there with Gillum that I don't quite understand.
James Carville: 20:14 If the Democrats don't compete somewhat in North Florida, because when I went and looked at it and I looked at those counties in North Florida, God, it was like 85-15. I mean, they just got slaughtered and they have to cut those margins. That's just not applicable to Florida, that's applicable in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania or anywhere. They cannot continue to lose these rural white voters like Republicans lose African American voters. Some place we are approaching that kind of defeat. I think you got to try to be a little more competitive there.
MichaelMcDonald: 20:56 Yeah. Redistricting is another thing that I really love and if you look at Texas, actually Beto O'Rourke won a majority of the state house districts because of the lopsided margins that-
James Carville: 21:11 [crosstalk 00:21:11] Redistricting in 2010.
MichaelMcDonald: 21:12 Yeah.
James Carville: 21:12 They thought they were redistricting Republicans. I mean, it was a great story. They actually redistricted Democrats and I got Democrats telling me that we shouldn't try to win Texas and I'm like, are you all crazy?
MichaelMcDonald: 21:25 Well, I think that this, maybe not Texas statewide, but certainly the State Houses in play... And that could be really, really important if the Democrats could gain control of the Texas State House that would put a break on the Partisan gerrymandering of the congressional and state legislative districts. And then that means that the Democrats will be very much better positioned for the next decade in Texas. So, at the very least, and I know smart people are looking at this on the Democratic side, they're at least looking at the State House and then if they're going to invest that money in the State House races, why not invest a little bit in the presidential election too?
Al Hunt: 22:04 All right. Let me ask you one... I can see where there could be a larger African, this is on the Democratic side, a larger African American turnout. Maybe even, with a lot of work, a really improved Latino turnout. We are always talking about young voters though, Michael. What reason is there to think that they're going to really turn out much more than they have before?
MichaelMcDonald: 22:26 Well, I mean, as much as I would love to see higher turnout among young people, no one has solved this problem where younger people vote at lower rates than older people. It Is just such a solid truism that... If anyone could solve this problem it. would change American politics in a very fundamental way. And what we've got here also is that, a little bit concerning about what's happening with the country if you're a Democrat, is that at the same time the baby boomers are actually reaching their peak turnout years just as they are cresting that retirement age. And you could see... So as the country's become more diversified ironically, and the electorates become more diversified, we can see that happening, ironically, the electorates also becoming older at the same time. It doesn't make any sense unless you understand this odd dynamic that's happening with the differential turnout rates between older and younger people.
Now, younger people did vote at higher rates in 2018 than they did in 2014. They generally will show up to higher rates in a presidential election, so there's that that's going on, but to really change things we need to see these turnout rates go up like 15 percentage points not five percentage points or something like that in comparison to past elections. So that's the challenge and I know there are a lot of good groups that are out there trying to do the voter mobilization, but by and large they target young people on college campuses. That's easy. That's the easy stuff. You got all the kids together. I can set up a booth. I can register plenty of kids on, at the University of Florida campus. That's not the hard thing. The hard thing... How do you go out into the community, identify poor people, younger people, transients, the renters who are working several jobs, they're just trying to make ends meet? How do you get them engaged and involved and nobody knows the answer.
James Carville: 24:38 I could not agree with you more. In 92... So to come in... The youths coordinators up... The young... Whatever, the Democrats at college, talking about they've got meetings set up at Princeton and they had a meeting set up at Florida State and they got a meeting set up at University of Oregon. I said, "Man, get out of there and go to Dade County Community College. Go where these low income workers are."
I mean, when we think of young people, not you, but if you talk to some of your colleagues that you talk to, people like, you're right. They say the kids that go to University of Florida, well that's unrepresentative and those kids are going to probably vote anyway. They'll probably have pretty good turnout. The higher you go up the education scale, even if you're young, the more likely you are to vote. But the point is well taken and it's one that the Democrats would... The people that are trying to activate young people should take to heart, go where the young people really are and where you can really make a difference. You're not going to make a difference at Princeton, they're already going to vote.
