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The Tennessee Conservative with Brandon Lewis covers the stories that mainstream media ignores. Join us for interviews you won't hear on the nightly news, and for the Big 7 Weekly Digest!
Kurt: The only way to really get what we want in a conservative, constitutional, ethical government was to find constitutional, conservative, ethical people and convince them that they need to run for government. Because if we don't change the butts in those seats, the outcome never changes.
Brandon: Hello everyone, I'm Brandon Lewis, founder of the Tennessee Conservative News, the Volunteer State’s largest conservative news alternative. And I'm excited because today we are joined by Kurt Riley. Kurt is the Chairman and the founder of Sumner County Constitutional Republicans, which is a grassroots family of patriots whose mission is finding, recruiting, training, and helping these patriots win elections. In the last five years, this organization has endorsed candidates, and those candidates have won 31 out of 41 races, which is amazing. I'll be speaking to this group on Saturday. Some of you will hear this before out there, but most of you won't, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. But nonetheless, I will be in other places the rest of the year. But this group has done something quite phenomenal. And you know that a group has done something phenomenal when it is attacked by the liberal media, as this group has been. Welcome to the program. Kurt, and I'm glad to have you on here.
Kurt: Brandon, thank you so much. It's just an honor to be here. And thank you so much for what you do as a patriot here in Tennessee to bring, you know, conservative awareness in many forms across this great state in our country. And, and, I can't thank you enough for being a true patriot.
Brandon: Well, you're very kind. I do the best I can, such as it is. I love speaking to conservative, GOP and patriot groups, but I'll tell you the truth, I, I get nervous because not all, but a lot of patriot groups and conservative groups are, are really kind of like lunch and learn groups and we educate, and we educate, and we educate, and we educate, but we never activate, we don't take action. And then in particular, we've got these huge constraints around genuine GOP organizations, meaning the county party where they can't get involved in primaries. And so we've got this issue where groups just pat anybody on the back who has an R beside their name, even if they vote with Democrats, even if they go against the party platform. It used to be, being a conservative or a Republican was about the platform, not the person, not the politician, but that, that's devolved in our state. So talk a little bit about, you know, what you have been able to do to be politically impactful. Your organization has done this in spades. Talk about the origins of your group and why it was assembled.
Kurt: Yeah, I know what you mentioned there when you said, and I've been a part of that, where we've been a part of groups where it's like you just get together, educate, rah, rah, rah, and everybody goes home, but nothing actually gets, gets accomplished. And I think, you know, where this really started for a lot of us is, you know, I, I moved here. It's, I'm getting close to 20 years now and you know, I got involved in, in local government basically. You know, there's, I didn't have street lights in my neighborhood, right? And I was like, why don't I have street lights, right? I built in a brand new neighborhood, and there's no street lights. And I started going to our local city meetings and I, and I ran into other folks that were there and it was, you know, kind of just a handful of people. And they all had issues. And, and, what seemed to happen is that when we would address our government, government with our grievances, it was like, you know, we were told to go home and pound sand and it’s like, wait a second, you know, you, you work for us. And you know, a bunch of us, I ended up joining another local group here in town back in, in, in I think it was 2007 when I got involved. And again it was one of those groups where you know, we did some things but it wasn't really an action based group and a group and a lot of us got together and we were frustrated with government and we thought we were gonna hold them accountable by showing up at the meetings, speaking at the podium, sending them emails, talking to them afterwards, and I hate to say it, but like, over the course of about 10 years, we sort of realized, like we're not really getting anywhere. Right. We, we, get lip service from these folks and it's the same type of person. I've always said that it seems like bad people are generally attracted to government. And the good folks, when you approach them and you say, Brandon, you wanna run for, you know what? Oh, not me. You know, they don't want me up there. And it's like. Well, that's why we have these people. And it became very clear to me and I think others, that the only way to really get what we want in a conservative, constitutional, ethical