{"id":913820,"date":"2026-06-18T18:16:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T23:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/18\/transcript-these-democrats-have-a-real-chance-of-being-president\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T18:16:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T23:16:58","slug":"transcript-these-democrats-have-a-real-chance-of-being-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/18\/transcript-these-democrats-have-a-real-chance-of-being-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Transcript: These Democrats Have a Real Chance of Being President"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is a lightly edited transcript of the May 7 edition of <\/i>Right Now With Perry Bacon<\/span>. You can watch the video here<\/a> or by following this show on YouTube<\/a> or Substack<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Perry Bacon:<\/strong> Good afternoon. I\u2019m Perry Bacon. I\u2019m the host of <\/span>The New Republic <\/i>show <\/span>Right Now<\/em>. I have two great guests today. Seth Masket is a professor at the University of Denver in political science. Mark Schmitt is the director of the Political Reform program at New America. But they both have some interesting projects going on. So Seth, you\u2019ve got a book and a Substack. Tell everybody about what you\u2019re doing first.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Seth Masket:<\/strong> Yeah, a couple of things going on. I just started a new Substack newsletter that\u2019s called the SMOTUS Report\u2014that\u2019s \u201cSeth Masket of the United States.\u201d We just had a big launch earlier this week. I\u2019m looking for supporters, so I\u2019m hoping people will be interested. <\/p>\n

But basically, the focus there is about U.S. politics, parties, campaigns, and a lot of other things, all with an eye toward the health of American democracy, which is obviously under a lot of strain right now. And on that topic, I have a book coming out next month called The Elephants in the Room<\/em>. The book is a look at how Republicans ended up nominating Donald Trump for a third consecutive time in 2024, how a lot of people in the party\u2019s leadership were actually quite uncomfortable with that decision but had no way to move voters in a different direction.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> And Mark, talk about the Political Reform [program]. Is it still called that? I\u2019m forgetting what you guys call it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mark Schmitt:<\/strong> We have layers, so now there\u2019s a section called \u201cDemocratic Futures.\u201d I like a nice, straightforward name like Political Reform, even though it always makes people say, \u201cHow is that going?\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re still doing our thing. We\u2019re putting out a lot of material right now about why proportional representation is a timely response, particularly with the Supreme Court ruling in Callais<\/i> that really guts the Voting Rights Act. We\u2019ve been harping on this for years, but there\u2019s suddenly a recognition of: OK, maybe that is the <\/i>answer. You\u2019re seeing it from journalists, from conservatives as well. So we\u2019re trying to take advantage of that moment.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Because even my nerd friends don\u2019t always know\u2014explain what proportional representation is, very briefly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Schmitt:<\/strong> Proportional representation would be where you have congressional districts to have multiple members of Congress. You might create one district in Georgia that has five members, and then voters would rank\u2014a candidate who got maybe 25 percent of the vote would have one of those congressional seats, depending on how it was allocated. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s super-nerdy different ways\u2014party lists, things like that. I sometimes just nod along when people talk about the variations. But the essential idea is that you would create a model of representation that\u2019s proportional to the share of support that candidates and parties actually get.<\/p>\n

Right now, we\u2019re moving in the complete opposite direction, where Tennessee becomes a completely one-party state, Florida\u2019s pushing in that direction. Republicans in California\u2014Donald Trump got more votes in California than any other state, and they\u2019re totally unrepresented elsewhere in the state. Same with Democrats in Texas and Florida.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Proportional representation would change that, and would also enable newer parties to emerge on the scene. If a Green Party, Libertarian, Working Families Party engaged in that system, they could have enough seats in Congress or the state legislature to have some real leverage.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Alright, we\u2019re going to get to our topic today, which is 2028. We\u2019re starting a little early, and it\u2019s a little lighter than usual. What I want to do is an exercise that I told these guys about. Defining who is running is always complicated, because people are hiding their intentions or maybe pretending to run but not really going to run. <\/p>\n

But we have one metric, which was that the National Action Network\u2014the nonprofit group Al Sharpton runs\u2014had a conference about a month ago, and it sounds like Sharpton invited people who he thought might run for president, and 10 people showed up. I think that\u2019s a good proxy for 10 people who are aggressively signaling they are running. We\u2019ll talk about some others later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So I\u2019m going to go through these 10 with Mark and Seth. Seth, as he noted, has written about primaries\u2014he has a great book about the 2020 Democratic primary. And Mark has actually, unlike the two of us, worked in a primary. He was a senior adviser for Bill Bradley back in 2000. So these guys\u2014<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Perry, that gives me very limited credibility. A campaign that won zero primaries and is almost completely forgotten! Any young person who comes and you engage with, I have to do all the background. It was an interesting experience\u2014I spent time in Iowa and New Hampshire\u2014but James Carville I am not. And I\u2019m happy about that.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> So what we\u2019re going to do is go through the 10 people who went to the Sharpton event and talk about them, and then talk about a few others. I\u2019m going to start out\u2014it\u2019ll be alphabetical. The first person is my governor, actually\u2014Andy Beshear, of Kentucky. What I want to do with each one of these people is talk about what they\u2019re doing to position themselves, then talk about maybe what their strengths are and what their weaknesses are.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Beshear kind of ran for vice president in 2024 for about three weeks when Harris was choosing between him and Tim Walz and Shapiro. Right after the election, he wrote this op-ed in The New York Times<\/em> where he basically said, \u201cI\u2019m from Kentucky, I\u2019m in a Trump state, but I won, and I also won while being pro-LGBT and pro\u2013abortion rights and pretty liberal.\u201d I thought that was a signal that he was going to run as the most progressive of the moderates, for lack of a better way to say that\u2014the most progressive of the mainstream candidates. <\/p>\n