MichaelMcDonald: 25:39 There are groups that understand that, it's just that nobody's figured out how to solve this. And by the way, I'm not young. I have my AARP card so... I wish I was younger.
Al Hunt: 25:49 You fit very well in this program then Michael. Listen, I want to just second what James said to start with. It was intentional to have you as our first guest of this year. I think what you're talking about is the most important, really the most important consideration of 2020. How big is that turnout going to be and which side is going to turn out those voters? And we can't thank you enough for [crosstalk 00:26:13].
James Carville: 26:13 We hope you come back.
Al Hunt: 26:15 Yes. We want a commitment to come back.
James Carville: 26:17 Yeah, want a commitment to come back because I think this story is going to do nothing but get bigger.
MichaelMcDonald: 26:24 Now James, the last time I was on you invited me to a LSU game when Florida was going to be there. You didn't follow through on it. Come on! You were supposed to hook me up.
James Carville: 26:36 I'll come and [crosstalk 00:26:36].
MichaelMcDonald: 26:36 You guys have had a great year so-
James Carville: 26:39 Yeah we have.
Al Hunt: 26:39 Michael, you nailed it!
James Carville: 26:41 Yeah, but we've got a very [crosstalk 00:26:40]. Well Florida had a good [crosstalk 00:26:45]
Al Hunt: 26:45 Oh, you're trying to change the subject, James.
James Carville: 26:47 They want to play. Yeah, I did. Yeah.
MichaelMcDonald: 26:53 I'd be happy to come back on.
James Carville: 26:54 Thank you and I-
Al Hunt: 26:56 I don't know where they, well, you're coming back on and the next time Florida plays in Baton Rouge you have absolutely a guarantee that Carville will deliver, right James?
James Carville: 27:05 I will deliver. I'll deliver, but right now I'm so fired up about January 13th [crosstalk 00:27:12] move.
MichaelMcDonald: 27:11 I bet.
Al Hunt: 27:14 Listen Michael, you have been a terrific guest. Thank you very much. Happy New Year to you and we look forward to visiting you again this year, okay?
MichaelMcDonald: 27:21 All right. Well Happy New Year to you as well. Have a good year.
James Carville: 27:23 Thank you prof.
Al Hunt: 27:30 Boy, James, that Michael McDonald is really good. Let's us look at the Democratic field now, at least the top five contenders and look at where they were a year ago and where they are today. What kind of a grade we'd give them for 2019? I'll start with Joe Biden and I'll give him a B+.0 A B+ because he's made lots of mistakes. He's really looked awful at times, terrible debates, up until the last one, a campaign team that didn't quite seem to have its act together for a while. But you know, he has staying power. He was the leader a year ago. He's the leader today, and so I'd give him a healthy B+ because a couple of months ago I thought I'd be down to a C or D now. And if he wins, if he finishes in the money in Iowa, New Hampshire I may even elevate that grade.
James Carville: 28:18 Yeah, I guess I'm a little bit more on the B side. I mean, he showed some resiliency, he's had some [inaudible 00:28:25], his fundraising is not all that great. His organization is not all that great. I mean, this is good for him. I mean, if I was grading him on expectations I'd probably give him an A, but if I look at the overall thing, B+ might be a little bit high. I might give it a B.
Al Hunt: 28:43 Well, I'll tell you who I'd give an A- to, Bernie Sanders. And I'm not a big fan, as you know, but Bernie Sanders is another guy who's held up. That base is really, really solid. His fundraising is off the charts, I think $34.5 million in the final quarter and those Bernie people, they ain't going to go away. And I think, for a guy who had a heart attack and he's 78 years old, I think he deserves at least an A- this year.
