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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
Nia Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.
John Aughenbaugh: How are you, Nia?
Nia Rodgers: You know what? I am having a great deal of fun watching political pundits and political professors, eat acne inducing levels of chocolate, drink alcoholic levels of scotch and try to figure out the last 10 days in American politics.
John Aughenbaugh: Oh, my goodness. I guess I'm like hey.
Nia Rodgers: Your people are either standing in the sunshine or you are standing in the rain. Y'all don't have moderate weather. You're either totally interested in what's going on or you're completely out and right now, you're all crazy. No offense intended.
John Aughenbaugh: No. I feel like we've had a combination of El Nino De Recio.
Nia Rodgers: El Nino, Hurricane. This is crazy.
John Aughenbaugh: Once in a generation snowstorm this has all been packed.
Nia Rodgers: This one in a century.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: We did not address the earlier event of this, which is the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. We didn't do in the news episode on that because we felt like it had been covered wall to wall by pretty much all the news outlets. But now we have a new wrinkle, and so here we are. The first thing we'd like to say is seriously we are both glad that Donald Trump was not seriously injured in that attempt, and as we have condemned in another episode, we condemn any violence, any non-peaceful transfer of power. That's what separates us from all the other people who have not managed to make democracy work.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right.
Nia Rodgers: Is that we don't shoot people. We don't disagree with them and turn to violence. We disagree with them and turn to ice cream, because ice cream solves everything.
John Aughenbaugh: Or we try to persuade them that there is another way to look at particular phenomenon, government document, etc.
Nia Rodgers: But we certainly don't do it at the wrong end of a rifle.
John Aughenbaugh: But this episode listens.
Nia Rodgers: Then we thought nobody could top that because here we had gotten complacent. We were like, well, that's the end of that. President Biden said, this is a beer in my hand. Somebody hold on to for a minute, please.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. This episode, listeners, we're going to discuss in the news episodes, President Biden withdrawing from the 2024 presidential campaign. We are recording this the day after he posted on social media.
Nia Rodgers: Every newspaper online put it in 300 font on tops of their websites.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, I was quite pleased, particularly listeners. For those of us who get old, we really appreciate large font. So it was really nice when all of the mainstream media went ahead and did that.
Nia Rodgers: Hey, we can read that. Said that we're old enough that large font is a good thing.
John Aughenbaugh: Is a good thing, but he announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy to be the Democratic nominee for president this Fall.
Nia Rodgers: Can I clarify something with you Aughie?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: He is not stepping down from the presidency of the United States. He is not resigning as president.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right. He is just withdrawing from this year's presidential election. He is not resigning from the office of president that he was elected to in 2020. He followed up that particular announcement with a second announcement, which was that he was endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the Democratic Party nominee this fall.
Nia Rodgers: That would have been completely sketchy if he had not done that, right?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Is he morally obligated since he's been running with her on the ticket?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, it would have sent two interesting messages if he did not endorse her. One, the lack of faith that he might have had or does have in her ability to be president, or two, and these are not exclusive, that he thinks the Democratic Party should have a d, democratic process to pick his replacement.
Nia Rodgers: But in fact, that is not what he did?
John Aughenbaugh: No. He did not. He went handy in doorstep.
Nia Rodgers: How often has happened? The president's day 1 running for reelection.
John Aughenbaugh: This happens very infrequently. Thus listeners, me and Nia's joke of a few moments ago about strange weather occurrences.
Nia Rodgers: Once in a century.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: That's what they always say In front of some, like super storm Sandy was a once in a century.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. It has happened twice in the last 75 years where a sitting or incumbent president who could run for a second term withdrew. The most recent was President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1968 when he withdrew, and it was pretty clear all the polling that was being done at that time.
Nia Rodgers: What did he say? I cannot something and I will not accept my party's nomination. Yeah. Yeah. He had a speech that he gave.
John Aughenbaugh: He had a speech that he gave. The second time happened in 1952. President Truman had just completed his first full term in office. Listeners, you may be wondering, well, didn't he serve out Roosevelt's term? He did.
Nia Rodgers: He selected.
John Aughenbaugh: He could have served a second term, and he chose not to.
Nia Rodgers: Dewey beats Truman. The headline that they had printed mistakenly.
John Aughenbaugh: That was 48.
Nia Rodgers: But he just didn't want to come back for another.