government was to find constitutional, conservative, ethical people and convince them that they need to run for government because if we don't change the butts in those seats, the outcome never changes, right? It's the same lip service, it's, you know, you're going to meeting after meeting trying to get things accomplished and you're not getting anywhere. So it, it's kind of like I had a light bulb moment. And there were others saying like, we gotta do something different, we, we need an Action Group. And that's really what started this was like, I really came to believe that I could build this brand in this organization that was grassroots. That could focus on me convincing, and it takes a lot of convincing Patriots. They don't wanna be in government, right? Really good, ethical, moral people see government and they're just saying eh, that's not for me. I don't like government. I wanna be left alone. I want to go in the woods and live my life. And what becomes abundantly clear, I think, to everybody, is that government will never leave you alone. Right. If you don't take an interest in politics, Brandon, politics will take an interest in you. And that's a message that I started communicating and I knew so many great patriots and I thought, man, that guy would be great, you know, as a, as an Alderman or this, this lady would be awesome as a county commissioner. And that's when I realized. Because I, I, my background is, is in cyber security and I specialize in cyber and, and, and I work in sales as well. So I sell cyber security solutions. I felt like I could, I could sell Patriots on the idea that if they don't govern, then we get Nancy Pelosi. Right. And that was kind of like the tactic that I used. You know, many of these people were like, I'm not smart enough Kurt, you know, I, I don't have the time. I just don't, I don’t know. And they really needed confidence and what we thought we could do as an organization, as we could come together with, with a bunch of patriots that had immense talents and we could build kind of this group that could, you know, provide like a support system. To, to people, to get them to understand that not only can you run and you're smart enough. But we have people here. I mean, we've got marketing people, English majors, cyber security, web design, marketing, I mean, you name it. Like we have all these talents. And I'm like, if we could just take these talents and put them together and then go out and find, you know, Susie Q and convince her if you can run, we will help you. We will teach you. We will train you, we’ll tell you everything you need to do. And that's what we started doing. And right away, people are like, you know what? There's an organization that will do that? You'll help me Kurt? You'll get people. And we're like, yeah. And all of a sudden they were like, OK, I'll do it. And the next thing you know, you know, we, we've got one person. Now we've got three people. Now we've got five people. You know and we bam, you know. I, I like to say I tricked them. I tricked 41 people into running for office because they're patriots and they're like, I don't wanna do this. But it's like, you know, our founding fathers believe that we as patriots, we go, we have to stand up and serve and we have our time and we serve and we come home. And I thought that if I could convince these folks that it was their time to serve and we could change the butts in these seats, Brandon, that's when I realized that is where I think we can really start to institute real change. So the social, I call it the social experiment, began. So we, we, we don't really exist on paper, Brandon. I mean, we, we don't have a legal structure. We don't have bank accounts, right. Meaning the organization. I don't even like to call it the organization because it's, there's, the only reason it exists is because we say it exists. It’d be like me saying Bob's got a bridge club that plays on Thursday night. And he, you know, he's got a Facebook group. We do. That's what we do, right? So we realize that you can build a brand, right, without this, without a corporate structure because of things like Facebook and Twitter and those type of tools and e-mail and you know, regular mail, all these things, you realize you can build a following and, Brandon you've done the same, right? But what we wanted to really focus on was really being action oriented, right? We didn't wanna be a group where you swoop in and pay $25 and say, hey, I'm a member, you guys are awesome and then you go home, you, we don't take money. In order to become a member of our group. It's based on the amount of meetings that you attend. You have to attend 5 meetings a year in order to be considered a member, right? So we wanted to drive the idea of participation. And, and that's what we've done. And then I think that's why we've had the success is because we not only drive that participation by action, but we also, and I, and there's a ton of tactics I can go into, but I'll pause there just to kind of you know recap and see what you think about what I said.
