Welcome back to what's going on with Earl Ingram is always you can I was gonna go back and talk a little bit about during my time in radio.
I was gonna recite the call numbers again, but that's
That's in the past, but welcome back to what's going on with Earl Ingram.
And as always, it is great to have none other than Dr. Robert Craig, Executive Director of Citizen Action back on with me again.
Good morning to you, Dr. Craig.
How you doing?
I'm good, Earl.
How are you doing?
I'm doing fine.
I'm doing better when I get a chance to see you and talk to you.
I always feel great.
And I learned so much from you with your vast knowledge of things.
And you certainly put it in a manner, Dr. Craig, with all of your education, where the average person can understand what it is you're saying.
And we appreciate that.
Well, it's always great to be with you, Earl.
And of course, you know how to talk to average people as well.
I'm one of the average people.
So Dr. Craig, today, Virginia voters tell GOP to take a walk, gerrymandering Democrats.
you know Dr Craig going back we're in the state of Wisconsin and our state has been gerrymandered probably as long as almost any tell us a little bit about gerrymandering how that has come into vogue and why it took so long for democrats to punch back yeah
so obviously it goes back from before
well before what happened when Donald Trump started ordering states to redraw their maps mid-decade.
In other words, redistricting usually occurs after the census, so only once every 10 years.
And Trump thought that he would get some Republican states like Texas, which went and did it, and there are other states like Missouri and Ohio that have been working on it.
that he could get some more congressional districts and therefore hold on to Congress.
So literally as a scheme to frustrate the actual voters, right?
And where public opinion was going into the midterms, because it's terrifying.
But yet legal, a legal scheme.
Yeah.
And there's a whole history of that too.
So Harry Mandarin goes back to literally 19th century.
In fact, it's named after a guy whose last name was Gary, you first.
in New York, a governor, and that became gerrymandering.
But it's become far more sophisticated.
I mean, in the 19th century, they didn't have the voting data and the mapping technology and everything to precisely choose districts where only one party could win, that vantage one party.
And also incumbents have tended to cut deals.
So in Congress,
Congress was designed, the House of Representatives, to be a body very reflective of public opinion.
There would be a lot of turnover whenever there was changes in public opinion.
If you look at 19th, early 20th century, you'd have 70, 80, 100 seats change hands because of that.
And incumbents of both parties have said, well, if we gerrymander together, then the incumbents of both parties will stay in.
That's why you have more of a gerontocracy.
But there's been a lot of that going on.
Republicans had
supercharged it after the 2010 election, where they used new techniques.
It was part of a national strategy to try to lock up state legislatures for the next decade, so that even if it wasn't a competitive state like Wisconsin, only one party could hold power, which is the definition of a non-democracy of what they call electoral autocracy, where you have the form of an election, but only one party can win.
In Wisconsin,
is one of the most notorious, so North Carolina and Pennsylvania have been in the running for some of the maps they've come up with, especially North Carolina.
And maps were created in the 50-50 state of Wisconsin, where Republicans were guaranteed super majorities, not only for the last 10 years, the last 14 years, from 2011.
until the last election, until 2024 elections, which means the 2025 session.
This last session was the first that was at least fairer maps.
And I will say in Wisconsin, Evers, Governor Evers, because he's never seen a bipartisan compromise.
He didn't love a compromise.
He quote, signed the Republican maps that were a compromise.
rather than laying at the state Supreme Court beside with a liberal majority, and most thought the maps they would have chosen would have been much fairer.
So, in fact, the state assembly is still hard.
It may happen this cycle, but it's very hard for Democrats to win the state assembly the way the map is brought.
But Trump brought it to a new level.
Obviously, it all started.
Scott Walker was part of it.
started demanding publicly.
That's one of the other things.
Before the 2010-2011 conspiracy was secret and got out, and there were private strategies.
Trump, it's all on social media, right?
I demand that Governor Abbott,
you know,
Governor Tech, get me five seats, just like when he tried to get the Georgia folks to change the election results in 2020.
And what's happened and developed, which is interesting, is
The Democrats, more than they thought, have been able to respond.
California acted and had a referendum.
And it was temporary, because Democrats actually are the one party that actually supports redistribution reform.