John Aughenbaugh: He had already decided that the country probably needed a new voice and a new direction. He was basically a wartime president. What Truman and Johnson did, unlike Biden, was that they announced early enough to where the Democratic Party's primary process could play itself out.
Nia Rodgers: This is a little late in the game, isn't it? Isn't the Democratic National Convention next week?
John Aughenbaugh: Well, not next week, but definitely next month. It begins Monday, August 19th.
Nia Rodgers: A month from now. That's cutting it close, isn't it?
John Aughenbaugh: It's actually four weeks from the day we're recording this, listeners. So the immediate outcome of Biden withdrawing is that the 3,900 plus Democratic National Convention delegates are free to vote for whom they wish.
Nia Rodgers: They could vote for the Rogers Hagenberg ticket?
John Aughenbaugh: They could theoretically.
Nia Rodgers: Except we're not Democrats, but we're not Republicans either in case people were wondering. We're going to have to create our own party.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: We should create the Gen X moderate cynical party.
John Aughenbaugh: By the way, a shout out to one of our loyal listeners, Molly Callow, who is already crafted for Rodgers Aughenbaugh, 2028 bumper sticker that will come part of our swag line.
MALE_1: At some point.
John Aughenbaugh: But a shout out to Molly. So that's the immediate result, Nia.
MALE_1: Is that they'll be free. No. Isn't it likely that since he has endorsed her and lots of other Democrats have come out and endorsed her during the day today that she's the presumptive nominee? Unless somebody gets all app Starty and tries to create havoc at some point. Now, it is not that the Democratic National Convention has not seen havoc before. In fact, it is going to be in the home of Havoc, Chicago. Is not that where the last one was that went bonkers in 60s?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, 1968.
MALE_1: Wasn't that Chicago?
John Aughenbaugh: That was Chicago.
MALE_1: Chicago's probably bracing going, oh, please don't. Please don't. Please don't. Please don't do what you did the last time. But anyway, isn't it pretty likely that most of those folks will say we support vice president Harris as the nominee?
John Aughenbaugh: In listeners, what Nia is referencing is that, rather remarkably, in the roughly 24 hours since President Biden withdrew from the race, a large number of prominent Democrats have already come out and said that they will support her. The most recent one right before we began recording this episode was former speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi who still has quite a bit of juice with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. But you also have seen various mayors, governors Moors. So for instance, California governor Newsome, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, they have already come up.
MALE_1: Kentucky Beshear.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor down in Kentucky. You've already seen a number of donors who had put pressure on Biden to withdraw or else they would stop donating necessary money to his campaign. They have already indicated that their metaphorical check books and wallets will be once again opened.
MALE_1: Well, they've vetted her. They've know her. But she already went through this process with him when they first ran in 2020. Didn't she go through the fire?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, and that's something listeners, Nia and I want you all to be aware of. So let's just say, for instance, you would like to see a democratic process, small D, not Democratic Party.
MALE_1: You want to see him fight at the convention and actually earn delegates.
John Aughenbaugh: Do understand that Kamala Harris, in many ways, has already been vetted as a presidential candidate because she was a candidate in 2020. She stepped out early.
MALE_1: But can we pause?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, go ahead.
MALE_1: Sorry. Go ahead.
John Aughenbaugh: No, go ahead, Nia.
MALE_1: So the whole point of vetting is without what we call in the biz oppo research, right? Oppositional research. That is you want to know what the worst thing about your candidate is prior to the opposite campaign, finding out what the worst thing about your candidate is. So if your candidate threw a bag of puppies into a river, Kristie Noma I'm looking at you. She didn't throw a bag of puppies into a river. She shot one. But anyway, if that's the worst thing about your candidate, you need to know it before the opposition knows it because they will make hay from it. If you can lead by saying, listen, I've made some mistakes in my life. I've done some things I'm not proud of. But like every American, I can change and I can grow and I can evolve. Then you can head it off. You can get in there and talk about it. But if you haven't been vetted, if you showed up at the convention, and it was a free for all, you could end up with somebody who has enormous baggage in their past. But is a really good public speaker and charms everybody and gets the votes, and then can't win the election because the stuff that comes out about them is horrifying.