Brandon: So it's amazing, you know most people, they really just want to gather in a social situation where other people share their values so they feel like they're not alone, and it just kind of becomes this hopeless echo chamber of disappointment. With conservative groups, especially in Tennessee, because we you know as I've made this point time and time again, all the money comes from left-leaning corporations. They fund our party at the state level, they fund our party leadership. We know this from the Follow the Money report. And then when these so-called conservatives go into committee meetings and they go into subcommittee meetings, they either kill conservative legislation or they push liberal or corporate legislation. And there's this huge conflict in our state between what Republican grassroots, not even grassroots activists, but just your average Republican primary voter wants, and then what is delivered based upon what corporate interests want. And when those two things fight, the the primary voter, often because they're uneducated and disorganized, they lose. They lose this battle time and time again, and it happens at the state and the county, at the county and the local level as well. So if you are in, let me just ask you a question. If you're in one of these groups and you're an individual. Does this message will not resonate with all people. If you are in a county GOP or if you are in a patriot group and you feel like we're just getting together, we're just meeting and eating and leaving. What would be the first few steps you could take to either change the organization from within and in some cases you can't. In some cases, the inertia and the attitude is so poor and that's why you have organizations like yours. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that should be facilitated through a county GOP, but instead it ends up very often getting facilitated by, almost all the real movers and shakers in the state of Tennessee, with a few exceptions, there are some GOP's that are freaking awesome. And I'm actually, you know, Warren county’s one of them. And then there's a few others. There's quite a few others. If I left you out, don't be mad. But, but there's very few that actually get anything done. They’re just very ceremonial. They very much carry the water of the politicians in their area, regardless of the record, how would you either start to transform your group into a group that's focused on action or how would you step out and outside of that structure and actually get something done for the the old fashioned Republican platform of oh, say 10 years ago?
Kurt: Yeah, yeah, I, I would say that. Everything starts with a plan and a mission, right? You can do a lot of things, but you really have to sit down and figure out what are you gonna do? How are you going to actually institute change? Well, what have you done in the past? Has that worked? No. So you have to change what you, what you do. And I think what what everybody needs to be doing in their county is, is they need to, you know, decide not only what they want to do, but I think they need to focus. Again, my, our primary focus is on winning elections with the right people. And it starts by figuring out who are the right people, right? Everybody says they're conservative, right? That's why we didn't use the name conservative in our, in our group, because we wanted to be different. We're like, well, everybody says they're conservative and everybody's a Republican. So we wanted to be kind of different. So we kind of looked for a word that we felt like. Really described, you know, patriots, but also the left didn't like to use, and, and even you know, weak RINOs didn't really particularly like to use and that was constitutional. So we came up with the Sumner County Constitutional Republicans. And you really want to focus on finding those people. And, and, we put together a group where we get into people's lives. When we look at candidates, we don't take people at their word like they'll say, oh, I'm conservative, I'm Republican, sure you are. Right. Everybody is. So we actually go through a vetting process. We put a vetting committee together. And what that vetting committee does is we look not only to find candidates, the right ones, and by being proactive and trying to get them to run. Because you'll meet incredible people and you'll be like, oh, the students or this, this lady's awesome. What do we, how do we get her involved? And it starts by convincing him or her that they need to run for a higher level position, right? Whether, or run for a position in general? So you, you wanna have the mission of recruiting, finding and training is where I would start. You wanna find the right candidates and you wanna convince them, you know that they can run for office. And what we did, like I mentioned earlier, was not only are you convincing those people, but you're saying I've got your back, right? Because a lot of these people are like, I don't know anything about running a campaign. How do I raise money? How do I do a website, you know, and that, just that, is a huge barrier to people getting in because of fear. And what we're able to do is we're able to, you know, support people and say we're going to tell you what to do on day one and day 120, all I'm asking you to do is stick your neck out, run, and be willing to do the job and we’ll help you in every other aspect. And I think that right there gets true patriots who go to these meetings and sing Kumbaya and then go home. They're ready to take the next step, but there's fear there. And when you put an organization together that's gonna help these candidates by giving them that support mechanism, what you're gonna find is you're gonna find people are gonna go, you know what, I'm gonna step up and step out because these guys got my back. And when you do that, you take a very quality individual. And you put them in a race. You can't win a race if you don't run a candidate, right? What do our enemies fear the most? A candidate against them. Right? An opponent. So by putting people in a race, regardless of how good you think they are, right? If they're true patriots, right, what you can do is you can wrap around the support mechanisms to help these people win. And then what happens is they start winning and you start putting in place the right pieces. You know, bad people are unfortunately attracted to government, right? There's a lot of bad people that like, I know what's best for you. I wanna run your life, right? When we start replacing those people with true patriots, that's when we started to see real change in our county. So that's kind of an entry level tactic of where I would start to institute real change.