Does that mean all Democrats will be trusted to do it and it will always happen?
No.
But at the state level, the states that have nonpartisan districts being drawn are blue states and states under blue control.
And California, because they were stealing seats in Texas, they made the case, and the voters agreed with them that we need to balance that.
We can't let Texas and Trump steal the election.
So they redrew the California maps temporarily.
It reverts back to the normal district process that's nonpartisan in the 2030s.
Virginia has now done the same thing.
And so it appears, Earl, and it's not done yet, but it appears that
this little maneuver by Trump may lead to more democratic seats than Republican seats or or wash.
It is at this point at this point because Virginia may be able to generate another five seats for Democrats.
You know Dr. Craig what's so troubling about this and you say it goes back to the 19th century is we we need to stop talking about democracy.
because if these things are in place and have been in place, the voters, those of us who take pride, I've been voting since I turned 18.
I don't ever miss an election.
I've never known much about redistricting.
I always thought that, you know, because not knowing my ignorance, that...
things are going to be fair and just in this country.
And so the people who get the most votes win.
And I don't think I'm alone, Dr. Craig, as a citizen who goes to the polls every year, who believes that these things are all going to be decided by the people and not by all these other ancillary things that impact in effect.
the outcomes of these elections.
And so once, now that we know that those things are taking place, Dr. Craig, it takes some luster off of what we've always touted as a nation and the best system in the world as it relates to voting and the people deciding.
I agree people should choose their representatives, not representatives, you know, choosing their voters.
It's not popular, but the public rarely votes on process issues.
So it requires quieter organizing.
They vote on pocketbook issues, right?
Because immediate needs.
So that's partly how this happens.
I would not put on the same moral ground what California and Virginia have done.
with what Scott Walker did in Wisconsin, because what they did is they responded to a sneak into that and tried to balance it and are committed to going back.
So that is a very different matter.
The folks that should have stood up, and this is the problem, the Republicans were, and we certainly had a strategy to take over the court with the Federalist Society.
And we have Supreme Court judges that have decided that gerrymandering is just fine.
as long as it's partisan gerrymandering.
As long as you're just setting it up to the bad one party or the other, that's perfectly fine.
They still have some potential reservations about racial gerrymandering, but let's face it.
since there's a huge disparity in voting patterns.
You can just say it's partisan gerrymandering and nothing to do with race.
It just happens that more black folks are Democrats and more white folks are, particularly white folks, not in cities or inner suburbs or Republicans.
And so this is really the Supreme Court deciding that democracy isn't much of a right, isn't really important.
And that tells you what happens when a court
is taken over by powerful interests.
What is this about?
This is about letting the minority rule, letting the richest among us, the most powerful billionaires and corporations control things.
And because they don't want full popular rule, because it's wildly popular to tax the rich, tax profitable large corporations, make them pay their fair share and fund health care, fund education, make childcare fundamental right.
They don't want any of that.
They want to keep the money.
That's what their politics is all about.
It's about a money grab.
And there's apparently no limit, because no matter how bad the inequality gets, apparently if you have a super yacht, you could always have a second or a third super yacht in your home.
Or if you have intergenerational wealth for seven generations, why not 10 generations?
By the way, since they're driving us into a climate crisis,
Those fortunes may not be worth very much and very many generations forward, but they don't seem to care about that
either.
You know, Dr. Craig, it makes me pause and think we've been constantly brow-beaten about the Russians.
We have to worry about the Russians and the Chinese, and we've got to worry about Iran and all of these things, and they keep the American people terrified.
of what's going to happen outside of our borders.
And so we've got to be focused on protecting the American people.
But it's what's happening inside of our nation.
The things that you are talking about, the reason that the American people are struggling the way we're struggling is not because of China and Russia and Iran.
Those are not the reasons that the American people, the middle class has suffered and struggled, as you stated, $28,000 more a year that's been siphoned away from the American people who can't afford to lose that and who are struggling the way they are, because somebody inside of our borders has basically pilfered it from the American people.
And for the most part, the American people don't know that.
We trust our government.
We believe these things to be true.
And so we've got to come to grips with not being constantly worried about somebody attacking us from the outside.
It's the attack from the inside, Dr. Craig, that has put the American people, set us at odds.
and made the American dream something that's unattainable to far too many of us in this nation.