John Aughenbaugh: In this particular case, Kamala Harris has been vetted at the state level, because she was the attorney general for the state of California. Before that, she was the attorney general for Alameda county, which is right outside of San Francisco. She has been a US senator. She ran for a national election then. She was part of the winning 2020, presidential Vice Presidential ticket. In many ways, she's been vetted. Another significant advantage that she brings Nia is access to the roughly $90 million plus that the Biden Harris campaign had already raised. This is not as insignificant issue, and it's one that may play out after the election because Republican campaign finance, finance folks don't believe that Harris should be able to access that money because it was the "Biden presidential campaign".
MALE_1: Except it was Biden Harris.
John Aughenbaugh: Harris.
MALE_1: So they probably don't have a leg to stand on, and a judge would probably say she was on the ticket, she was on every bit of the paperwork. It's not reasonable to assume that people were only giving to +Biden with the hope that Kamala Harris would fall into a river somewhere. That's a reach to me. I think that's a reach to me it's a same reach to me as she shouldn't be allowed on the ballot because she hasn't been the candidate all along, which is something Mike Johnson. But just sorry, speaker of the House, Mike Johnson was just saying in the press that he will expect there would be lawsuits, and I'm like, no, there won't because they haven't even had their convention yet. Like, She's not going to be excluded from the ballot for any reason. There's no reason to exclude her from the ballot. There's no reason to exclude any Democrat, because Donald Trump wasn't official until this past week with the Republican, he was the presumptive nominee, but he wasn't the done deal until he accepted the nomination, and neither will the person from the Democrats, whoever that person is will be on the ballot. So I think there's some political machinations involved, and I think you're right, though, she will end up with the money and even if she doesn't end up with that money, apparently, they raised an enormous amount of money today. Huge donations poured in today, and there's no question that that's money that was intended to her for her.
John Aughenbaugh: But if she cannot access that money, then the money can only then be donated to the Democratic National Committee. But then the Democratic National Committee gets to reallocate that money.
MALE_1: So they could reallocate it back to her or they could reallocate it to other. Could they reallocate it down ballot to other races?
John Aughenbaugh: They could reallocate it to down ballot races. But then there are well established regulations about how much money the either political parties national committee can actually allocate per a specific election.
MALE_1: Got you. So they might have to hold on to some of it for next meet ups.
John Aughenbaugh: It gets really complicated listeners. We're not going to go ahead and bore you. There's a couple other advantages that Kamala Harris has that other candidates don't necessarily bring to the table. One or another one, if you will, is that she's been part of a presidential administration with notable legislative victories. But the positive is that she doesn't have the issues related to age and capabilities, which were the most significant concerns about Joe Biden as a candidate.
MALE_1: I've heard arguments that she's not very bright from some Republican operatives. I put to you I think that's a dangerous game for them to play. She's an accomplished attorney. She was an accomplished attorney general. Whatever else you may say about Kamala Harris, you don't get to say she's not bright, right? She may not be a great public speaker. She may not be able to communicate her ideas. Maybe you can argue that. I don't know, and I don't know enough about her to really say one way or another. But I don't think you can say she's not bright. Just like I don't like people who say that Donald Trump is not bright. Donald Trump's bright. He's actively intelligent. I mean, he's made a lot of life choices that have given him a lot of things in life. Like, his golf courses and hotels, and you don't get to be that person by being dumb. So that intellectual question needs to be left off the discussion, I think.
John Aughenbaugh: There's a lot of different ways to measure intellect. The thing that Kamala Harris struggled with in 2020 when she ran for the Democratic Party nomination was that she was seemingly incapable of presenting a coherent vision where voters within her own party could say, we want to get behind her.
MALE_1: You know what she did? She did what you do in class, Aggie, which I think is awesome. She was unable to not make a nuanced argument. She couldn't, she can't just make a black and white argument of, this is right, and this is wrong. Yeah. Like, when your students say to you, is it ever acceptable to murder someone? You immediately go, well.
John Aughenbaugh: I do that on this podcast.
MALE_1: I can come up of circumstances where it might not be unreasonable to murder somebody. Some shit of madder a lot of that thing.
John Aughenbaugh: I even do that on my podcast.
Nia Rodgers: I think a lot of that has to do with people who heavily study the law.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Who heavily live the law is that it is nuanced.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, it is.
Nia Rodgers: There is no simple answer of X thing is always right or X thing is always wrong. Well, okay, but I can actually come up with a reasonable set of circumstances where that might not be the case or whatever. She did the same thing and I'm sure people were like, I don't even know what you believe.