Since then, he\u2019s gone in a different direction. I would say he\u2019s running in the moderate lane\u2014we\u2019ll get into lanes in a second\u2014in the sense that pretty much every speech he gives now, he says Democrats should not speak in \u201cfaculty language\u201d and not use big words. President Obama said something similar this week. I find this eye roll\u2013inducing, but I do think it\u2019s a way to signal you\u2019re not too leftist, you\u2019re poking at the group. Beshear is planning to try to win the Biden 2020 primary vote, which is Black and white moderates\u2014that\u2019s my sense of what he\u2019s trying to do.<\/p>\n

His strengths are: This is a state that Trump won by 30, 33 points in 2024. Beshear has by far the strongest electability credential\u2014way better than Shapiro, Whitmer. This is a very red state that he won. And the weakness, the big weakness, is\u2014I don\u2019t love the phrase \u201cattention economy,\u201d it\u2019s become a clich\u00e9\u2014but in a primary where you have to raise money and break through in debates, Beshear might be a little too\u2014he\u2019s a nice guy\u2014too dull, to put it bluntly. So that\u2019s my assessment. Mark, what do you think?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Schmitt:<\/strong> I think that bit is right. He\u2019s a little bit like Michael Bennet in 2020 in terms of personality\u2014just not super [exciting], in my exposure to him. You\u2019ve obviously had infinitely more exposure.<\/p>\n

It was fascinating how unabashed he was about trans rights and other issues\u2014not occupying that socially conservative lane\u2014which actually, in terms of the Democratic electorate or even of people willing to vote for Democrats in November, I don\u2019t think that really exists. So I thought that was really smart.<\/p>\n

Like you, I\u2019m a little tired of the scolding. I said yesterday, in response to Obama\u2019s thing about not using faculty language: I don\u2019t think the problem is that Democrats use big words. It\u2019s that they construct these complicated logics in the comms shop that are like, For the cost of the war, we could be providing you healthcare<\/i>\u2014they\u2019re like, We have to pivot to what we think people care about,<\/i> instead of just saying, Hey, this war is really stupid.<\/i> That was sometimes the problem with Kamala Harris\u2019s language, too\u2014it wasn\u2019t faculty language, she\u2019s not talking about Pierre Bourdieu. She gets tangled in these logical things that get her in knots. I\u2019m a little annoyed about that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And he\u2019s telling a story about his electability, but he\u2019s not showing it. He\u2019s the classic candidate who can get elected governor of Kentucky but could jump into a Senate race and lose 60\u201340. There\u2019s a whole litany of people with that history\u2014much less a presidential race. So somehow he has to actually show that as well as tell it.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Mark, let me join you on being annoyed by what Obama said\u2014Obama is literally a law professor and constructs these very beautiful, ornate speeches and won twice by majority votes. On Beshear\u2014he strikes me as, some of what you were talking about, Perry, the pure electability candidate. Electability is, as we\u2019ve written about, a very fraught area, and it overlaps with a lot of other things, including assumptions about race and how people vote, and assumptions that you need a white candidate if you\u2019re really going to win. I think those are highly suspect conclusions.<\/p>\n

But this is someone whose main appeal is that he can win in a red state\u2014more so than any of the other electability candidates. For people who really don\u2019t care what the Democrat stands for and just want to make sure the Republican doesn\u2019t get the White House, you can see the appeal for someone like that. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I can\u2019t help thinking that at least some of that is due to the fact that Kentucky has odd-year elections\u2014I just wonder, would he win that race if it was during a presidential election where Donald Trump was running? I\u2019m not sure he does. But it\u2019s a claim. It\u2019ll get him some attention.<\/p>\n

I think we\u2019ve often seen some version of this candidate in the past. Was it Schweikert in Montana, whose main appeal to Democrats was that he was a Democrat who won in Montana?<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> I think it was Bullock. In 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Masket:<\/strong> Yes. We\u2019ll see how that goes for him. I think you\u2019re right\u2014there are limits to how far this can take him.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Next person is Cory Booker. Seth, I\u2019ll let you lead our conversation about Booker.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Booker is an interesting guy. You\u2019d think he ran well in 2020\u2014he hit a lot of the right marks if you think in terms of lanes. He\u2019s potentially the candidate who could win a lot of Black support but also reach out to a lot of white voters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That year, Black voters were already really in the tank for Joe Biden on pure electability concerns. Maybe Booker would have a better shot at it this time around. He\u2019s interesting in that he sometimes runs moderately, mainstream, but is able to project a lot of strident passion against some of the things Trump is doing. He had the 25-hour filibuster. I\u2019m sure no one remembers it anymore, but he could bring that up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, for what it\u2019s worth, he got married late last year. The last time he ran for president was right around the time he announced his relationship with Rosario Dawson. That\u2019s his signal that he\u2019s running.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s interesting in that he\u2019s a combination of really strong principled stances and some feel-good internet pablum. I don\u2019t know if he\u2019s ever hit quite the right note in there. But he\u2019s well known, well liked by a lot in the party, and he\u2019s got a shot at being a real player here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bacon:<\/strong> Mark?<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> I feel like he might have passed his sell-by date a little bit. He\u2019s capable of being very inspiring\u2014I\u2019m just not feeling like he has the thread right now. He jumped on that stupid thing about cutting taxes for everybody, along with Katie Porter and a couple others\u2014that was just embarrassing. No taxes if your household is less than $100,000 or something like that, which really, given what we\u2019re going to need to do in terms of taxes, means we\u2019re just going to grind it out more on the middle rich, unless we\u2019re willing to really go after the billionaires. Anyway, that gets into policy complexity, which is probably not the biggest thing that plays.<\/span><\/p>\n