I agree, and quite frankly, this is partly why Trump's approval ratings are so low, so there's an opportunity here if people could be elected that will follow through in that they think he should be focusing on what he promised, you know, affordability, right?
And he's not.
He clearly cares less about it.
He lied just to get office.
And what he's doing is not all that new either.
I mean, in the 19th and early 20th century, the imperial powers like Great Britain, when the ruling class felt threatened by the demands of the working class, let's have another imperial adventure.
Right?
Let's have a war war.
Right.
I mean, so this is, and Trump even called it an excursion.
Unfortunately, then the Boer Wars, an example of England getting in too deep and it being much worse harder than they thought it would be in South Africa.
But he's now he's caught because there was no strategy behind it because, I don't know, Larry and Curly are the... And now with Vice President Ant Moe is joining them.
I mean, it is...
And they're being schooled by what?
The third or fourth string of the Iranian theocracy, because Israel assassinated the first couple of years of leadership.
But strategically, they can throttle the whole world economy with the straights of her moves.
And Trump has no answer to that.
So this is damaging him.
But here's the problem, Earl, right?
So there's a blue way.
So Trump is repudiated, right?
So the Democrats even take the Senate.
They're not going to be able to do anything for two years, because Trump will still be president, so veto everything.
I mean, they'll do something.
They'll investigate him and reduce some of what he can be able to do.
But they better be prepared in 2028 if they retake power to actually achieve things.
Otherwise, it boomerangs back when the Democrats don't deliver.
and don't actually try to do what they say they're going to do.
You can't just say, everyone deserves quality, affordable health care and do nothing about what the fundamental cause of the problem, which is predatory pricing by big hospitals, big insurance companies and big pharmaceutical companies.
It's about the price, period.
We pay double what any other country pays for less health care services and for leaving a whole ton of people out and for health coverage where people can't use it.
because the co-pays and deductibles and the claims denialsers are so huge.
You know, Dr. Craig, talking about 2027 or 2028, and all I can think about is how do we survive until then?
The Department of Defense
And the president is asking for a $1.5 trillion expenditure for to replace all these weapons that they've wasted in Iran and in Venezuela and even More weapons that they're talking about using
There is a finite number of weapons and there and it does take time if we were able to say okay We'll do the 1.5 trillion dollars for the budget.
It's not they're not going to be able to replace the weapons overnight and so the fear is
We got to be prepared, Dr. Craig.
What if Russia or China, the people who are behind all of these scare tactics, what if we get into a skirmish with Russia or China right now, all of our weapons, we've expended so many of our weapons, we've got to have this money right now, because we got to worry about—and yet, Dr. Craig, we do know that somehow they're going to increase this spending on the military.
and the American people who we keep talking about, who keep struggling, unless these new people that get elected, as you said, that they have the courage to push back and fight.
For the next two years, it's going to be even more bloodletting for the average American person, because they're going to say, we're forced to spend this money on defense.
Well, they won't be able to lock it in beyond next year.
you're right, they probably can get away with it this year.
Though Donald Trump is so unpopular, and this war is so unpopular, and so clearly been mishandled, who knows?
Maybe they can't get their consensus together, but they could do it with Republican votes, and it's ridiculous.
The military, and we got to start to think about how much we spend on the military and what we buy, okay?
I'm not that worried about us our ammunition being down and therefore China and Russia because there's never been a risk of that kind of engagement because we're a massive nuclear power okay and we can inflict massive damage it's just a in other ways but this military is corrupt
What we built is what's most profitable for the defense industry.
This is what the military industry complex is about.
It's not a military you can even use.
It's not even a military where we design the weapons we would need for the kind of warfare we might actually face, even if you take seriously some of these supposed threats that aren't real threats to the military in the United States.
And, you know, we don't have mine sweepers anymore.
We don't like those.
But turns out we probably should get mine sweepers.
But you can't have it.
It's very profitable for a big defense contractor for us to have $2 million interceptor missiles, which are high-tech all the way.
And they're taking down $5,000 drones that they're making in basements in Iran.
It's ridiculous.
And so, and that Ukraine is showing you can make with very little capacity.