John Aughenbaugh: That's particularly the case, Nia, seen as though she's a former attorney general. Attorney generals have to make decisions as to whether or not to prosecute somebody.
Nia Rodgers: Was it wrong? Yes. Is it prosecutable? That gets a little more a little crazy.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Now, let's just say, for instance, Nia, that the party doesn't coalesce around Kamala Harris.
Nia Rodgers: Wait, can I mention one more thing?
John Aughenbaugh: Go ahead.
Nia Rodgers: About her positive. She is young. She is a woman. Yeah, go women.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: She is a combination South Asian and African descent. She's an American. She can serve as president. She was born in the United States, has a birth certificate. Little bitter. Little holding on to that from years ago. But there's some real excitement potential there. That could really excite some voters who are looking for something forgive me, because you are one, but not a middle aged white guy.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. No offense.
Nia Rodgers: I'm not trying to be ugly to you because I love you, and I would love for you to be president. But you and JD Vance, Donald Trump's an old white guy, so he moves out of the middle aged white guy part of it. There is some excitement with this idea of maybe somebody of color.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: A woman of color.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: She's young. Now, we shouldn't say she's young. We should say she is younger than Biden and Trump. She's still fair bit older than JD Vance.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. But those are all relevant points particularly for a party that of recent vintage has prided itself on having demographic diversity. She may be the candidate to go ahead and stop the, what's the word I'm looking for? Siphoning of-
Nia Rodgers: The exodus of varieties of folks.
John Aughenbaugh: Various people of color-
Nia Rodgers: Leaving the tent.
John Aughenbaugh: Leaving the Democratic Party tent, and that should not be minimized, folks. Because we do know that there is a percentage of the voting populace that wants to vote for candidates that look like and act like them.
Nia Rodgers: Identify with them.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right. They can see themselves in that candidate. It's what Murray Edelman back in the 1960s talked about in regards to symbolic uses of politics.
Nia Rodgers: Most of us are not itch old white guys.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right. Successful candidates can go ahead and it doesn't matter which group that they are speaking to, can go ahead and say, transfer your hopes, your fears, and your desires onto me and I get you. All that aside. Let's also be very clear that there will be people in the Democratic Party who want the nomination to go to the Convention. They want to see the Democratic Party stop doing what they think the Democratic Party did to some of their favorite candidates in 2016, in 2020, which is to rig the process to benefit first Hillary Clinton and then in 2020, Joe Biden. I'm thinking about, for instance, Bernie Sanders supporters.
Nia Rodgers: Exactly. Feel the burn.
John Aughenbaugh: In 2016, or Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders supporters in 2020, who complained that the process was not very democratic, that many young people whose preferred candidates did not have a chance at all because party elites wanted first Hillary Clinton and then Joe Biden.
Nia Rodgers: They perceived to be more mainstream.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Listeners, you're going to hear some of that over the next few weeks.
Nia Rodgers: There haven't been any primary races to test her against other people.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: In terms of debate, in terms of performance and that kind of thing. There may be people who would have jumped in if this had happened a year ago.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Some people might still want to hear from those folks.
John Aughenbaugh: Now, we just got done talking about Kamala Harris' strengths. There are a number of weaknesses that should not be ignored. First of all, in regards to polling, she hasn't been polling much better than Joe Biden in the hypothetical race against Trump.
Nia Rodgers: Because if it's about age, she wins hands down.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right.
Nia Rodgers: But if it's not about age, it's about competence.
John Aughenbaugh: Then there are concerns.
Nia Rodgers: There are concerns. There are questions, in part, because she has been one of those quiet in the pocket vice president.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right.
Nia Rodgers: The ones that don't do a huge amount and don't make a big public splash and all the said, oh my gosh, somebody asked me today at work who's the last vice president that did do something like that and I was like, well, Joe Biden did for Obama. Cheney did for Bush. Al Gore wrote a freaking book about how to redo the government. There have been, in modern memory, vice presidents that have been very active and done stuff, a big significant role. Thank you. That's a good way to put it. She has not had a hugely significant role.
John Aughenbaugh: Now, here's some other things that I think will be questions for Democratic Party Convention delegates. Will she be able to motivate both progressives and moderates within the Democratic Party?
Nia Rodgers: Can anybody?
John Aughenbaugh: Well, that's a good question.
Nia Rodgers: Can anybody reach both the progressives and the moderates?