Brandon: So. You know you've, you've learned some lessons and in fact I'm, I'm putting together a candidate training on September 23rd. Some of, I've got some experts, a few that are coming in from out of state, people that are very recognized folks. I'm going to be teaching about fundraising and dealing with the press and general strategy, we've got individuals who will be talking about direct mail, how to connect on social media with the limited budget, get out the vote. All the kind of stuff that, that, that you really need in your toolkit, but for whatever reason, like our, our, our local parties don't do this. And so you filled this tremendous void. Umm. If you were going to. If you were gonna highlight five or six things that you have found that have been effective for conservatives when they're running for office, in particular against incumbents, which people don't want to do, they don't want to talk about the candidates record, which is a huge mistake. If you're going to tell somebody why they should vote for you, you must tell them why not to vote for somebody else. And if they've got a bad record, it needs to be aired in the public? Let them defend it. But what are five or six things that you found tend to work for candidates when they run?
Kurt: Yeah, to me it all starts with door knocking, right. When, when I’m a candidate and I go to somebody's door and I knock on that door and I say hey, I’m Kurt Riley, I’m running for whatever and I’m here to ask you for your vote, I think that that is incredibly powerful, right? Because what's gonna happen from your opponents is what we see in every election. They're gonna pound the mailbox with maybe negative mailers or mailers about how great they are, you know? But what do individuals, homeowners, really respect? And really hold dear? That person came to my door and they asked me to my face for their vote and I grilled them. And you know what? I appreciate that. And I like that. And that defeats, you know, has, has a very profound effect on defeating what's gonna be coming at the mailbox against you, right? Because you were there. If you don't door knock you, you, it's hard to win not door knocking. It just is. Because you build such tight relationships with people and you know you spent 30 minutes with somebody and they really like your platform and what you have to say. And hey, can I put a sign in here? Yeah, go ahead, put a sign in here. It doesn't matter what comes at that mailbox. You know, they're gonna be like, you know what? I'm committed. This guy came to my house. This lady came to my house. That right there, if you only had one thing. That's the core key right. Now there's a ton of other tactics and man Brandon I've argued with people about fonts till I'm blue in the face, right? You would have never believed that that a font discussion is something that you're gonna have tons of discussion and arguments over. Fine. But when you get into these tactics of marketing and, and, and you're, you're really a salesperson. By everybody. I argue from a sales perspective that especially as a candidate, you're going to sell yourself at the door and your ideas, that you're gonna sell your vision and your values to somebody. This is what I am. This is what I serve, who I am, what I stand for. This is what I'm going to do when I get in the office and you're trying to convince them to vote for you. And that's an incredibly powerful tactic. That's why people use that same tactic in sales every day. And you, instead of selling a product, you're selling yourself. So that, that is key. But also there's some little things right? Messaging is key. What you say, how you say it. You know, we just feel like if you look at at Sumner County and the demographics, of Sumner County and the political backgrounds of Sumner County, these are God fearing constitutional conservative people, many have escaped radical liberal states, right? They want to vote for true God fearing patriots right? That's who they want to vote for. But the problem that they have is they come here and they cannot tell friend from foe because everybody hears a Republican, right. Everybody hears conservative, doesn't matter. Even I I make a, a comment that in Sumner County the Republicans are Republicans and so are the Democrats right? Because they crossover. Because they know you can't come to Sumner County and win as a Democrat. Now, there are some diehards that will never stop running as a Democrat, but the, the ones that are trying to be smarter. And when they come over the Republican side, and then the average person gets a mailer in the mail and they go, oh, this guy sounds good. He says he's conservative Republican. OK, I'll vote for him. And that couldn't be further from the truth. So another tactic that I think is really good is that we wanted the average voter at voting time who doesn't pay attention, right? Because I can want people to donate to my campaign. I can want them to door knock and put a sign up or hold a sign, do all these things. But the vast majority of the voter is not going to do any of that. But let me tell you what they will do. They will go vote. And the person with the most votes wins, right? So I've always said that if you build a brand like we've built and you condition Susie to think, OK, I don't know who to vote for. I don't know these people. This guy sounds, is this guy good? Sounds good. That's where we come in and we provide an endorsement card. So at every single election we go through, not only our vetting process which is, which is very thorough by the way and it includes like, if, if I have to get a private investigator to come look into your life, we've done that, right. We want to do our best to make sure that when we put that stamp on endorsement that you are the type of candidate that we're looking for and we wanna let the citizens know that these are the people. So now what? What's happened here in Sumner County? We've conditioned many people and they, and they trust us. They believe us. They know that we are doing their homework. When they go to vote, they say to themselves, all I need to know is who, who is the SCCR endorsing? Right. And they take that card digitally or physically, right? And they walk into that poll and they look and they're like, I'm voting for Susie Q, because we become a trusted organization and we've taken a lot of the burden. I think for candidates that you know really have to get out and work and do a lot of work, a lot of people will say listen, as long as I'm in, if I get endorsed by this organization then there's a really good chance I'm gonna win because people understand the vetting that we do on these candidates and they're willing to say I see the quality that SCCR has given me in the past, you know, 20, 31 candidates now when the future comes or like I like everyone they've got in there, I'm going to continue to file. So that's another thing that I think that we've been able to use successfully to, to win.