In fact, we were copying Ukraine inside drone, anti-drone technology.
Because when you are limited by money and limited by technology, then you are innovative and creative.
And none of those things happen with the U.S.
military.
It is a very big pork barrel project.
None of it would not need 1.5 trillion.
We don't need one trillion.
And we need to build what would actually be useful.
in any possible contingency, not just what would be profitable, but that is going to be as big a fight.
It's just going to be us to take control of pricing in health care, away from hospitals, big pharma and big insurance, or take away the fossil fuel industries, massive subsidies in order to not only give us a highly unstable commodity with any disruption of the supplies, spikes the price, hence our gas prices, but we simply cannot keep burning.
and have a stable habitat for humanity in the future.
We've got to stop.
And at a time when solar is now cheaper than those alternatives, solar is being slowed down by deliberate conspiracy.
If it was a real market, we'd be building mostly solar in this country.
It's now cheaper.
We've reached that technological milestone and turning point, but it's corruption that's holding it in place, just like this military budget,
Earl.
switch over to a different subject guy.
And I said this several weeks back in a podcast that I didn't think Donald Trump wants to go back to a physical war with Iran.
He's got to he's trying to figure out any way possible.
He doesn't benefit the United States to doesn't matter.
the threats that he's making to go back to bombing Iran.
The world is looking at America as a predator.
And so in lawless and the very things that America supposedly stood for and would condemn other nations for before the world, Dr. Craig, that's what we look like.
For heaven's sakes, Russia is talking about.
what America is doing in the Middle East and just how horrible it is and how offensive of all people, Russia, talking about us being offensive in the Middle East.
And you know what, Dr. Craig?
They're right.
It's what we are doing.
And I don't know how you wanna slice that, but it's true.
And I think...
Donald Trump knows there's nothing to benefit by going back to a physical war with Iran.
And that's the reason another reason why he's decided to, you know, put a halt on it again.
And I just can't see us going back to what Pete Hextev, you know, thought was kind of like a joystick.
Oh, and we really put them on and like he's watching the football game.
I just think we're not going back to that, Dr. Craig, your thoughts.
Football game or a World Wrestling Federation.
I mean, he was huffing and puffing some more over the weekend, threatening dire consequences, threatening war crimes, like bombing all the electric infrastructure of the country.
which is a war crime.
It's a war crime to threaten a war crime.
He is committing war crimes.
But now, as of our recording, he has said that he's extended and he'll cease fire indefinitely.
So we've stopped with the setting deadlines and moving them kind of thing, like somebody keeps jumping backwards and putting another line in the sand and the advances.
It's not bad, it looks.
This is a headline for the New York Times.
To Iran, Trump blinked first by extending the ceasefire.
Iran's leaders believe they can stand an enduring standoff longer than President Trump.
The strategy could be economically devastating for average Iranians.
But this is like Vietnam.
And Vietnam, our powerful military inflicted much more damage.
than the North Vietnamese Army and the insurgents, the Viet Cong.
They had a higher pain tolerance.
In other words, they outlasted us because they were willing to suffer millions of deaths and we were not.
And it's the same kind of situation.
And they can see what domestic pressure there is on Trump.
They can see how his popularity levels are going.
to almost as low as they can go, because there's a 30% that won't move, right, that is completely magga, period, and completely partisan.
But so when you're low 30s, you're about as low as you can go.
And so I don't know how Trump's going to get out of this.
But I think that moving forward, there needs to be a whole change in American foreign policy and American defense policy.
And we need to take seriously
The Netanyahu talked him into this, and that we're doing Israel's bidding.
And Israel cannot have this aggressive kind of stance on their own.
They're a country of 10 million people.
They don't have the resources.
We're providing them all that military aid.
We're having mainline Democrats begin to say that Israel should pay for its own damn defense.
And we should condition what we give them based on
their behavior, because they are in aggressive power right now, and they dragged Trump into this, Trump and his molarian, curly advisors and negotiating teams.
By the way, the corruption, the other level of corruption is, which is all present.
Democrats get the house.
If they get the Senate, both, they'll investigate all of this, right?
Mr. Whitcoff and Mr. Kushner are cutting all sorts of business deals along the way, and they have no background in diplomacy.