James Carville: 29:14 I'm kind of with you on that. I worry to death about Bernie Sanders and Bernie Sanders affect in the general election. Understand, Bernie Sanders is not, nor are many people voting for him, a Democrat and there are many people over there who believe that chaos theory. That four more years of Trump would be better than having four years of a corporatist neo-liberal or whatever they think, and that this will accelerate the revolution. The big number, and the thing that really worries me about Bernie, is the number 15 because that's the number it takes to qualify for proportional representation. What this tells me is he has the financial resources to go all the way to Milwaukee and he's got enough energy where he's going to get 15% in a lot of places. I don't think Bernie can get half the delegates but there's a not remote chance that he controls the destiny of the Democratic Party in July of 2020.
Al Hunt: 30:21 That's a scary thought.
James Carville: 30:23 [crosstalk 00:30:23] It is, but you've got to say it's real.
Al Hunt: 30:26 Yeah, you do. What kind of grade would you give Senator Elizabeth Warren?
James Carville: 30:30 Honestly, a C+. I thought her coming out, that her bio in a corruption critique, it was so effective and she allowed herself to get sucked in to the Medicare For All debate. There was a story in the New York Times today,and I thought it was well written. I was just tickled about the activist in Atlantic, Iowa who's having meetings at her house with physicians to explain Senator Warren's position. I mean, first of all, it shows you how hard people are working out there. And secondly, a reporter can't find a person that doesn't have an opinion on it. In a very... When you read the story, everybody has a very detailed opinion. It has clearly hurt her. It didn't get anything. Bernie's gotten stronger.
Al Hunt: 31:25 And now she doesn't talk about it.
James Carville: 31:28 And now she doesn't talk about it. It's just one of these colossal mistakes in politics and she's got a lot of energy, she's got the right critique, she's trying desperately to get back to her bio and her corruption critique of which two started with A+. She started with a A+ campaign message and a A+ bio and she's allowed herself to be defined by Bernie Sanders. You can't be happy about that. I'd... C-.
Al Hunt: 31:59 C-? She's declined, even the course of the last couple of minutes. I was going to-
James Carville: 32:05 The more I think about it the worse... And the reason is, is that she had the highest SAT score in the class.
Al Hunt: 32:10 Right.
James Carville: 32:10 She came in the best-
Al Hunt: 32:12 That's for sure.
James Carville: 32:12 I was grading her to Joe Biden. I know... Her resume, even though Biden's impressive and, don't get me wrong, in a political sense... But hers, for the times, was almost designed to be a President. Almost designed to be it.
Al Hunt: 32:32 I was going to be more charitable and give her a C+ but we can average out to a C. I'll tell you-
James Carville: 32:35 That's right.
Al Hunt: 32:36 The one guy who gets an A, Pete Buttigieg. If you look at people to judge today versus a year ago, nobody thought the... I mean Beto O'Rourke was the flavor of the year, a year ago. Hardly anyone was talking about Pete. Buttigieg didn't measure up in the polls. I don't know if he has staying power or not, but you look at him in Iowa, New Hampshire right now. The fundraising numbers, not quite at Bernie's level, but higher than almost anybody else. And it remains to be seen what will happen next month but if you're going to grade someone in 2019 I think you have to give Mayor Pete an A.
James Carville: 33:09 Yeah I don't think anybody can... There's no doubt about that. And the thing that he's done has accomplished [inaudible 00:33:17] heart, is he just screams different. I mean, his youth, his looks, his sexual orientation, his last name, the guy just stands out. I mean he just looks new, different, fresh and that's the kind of word, first words that come to mind. Now where he's going to face it is... He was Mayor of South Bend, is when we had him on the old podcast and they're going to bring strong heat on that and that is a very legitimate critique. That is a very legitimate thing to force a discussion on. That is not dirty politics. That's not trying to destroy the Democratic Party or anything else because I kind of like him too and I want to know more about the experience gap and he's going to have to really bring his game up for that, going forward.
Al Hunt: 34:16 Well they better do that now because if they don't and he ends up getting the nomination you sure as hell can bet the Republicans will do it.
James Carville: 34:22 Yep.