Booker has one strength: He\u2019s one of those politicians who goes anywhere and talks to anybody, in the way that Mamdani is. There\u2019s real value in that right now\u2014not parsing out, micro-targeting, but just getting in there and showing up in an unfriendly audience and listening. I feel like he\u2019s got a little of that gift. Might help.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bacon:<\/strong> Next is Pete Buttigieg\u2014so I\u2019ll let you start, Mark.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> I\u2019m not sure where to go on that.…<\/span> He\u2019s like <\/span>Obama in terms of ability to articulate a viewpoint and get people going. And he has real credentials now, which\u2014mayor of South Bend was not. I think he\u2019s super impressive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weaknesses\u2014maybe a little too slick, maybe will never appeal to the left as a former McKinsey guy\u2014maybe there\u2019s an internal resistance. People will say being gay is a weakness\u2014it\u2019s not going to be a weakness in a Democratic primary. And probably not with that population of people who are willing to vote for Democrats at all. So that doesn\u2019t concern me at all, aside from the justice of it. I\u2019ll be interested to see where he goes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Masket:<\/strong> He drops out of the 2020 race like the morning after the South Carolina primary, and I think about five minutes later he planned to run in 2028.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Five minutes before! I think it was always 2028.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Haha. You\u2019re right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bacon:<\/strong> That\u2019s a good point.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> But it\u2019s important to remember, when he was running back then, he was a kid. And he did shockingly well in that race, honestly. He didn\u2019t come that close to toppling Biden, but he was a real presence. He stayed in until roughly the bitter end. He was very good at debates. As we\u2019ve seen since then, probably his main strength as a candidate is going on Fox News. <\/p>\n

He is very good at speaking to conservatives and speaking to conservative voters in a way that makes it sound very common-sense to articulate a center-left set of policies and beliefs, and he\u2019s completely unflappable about that. That\u2019s an important skill. I don\u2019t underestimate his skills as a campaigner. The fact that he\u2019s actually done some campaigning last year in Iowa\u2014which is not going to be one of the Democrats\u2019 first states, but he wanted to show up there anyway. He\u2019s pretty ambitious about this, and he\u2019ll be a major name.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bacon:<\/strong> The thing that came out in 2020\u2014there was a lot of debate about whether he was a strong candidate with Black voters, and you do have to do well with Black voters to win the primary. But I think we should suspend that. Joe Biden, as one of you guys was saying, was a very strong candidate with Black voters for a variety of reasons. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, who are Black, didn\u2019t do well among Black voters against him either. So I would suspend that.<\/p>\n

Another question I have: You have a bunch of candidates saying, \u201cI\u2019m electable.\u201d Pete has done a good job going on Fox News. His approval ratings are pretty good among Republicans. That said, Shapiro and Beshear are able to say, I\u2019ve actually won Republican votes<\/i>, and Pete can\u2019t say that yet. It\u2019s all theoretical for him. But he\u2019s got a good case, he\u2019s got charisma\u2014I agree with what you said.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> There\u2019s also a different generation of Black leadership even since 2020. Back then, everything ran through Jim Clyburn\u2014really old. There are four new Black senators\u2014like Alsobrooks and Lisa Blunt Rochester\u2014and it\u2019s a different world of Black politics.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Next person. I\u2019m going to let Seth start. Ruben Gallego was there. I didn\u2019t really think about him for 2028 until recently, but he is exploring the waters. What do you think about Ruben Gallego, the senator from Arizona?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Masket:<\/strong> He\u2019s an interesting candidate. He\u2019s had a range of stances\u2014he was considered pretty far to the left before he ran for Senate. Now he is, again, a candidate whose main appeal is that he can win in a swing state.<\/p>\n

He potentially stands to, as a Latino candidate, win back some of the Latinos that went Donald Trump\u2019s way in 2024. That may be happening without his help, but he does stand to benefit from that. It\u2019s notable that when he ran for Senate in Arizona in 2024, he ran seven points ahead of Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> That\u2019s pretty good.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Masket:<\/strong> That\u2019s pretty solid. He has some cachet in that way and some ability to run strongly in those states.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Mark?<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> I think the same. He\u2019s one of a bunch of candidates who seem to be experimenting a bit, moving from point to point. He\u2019s also been more sympathetic to the administration on immigration enforcement than some of the others\u2014which, in a funny way, is part of his appeal to Latino voters, in a super-complicated way. He\u2019s toned down some of that a little bit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I want to wait and see. In terms of weaknesses, when you lift up the blanket over his relationship with Eric Swalwell, I don\u2019t\u2014it\u2019s one of those where you want a really good background look.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Booker and Pete have been on the national stage for a while. It would be hard for them to change their views on much. Gallego can make it up as he goes along on some level\u2014he won\u2019t seem like a flip-flopper as much because we don\u2019t really know as much about him.<\/p>\n

Right now, he seems to be running populist economics\u2014he\u2019s talking about big companies being broken up. He\u2019s been more conservative on immigration. He says the party\u2019s too woke. There might be an opening for somebody who\u2019s more on the left on economics and on the right on social issues. I think that\u2019s what the Matt Yglesias crowd would like. So I think that\u2019s an interesting potential play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The next person is Kamala Harris\u2014Mark, I\u2019ll let you start with Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> I was a little surprised when I saw how well she does in polls, but really shouldn\u2019t be, because that\u2019s like the classic\u2014when I was a kid, every year Ted Kennedy would be at the very top of the polls, Al Gore for a while, people like that. I like her a lot. I thought she ran about as good a campaign as she could. But I don\u2019t think the Democratic Party\u2019s going to have confidence in her, even understanding how much she was screwed by Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> You think she has a mass electability problem, basically?<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Yeah. She also has a little bit of a communications problem. Again, it\u2019s not faculty lounge language, it\u2019s just making things too complicated and too nuanced, and trying to appeal to what people seem to want to hear rather than just saying what she thinks\u2014or even just seeming like she\u2019s saying what she thinks. Pete Buttigieg certainly always seems like he\u2019s saying what he thinks, even if it all comes out of a memo.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> That\u2019s what I was thinking.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> I just don\u2019t really have that confidence. And it\u2019s too bad, because she was given a thankless job and she did it as well as she could.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s interesting\u2014this belief has fallen down a little bit on the Republican side, but for Democrats there\u2019s been this very long-standing belief that you only really get one shot at the brass ring. If you run for president and then lose, the party\u2019s not interested in you anymore. They haven\u2019t gone with a previous loser since Adlai Stevenson in \u201956. I think that\u2019ll be an important tradition for a lot of Democrats.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a real mix within the Democratic Party about why she lost in \u201924. I think there\u2019s a fair number of people in the party who say, Look, that was just going to be a tough year no matter who the candidate was. People were angry about the economy. We got a lot of the blame as the incumbent party<\/i>. A good many also feel like she underperformed\u2014it had something to do with the way she campaigned or who she was. That\u2019s going to work against her, and really hamper her.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m honestly surprised she\u2019s still considering it. I certainly understand\u2014you get the taste of it, you want to run\u2014but we saw this with Al Gore, we\u2019ve seen this with other candidates, where they express some interest in trying to run again and get politely nudged out.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been surprised … what I expected Harris to do was to pretend to run for president for a long time\u2014that makes your book sales go up, makes you seem more relevant\u2014and that\u2019s what I assume is going on still: She\u2019s going to pretend to run, but in early 2027 she\u2019ll magically decide not to run, when she was never really intending to run the whole time. That\u2019s my assumption.<\/p>\n

