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The Hot Dish delves into the most pressing issues facing rural America. Hosts Heidi and Joel Heitkamp speak with policymakers, advocates and everyday Americans living across rural America about what's happening across the heartland and what should be done to make life better for rural America.ct's The Hot Dish, former U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp serves up insight into issues affecting rural Americans.
Heidi Heitkamp (00:04):
Welcome to the Hot Dish, comfort food for Rural America. I'm Heidi Heitkamp and my younger, not so much younger, certainly, doesn't look younger, brother. Joel Heitkamp. Joel, welcome back to the show.
Joel Heitkamp (00:17):
Ever since my hair started falling out, nobody believes me anymore, that I'm younger than you. And quite frankly, if we both ran, nobody would know. So I hear you, Heidi.
Heidi Heitkamp (00:28):
I saw a picture of you Joel. I looked, I go, "God, that doesn't look that much like Joel."
Joel Heitkamp (00:31):
Well, I don't have a staff to put makeup on me. Okay, let's just say that.
Heidi Heitkamp (00:36):
Joel, I am telling you, it doesn't work.
Joel Heitkamp (00:40):
I just don't. Well, ask the orange God, it might. It just is bad for your pillow.
Heidi Heitkamp (00:47):
Well, it's important that we get to the subject matter of what we're doing. We've got a great show for you. We have a really important topic to talk about today, and it is one of the key, I think, political issues, but most important policy issues in America today, and that's what's happening with the disagreement so for public schools. And so we could not have somebody better to talk about this than Ashton Clemmons who is a One Country Project board member and we love having her. She is also an educator. She's a mom and she's a North Carolina state legislator who has been in the thick of this in her own state.
(01:27):
Then later in the show, my brother Joel and I will be talking about whatever the heck we want to talk about some interesting insights, urban, rural, how we perceive each other, and then how that plays out in the politics of today. And so I hope you'll stay tuned and listen to that discussion. Before we get to the discussion with Joel, I want to introduce you to Tara Benally, an amazing woman working in America's Southwest to get Native Americans registered to vote and participate in democracy.
Tara Benally (02:04):
Hi, my name is Tara Benally, and I work for the Rural Utah Project. I'm currently in Arizona, but I reside in Utah on the Navajo Nation. So just in the four Corners area. My work since 2018 has consisted of doing voter registration, getting out the vote efforts, phone banking, but system has expanded to so much more has gone through to help start up a program addressing home using the Google Plus code, start to recruit individuals to run for office, get them identified and train them and help them with campaign efforts, fundraising and such. They seen that had has to do around campaigning and also help to identify needs and issues around elections and voting. One of the things that we had helped with and assisted in was partnering with other nonprofit organizations is interpretive services, identifying polling locations, rights to the poll.
(03:03):
So those are some of the things that we do almost on a daily basis and just reiterating the process and why it's important for our rural communities to really get involved with getting registered and continuing to not only cast their ballot but to continue to participate on and stay informed about the issues that they face on a daily basis.
(03:22):
The first year we were able to collect 1600 voter registrations and we were able to elect two Navajos into office at the county level. So that was a big success and a big one for us in 2018.
(03:36):
2019, one of the biggest problems that we had found was around addressing. People were put in the wrong district, wrong precincts. So there's three different districts in San Juan County alone and some of our residents were put in not within their district. I think the nearest one was about five miles from their actual place of residence. The furthest was 50 miles away. So with partnering up with Googles, we were able to identify individuals and their place of residence and put them in the right districts and precincts for the election year.
(04:09):
Since 2019, we've also started to identify individuals to run for offices. We were able to do that through educating individuals on what that process would look like and what the expectation was just for individuals who want to run for office, to assist them to really just telling the candidates they don't have to be anything but themselves as a Native American individual because that's one of the things that we're fighting to really give back to our people is their identity. We've been displaced for so long that we need to get back to who we are and where we're coming from. Change is possible, and we've seen that in 2018 when we did the voter registration. And so to continue that process, we need to have continued participation.