Al Hunt: 34:22 [crosstalk 00:34:25].
James Carville: 34:23 There's no way he's going to get the nomination without going through this gauntlet.
Al Hunt: 34:27 Right, right.
James Carville: 34:27 That's going to happen. I'm not... No chance-
Al Hunt: 34:31 No, I agree with everything you just checked off. I'd add one more thing. I was out there in my populous with the people in Vail, Colorado a while last week and I was talking to a big Wall Street guy who had had... was one of a small group who'd had dinner with Buttigieg about six or eight months ago and those, that's not where the country's going to go, Democratic party's going to go, that group. But he said, God damn is he smart. And he is smart and his ex- You know, we'll have to see how he was. But this is a... Again, I keep that... You know, I had people who were supposed to be knowledgeable, had been involved in campaigns, a year ago who would say, "Man, Beto is the guy. This is just what we need. Young, fresh, different, new." Well, Mayor Pete became the Beto.
James Carville: 35:20 [crosstalk 00:35:20] What I give him an A+ on is courage. I mean, he just... I mean, you're really, with that name and being Mayor of South Bend, you're really going to step out there and do this? Yeah, I'm going to.
Al Hunt: 35:32 Yeah.
James Carville: 35:32 And look what he did.
Al Hunt: 35:34 Yeah.
James Carville: 35:36 You can't give him anything but an A now, but I got to tell you, the second half of the course is going to be a lot harder than the first half.
Al Hunt: 35:46 I know there are a lot of differences but it does remind me somewhat of Jimmy Carter in 1975. You know, for all the differences it was considered... It was a lot of courage. A lot of chutzpah. All right. One more I want to ask you about and that is Michael Bloomberg.
James Carville: 36:01 Well, as you know, I think I've even mentioned it here. I've been very big that Bloomberg has a huge China issue. I mean that his business, although it's a small part and his answers on China have not been very impressive, we'll, let it go at that. I'm getting a lot of people saying, "Oh no, they don't care about that, look at Trump. It's a little bit different on the Democratic side. Look, China, they cheat. They just do. And just because Trump went about it like an idiot and a clown with no plan and the Chinese literally ate his lunch with... I don't know if this is an anti Asiatic thing to say, but I guess it's not, but I mean, they ate his lunch with their chopsticks, for sure. He's not wrong that China is a bad actor internationally, economically.
Al Hunt: 37:12 Trump isn't.
James Carville: 37:13 Trouble. Yeah, let's say they're trouble. It's a very... Let me change that editorial comment from bad to trouble. They're trouble on these economic issues. And if the potential Democratic nominee does not convince people that he's going to... he or she, or she or he's going to have wherewithal to stand up to them that's going to be damaging on the Democratic side.
Al Hunt: 37:38 [inaudible 00:37:38] on that because I worked for Bloomberg News for eight years and later six years for the opinion page. I have a lot of respect, really, a lot of respect for Mike Bloomberg. There are two things he has that Donald Trump doesn't have and that's values and integrity. When I worked at Bloomberg-
James Carville: 37:53 [crosstalk 00:37:53] And intelligence.
Al Hunt: 37:55 Okay, yeah, actually, a lot of things.
James Carville: 37:55 Yeah, a lot.
Al Hunt: 37:57 But you know Bloomberg News had the highest ethical and integrity standards and the one exception, this was after I left the news department, was in the opinion pages, was when the news editors killed the story about a top Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his personal financial situation. Two top editors resigned. The reporter, who only worked for me, was outstanding, left under pressure, now works for the New York Times. That story, it was said, would have imperiled Bloomberg's growing presence in China and it was the only time I ever saw them cave.
And I think there's two problems here. One is, as you said, Michael's statements about China are just not in keeping with where people are and maybe even, certainly, where Democratic opinion is, but secondly, if he should get the nomination, I think he'd be a good president, I think it's a stretch to get him to the nomination. He's going to have to sell the company. There's no way in the world he could ever, cause he doesn't have Donald... You know, fortunately he's not a Donald Trump. There's no way in the world he could be President and put [inaudible 00:38:59] in a blind trust because you know exactly where it is. And so if he gets there he's going to have to sell it and he'll get a pretty penny for it, James.