That said, her book was a little bit more critical of Biden than I expected, and she\u2019s been a little bit more pro-Palestinian than I expected. Some of the moves she\u2019s made are the ones you would take if you\u2019re trying to address your previous problems and actually run again. So that is the one place where I\u2019ve been surprised. But ultimately, like Mark said, these polls are just reflecting name ID\u2014she would have a hard time winning, and it\u2019d be a very tough race for her.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to move to Mark Kelly, which is another person who I would not have guessed after the election. He was on the VP list too. And the case he\u2019s got, again, is he\u2019s won a hard swing state, and Arizona is a place where Harris lost. So that\u2019s the appeal of him, that\u2019s the strength. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s also done a pretty good job\u2014Trump has attacked him personally a couple of times, and he made the most of that. He\u2019s a veteran. That helps. An astronaut\u2014that helps. He\u2019s got some personal credentials as the electable white man who can beat Trump or JD Vance.<\/p>\n

The weaknesses are\u2014I\u2019ll be honest\u2014I\u2019m not totally sure what Mark Kelly\u2019s voice sounds like. When I say that, I mean I\u2019m not sure that he\u2019s made much of an impression as a senator. He semi-ran for VP when Harris got the nomination and didn\u2019t make much of an impression either. He won Arizona, but I\u2019m still not actually sure he\u2019s that impressive a politician. Seth, go ahead.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> I agree with you. Kelly in some ways is a clear electability candidate in that he\u2019s proven he can win in a swing state and do well there. It also helps him that he\u2019s essentially a martyr of the Trump administration\u2014that he\u2019s been not just insulted, but they\u2019ve actually tried to court-martial him and prosecute him. Trump essentially accused him of treason. So he\u2019s got that.<\/p>\n

There is, among some Democrats\u2014I don\u2019t know if you\u2019d want to call it a lane or anything like that\u2014but a good pitch for a candidate who doesn\u2019t have particularly strident stances but appears fairly combative, a fighter, someone who\u2019s willing to stand up for his party and push back strongly on some of Trump\u2019s excesses. He\u2019s been very good on that front. But I agree\u2014we don\u2019t know much about his voice. I don\u2019t know how much that really matters. Not an especially well-known, well-loved, dynamic candidate that way.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Yeah. I\u2019ve heard his voice. It\u2019s deep. It\u2019s\u2014<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> I was joking a little bit, but he\u2019s not\u2014<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Beshear has a slightly unimposing voice. Not that we should get into stuff like that. But part of it with Kelly too is\u2014take that Elissa Slotkin thing about \u201cfight or fold\u201d being the divide among Democrats. Everybody\u2019s going to be on the \u201cfight\u201d side. But he doesn\u2019t have to prove it. He doesn\u2019t have to overemphasize it, because it\u2019s all right there. He can just do other things, which might be an asset. But who knows?<\/p>\n

Interesting that there are two states\u2014we just talked about two senators from Arizona, and then there are two senators from Georgia, both relatively new, who also are potential candidates. It\u2019s interesting that both those swing states have produced real national stars already.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Next person is Ro Khanna. He\u2019s obviously running for the Bernie vote, where he\u2019s taken every progressive stand on every issue, from \u201cabolish ICE\u201d to \u201cSchumer should resign\u201d to \u201cthere\u2019s a genocide in Gaza.\u201d These are all sincerely held views, I\u2019m sure. But he\u2019s running in that progressive lane, trying to inherit the Bernie vote.<\/p>\n

The strength of that: There is clearly a part of the party that wants that candidate. And in some ways, unlike the people we\u2019ve talked about, he has a very distinct part of the electorate he can appeal to\u2014in a way that … all the people we\u2019ve talked about are fighting for the same voters on some level. So he\u2019s got that.<\/p>\n

Weaknesses: He\u2019s a House member, he\u2019s got really low name ID, and it can be hard to break out of that. If AOC runs, it could just be really hard for him to win many progressive votes. I don\u2019t know if she\u2019s running or not. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, my sense is that the progressive bloc of the party\u2014while being closer to where my own views are\u2014is not a majority, so having those stances might not be the right way to win the nomination. But he\u2019s done a good job getting out there. He\u2019s also willing to do an interview everywhere. That\u2019s a credit to him as well. Mark?<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> I don\u2019t really understand Ro Khanna very well, despite observing him for a long time. And there\u2019s a question\u2014Bernie has been a dominant figure for the last several elections in a way that we don\u2019t really appreciate. Was that about his positions, or was it something unique to Bernie? I don\u2019t think we really know, but just adopting his positions doesn\u2019t really do it.<\/p>\n