(04:54):
After the 2020 election here in Arizona where we helped to flip the state of Arizona here in 2020, we were able to register about 6,000 Navajos on the Navajo Nation. What we are setting out to do is we've set a goal to register 10,000 people, and my goal at least is to hit a little over half of that, maybe 55% of that because we have other organizers in other areas as well. And so just being able to come up at least with half of that number would be I think one of my biggest goals because again, change is possible.
(05:28):
We just have to understand what that looks like and to be a part of it. And so that's I think one of my biggest focus would be is to just really help to educate the communities in the area.
(05:38):
To us and to our culture, to ourself to who we are as an indigenous individual, it means a lot to have that identity for somebody to say, your family comes from this part of the nation, this is who you are, this is where you come from. These are where your songs come and your prayers come from. It's a presidential election. And so one of the things that I would like to see happen here this year is I want to be out there among the people to tell them, again, to reiterate the whole process of why elections is important. It's the basis to everything that affects us every day, whether and stems from electing people into office, identifying who they are, what communities they come from, what the issues they want to address, getting them trained on those issues and helping them so the community members can step up and say, I want to help on this issue. I want to be a part of this conversation.
(06:30):
Being an indigenous individual, we think in seven generations what's going to happen for if we had to prepare our kids, our grandkids in the next seven generations, let's get them started here and continue that process. So in seven generations, we who will have started something that they can completely finish for us.
Heidi Heitkamp (06:57):
I think everybody in this country understands that a good education system is the cornerstone of a really vibrant economic growth everywhere in the country, but especially in rural communities where the school system serves as a focal point for the entire community, those Friday night basketball games are the biggest social event many times of the week, and so it's one of those issues that people never stop caring about.
(07:23):
Education is one of those places that the federal government might think that they should weigh in, but we have seen a lot of pushback and looking at local control. And so I just think it's really important to have a conversation about what's happening politically with education and that's why it is really amazing that one country board member Ashton Clemmons is actually an educator for the great state of North Carolina, but also a legislator.
(07:54):
Ashton, thank you so much for all the work that you do for all the school children in North Carolina, but thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
Ashton Clemmons (08:03):
Yes, I'm so glad to be here. And I would add that I'm a mom to three kids in their public schools, and so that's an even different lens that I'm interacting with our public schools here in North Carolina every day.
Heidi Heitkamp (08:15):
So I want to start with vouchers because everywhere in America there is a dialogue going on about what's called school choice, and that sounds so good, right? When you say you're going to have a choice of where you send your kids, we're going to put parents in charge, who could argue against that?
Ashton Clemmons (08:34):
Yes. I think it's probably the biggest threat we have to our traditional public school system, and I would say the choice of the North Carolina General Assembly, and we see other states that have done the same thing and even more that want to fully fund a voucher program is really abandoning our commitment that every child in our state or in country deserves a public education. That's how I see it, and I'll tell you why.
(09:03):
In North Carolina, the voucher program started several years ago and it was purported to give "choice" to families who want to be able to access private schools but didn't have the resources. So when it started, there was an income cap and if you made more than a certain amount, you didn't qualify. And as time has gone on, that income cap increased. And then in this past general assembly, they passed a bill where now anyone can qualify to have vouchers, so state dollars to go to private schools and you never even had to go to a public school.
(09:44):
So it's not even about choosing what was originally said, it's just anyone millionaires who want to go to private school, we're going to give you state dollars to do that. But the real problem is identified by a very quick story of a mom who came to me. She was trying to use the already established voucher program for her sixth grader who was autistic, and she said, "Ashton, we've gone to three different private schools to try and use this voucher program and none of the three of them want him or will take him." And that is at its core, the fundamental problem. We are using state dollars, federal dollars, local dollars to fund private schools who don't have to accept every child. They can say, "You don't follow our religion, you're not allowed here. We don't want to serve children with disabilities. We don't like the way your family look. You don't get to come here."
(10:43):
And so how can we be a state and country that believes in every child and fund to the tune in North Carolina of $500 million a year vouchers to schools that discriminate against some of our children? It is fundamentally opposed to who we are supposed to be as North Carolinians, as Americans, and my faith would say who we're supposed to be because our most vulnerable children are those depending on us and they're the exact children prevented from going to these voucher schools.