James Carville: 39:06 Yeah. That campaign is just growing. All right. You know, they are very, very, very active. They just opened an office in the American Virgin Islands. And they are meeting with a lot of people. I mean, Michael Bloomberg is not a half-assed person, remotely. I mean, they're in this because they think they see a path. I don't think I can see the path, but I don't have any doubt that they think there's a path. He is not someone that's going on a fool's errand.
Al Hunt: 39:46 Well, I mean, from our vantage point, from the people who are writing about this and covering this and podcasting about this, the idea of a Milwaukee convention with Michael Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders, each coming in with 20% of the vote or whatever number you want to pick and being the power brokers there. Man, that'll be a great story.
James Carville: 40:08 Yeah. I am so, so afraid of Milwaukee. You know, I hope it works out. It almost always does.
Al Hunt: 40:21 Not always.
James Carville: 40:22 I've never been a big believer in this brokered convention theory. However, when I see people like Bernie and Bloomberg and even Biden, people that got like, real staying power. They're not going to knock out as early as some of the other people will. Particularly... And I... Biden runs fourth in Iowa and New Hampshire. I don't know. I don't know how to figure [inaudible 00:40:43] get to South Carolina. But, you know, there's some people that got some resources here to go very long into this race.
Al Hunt: 40:51 My fear would be that, it goes back to 1968 and Tip O'Neill, then Congressman before he was Speaker, came to a meeting of the Democratic delegation from Massachusetts and he thought it looked more like the cast of Hair than the Democrats. I just have a fear that Milwaukee may end up looking like that. Let's hope-
James Carville: 41:11 [inaudible 00:41:11] If you don't think that the Russians are all involved in left-wing American politics then you're really stupid. I mean you're, you're really, really stupid. I mean, you going to tell me that Jill Stein sitting at the table with Vladimir Putin and Mike Flynn. I mean, come on.
Al Hunt: 41:30 This is the one case where I can plead not stupid.
James Carville: 41:33 Yeah, I know. We know, but the idea is we got to tell people.
Al Hunt: 41:38 No, you're right.
James Carville: 41:39 I mean and they need to start investigating the connections between Russia and American left.
Al Hunt: 41:46 Yep. We should talk about that a lot. And boy, we got a lot ahead. It's only a month away to the Iowa caucuses.
James, the year is 2020 but whatever the year is, there's no one that knows numbers better than Christy "Numbers" Harvey, who's with us again. Christy, welcome. What do you have for us?
Christy Harvey: 42:16 Hey fellas, Happy New Year. I've got a couple of numbers for you today, although I have to tell you, I almost just started with how many numbers I've spent or how many hours I've spent napping and just relaxing. I have done nothing for the last week, but I've got two numbers for you today. You ready? Yep. Okay. My first number is 67 that's the number of votes that we're going to need to convict Donald Trump in the Senate. And so as my post, as the resident in house bookie, I'm taking bets. How many senators do you think will actually vote to convict? Remembering that the Senate has that 53 37 breakdown. Hunt do you want to start?
Al Hunt: 42:55 I'd say 49. They're going to lose one Democrat and pick up three Republicans. And I'm not very confident of that bet. But go ahead James.
James Carville: 43:11 I don't know. I think I'll take the relevant number right now is how many Republicans they did on the procedure vote as to how to set the trial up. Because that's going to, they're going to have to take two votes. I think they're going to have to take the vote on the procedures of which Murkowski and college of I, you know, what does it mean? But there's some, if the Democrats just need to keep bringing home, they want a fair trial, a fair trial, a fair trial. So I think that first vote is going to be critical. And you know, if they get four that's a lot cause you changed the way the trials conducted.