John Aughenbaugh: Moderates. Because remember, folks, a lot of the protests this past spring were liberals who had significant issues in regards to the Biden administration support for Israel and the Ukraine. Will she be able to distance herself from the Biden administration's support and if she does, can she explain it in a way that makes sense?
Nia Rodgers: If she is Al Gore and she runs from Clinton?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: It cost him the election. Because whatever else may be said about Bill Clinton and there are many things that can be said about him he's a great campaigner and they totally benched him because Al Gore didn't want to be tainted with the Monica Lewinsky crash.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. In a number of Southern states that Clinton, Gore did well in '92, '96.
Nia Rodgers: It cost.
John Aughenbaugh: Al Gore just got his lunch handed to him.
Nia Rodgers: It cost him.
John Aughenbaugh: Will she be able to motivate undecided and Trump leaning former Democratic voters? This becomes very significant for down ballot candidates. Those who are running for the House in competitive districts, those running in the Senate in competitive Senate seats in various states. This becomes extremely important because even if she would win this fall, if one or both houses of Congress are controlled by the Republican Party, her agenda is dead in the water. The other thing to keep in mind is, is she a sacrificial lamb so that the party can go ahead and focus on the 2026 mid terms or the 2028 presidential election?
Nia Rodgers: Listeners, thing that Aughie does is he makes notes ahead of time. He doesn't script our discussions and if you can't tell by now that we unscripted I can't help you.
Nia Rodgers: But he did put his notes and it caused me to have a tongue. This morning when I read that I was like, I didn't even think of that, but there are probably people who are like, not me. I'm not jumping into the race this late because there's a real potential here for loss, and nobody wants [inaudible] their career, right?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: That's why you don't see a whole bunch of people suddenly throwing themselves out there to be her VP. There's going to be people who are not going to want to get in this race because they are not going to want to lose as her vice president because they themselves are interested in a run at some point in 2028-2032. I mean assuming the world still exists in that time.
John Aughenbaugh: Well, I'm thinking that's the thought process of somebody like Gavin Newsom, the governor of California.
Nia Rodgers: Exactly.
John Aughenbaugh: Or Gretchen Whitmer.
Nia Rodgers: Potentially it was the thought process of Glenn Younkin. I don't know if Younkin was floated as a VP candidate for Donald Trump, but if he was, I bet he's thinking to himself and I'm just going to wait four years and then get in it myself.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, and if your party's candidate ends up winning, then you can become a secretary of whatever and if that's a really successful administration, now you have a platform.
Nia Rodgers: A national platform.
John Aughenbaugh: To base your candidacy on.
Nia Rodgers: But if they lose, you can go and move away slowly from that person and hope that nobody notices because the convention was all about giving Donald Trump a great big hug.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: On every single person. There are some people that I thought really how do you sleep at night. Oh my goodness. The things that you have said about Donald Trump, but then again I would put JD Vance in that category not too long ago.
John Aughenbaugh: Long ago, that's right. Until 2022 I would have firmly placed them in that category.
Nia Rodgers: I think your most interesting question that you have on the list of questions is, can she appeal to swing voters in the Russ Belt states because she's got not Arizona, but Michigan and Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, the Rusty Belty places that JD Vance is going to appeal to those people, can she counter the Vans advance?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: That to be a bumper sticker sicker.
John Aughenbaugh: But I mean if you think about voters, particularly in those Russ Belt, Upper Midwest Mid Atlantic states, the ones that gave the election to Trump in 2016 that were far closer in 2020 than many pollsters thought, even though Biden won them. These voters are working class Americans dissatisfied with the country's direction. They don't follow politics obsessively, so they're not like for instance you and me.
Nia Rodgers: They're not leaving and breathing this stuff.
John Aughenbaugh: Most are less liberal on social issues than many prominent Democratic politicians, including Kamala Harris. They are attracted to the feisty, tear down the institutions and structures that you see with Donald Trump and JD Vance and of that Ilk and that's why I think for instance NIA, and you and I briefly touched upon this last week when we did our in the news podcast episode about JD Vance being picked by Donald Trump. Most mainstream media didn't think that JD Vance had a realistic chance of being Trump's VP and, they missed on that.
Nia Rodgers: They missed what makes him attractive is the oppositness of his message, especially from Donald Trump. He is the Yin to the Yang as it were.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: That's going to be huge I think. You put a curse word in the notes today when he suggested that if things go to the convention, there might be a cluster fudge and he didn't use the word fudge.