Heidi Heitkamp (11:16):
When I was in the Senate, I was on the committee that oversaw the District of Columbia that had a school choice program, but what concerned me when we heard testimony is a lot of the schools that were accepting these vouchers weren't even accredited. There wasn't even a mechanism to determine whether these were good-quality schools.
Ashton Clemmons (11:38):
That's absolutely true in North Carolina. So each state sets theirs up a different way. So I don't know about every state in North Carolina, there is no requirements. And in fact, they did an investigative story in the past session when we were going through this bill and found several voucher schools that when they went to the address, there literally wasn't a school there that were getting more than a million dollars of state funding and there literally was no school. So the wastefulness of it is a major issue. And another major issue is North Carolina has resisted all accountability for the schools that are taking these dollars.
(12:19):
So there's zero measure of how students are doing at the schools, whether it's helpful for them or not, zero measure of that, and there is zero willingness to have any accountability for the schools as well.
Heidi Heitkamp (12:32):
So my question is, if you were going to design a program or make three reforms to what you already have, recognizing that you're in a state that has already kind of crossed over the line on vouchers, if you were going to make this program better, what would you do, Ashton?
Ashton Clemmons (12:51):
Well, for one, if you accept voucher dollars, you have to accept any student. You would not be allowed to discriminate against any student If you're accepting public dollars. Public dollars should not be used to discriminate. So that would be number one.
Heidi Heitkamp (13:05):
I'm going to just interrupt you there because that just is common sense.
Ashton Clemmons (13:08):
It is. I 100% agree with you. So that would be number one for me. Number two would be that there has to be accountability that makes it able to measure the effectiveness of the education in that situation in school setting versus the traditional public schools and charter schools that there is a standard measure of accountability so that we know what's working and we know what's not. If there were a voucher school that was really succeeding, we would want to learn from that.
(13:37):
But in North Carolina, we have no way of knowing because there's no measure of accountability that voucher schools are doing. So that would be second. And third is that there would be an income cap, which is how they originally started, so that it was actually providing options for families who needed it, not subsidizing families who have already chosen private schools.
Heidi Heitkamp (13:58):
I think any person listening to those reforms would say, "Hey, that is just common sense." The question is why aren't those common sense reforms adopted in North Carolina?
Ashton Clemmons (14:10):
Well, I think we are being led by a philosophy that's thinking about individual children instead of all of our children, and instead of understanding the role of public schools and our long-term trajectory as a state. So as you said in the introduction, Heidi, strong public schools is about our children, but it's also about the workforce that we have 15 and 20 years from now. And what is happening right now is legislative leadership in North Carolina is undermining our traditional public schools and then creating these options for some families and some children without thinking about the long-term impact on all of our children because 20 years from now, when children have not had the access to education that they deserve, it's going to be too late to fix that. So I think fundamentally that is what is preventing having some of these accountability measures but there's a lot of money behind this movement in education as well. And I think that that is a well-organized machine that those of us still advocating for public schools are fighting against.
Heidi Heitkamp (15:25):
When you back and look at traditional measures of success, student test scores, satisfaction, graduation rates, have any of those improved in North Carolina?
Ashton Clemmons (15:37):
We do not have the data we need to effectively evaluate the program in North Carolina. We just don't. And that's an intentional choice by the policymakers. There is national data, there are a couple of states like Indiana and Ohio. The school vouchers had more of a negative effect on overall education than COVID did in a national report. So I think there's national data that shows some states that do have comparable data. We don't have that in North Carolina though. Every parent wants to do what's the best for their child. I have three children you do. We all are trying to do what's best for our child. And unfortunately in North Carolina, there's been so much energy and policy put into saying how our public schools are not what's best and here's an alternative and we don't really know what's happening in them. But just because it's different, it's better. And I fundamentally disagree with that. And I would challenge anyone to go into public schools in North Carolina and then still agree with that statement.
Heidi Heitkamp (16:37):
If we can just turn from the issue of vouchers, that's not the only place that schools have experienced a lot of political attention lately. Obviously a lot of concern about book banning, a lot of concern about what's in the library, a lot of concern about exposing children to ideas, whether it is our history with slavery or our history with Native Americans. So why do you think that education has become such a big topic for both the right and the left?