But you\u2019ve also touched on\u2014it\u2019s funny, you mentioned it in relation to Kamala Harris and obviously in relation to Khanna. Democrats\u2019 relationship to Israel is going to be a very significant dividing lane. That\u2019s moving really fast, and I\u2019d rather be on the more pro-Palestinian side. Just in cold political terms, not personal terms, it\u2019d be better to be on that side. <\/p>\n

But there are going to be a lot of donors and a lot of electeds who are going to be very resistant. That\u2019s choosing a fight in a really significant [way], and thinking now about what that fight is going to look like two years from now\u2014I don\u2019t know where that\u2019s going.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Another important divide within the Democratic Party right now is: What do we do with tech billionaires?<\/i> This is a population with a lot of money. It\u2019s become increasingly influential and has swung very hard right in recent years. <\/p>\n

As the congressman representing Silicon Valley, he\u2019s one of the few Democrats who tech folks are actually still pretty comfortable with. He can speak to that crowd, he can get support from that crowd, which I think cuts both ways. That makes him in some ways look like a stronger general election candidate, as someone who could have access to that money and that support.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> He seems pro-business and pro-innovation in a certain way.<\/p>\n

Masket: <\/strong>At the same time, that might make him a little toxic to a fair amount of folks on the left who really want to push back on AI and on tech\u2019s role in politics right now.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Let me follow up on something Mark said. Mark, make your point, and then I\u2019ll ask.<\/p>\n

Schmitt: <\/strong>He can also make a pitch as a guy who understands AI, and if we think AI is going to be this big, world-changing challenge\u2014which maybe it is, maybe it isn\u2019t\u2014he gets it. He can play both sides of that, as he has in his career. He was originally just a Silicon Valley candidate challenging a very old, established member of Congress whose name I don\u2019t remember anymore. But the tech side is interesting.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Mark, you said something about the idea being that Bernie Sanders won those votes, not generic progressive X. That\u2019s an important distinction. That said, we have a lot of evidence\u2014Zohran Mamdani\u2014that in primaries there\u2019s some number of progressive people. <\/p>\n

You\u2019re saying there\u2019s a gap between the people who vote for any progressive and the people who voted for Bernie Sanders. Do you think there\u2019s a big gap or a small gap, or just a gap to consider?<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> I think they\u2019re different. Being Bernie Sanders connects with people in a way that was not just the bundle of his positions. There is that phenomenon of supposed Trump-Sanders voters…. I don\u2019t know how much of that there is, but you can get how. Both of them, especially original Trump, have a very non-politician [appeal]. It\u2019s hard to imagine\u2014[Sanders] is the chair of the Senate Budget Committee\u2014but he has a very non-politician appeal. Sometimes\u2014like Mamdani\u2019s progressivism\u2014sometimes progressivism has an appeal just because it\u2019s coherent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> It doesn\u2019t have to be your worldview, but it\u2019s a worldview, and it\u2019s coming from somewhere, and it\u2019s not just telling you what you want to hear.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Next person is Wes Moore. I\u2019ll let you talk, Seth, in part because I know less about Wes Moore than I do some of the others. Hopefully you\u2019ve studied him a bit.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> I was going to say, I don\u2019t know much about him either. He\u2019s in some ways the opposite of Mark Kelly, in that he\u2019s a very good public speaker. He is very engaging, he gets people very passionate. He\u2019s good at going on a wide range of TV shows and venues and just speaking very inspirationally.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a sense of how well-loved he is generally among Democrats. He\u2019s from Maryland, which isn\u2019t a particularly competitive state. He\u2019s still pretty young, as far as I understand. But he\u2019d be an interesting candidate to watch\u2014and an enjoyable one to watch as he develops his speaking.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Mark?<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> I live 500 feet from the Maryland border, but that doesn\u2019t really mean anything. He\u2019s not super visible, even in my world. He\u2019s super impressive. He could turn out to be almost like Obama in the way he connects with people. But I don\u2019t really have any idea. There are some complicated questions about his personal background that could be\u2014<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Questions about his military service, right? Exactly what he did\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Military service, when he was there, yeah. I tried to figure that out one evening and I couldn\u2019t really even figure out what the actual charge is.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> One thing I would say is\u2014Harris, Booker, and Wes Moore are not just Black, but have fairly similar ideologies. They\u2019re not leftist, they\u2019re not hardcore moderates. Only one of them, and maybe zero of them, are going to do well. Their plans are going to be: win some white moderates, win some white progressives, and do really well in the heavily Black states in the South. That plan has worked for Joe Biden and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It\u2019s a good plan\u2014but only one of them can have it work.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> All three also have academic parent backgrounds. Wes Moore\u2019s mother worked at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore\u2014<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Funny.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> \u2014involved in [child welfare and social policy]. Booker is definitely from an upper-middle-class family or a middle-class family. I can\u2019t remember what his parents [did].<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Kamala\u2019s dad was a professor.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> JB Pritzker\u2014I do know a lot about him. But I\u2019ll let you start, Mark.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> He\u2019s managed to be super popular as governor of Illinois, which is quite an accomplishment given that state\u2019s history. He seems to just always hit the right note in relation to Trump. He could be a very formidable candidate. He\u2019s one of those who seems like he\u2019s just saying what he thinks, with a little bit of, Hey, I got all the money in the world, so I can say what I think<\/i> attitude\u2014which doesn\u2019t really hurt. Lots of potential.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> One question I want to ask you, Mark\u2014specifically, Steyer is having this problem in California\u2014from my understanding, progressives\u2014he\u2019s got the most left-wing positions\u2014progressives are nervous about supporting a billionaire. It sounds like that\u2019s a barrier to Senator Warren or Bernie Sanders endorsing him. <\/p>\n

Pritzker is trying to appeal to, maybe not the hardest left, but certainly a progressive part of the party. Is being a billionaire inherently going to be disqualifying? I\u2019m curious what you think.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> First, I think being an inherited billionaire\u2014like FDR\u2014is probably less\u2014<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Is that what Pritzker is?<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s the hotels and all that. He was involved in the business, but it\u2019s really not his\u2014his family story is actually very tragic and very moving. So I feel like that\u2019s different from Steyer, who was in this private equity business for most of his adult life.<\/p>\n