John Aughenbaugh: Fudge, yes.
Nia Rodgers: But we don't use that word on this podcast.
John Aughenbaugh: That's correct. We don't.
Nia Rodgers: But I think it will depend in part on the choice she makes for VP. If she picks somebody, if she makes a smart choice the way Trump made a smart choice to fill in his gaps, that's what JD Vance does. He fills in Trump's gaps.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: He's stable. He's married to one woman. He's right. His family is hugely important. He was a marine. He served in the military as opposed to John Trump. All these different things that he did that's opposite, that feels like I said the Yin in the Yang. If she can find somebody who's a populist, who's charming on the campaign trail, who excites the voters in a different way than she does, then she could pull it off and it wouldn't necessarily be a cluster fudge, but if she goes all the way to the left, the way she's pretty left, if she goes out on the left part of the, she will lose all the moderates.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: She'll lose any chance for the people who are Republican moderate, but don't really like Trump and are looking for somebody else to vote for.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, and I really think Kamala Harris needs to move away from this message that this election is about keeping Trump out of office.
Nia Rodgers: Yes. She needs to tell her story.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Not try to refute his story.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Even if that is the net result of this particular presidential election.
Nia Rodgers: That needs to not be the message.
John Aughenbaugh: If you're going to appeal to these undecided voters who hardly ever participate politically, except for maybe presidential elections, give them a reason. Tell them how you're going to make their life better, why they should go ahead and trust institutions and government if you will structures that perhaps have let them down.
Nia Rodgers: Give them a reason to vote for someone, not a reason to vote again.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right.
John Aughenbaugh: The other thing I'm going to conclude this podcast episode with is voters, listeners. If you want a choice, if your lament is there's very little difference between a Democratic party candidate and a Republican Party candidate, well.
Nia Rodgers: They're all government, and they're all bad.
John Aughenbaugh: You're not going to be able to say that this fall because you will have a choice.
Nia Rodgers: You are going to, those are two very different people.
John Aughenbaugh: If the Democratic Party nominee is Kamala Harris, and we already know that the Republican nominee is Trump. But if those are our two choices, you have a clear, distinct choice.
Nia Rodgers: Don't say you don't have choices.
John Aughenbaugh: You don't have a choice. You will have a choice.
Nia Rodgers: This whole thing if I just vote the lesser of two evils. It's not going to be like that this time in the sense that you will have very different choices to make. I would like to leave us, and I like your note, on the note that this up ends the entire Trump campaign strategy.
John Aughenbaugh: Of focusing on Biden's age.
Nia Rodgers: And his daughteriness. Because whatever else you may say about her, that does not apply to her.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right.
Nia Rodgers: Donald Trump is going to have to be very careful about looking like he's attacking a woman, looking like he is attacking a woman of color. He's going to have to really thread that needle in such a way that he doesn't look like a complete hairball when he talks about her. You know what I mean? How many millions of dollars in ads did they just have to trash?
John Aughenbaugh: She's an accomplished person. Not just an accomplished woman, she's an accomplished person. If we get any of the historical standard Donald Trump misogyny.
Nia Rodgers: Or the name calling or the whatever.
John Aughenbaugh: I have a feeling it will create a backlash, again, with swing undecided voters.
Nia Rodgers: The diehards are going to think it's funny and whatever. On either side, the diehards are not going to change. There's a whole, I would say, probably 20% on either end that isn't going anywhere. They would vote Democrat, no matter what. If it's Kamala Harris, if it's a donkey, if it's an alien life form, as long as they're a Democrat, they will vote for them. There's the hardcore Republicans who will vote for Donald Trump because they love Donald Trump, they think he's funny, they think he's an outsider and he's going to drain the swamp and whatever else he says. They like him. They like him, and they like the Republican Party, and they're going to vote that way. It's that 60 in the middle.
John Aughenbaugh: I think that the middle is even smaller than what you suggested.
Nia Rodgers: Do you?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. I think it may be as small as 10-15%.
Nia Rodgers: Really?
John Aughenbaugh: But it's an important 10-15%, particularly in battleground states, Nia. Because let's face it.
Nia Rodgers: Well, there have been votes in Virginia that have been swayed by 15 votes.