Ashton Clemmons (17:11):
I mean, it's, the thing I think that most breaks my heart is that education and our children have become the pawn of political warfare right now. And why I think is a big question, but I think what happened is that during COVID, families were stressed and worried about their children and the far right seized on that worry and gave them reasons that they should be really scared and worried with these extreme examples. But the reaction to then censor what every child in a state has access to or to prevent children from learning authentic American history or we see it, there's been huge efforts in higher education to limit what people can't be asked about building inclusive college campuses anymore in the UNC system applications.
(18:10):
I mean, the fear that the far right has of reality and of children learning different things is pervasive. And unfortunately, what it means is that so many teachers are looking over their shoulder worried about what someone is going to say or do instead of focusing on the children in front of them.
(18:34):
We were debating a bill that said that every single book would have to be on a website in North Carolina for families to be able to see every book that was going to be read. And I gave the example that when I taught kindergarten, I might in a given day use 50 different books with different groups. And in math, I use a different one and in reading, I use different. And I literally said, so you're expecting me, you would expect me as a kindergarten teacher to have put all of those books online. And the answer was yes.
(19:07):
And to what end? To what end that we can't trust kindergarten teachers to choose books that are in front of them? A parent's bill of rights was passed here, and it made teachers afraid to do surveys at the beginning of the year asking kids what their favorite movie is and questions like that because it was it or wasn't it a survey of social and emotional learning? I mean, that is what we're creating. And what it fundamentally leads to is a break in the most precious bond, which is between teacher and student. And the fact that politics has injected itself in that bond leaves all of us less ready for the future and ready for what we need to do as a state and country.
Heidi Heitkamp (19:57):
Ashton, how is this affecting teacher recruitment, which was already down?
Ashton Clemmons (20:03):
The data is very clear. In North Carolina, we had more vacancies on the 20th day of school than we've ever had before. We have had more teachers leave since the start of the school year than we've ever had before. I have three kids, one of their teachers quit in October, another teacher at that school just quit. So that is a combination of they can go work much easier jobs that are not building the future of our country and be paid much more and be valued and trusted and not undermined.
Heidi Heitkamp (20:37):
When you step back and you think about how revered education was, I mean, my grandmother wore her high school graduation ring her entire life because she considered it her greatest accomplishment. I mean, we were just taught as kids education, education, education, path forward, and we were taught to respect public education.
Ashton Clemmons (21:01):
Well, what you say is exactly right. More than 80% of families trust their child's public school. So all of this noise is people, most of whom don't even have their children in the public schools. So what I would tell people is number one, go to local public schools, see what's happening and say thank you because there is so much good happening that is lost in this narrative. And number two, at almost every state, the state legislature is making the vast majority of decisions that affect public schools.
(21:37):
Many local boards are making local policies and there's a lot of attention on that now and there should be, but funding statewide, curriculum teacher salaries, those decisions in most states are made at state legislatures. And we need people to pay attention to those races and make decisions for public schools when they're voting on them.
Heidi Heitkamp (21:57):
Listen, Ashton, North Carolina is lucky to have you. There's never been a more important time for people with your background to continue to speak the truth about what's going on across the country and certainly in North Carolina. So thanks so much for joining me on the Hot Dish.
Ashton Clemmons (22:14):
Thanks for having me.
Heidi Heitkamp (22:21):
The big talk everywhere in America is the inevitability of Donald Trump as the nominee for the Republican Party. And I want to tell you, I had a great experience with the Iowa Caucus. As you know, I am doing some work at the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago. A lot of those kids come from very urban areas, LA, New York, Chicago, and they had never really been anywhere to a pizza ranch or to a small town or even a convenience store in a small town. And it was interesting to watch kind of how their preconceived notions of people in rural America and what they talk about was completely dispelled.
(23:07):
And I'll give you an example. We had a rancher farmer come over. He raises cattle not for beef, but for genetics. So he basically ships off his cows as breeding stock. And he was talking about genetics and he was talking about ethanol and he was talking about all of these economic issues and their eyes were just big as they realized how heavily he was involved in technology and what he was doing and that it wasn't Farmer Jones with a pitchfork. It was some pretty sophisticated stuff with a lot of money on the line. And I think he learned from the students, right? He had a lot of more respect for these students who came from these urban places because of their curiosity and their politeness and their willingness to listen to him. How do we build those cross relationships? How do we kind of change the image of rural America that people have that doesn't accurately reflect what you and I know to be true?