Al Hunt: 43:44 I, you know, I want to slightly disagree because I think actually you can see what's going to happen there. They're going to have witnesses, they have to have witnesses, they're going to be enough. Republicans are going to assist on it. But I think what they're going to do is have controlled a controlled list of witnesses and they're not going to get some of the ones they really want to get and they got to vote on it anyway. But they do. But I'm still waiting for James his number on the number to convict Christy.
James Carville: 44:09 I think that, I think the more critical number is th th the way the trial is set up and if they get... Because the evidence shows, I mean look, we know what happened. That's really not a debate. And if they're able to make that very clear during the debate, they might get more than otherwise. I, I think to some extent they're not going to get more than six. But the difference between getting two and six, is a lot.
Al Hunt: 44:38 Two and six Republicans.
James Carville: 44:40 Yes, yes. But it's a lot. But depending on how they get the vote as to, you know, if they limit the witnesses and they limit this, you know, they have to do some dang. But if, if some Republicans insist that you have a real open trial, if four of them do, dude [inaudible] they could get jammed and moves more people. I think the first vote, I can't tell you what it's going to happen on the second vote until we see the first one.
Christy Harvey: 45:04 How quickly do you guys think this is going to move? Is this something that moves really quickly and, and we start to see this stuff in January or do you think this drags out.
James Carville: 45:12 We'll see when Pelosi sends it over.
Yeah. You know, you know, I've got to believe here in Albert IFU, if you much more than impeachment person than I am. I think they know more information is in the pipeline and it's a little bit why hurry is only good things are going to happen. The only thing that we're going to find out if we wait another week or we write another two weeks if there's going to be more confirmation of this or other acts of criminality that had come yet. So they're not, I don't think she's a necessarily a big hurry [inaudible] to shove disobedience.
Al Hunt: 45:48 I agree totally. And I think it's been totally misinterpreted. I read all these pieces that, you know, Pelosi has no leverage over. McConnell. McConnell says, fine. I, I, I don't believe that. I believe McConnell wants to get this out of the way as quickly as possible. And I think what Pelosi, I'm, I'm sure she would like to have a ground rules for a fair trial and all that, but I don't think she'd mind Donald Trump given his state of the union address on February the fourth when impeachment is still on the table.
James Carville: 46:17 Yeah. I don't either. [inaudible] I, the other thing is you, Mitch McConnell, wait, don't listen. Don't get confused. He has one job. It has to protect his incompetence. [inaudible] he got that. That's what they, that's why he's there. That's his singular job. And they're coming into him right now and saying, Mitch, you know, I don't think I want a boat on this. I, I think the politics are this a not great, far a limited number, isn't it? Not the politics is not complicated for John Kennedy. I understand that, but, but, but there are some people who who this is complicated for and they would like to extricate themselves without much damage politically. And that's going to be a tough trick. But Mitch,
Al Hunt: 46:59 no question. I just got back from a week in Colorado and I'll tell you one guy who's sweating a lot is Cory Gardner. This is a lose lose for him, right? Yeah.
James Carville: 47:06 Right. I mean, if that, if they have any way to make this thing go away or, which of course is not [inaudible], you know, and this procedural vote is not going to be easy and it's not going to be easy for him to craft a solution that looks fair, but it's not.
Al Hunt: 47:22 No, that's what he'll try to do. But, but yeah, it's going to be a, all right, Christy, you got anything else for us? I got one more quick
Christy Harvey: 47:30 one. Yeah.
Speaker 5: 47:30 Mmm.
Christy Harvey: 47:31 So in keeping with my bookie status, and I want to be very careful here, I want to tread very lightly because James, as you may know, my family is a Clemson family. My sister went to Clemson. We've got tiger paws all over the house. So my second, my second number here is [inaudible] six and a, that's a, the the six point favor. LSU was favored six points over Clemson on the 13th how do you think this is going to shake out? I remember my mom's listening.