It turns out, Earl.
that knowing something about the regions that you're operating in and the leaders and their motives and that the actual knowledge of foreign policy and diplomacy actually matters.
It's not just, but Trump is anti-knowledge.
He knows more than anyone, you
know, off the cuff, right?
So, Dr. Craig, I kind of want to turn the page to the gubernatorial race.
in the state of Wisconsin and the Democratic side of the ledger.
And I'll tell you, going back to when Mandela Barnes first decided to run, uh, many Democrats, uh, and part of the state democratic apparatus did not want him to run.
And, and he was called a loser.
He lost Iran, Johnson and.
And so we don't need him.
He's just a guy who's, you know, he's not going to be able to do this.
And as it turns out, you and I both knew I didn't have to be Dr. Robert Craig to know that with the name recognition that Mandela has nationwide and the fact that he ran that race against Ron Johnson and was within a whisker of becoming a United States senator.
And a guy who had traveled the state of Wisconsin, even before the election, I mean, even before he decided to run many times, is well respected around the state of Wisconsin.
He's not a novice, but when he decided to run, that he was going to certainly become the front runner.
and possibly wind up raising more money than anybody else.
It's kind of turned out, Dr. Craig, that he's starting to make his move, and he's starting to, he's an impressive guy.
Whether you like him or not, we both know him.
He's an impressive guy, okay?
And so, and he knows his way around.
and he knows our state and he knows different parts of the state.
He knows the people because he's been there.
But there still is this attack on him by other people who are running.
What do you say about that?
Yeah, and it's actually on more than Mandela.
And you're referring to Sarah Rodriguez, the lieutenant governor made some comments about electability, and she doubted both Mandela and Francesca Long, the Democrat state rep.
And Francesca and Mandela are at the top of the polls and are well ahead in the polls of Sarah Rodriguez at this moment, though most voters in fairness are undecided.
and made standard electability arguments that you're correct have been whispered for a while, not only about Mandela, but about Francesca and about some other candidates, like Calderois, the state senator from Madison, who is running.
And Paul Fanland, you know, the editor of the Capitol Times, he wrote such a column this week about how everything, all that matters is electability, and Tony Evers is very electable.
So here's the problem.
First of all, at one level, this is just inevitable.
In politics, people are going to take whatever line of argument they can, whatever conventional wisdom or folk wisdom that's out there to benefit their side.
And that's just what's going to happen.
So there's a certain level.
We just take a breath.
People are going to make the case they can make.
And Sarah Rodriguez has decided this is the internal case she can make.
I think it has potential resonance for this reason.
Too many voters, rather than saying, which candidate inspires me?
Which candidate would do the things I think need to be done in the world, in Wisconsin, nationally?
They try to act like amateur pundits, like the people we see on Sunday morning shows, and say, I don't think a black man can win statewide.
Never mind the fact.
The only person who has won landslides statewide twice in the 21st century is Barack Obama.
Last time I checked, a black man.
But you get these sort of nostrums, right?
We currently have a nostrum that only white women who have been prosecutors can be elected to the state Supreme Court as Democrats.
But Chris Taylor doesn't break that as a white woman, but she breaks it that she wasn't a prosecutor.
So maybe that expands it.
But here's the danger of it.
Electability locks and stereotypes and conventional wisdom that may not be the case anymore, may never have been the case.
In fact, pundits, the people we see on Sunday morning shows, the qualification for a pundit is to be able to speak with certainty about things you don't have a great deal of knowledge about.
that all of the pundits know exactly what should be done and who's doing what wrong.
And if you put them in charge, everything would be great for their side.
And this is doubtful, of course.
But by blocking electability in, right, then that same kind of conventional wisdom would say that Barack Obama can never be president, right?
Black man can never be president.
that a woman could never be president, right?
Or in Wisconsin, we've never had a woman governor, can never be governor, right?
Or that moderates are more appealing than progressives.
And just ask yourself at a time when 50 years of income maldistribution, rigging the economic system, the tax system, has put people to the breaking point and be able to afford the basics.
where 60% of Americans say they have trouble affording the basics and worry about it, right?
Do they really want careful moderation that won't deliver anything or do they want actual change?
And maybe they're so the conventional wisdom that just be moderate and be the warm porridge, don't be the hot or the cold porridge is going to work.