Joel Heitkamp (24:08):
Well, it's going to sound like an advertisement, but I think you're doing that here at One Country. I mean, that was the goal, right? Was to make sure people understood the rural area and the rural area had an ability to have a voice out there. And so that's why I signed on. And I think that both you and I know from living where we live and knowing the people, we know that people don't talk about what we do every day. And I think that that's what isn't getting connected. If you go to the Manor VFW Hall, politics might come up if I walk in there just because they know that's what I do. But I would say 95.9% of the time it's never going to come up, and the TV's never going to be on CNN or Fox or any of that. It's going to be on ESPN.
(24:54):
But I mean, the truth is that if we want rural people and urban people to understand each other, it has to be more in line with their life and not in line with what they might find interesting politically, because you and I both know they're not that political. I mean, they're really not. They get political at election time and they see the signs on the side of the road and decide whether or not they want to drive over one or shoot one or whatever. But they don't talk politics. I mean, they just don't that much.
Heidi Heitkamp (25:28):
Well, I mean you're kind of a living proof of that. You have a point of political belief that's not really very consistent with where you live, but yet you're the number one listened to talk show in the region. So how do you do that?
Joel Heitkamp (25:42):
Well, because we do a little bit of everything. Obviously, Donald Trump is interesting to them. And if you pick on Donald Trump, which I love to do because I don't wear orange makeup, if you pick on Donald Trump, what you're going to find is there's two kinds of people, the kind that agree with you and the other two-thirds that want to argue with you. So it makes for great ratings, but you don't talk about politics on the weekend of opening deer hunting. You don't talk about politics when the Packers are taking on the Vikings, and my competition can't get past that. So it's a big aid for me. But Heidi, I think it's more about how we connect with years and years ago, people like our dad rather than our mother. Don't you?
Heidi Heitkamp (26:25):
Are you going to pick on Doreen now? You're going to bring Mommy?
Joel Heitkamp (26:28):
No, I love Doreen.
Heidi Heitkamp (26:30):
Doreen's our mom.
Joel Heitkamp (26:32):
Doreen was very political and she was a farmer's union NPL-type Democrat, and she believed that government could make people's lives better, and she proved it through you and others. She never really liked me much. But the truth is ...
Heidi Heitkamp (26:45):
Really? You were the long-awaited son. Oh my God, he was so spoiled.
Joel Heitkamp (26:51):
Wait a second, when mom was in the nursing home, you know what she did to me, right?
Heidi Heitkamp (26:55):
No.
Joel Heitkamp (26:57):
She's playing cards with the ladies and she says, "Joel, come over here." And I go over there and I think the whole table was Catholic women. And she looks at me and she says, "What year were you born again?" I said, "You know what year I was born?" I said, "I was born in '61." She goes, "Yep, I didn't find out about the pill till '62." And yes, she was joking. My mom liked me folks, but mom was political dad and dad obviously followed and gave leeway to that. But the fact is when dad went up there with his buddies, they talked about the war, they talked about service and military, they talked about baseball. And I think for the most part, those things are shared by people in the urban area.
Heidi Heitkamp (27:40):
Well, and I think that's the other thing is that the more I watch, especially through the student's eyes, the kind of change that's happening and the curiosity that they have, when I was kind of explaining that he wasn't raising cattle to be beef cows, he was raising them to be a breeding herd and that there was probably millions of dollars of genetics on his farm, their eyes just got huge, Joel. "What are you talking about?" And I said, "You understand not every cow is alike." And they're kind of like, "No, they're all just cows to us."
Joel Heitkamp (28:14):
I'm curious, what did they learn? What did he learn from them?