James Carville: 48:00 Okay. I like, first of all, you cannot stop that. The line opened at three. I think it might be five and a half now, but you cannot take the betters away from LSU. They, the act, the number of times that I've seen our line jump to three points is, is it fun? And the reason is, is because it's Pavlo. Yeah. If, if you bet knew when you're going to bet again the same way Clemson has not lost in two years. They beat Alabama last year. Like Alabama wasn't on the field. And I don't care about Alabama, Alabama, they will still, Alabama does. She goes, they showed against Michigan. So I'm so excited to beat AR. Look, I, I, I like this team so much. I don't have any objectivity. Your mom, your family, the people really love Clemson. It's a great academic institution. There's a lot of history.
We know somebody who wears purple, who's going to win. We know somebody named a tigers is going to win. We know somebody that plays the home games in death Valley is going to win, you know, of course more than anything in the world, far, far, this whole team and this whole university, I hope it's us, but man, what a ride. And I think Clemson can feel really good. I mean, if I had a [inaudible] right under Dabo Sweeney, you okay? Unlike most anytime in college football. So this is the most anticipated football, college football game of the 21st century. Let's enjoy it,
Speaker 5: 49:23 man. Minnie, Chrissy, that's, that's the second time today that, that he said he's ducked the question. I mean, it really is remarkable for his time about talking. What question about duck and question six what do you know? You know, over under,
Speaker 4: 49:35 yeah, I'm so excited about this. I bet I bet out LSU just because experience tells you that, but experience tells you, you bet on Clemson. You do. Well, I, I don't, I, I'm too excited about the gate. I don't need to bet it. I got so much emotional capital invested in this. I don't shit. Who cares? It all went $500 and $500. I mean, this is biggest athletic night of my life.
Speaker 5: 50:04 Christy, Christy, this is like, you know, I'm like Harry Truman, you know, I'm sick of these, you know, I want a one armed economist on the one hand. On the other hand, I mean, I watch my show is you against Georgia and I tell you something. I think Clemson is a great program. My dear friend, Harry Frampton is deeply involved with a trustee down there. They've had a wonderful record. I was a great coach. LSU for
Speaker 4: 50:27 the next couple of days. There's nobody wants you to be right more than me. Nobody wants you to be right more than me.
Al Hunt: 50:27 [inaudible]
James Carville: 50:45 James for a very quick back page. I think we both want to pay tribute to a guy named Bob Greenstein who has won the center for budget and policy priorities for the last 30 years and announced he's going to step down a year from now. He is one of those invaluable figures in America. He is and liberal by traditional standards, even though some of the lefties today can't stand him, and he spent his entire career fighting for poor people and people who champion food stamps, championing tax
Al Hunt: 51:16 credits for a working families, the earned income tax credits and looking at the date at the harm that some of the policies of the right wing would have on people who really are struggling and he's not been, he's also been willing to take on liberals and labors on things like the Cadillac tax and the health care plan. He's a guy of complete integrity of, you know, just so of such great commitment. Washington's a much better place. James, because of Bob Greenstein. He is in our column written by another very decent, yeah, Washingtonian EJD own own. Bob green is fine. It would be highly recommended to anyone and there's not many people [inaudible] at the end of the day, career can say a lot of people are alive and a lot of people are not hungry because of things I did. [inaudible] fan can say that, and I'm not talking about a lot like in the thousands or hundreds or thousands. I'm talking about in the tens of millions. All right. I mean his life an impact. You know, Jackie Robinson said Downey, the extent that a life matters is to hide affects all the lives Bob brings in do probably affected more lives in a positive way than any Washington lobbyists in history. Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree. He is a, he's one of a kind. I was going to say we'll miss him, but he's still going to be around. But Bob Greenstein, you're our, you're our new year person of, of of the week.
Easily. All right, James, we'll talk next week. Okay. Okay. That was our Backpage. Great guests were Michael McDonald and fascinating conversations about what's going to happen with the Democrats. Thank you for listening. I'm asking you to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to us. Happy new year again.