We've got to evolve with the times, look at the situation, look at the candidates.
And so electability puts people into
an idiotic kind of locked in time view that is out of step, probably, with the historical moment you're living in.
Many of the people who have, I mean, why the hell should they want to believe that this lesbian woman from Madison, Tammy Baldwin, could be in the U.S.
Senate and not only be like they won, but multiple times?
Well, electability would have said no, right?
Vote for a conventional white male candidate, right?
We just got to question these things and question these assumptions.
And I think the best way to judge who will do well in election is who inspires you?
Who seems like they're really speaking to the problems we have?
Vote for that candidate in the primary.
They're most likely to connect with other voters.
So Dr. Craig, you know, sometimes we almost forget that this is a primary and not the election.
This is not.
You know, these aren't the people whoever wins this primary is not automatically going to be the governor.
There is another side of the equation that they've got to overcome.
And so in your thoughts, do you think the Democrats can hold on to the seat?
Or do you think, depending on whoever wins, do you think that we're at a point now where
Tom Tiffany, even though it's Tom Tiffany, and even though Tom Tiffany is not exactly a Scott Walker, he's not exactly a very strong candidate.
It's still no guarantee that that Democrats are going to hold on to the seat, is it?
I mean, look at all the money that's being held that the Republicans aren't spending any money yet on this.
because all this money is being spent on the Democratic side of the equation, but it's gonna need to be a lot spent when he come to the, you know, the final race.
Do you think the Democrats can maintain the seat regardless of who wins?
I
think the
Democrats have to be favored, heavily favored to win the seat.
And in fact, I think the way they lose the seat is to beat themselves, but not the way
the conventional wisdom would put it.
Look, it's going to be a Democratic blue wave election at some level and in a very close election.
That means the Democrat has a huge advantage in anyone with a D behind their name and who is different.
Second, Tom Tiffany is a general issue MAGA candidate.
When MAGA is divided, when Donald Trump is incredibly unpopular and when he is running the country into the ground.
And he has taken all the unpopular votes.
I mean, he's gutted Medicaid.
He gutted the Affordable Care Act.
And we go on and on.
He's been for every Trump initiative.
So he's incredibly vulnerable.
He represents, you know, the extreme north of the state, the Northwoods, which is very red, which means he brings very few blue voters with him, or even purple voters with him.
And so I think he is a weak candidate.
But here's where
Now, they would say the Democrats, well, if we elected, we put forward a Democrat socialist like Francesca Hong or a strong progressive like Manila Barnes or Kelle Roy's, right?
Then they'd lose.
We need this safe candidate.
Well, actually, the best way to lose is there are two good ways to lose.
One, put forward an unexciting candidate that people didn't even want to vote for except they were convinced he or she was elective.
Maybe people will decide Joel Brennan is more electable.
At this point, I'm mentioning Sarah because she's one who was quoted.
But she's not the only candidate who would make, who would try to make that claim, become the electable one.
But the other thing is, what happened to Mandela in the U.S.
in the state Senate race?
If one of the progressives wins and the big money peel, the damn party says, oh, this is terrible.
This is the wrong candidate.
And they don't invest in him.
for her, and then they're a sale with a blitzkrieg of ads in August right after the primary without defense.
That's the way we could lose it, and that's the way Mandela Barnes lost.
Mandela Barnes didn't lose because of much of what Mandela did.
What Mandela bought, what happened was the U.S.
Senate decided, Chuck Schumer, that he was going to win in Florida.
And he put his money there and pulled it out of Wisconsin.
Florida wasn't even remotely close.
And then they saw it progress.
And they put it back in the fall, and Mandela almost caught up.
But they left for three weeks.
The Republicans and all the right-wing groups left them with the capacity to define Mandela before he was defined with general election voters.
So it's not to do with Mandela being a loser.
It's a matter of...
the absolute stupidity of the of the Senate, National Senate Democrats.
And you're seeing that in Maine right now.
You're tracking what's going on in Maine or where they were confirmed that Graham Plattner, the populist former Marine, progressive governor, or candidate was not electable.
So they put in 78 year old current governor Janet Mills, who is the most.
careful, unexciting cat in imaginable.