Brandon: Well, I think it makes a lot of sense. And you, you do have to continually and constantly inform and remind candidates that they are not the voter. You're not the voter. And that most people go to vote out of a sense of civic obligation and guilt. And they scramble around two or three days, maybe a couple of weeks if they're real studious beforehand in the melee of their life, with all the marketing and sales messages coming at them 24/7. And they have to decipher through all this to pick out a couple pieces information, usually they're just, they're an information vacuum starving for some information that they feel is credible. And then they wander off to the polls and you just hope to God they remember you and pull the lever for you and not the other guy. And so it is, as you mentioned, it is a massive marketing and sales undertaking when you become a candidate. You really become a telemarketer, a door to door salesman and a, and a Mary Kay party thrower. So that's what you've become. And it's very difficult for people that have ran large businesses that have been successful to, in many ways, demean themselves to go through that and subject themselves to the criticism that comes along.
Kurt: We say in the sales, the sales world, people buy from who they know and they like and they trust, right? So if we've built an organization that has a vetting process that produces trustworthy candidates that do the right thing, the, our citizenry are gonna continue to buy because they know that we're doing the vetting, the real work. We’re finding candidates, we're training them and we're making, we're not perfect, right? Nobody's perfect. And we ask a lot of our, our patriots and our members to give a lot of grace that govern. Governing is not easy. Governing is full of very hard decisions sometimes, and it's easy for us, Brandon, to sometimes swoop in and wanna just clobber people because maybe they, they didn't quite vote the way we wanted. You know, where is the line? Are they, if they're 96%, you know, conservative voting record, is that good enough? Right. Is that not good enough? So I think the point is, is that not everybody's perfect. We all make mistakes. But we gotta give grace, right? And through this process we will get a much better, higher quality, higher ethical candidate to run and govern. And I think that's what we all want.
Brandon: Guys. Help support our work. Somebody else is not going to do it. But about 95% of our subscribers and listeners think that they will, which is why and how we get into a position where we are outnumbered 80 to one in the Volunteer State as it relates to conservative news outlets versus the corporately funded ones. “Why don't we have more conservative news outlets Brandon? I'm such a good patriot. I'm on social media all day.” Well, what have you done in the last 30 or 60 days to actually help? For the most part, about all you can do to help us is to write a check and send it to The Tennessee Conservative at 1523 E 27th St. Chattanooga, TN 37404. Those of you who do that know who you are, and I'm exceptionally and extremely thankful. But I've got checks. I came in. There's some checks. People mailed checks. I'm so excited. We need it. Our, our poor little bank account stays at the same level all the time. It doesn't go up and it doesn't go down, and I don't take any money out of it. So if I can do this for free, you can definitely pay a little bit and chip in your monthly support. Really helps. Or you can go to TennesseeConservativenews.com/support and if you give any amount you will get this bumper sticker that says Stop Feeding the RINOs. Please stop feeding the RINOs. This is really the fault of the corporations and the special interests that feed the RINOs in our state because God knows it is not the individuals back in their district because we know that from the Follow the Money report. And then we have a Don't California My Tennessee bumper sticker. Now, in all honesty, most people that have moved here from California could have moved anywhere. And many of them are motivated almost exclusively by the fact that we are on the outside looking in, maybe not so much on the inside looking out, a conservative state. And they tend to be more conservative and give more proportionally than native Tennesseans who are conservative and they tend to take more action. That's what I've discovered. But we don't want to have the California politics come to Tennessee and we will send you this updated directory of all your state and local officials that are in the House and Senate. We did lose one - Scotty Campbell. We're going to have to replace him. He was getting a little frisky. Getting a little frisky with an intern? Good grief. And old Sexton helped to cover that up and silence it. If you give $50 or more, $50 or more, or a $10 recurring donation or more. Come on guys, $10 in Joe Biden's economy. What are you gonna get for $10? Nothing. Nothing this good. We will send you this. Stop Feeding the RINOs tumbler. This is a brand new one. This is a brand new one. And this is something that you could probably carry around if you wanted to in all circles and only the conservatives will even know what a RINO