Heidi Heitkamp (28:18):
I think he learned that they weren't arrogant, they weren't aloof. They weren't these privileged kids, and a lot of them are very privileged. They come from very wealthy homes, but yet they were people too, and they were curious and they wanted to know more about him. In fact, one of the students came up to him afterwards and said, he's going to be touring around the country just doing kind of a Charles Caral. And he said, "Can I come back and spend time with you?" And this guy was ... I mean, I don't think he was flattered as much as he was flabbergasted that any one of these kids, students would want to come back and talk to him. And so I think what he learned is that he can't judge them either. He can't assume that they're mean and arrogant and uninterested. At one point he said, I got to take this call.
(29:12):
Then he came back and they're calving already down there in Iowa, and he lost his first calf, and the kids just got really like, "Oh, felt really bad for him." And I think that connecting people in a human way so that we can see each other. We brought some students from a really entry-level college that we collaborate with in Chicago. This young woman, African-American, never been out of Chicago, I don't think. And she was downstate Illinois. And we were watching a focus group of Trump voters, and the guy was doing a great job kind of taking him through the conversation. And afterwards, I went up to her and I said, "Well, what surprised you the most about that conversation?" She said, "I didn't think they'd be that nice."
Joel Heitkamp (29:58):
Well, I think that says a lot, doesn't it? That says a lot. I can tell you this from being on talk radio every day for three hours, they're not all that nice.
Heidi Heitkamp (30:07):
You don't want them to be. Be honest, Joel, you don't want them to be that nice.
Joel Heitkamp (30:13):
Well, folks, if you go to my Facebook page, somebody is, can I cuss on you? Somebody's a shit starter. But yeah, I mean, the truth is, I think that by and large, people who vote for Donald Trump in the area that I live don't tell people they did. I think that there are individuals like the ones that I work for that have been highly successful, that own car businesses, that own property for renting, all of that, and they just don't want to make the argument of why. They just want the benefits of if they do. And a lot of that happens on the top end. So now you mix this group of people on the bottom end who Trump justifies being who they are. The racist women have their place kind of individual who you tell your wife how to vote kind of individual, and then you take people on the top end that just want that tax break.
(31:06):
All they want is that tax break and the ability for government not to do a safety check or not to make you pay workers' comp or those type of things. And now you've got a mix of people that makes for a political base or as some people are putting it, a movement.
Heidi Heitkamp (31:21):
And the mistake that I think a lot of people make is they assume everybody who votes for Donald Trump likes him or likes his idea of what we need to do for this country. And a lot of people who vote for Donald Trump vote because they didn't like the other guy. So that's the reality.
Joel Heitkamp (31:37):
That's going to be the big tell this fall. It doesn't take anyone a lot of time to look at the facts and realize that what's being spun and what's been ingrained in people's minds isn't true. The economy's doing pretty well. In fact, I got into one heck of a fight on the radio this week because I broke it down per acre, per bushel of corn per what farmers were making. I don't think I've ever gotten so much trouble in my whole life because the truth of the matter is farmers in 2021 and 2022 had record profits going back to the 1971, '72 crop, and they don't want people to know that. They don't want people to know that because number one, cash rent goes up.
(32:18):
Number two, if they have a new pickup in front of the church, they're not as popular, all of those things that go with it. But the truth of the matter is they perceive that to be a bad economy, and I can't figure out why. And so when you point out that they're wrong, the economy's been good, they get mad. I'm just telling you, they get mad.
Heidi Heitkamp (32:38):
The thing that I always say is people get maddest at the thing that they can't defend. They know they've taken a position. We found out today that the economy last year grew three-point GDP growth. That is not a growth coming off a COVID year. Those are real numbers and that consumer confidence is up. I saw a poll, Joel that said 69% of people thought their life was better, but the economy was bad.
Joel Heitkamp (33:06):
And gas and eggs. I mean, gas and eggs.
Heidi Heitkamp (33:10):
But gas is below $3 in some places.
Joel Heitkamp (33:14):
And eggs went down after the chickens quit dying. So I mean, here's the truth. That might be a problem come fall for Mr. Aquanet. I mean, it's gas and eggs in the end.