They came out with all these attacks on old media posts, social media posts, and a tattoo on Platner.
Do you know what the last poll last week shows?
Platner is still winning by over 30 points.
against Janet Mills and is leading by 10 points against the incumbent, Susan Collins, U.S.
Senator.
So this is the people who say they know it's electable.
Clearly, what's true now is that Janet Mills is the one who's unelectable.
And for some reason, they don't want the, they're trying to harm their own electable
candidate.
Two other things, Dr. Craig, quickly.
It wasn't so long ago that Republicans controlled
32, 33 state houses.
And it looked for all the world as if the Democrats hadn't been focusing on state houses, and it wasn't so important.
And we saw the bottom fallout of things because Republicans knew how important state houses were.
We've since seen some movement on that.
So first, I want to ask you that.
And then the second thing that I want to ask you is,
here in Wisconsin.
This is kind of, to me, a point, a historical point that, you know, maybe I wasn't ready for, didn't think was going to happen.
If, in fact, Mandela Barnes or Francesca Hong or whoever, Sarah Rodriguez or whomever, a woman,
or a black man could eventually become the governor of the state of Wisconsin.
These, I mean, we can't be unmindful of the historical position that we could possibly be in.
Your thoughts?
Yeah, and I think a non-traditional candidate, a woman or a person of color, will seem fresher.
There are all sorts of electability arguments one could make for the kind of person who has not been elected before to be the candidate.
And that's what Obama took advantage of, of not just being another white guy in a suit with a long legislative or gubernatorial career.
And so I think my advice to all of you primary voters is vote with your heart and vote with, look at the issues.
We had our gubernatorial forum since National Wisconsin for Democratic primary last week, and we got all seven candidates.
And we asked them all substantive questions.
It's gotten a lot of positive feedback.
In fact, it was replayed on civic media on Thursday and Friday on the Jeff Santos show.
And I saw a lot of candidates that addressed issues that were fairly substantive.
But that's what people need to think about.
Do they?
If you're worried about the cost of health care, which one provided the more compelling solution?
You're worried about wages, which one provide the more compelling solution?
You're worried about your public schools being underfunded and teachers and staff being laid off and property taxes going up and up and up to not even keep up, right?
Because of state underfunding, which candidate speaks to you?
If you're worried about the data centers and what they're going to do to utility costs to the climate crisis,
Which one do you trust to make sure the data centers big tech and the big utilities?
Don't take us to the cleaner and don't trash the environment and trash our climate So and that's what you should ask Don't assume you're different than other voters other voters are interested in very much the same things
So so dr. Craig the last thing Several years back republicans controlled 32 state houses 33
Do you see a possibility?
So have the Democrats realized the mistakes that they made allowing not fighting hard enough to control these state houses?
And are we now in a climate where the Democrats you think are starting to make a move on the state houses?
Yeah, I think they've realized their mistake on that.
So there's more emphasis, whether there's enough emphasis, whether how smart it's going to be.
That's always an open question, right?
But I think that there's been progress.
I think there will be, I think there'll be a lot of resources to try to take back the Wisconsin State Senate and the Wisconsin State Assembly.
And I think our battleground status helps with that.
And I think the Democratic Party in Wisconsin's gotten very good at fundraising.
I do think we better not try to put together, try to put forward, again, candidates that meet some
untested view of what is electable rather than candidates that actually come from the people and can break through and be exciting leaders.
So I think the same problem we have with kind of the electability obsession and the conventional view of what that is in the governor's race also can rear its head in some of these state assembly races.
Hey Dr. Craig, as always, always great talking to you, my friend.
Man, I just, you know, I relish always the opportunity to sit down and pick your brain.
And, man, we got to keep this going because, you know, I listen to a lot of people on all these different news outlets across the nation, across the world, really with El Jazeera and others.
But Dr. Craig, you and
and having this conversation and dialogue with you, the way we have been, I think, is so vitally important to people in this state.
And, man, we gotta keep it going.
Well, it's always a pleasure
to
have these dialogues with
you, Earl.
So, yeah, please keep on keeping
on.
All right, that's Dr. Robert Craig, Executive Director of Citizen Action, and that's a wrap for what's going on with Earl Ingram.
See you later.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