is. Most people will come up, say, hey, did you know this is misspelled or is this from your local zoo? What is this? They won't know, but the conservatives will. And we will also send you this proud Tennessee Conservative Koozie. Man, I put a cold beer in one of these about 5 weeks ago and set it out in the sun and it is still as cold as a block of ice. If you believe that, please do give to Tennessee Conservative News. We need your help. Ain't nobody else going to do it. It's up to you. So I'm going to close with one question and then give you the last word. So here in Tennessee, it is just been my observation over there now and I'm just like you, I've worked for candidates that went up and completely voted the opposite of what I thought you got. You know when you're young you get involved in campaigns you know they always cause they're Republican and they're running for office they're going to be conservative and there's a there's two or three that I was instrumental in helping put into office that are still in office that I wish weren't in office and some that are no longer there so you can make mistakes, but just I would just be curious with your perspective of having put so many people in in office in Sumner County and then just being in involved in politics and being here for 20 years, why do you think we can't get anything done on things that if you surveyed a Republican primary voter, they would just freaking tell you like 10 out of 10 I'm all for this. Like we can't stop illegal immigration. We can't seem to give people back their medical freedom at the individual level, we, we, we're very reluctant, grudging to give anybody any educational freedom in this, in this state. But we, we love taking their tax money. We, we, we have people that run like Lee who promised to shrink government but who has grown it rapidly. We can't close the primaries for the love of God. Like there are people that just had spoke at a GOP ladies group. In one of the SEC members, like everybody in the room wanted the primaries closed. And then the one SEC member who represents everybody came up to me to argue, his name is David Queen, argued with me to keep the primaries open. And I'm like, it's like they did, they always seem to know better than the grassroots or the primary voter. What is that? How is that coming into reality? How does that exist? Because it just seems like it shouldn't be able to.
Kurt: Well, I, this is, I'll say this again, you know, and, and, and this is just how I see it. We, we still haven't put the right people in the seats. We think we have, that's the problem, is that we think that we have, but we like to use a term in the SCCR we call wolves, right. We want wolves, not somebody that just says well I’m Republican and I'm conservative. You know, the GOP, it's like if you go to the GOP meetings, they're gonna have, they really want one thing. Are you gonna vote Republican? Yeah. OK, come on in. That's their litmus test. Right? And how, how do they determine if you’re bona fide? If you voted Republican, that's all they care about. So you're not going to get a quality candidate that is in those seats if you don't go through a process and what we're trying to do and what we believe in is, is not only do we have 31 people in office, but our plan is to take these 31 right and graduate them. Right. So now they're County Commission. They're Alderman. Eventually, many of us believe we want them to be state reps, state senator, you, whatever. The sky 's the limit for these folks, but you have to start building and grooming the right people in the first place. And until we start doing that all across, I mean, we'll do what we have to do, you know and, and I always say I'll take care of Sumner County. You know Brandon, I need you to take care of you know, your county and all these other counties. If we all do that and rise up and graduate the right people from day one, we will have such a large pool of amazing patriots to pick from, that when they get up there and it's time to stop illegal immigration you will have a true wolf that's actually gonna do it and not give you lip service because they're not really a true conservative. So that's my theory on it.
Brandon: Well, and hopefully at some point in the future I would like to, because I've done this previously, but it's been several years. I've also put on training for grass, just grassroots organizations and Republican organizations because they do, they lack the mission.They lack the measurable outcomes. And when you have an organization that lacks mission and and lacks outcomes and if they don't understand the inputs that create the outputs, you, you do just have this kind of organization that kind of just goes wherever the wind blows and it's not anchored and there's no vision. And then that's also the kind of organization that attracts the worst type of membership. It's just folks that know that if I come here and eat, that's all I'm, that's the only responsibility I'm gonna have. But like you said, the, the folks that you ask something of them expect something of them, require something of them going toward a mission in an outcome, that’s when you find the people that are really talented.