Steyer\u2019s also actually doing really well. It\u2019s no surprise that Warren doesn\u2019t endorse him, because she\u2019s still got her student in the race. I\u2019m less concerned about that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> OK. Seth?<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> I\u2019m really curious how this will play on the suspicion-of-billionaires divide in the Democratic Party right now. I think there are a fair number of people, particularly in Illinois, who are saying, Yeah, he\u2019s a plutocrat, but he\u2019s our plutocrat<\/i>. And he handles that pretty well. He doesn\u2019t run from it. He just keeps saying, This gives me the freedom to say some things that others can\u2019t<\/i>. He\u2019s been, I think, quite good at that.<\/p>\n

He has been way more outspoken than most prominent Democrats from the beginning of Trump\u2019s second term\u2014specifically calling out ICE activities when they were threatening Chicago and things like that\u2014and he\u2019s the one, at least rhetorically, standing up very strongly in those circumstances. So I think that gives him some legitimate credential. I agree with Mark\u2014he could be a formidable candidate.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> What\u2019d you say earlier, Mark? … One of you said, basically, there\u2019s a person whose liberalism is in the fighting and not necessarily in the positions. I don\u2019t know if Pritzker\u2019s for the wealth tax or for Medicare for All. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s likely to be the most policy-left. But I do think he\u2019s [a fighter]. On the social issues, he is actually fairly good on transgender rights, ICE, the things that\u2014those sort of left social issues.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> It\u2019s hard for me to believe that Medicare for All is going to be the thing we\u2019re going to be fighting over\u2014<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> I was using it as an example\u2014<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> \u2014for the 2028 presidency given what we\u2019ll have gone through.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> So the final person who was at the Sharpton event, and somebody we\u2019ve referred to already\u2014Josh Shapiro.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Man, I wish it had been my line, but I heard someone refer to him as Baruch Obama, which is such a great line. He is a very skilled public speaker. A lot of people see him as an Obama-like presence, but also Jewish, and also can win Pennsylvania. He was obviously a close second in the vice-presidential sweepstakes in 2024\u2014who knows what would have happened if he\u2019d been the choice. It would have probably been the same result.<\/p>\n

The fact that he is literally a victim of political violence\u2014his house was attacked and burned\u2014that\u2019s a selling point for him among Democrats. But he\u2019s got a complex set of stances on Israel. He\u2019s been generally much more sympathetic to Israel than a lot of other prominent politicians. <\/p>\n

I think he sensed the wind changing on that and has followed along. But that will be a tough issue, and it will come up a lot for him\u2014that will be the first issue people want to ask him about, simply for being outspoken on it and for being Jewish. It\u2019ll just be an extra challenge for him.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Yeah, I agree with that. I don\u2019t have any strong views about Shapiro. I found Shapiro\u2019s little digs at Harris to be unseemly. But whatever.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> He might be the most willing of the people we\u2019ve named to actually attack the left in a more aggressive way than the other people. He seems much more anchored in moderate politics in Pennsylvania\u2014not just on Israel, on other issues too. If it comes down to him and Buttigieg or something like that, I\u2019d be curious if there was an anybody but Shapiro<\/i> on the sort of progressive end. He might be in that territory. You can get past that\u2014Biden actually did a good job of being progressive-friendly enough to where people were fine with him. I don\u2019t know if Shapiro can pull that off. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Not if Israel remains a central issue.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> If he takes his current stand on it, I would say, yeah. Let\u2019s do two more people, and then I\u2019ll broaden it out. So the person we haven\u2019t mentioned yet, who I think had a scheduling conflict and couldn\u2019t come to New York, is Gavin Newsom, who is very obviously thinking of running for president. Seth, talk about Gavin Newsom.<\/span><\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> I\u2019ve seen this among some people on the left that he rubs them the wrong way. But also he\u2019s been, I think, a success in California. Importantly, a lot of Democrats have talked pretty harsh stuff about Donald Trump over the last year and a half. Gavin Newsom is one of the few who can actually claim to have achieved something.<\/p>\n

He actually pushed back on redistricting. He engineered a redistricting in California to counter what Trump pushed for in Texas and essentially neutralized that. He\u2019s someone\u2014even in a party that is not in the majority nationwide\u2014capable of doing some real actions and changing national politics to a good degree. He deserves some credit for that.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, I have no idea what his appeal will be like. He loves being pugnacious, loves doing lots of TV\u2014that\u2019ll probably help him. But he\u2019ll always be confounded by the fact that a lot of people worry a Californian is not going to be electable nationwide. They tried with Kamala Harris\u2014a whole different set of circumstances there.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Mark?<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Ronald Reagan would have something to say about that.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Wasn\u2019t a Democrat, but yeah.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> No, I know. Yeah. I have trouble getting past just a personal aversion to Gavin Newsom. I\u2019ll cop to that.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Which means that he\u2019s too slick-looking, he doesn\u2019t seem trustworthy?<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Yeah, just something about his manner or whatever. He has been a good governor, and the redistricting was great, and he\u2019s basically continued a line of policies\u2014that started with Jerry Brown\u2014that have really helped California stand out from the country in many ways. <\/p>\n

But what I\u2019ve noticed is just this intense experimentation, which I sort of [respect]. There\u2019s the period where he was tweeting in Donald Trump\u2019s voice, as if that would be funny. There was a period where he was going on every right-wing podcast that he could find, or the looksmaxxers and stuff like that. Which is funny, because that might be part of my aversion. <\/span><\/p>\n