John Aughenbaugh: Fair enough. But if you're talking about only 10-15% in a state like California, it isn't going to make a damn bit of difference, or Texas.
Nia Rodgers: But you get the right 10% in Pennsylvania that could make a difference.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right. Pennsylvania.
Nia Rodgers: Michigan.
John Aughenbaugh: Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona.
Nia Rodgers: You get the right 10% and you're going to-.
John Aughenbaugh: Potentially in Virginia, North Carolina. Now you're talking about a significant shift in the electoral college.
Nia Rodgers: That's terrifying.
John Aughenbaugh: I know it's hugely terrifying. But again age now is only an issue for Trump. It's not for Biden.
Nia Rodgers: Harris doesn't have the age issue, and as long as she doesn't pick an ancient person to run with her, sorry, Bernie but you're out.
John Aughenbaugh: But now the Trump campaign is going to have to pivot to attacking the Bin-Harris administration on policy.
Nia Rodgers: They've now got two opponents. Before he had one opponent. It harder to run against two people. This just got more complicated for Donald Trump.
John Aughenbaugh: Because you're right. As long as Biden stayed in the race, the target was easy.
Nia Rodgers: Biden handed him on a regular basis.
John Aughenbaugh: My God, yes.
Nia Rodgers: Because Biden is known for that. He's known for open mouth insert foot, potentially insert entire leg. But we don't see as much of that from her. I'm assuming that right now, what is being happened is that she's being drilled within an inch of her existence about what to say publicly. Also, I'm sure she's doing a lot of thinking. Here's what I want to happen. It won't happen, and I know this is not how we should end the podcast, but bear with me. Wouldn't it be something if she said, no, I'm not feeling. Aughie, would have to come out of hibernation yet again. Because he's already come out this week when he wasn't supposed to, you should see him. He should be snuffled up on his couch with a blanket and a book, but no, he's talking to us. If she just said, no, I'm not feeling it, it could be the entire world would just explode.
John Aughenbaugh: Oh my goodness. Because she has come out and said that she wants the nomination and she wants to earn it.
Nia Rodgers: I didn't realize she had said that, but wouldn't it be funny if she'd been like, eh?
John Aughenbaugh: But what if she goes ahead and after a couple of weeks of meetings and she meets with fundraisers in the Biden campaign staff and basically says, yeah, we don't have a chance in heck of winning this race.
Nia Rodgers: I'm not feeling it.
John Aughenbaugh: I'm just not going to do it.
Nia Rodgers: Can you win a presidential election if you don't have an opponent?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, you can. The Democratic Party might be, left with Joe Manchin.
Nia Rodgers: The Democratic Party would crack into about 15 parties at that point,.
John Aughenbaugh: Oh my goodness, yes.
Nia Rodgers: That would be a mess.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. In my view the fact that we're even joking about this is something that we joked about in 2016 in regards to what would happen to the Republican Party if Donald Trump lost to Hillary Clinton because he had so fundamentally changed the Republican Party. Then we had that conversation again in 2020 when Trump lost the presidential election. Well, the funny thing is, the Republican Party has become even more Trump.
Nia Rodgers: It'll be interesting to see if Harris wins, what happens to the Republican Party.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Because this would be the election where you have a majority in the House going into this falls election. The Democrats have to defend more senate seats than do the Republicans. You had a president, who shall we say, foibles and problems made him such an obvious target to where this should be the Republican Party's prime opportunity to have a unified political branches of the federal government. But if it doesn't happen, there's going to be a whole bunch of soul searching in the Republican Party.
Nia Rodgers: Maybe. But he lost and they came back for him.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes they did.
Nia Rodgers: There's nothing to prevent him from running again if he doesn't win this.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right.
Nia Rodgers: And on that happy note.
John Aughenbaugh: Well, hey, and listeners in a previous podcast episode, we actually talked about candidates who ran multiple times for presidency. Go ahead and look up that episode, because there are some characters who ran six or seven times.
Nia Rodgers: They'd had enough beatings.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, and none of them, complained that the election process was rigged. Anyways, interesting times we live in, Nia.
Nia Rodgers: It is interesting times, and we'll be back for more, but hopefully after Aughie's hibernation.
John Aughenbaugh: Hibernation ends, yes please.
Nia Rodgers: In the rest of this time, enjoy the summer of Scotus episodes that will be coming out at the end of the week.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Thanks, Nia.
Nia Rodgers: Thank you Aughie.