Heidi Heitkamp (33:26):
I want to talk about Donald Trump and why for the life of me. I mean, all of the headlines on these two, the caucus in Iowa and now the primary in New Hampshire, the headlines lead with overwhelming victory. And I'm like, "Here's a guy who presumptively would be the incumbent, right?" I mean, he was their president. You would have to say he's the incumbent at a Republican primary and he's barely breaking 50%. And somehow that's spun up as if ... And it doesn't mean he's inevitable probably. Probably is inevitable in terms of being the nominee, but it doesn't demonstrate strength to me.
Joel Heitkamp (34:07):
I think that what I'm seeing by people that you know by first name after New Hampshire, that's changing a little bit, the narrative. I don't know that South Carolina will help. I think South Carolina, it might go back to what we saw in Iowa. That would be my instinct. But if you look at what three-quarters of the people that say they're independent, they didn't vote for them and say they're not going to vote for them. I mean, that's just the truth. Then you look at the overall vote totals, and there isn't the same passion there that there was before.
Heidi Heitkamp (34:37):
I'm going to say this about Iowa. Did you look at who voted in the Iowa Caucus, Joel? It was people over the age of 60. So if people over the age of 60 could come out on a cold night, and quite honestly, it wasn't that cold. I was there, but then I have a different standard for what's cold. Let's admit that.
Joel Heitkamp (34:56):
You actually own colds.
Heidi Heitkamp (34:58):
Well, so do they in Iowa. Let's give them a break.
Joel Heitkamp (35:02):
They do. It's just with people's perception of Iowa.
Heidi Heitkamp (35:05):
Yeah, that's true.
Joel Heitkamp (35:06):
You see the news reporters, I mean, it's like a joke.
Heidi Heitkamp (35:08):
Yeah, and the more the spin is that he should be getting 80%, and the fact he's only getting barely over 50 is negative for him.
Joel Heitkamp (35:18):
I don't know this as well as you, so I'm just going to ask it. Is he drawing crowds of 15K anymore?
Heidi Heitkamp (35:23):
No.
Joel Heitkamp (35:24):
When he came to the Bismarck Civic Center in Bismarck, North Dakota, you found people waiting in line for eight hours to get in. I don't think you'd have that anymore. I really don't. I think you'd see people there. I think there'd be Trump supporters there, but I don't think you'd see 15,000 people there anymore. I don't know. I mean, we live here.
Heidi Heitkamp (35:44):
My test, I live right on the Missouri River, and when Trump was running in 2020, damn, near every pontoon had a Trump flag, and now they don't. I think the enthusiasm has worn off. The question is whether it's going to create an opportunity for her, and at this point, I think the wild card discussion is around third parties, right? What's no labels going to do? How much is Kennedy going to take out? And I always remind people, before you have that conversation about a third party with me, tell me how many of those third parties are on ballots in how many states. Because it is incredibly hard in our binary political system to basically get on 50-state ballots.
Joel Heitkamp (36:30):
I always get in trouble, so just watch me do it here. You ready? I think both parties owe the country an explanation though, when they're both putting up 80-year-old men. I mean, I'm sorry. I've said that on my radio show. I've gotten beat up for it, but I've gotten a lot more people that agree with me on it, which is, is there an age on the top where you say, you know what, maybe there's another generation that connects? I don't know. All I know is this fall, we're going to be voting for one of two 80-year-old men, two 80-year-old men. Remember when Ronald Reagan was seen as an old candidate.
Heidi Heitkamp (37:05):
John McCain. When John McCain ran against Barack Obama. Well, Joel, we're going to have a lot to talk about. Thanks so much. It's always good to be with you. Stay warm.
Joel Heitkamp (37:17):
And judging by what's going to happen this fall, if you ever want to run for president, you're not far away from connecting with America. You know what? Because your age is getting pretty close.
Heidi Heitkamp (37:27):
Probably age up a little bit more to qualify.
Joel Heitkamp (37:30):
Exactly.
Heidi Heitkamp (37:36):
Well, thanks for joining us today on the Hot Dish, and we're really glad you listened.
Joel Heitkamp (37:40):
That was a lot of fun. There's a reason we do this. We want you to know what's going on in the rural area. We want to be part of your life, and we want you to be part of ours. What you need to do is learn more about what's going on by going to onecountryproject.com. That's onecountryproject.com. We'll see you next time.