I respect the try-anything approach right now to American politics. That\u2019s probably a good idea. But it reinforces the idea that this is a guy who stands for nothing.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> I was going to say something like that too. He\u2019s done pretty well this last year. He started off with, Let me have Steve Bannon on my podcast<\/i>\u2014that got huge backlash. Then he became super partisan: Trump is terrible<\/i>, fighting him\u2014the redistricting. He is reading the room, and he seems to adapt in a certain way. That\u2019s a skill, even though we\u2019re saying it may mean he has no core. So\u2014<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Just don\u2019t make it so obvious. Don\u2019t make it so obvious what you\u2019re doing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Yes. The other thing about electability is, my friends in pundit world, we sort of study who did better in Arizona than Kamala, or who did better in Michigan. What are those scores called? G. Elliott Morris writes about these scores\u2014there\u2019s a debate, I can\u2019t remember the term now. But anyway, basically how well you do above the average Democrat. I think it\u2019s the WAR score, what some of these guys come up with.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, that\u2019s how my nerd friends think. My friends in real life think any white guy is more electable than any non\u2013white guy. Gavin Newsom\u2019s still a white guy, and I think he might do better than Elissa Slotkin on electability, unfortunately, because he is a man and she isn\u2019t. That\u2019s not a good way to see the world, but we might be entering a phase\u2014Democrats have run two women, those two women both lost\u2014and we may have to wait 20 years to have another female nominee. That would advantage someone like Newsom, who\u2019s a loudmouthed white guy.<\/p>\n

The other person is AOC, and I\u2019ll let Mark start.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> That\u2019s only the second woman we\u2019ve talked about. It\u2019s AOC.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> You\u2019re right.<\/span><\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> We\u2019ve only talked about Harris, and now we\u2019ll talk about AOC a little bit. I\u2019m a big fan of AOC, but also of just: just run, don\u2019t wait, just go for it, which is in some ways what Obama did. It would be fascinating if she did it. She\u2019s an extraordinary communicator. She knows when to hold back from the farthest left\u2014people expect her to be a little further out than she is. She\u2019s got a grounding in common sense and can talk to people and explain things in ways that make sense to them. I\u2019d love to see her try it.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Now, you said candidates are different and so on. I would argue pretty much everyone who voted for Sanders in 2020 would vote for AOC, and pretty much no one who didn\u2019t vote for Sanders would vote for her. We have a replay, in a certain sense. That\u2019s one where I say the lanes do seem clear. I have a hard time seeing AOC breaking out of the Bernie vote. But I\u2019m curious what you think about that.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Yeah, I disagree with that on two sides. There is a certain Bernie vote that was a little more like a Trump vote\u2014a certain white guy, more or less working class, the Graham Platner types.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> That\u2019s a good point.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> That\u2019s very different from AOC\u2019s appeal. And then I think there\u2019ll be a lot of feeling like, if you see AOC over a period of time, you\u2019re going to feel like, OK, I heard about her, I thought she was a little nuts, but she makes perfect sense<\/i>. She could go well beyond the Bernie constituency.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Seth?<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> So AOC\u2014it\u2019s remarkable, she\u2019s still so young. She\u2019s 36 right now. She\u2019s barely eligible to run for president. She has been for almost a decade now a lightning rod for the Democratic Party\u2014she is the sort of avatar of everything Republicans hate about the Democrats. And she\u2019s played that role pretty well.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s really useful to have someone like that in the House. Nancy Pelosi played that role for many years. I would generally caution against nominating your lightning rod for president. Hillary Clinton ran into some problems for that reason as well. <\/p>\n

She could probably pull it off\u2014she is one of the smartest strategists in the Democratic Party right now. She\u2019s very gifted with that. She could also have a very substantial role in the House leadership going forward if she wanted that career. I don\u2019t know if she does. But she knows what she\u2019s doing there and could really be an impressive legislative leader going forward.<\/p>\n

I would hate to lose her in the House for a presidential run. But I agree with Mark\u2014there\u2019s a certain sense of, Let\u2019s just see what happens<\/i>. It would be an interesting race to follow\u2014whether she could make that sell to people outside New York.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> We covered the 12 I was going to cover. So now I\u2019m going to\u2014<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Hold on\u2014I want to ask you a question about AOC.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Sure.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Do you think she should run against Schumer? Would she be in a stronger position if she does run against Schumer, or if Schumer retires?<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Schumer\u2019s behavior\u2014<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Oh, I\u2019m getting a little mixed up, because that would be \u201928 also.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> My perception is that Schumer is acting like someone who\u2019s not going to run for another term. At that point, AOC would have a better chance of winning a Senate seat, obviously. I don\u2019t think the Wall Street crowd is going to be eager to have Senator AOC, so it\u2019s not going to be a cakewalk, either. I anticipate her running for the Senate. There\u2019s a potentially open seat there. You become a senator and you wait and then run for president later. That\u2019s what I expect.<\/p>\n

But if we\u2019re in an attention economy and we\u2019re in a place where being skilled as a communicator is the most important thing, she\u2019s obviously better than most of who we\u2019ve talked about. And about her appeal\u2014I think she would do worse with the Graham Platner vote. I think she\u2019ll do better with young Latinos and African Americans compared to what Sanders did in 2020 and 2016, obviously.<\/p>\n

So my round robin\u2014this is the end. We\u2019re going to end here by saying: I\u2019m going to give a list of a bunch of people, and if you guys are interested in any of them, we can talk through them, or just bring them up. Rahm Emanuel is going everywhere and doing pretty much everything\u2014I don\u2019t know who\u2019s going to vote for him. I\u2019m certainly not going to. <\/p>\n

Chris Murphy has been early\u2014I think he\u2019s really named himself. Elissa Slotkin has gone to New Hampshire and done some of the hinting about running. Stephen Colbert pretty much announced himself to Barack Obama the other day. That was funny\u2014I think there might be room for an outsider person, and he\u2019s going to be unemployed soon. <\/p>\n

Jon Ossoff is getting a lot of buzz in Georgia. Raphael Warnock would also be a pretty good candidate as well. And Gretchen Whitmer\u2014as a two-term governor of a swing state\u2014she is not acting like she wants to run, but it\u2019s relevant that she\u2019s a two-term governor of that state. The gender thing we talked about earlier might apply to her.<\/p>\n