Kurt: Yeah. And I would add this, this is another thing that I found really effective. If we take the right person and we just say. Go grasshopper, right? They go out into the world and they become the next senator, and then we just like, OK, go do a good job, and then we go over here. And just like we don't stay attached to that person at the hip. Remember, when these people get into office, they're gonna have incredible influence, right? It's called lobbying, as we know. They're gonna have a lot of influence from a lot of people to do the bidding of others. Hey, you know Ford wants to move to Tennessee. We, we need some help. They, they want some things. Well wait a second. Do, do you work for Ford or do you work for me? Right. And it's easy. I don't wanna say they forget that. But remember, every day we're in a sales world. Whether we're eating, we believe it or not. Everything we do, we're trying to get people to do things for us and believe. Look at Facebook, it's full of people like, you know, they want you to believe what they believe, right. Marketing is about, hey, believe this, right? All of this stuff is going on constantly. So good patriots, well-intentioned, are put in a, in compromising positions where they've got lobbyists and bad actors in their ear constantly saying do this, do this, do this. That's where we have to be as, as an organization, we have to be there too. Hey, man, remember you ran because you're one of us. You're focused on the what we care about the citizenry, remember us, right? You have to stay close to these people and they have to know that you're watching them and that, listen, if you're not one of us, that's OK. You don't have to be a part of our group, right? But if you're gonna come and be a part and tell us you're a part, we expect that at the end of the day you're gonna do the will of the citizen and not what corporations want. And we have to stay close to these, those people, We as a group, not just me. Everybody has to stay close. They have to say, hey, we're watching you, you know, these are our friends. These are our members, right? But we've got to hold each other accountable. What do we do in the church? Right? What do we preach in the church? We preach accountability, right as men and women, right? I need an accountability partner. Brandon, you hold me accountable. Watch my back. I'll hold you accountable. Right. And, and we get a team of people that are always watching out, watching our back cause we slip, we're sinners, right? We live in a fallen world. We need those people in our lives that are gonna keep us grounded and that's important when you're putting people in office to know that they have somebody that's watching their back, both from an accountability standpoint and just being there to help guide them as they need that and not let in some lobbyists pull them into a corner, slip him some money and convince them to do the wrong thing, so.
Brandon: Well, that is. This has been a fantastic interview and you have hit so many points that I frankly get tired of telling people myself. So it's always good to have somebody else from another perspective. Uh, that, that sees things similarly to I do because it is, it is the, the, the very operational, tactical, real world of politics. You've been very kind with your time. Can't wait to see you on Saturday morning and your group. I'll give you the last word.
Kurt: Well, listen, thank you. I would just tell your listeners that at the end of the day, you know, it takes real action and stepping out of your comfort zone and to make real change in America, right. It's easy to get together and go on Facebook and complain and call your buddies and complain, but if you really want to change America, you have to get organized. We’ve always said Democrats are way better at us sometimes it seems like at getting organized, right. We have to get better at organizing. And I think that if you're an American patriot that's starving for real change and you're looking for a way to institute real change, it starts with action. We don't have bank accounts. We don't raise money. You want, you come to me and wanna give me money, I tell you to go give it to a candidate, right? So you can do so much and become incredibly powerful as a citizen just by saying I'm gonna go out in the world and get active and I'm gonna find my calling, whether it's running, convincing others to run or bringing my talents to the pool. Hey, Kurt, I'm an English major. I can help you know, craft any message or do spell check or you know what grammar, whatever. So find your talent and your niche and be willing to step up and step out. And if we all do this together, Brandon, we will truly change our country.
Brandon: Kurt Riley, I appreciate it. This has been a great interview guys, if you're in Sumner County and you're on the Tennessee Conservative list but for some reason, somehow, someway, you have been under a very large rock and you do not know about the Sumner County Constitutional Republicans do look up their organization, find their meeting and go see them. You'll be in good company. Guys, I hope you've enjoyed this video. Please do go to TennesseeConservativeNews.com and hit that subscribe button and search for Tennessee Conservative and give us a 5 star review wherever you listen to your podcast. Until next time, this is Brandon Lewis signing off.