Anybody\u2014any of those you guys want to talk about, or anything else you want to mention about this process as we\u2019re getting to the end here?<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Murphy\u2019s interesting to me. When you think about somebody like him, a lot will depend on if the Democrats take the Senate. He\u2019s really good at some of the oversight stuff, he\u2019s on good committees. He\u2019ll be able to elevate his profile enormously, and that\u2019s a variable we haven\u2019t talked about. If the Democrats don\u2019t win the Senate and the only side with subpoena power is the House, then that\u2019s where Ro Khanna or AOC could have a huge impact.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> <\/strong>Seth?<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Yeah\u2014similar feelings about Rahm Emanuel, because I still don\u2019t understand how he has won some elections before. We talked about being that candidate who has relatively moderate stances but is seen as a fighter. His whole thing is pure belligerence. Some of that is directed against the Trump administration, and that would help him. But it\u2019s also against everyone. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll win a lot of friends nationally among Democrats there. It would be an entertaining one to watch. In that sense, I look forward to it.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Any dark horse among either the people I named or anybody else that you all think we should name in this conversation?<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> I think Ossoff is undervalued as a candidate here. Right now he\u2019s been making a pretty good name for himself. He\u2019s done a lot of national media lately, and he\u2019s honed a very strong message. Arguably that\u2019s just a way to raise money nationally for his Senate reelection bid. <\/p>\n

But it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if he was thinking seriously about a presidential run in \u201928, maybe in \u201932. Maybe he\u2019s thinking about being a VP candidate. But anyone who\u2019s won two Senate races, I\u2019d say, automatically puts themselves in the \u201cpresidential material\u201d category. And he\u2019s getting the name recognition for it.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Yeah, of the ones that you named, that\u2019s the one I would point to. And also, it\u2019s not just what candidates think they\u2019re going to do. It\u2019s people coming to them and saying, You should do this<\/i>. That could be donors, it could be other leaders. And I\u2019m seeing people say that\u2014not necessarily people with that level of influence, but it certainly happened for Obama when Harry Reid said, You should do this<\/i>. It\u2019s not just in his own head. The encouragement that different candidates are going to get will matter a lot.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Last question. People are describing this as a very wide-open race, so let me ask it this way: Have we named the Democratic nominee in this discussion? We\u2019ve named and discussed about 20 people. Do you think it\u2019s so wide open that we\u2019ve missed them among the 20, or do you think it\u2019s wide open but within a certain range of people we\u2019ve discussed here?<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> We have probably named the nominee. But I agree\u2014it\u2019s wide open in a way that it hasn\u2019t been in a very long time. There is no obvious heir apparent. The last president and vice president went out in an unpopular way, and it\u2019s not clear who they would even be supporting at this point if it came down to that.<\/p>\n

One thing I think we might want to think about\u2014I don\u2019t like thinking about this\u2014but Graham Platner may well be a senator a year from now. And yeah, he\u2019d be a first-term senator, but he\u2019s this come-from-nowhere populist, and that\u2014<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Isn\u2019t [James] Talarico the better answer to this question than Graham Platner, if that\u2019s where you\u2019re going?<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Possibly.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Well, Talarico may not win\u2014he\u2019s got a lower chance of winning.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> He could win. But yeah, could go either way. But suddenly Platner could be the big sensation that everyone\u2019s got their eyes on, who can win over some conservative voters. The Nazi tattoo business might get lost in the noise there. But he would not be that much less experienced than Barack Obama was when he first ran for president.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Well, Barack Obama had whatever years in the Senate\u2014<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Legislative experience, yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> So Mark, did we name the person in this, or not?<\/span><\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Odds are we have. I don\u2019t think Platner would. I would think it\u2019s more likely that people just try to imitate Platner. So Josh Shapiro starts talking like Platner without the Nazi tattoo, rather than him being the candidate. But I also think so much terrible stuff could happen in the next two years that could totally scramble things.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Somebody could emerge either out of Congress or out of a courageous stand they take within the military or something like that who suddenly appears on the stage. I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s not like the last two years of the Bush administration where we just floated downstream into disaster. It\u2019s just going to be much more dramatic.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> And with that, we\u2019ll close this off. Thank you guys for joining me. Tell everybody where they can find your work\u2014Mark and then Seth\u2014where they can find you on social media, on websites and things like that.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> I\u2019ve got newamerica.org\u2014go to the Political Reform program. We\u2019re putting out a bunch of stuff recently, some of which I\u2019ve written, some of which my colleagues have written. I\u2019m on Bluesky as mschmitt9, and I do post on Substack occasionally. I\u2019ve got a bunch of drafts sitting there, so maybe they\u2019ll go up soon.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> And Seth, you\u2019re going to be doing a lot of stuff. Let\u2019s talk about the book stuff.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Definitely. You can always find me on Substack\u2014again, the name of the newsletter is the SMOTUS Report. You can find that at smotus.substack.com. I also have this book coming out next month called The Elephants in the Room<\/em>. It\u2019s about the Republican nomination of Donald Trump in \u201924, and how the party got to that point. I\u2019ll be doing a number of events to promote the book, and you can watch for that. There\u2019s also a link to buy it if you want to preorder it on my Substack site.<\/p>\n

Bacon:<\/strong> All right. Great conversation. Good to see you guys, and thanks for joining.<\/p>\n

Schmitt:<\/strong> Nice talking to both of you. Thanks.<\/p>\n

Masket:<\/strong> Thanks, Perry. See you, Mark.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a lightly edited transcript of the May 7 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch the video here or by following this show on YouTube or Substack. Perry Bacon: Good afternoon. I\u2019m Perry Bacon. I\u2019m the host of The New Republic show Right Now. I have two great guests today. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":913821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,22350,104640],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-913820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-these","category-transcript","category-youtube-videos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}