A Little Thuggishness Is Called For (with James Carville)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Focus Group Podcast. I’m Sarah Longwell, Publisher of The Bulwark. And this week, we are talking about the second wildest senate race in the country, Pennsylvania. Now if you wanna hear about the first wildest, you can go back and listen to my Georgia app episode with Mollie Ball from a couple of weeks ago. The Republicans have nominated doctor Oz, a sentence that only makes sense in a post Trump world.

And the Democrats have nominated John Federman, a dress down mountain of a man who looked like he was going to shit post his way to flipping a senate seat. But the realities of his recent stroke and millions in ads from Republicans painting him as soft on crime have made this race incredibly tight. Doctor Oz barely won the GOP primary despite receiving Trump’s endorsement. His unfavorable ratings remain quite high, but the night for this focus group, the two candidates had their only debate in which the effects of Federman’s stroke were very apparent. Oz had already started to close the polling gap with Federman going into the debate, and the debate likely increased Oz’ momentum in the final weeks before the election.

Now, we attempted to field a group of undecided voters who watched the debate to see how it impacted their thinking. But ultimately, the group was strong OZ LEANERS, and the debate moved them solidly into the OZ camp. But there’s still a lot we heard from this group that is worth unpacking, and I’m eager to dig into how the debate might impact the final days of the race. My guest today has made his bones electing Democrats in places like Pennsylvania. Former Bill Clinton strategist and host of the politics war room podcast the one, the only James Carvell.

James, thank you for being here.

Well, thank you, Sharon. I’m a big fan of the Boardwalk, obviously. I I can’t tell how many focus groups I watch as a campaign manager, which I did for a long time. I’ve always found them not determinative, but but very helpful and, you know, keep part of trying to develop campaign strategies and just when it was illuminating in some ways. Howard Bauchner:

Yeah. So I gotta ask you just out of the gate before we listen to some of this focus group. So, Federman got a lot of hype early on, including from my colleague Jonathan Last, huge Federman fan. I was more of a Connor Lam person myself. But how much did you buy that early hype?

Well, first of all, I was very active for Connor Lam. Right. We

My

man. My man.

We’ve raised money for Connor. He’s a good friend of mine. I was with a five minute primary. Yeah. I don’t say this with any any glee or, like, I told you so, if he would a Democratic nominee, we’d run this thing by five points or more.

And and everybody knows that. And, you know, of course, when Federman won, I said, look, I’m head of the Louisiana and the Federman or whatever. You know, I was pulling for him. I was. I still am.

But I think when you look at this, you the the big decision and people are saying, well, maybe it shouldn’t have debated. Once he decided to stay in the race, he was almost committed to have to debate. I’m I’m more the stay in the race was the real key decision much more than the decision to debate. Howard Bauchner:

So you you think he had to. You think he had to doing? You know, I got because I was gonna get into this later, but this is like the central question for a strategy. Guest.

Could have been much worse on it. Said, well, now in retrospect, maybe you shouldn’t. But they it would have loomed in people’s mind. Knowing what I know now, if you had to do it all over again, well, don’t debate, but that would have come with problems also.

Howard Bauchner:

Can I ask you, though, I understand you’re saying no one what you know now, but presumably the people who are around him, the strategists who are making this decision, they did see him. They were aware of how significant the problems are.

Well, sir, what I would say is I’ve talked to people that had seen him at other events. I told someone, so I made a fundraising loss of Chicago. He had a rally after the debate. He sounded better. I I think he’s had good moments.

I’m trying to give him benefit of doubt. He had some hope that he would be better and kinda reassure people my my understanding is, and I I hate to to comment on this because I have no no real expertise. But there there were coverage can be uneven and people have bad days and good days. And it so happened that they had a catastrophic day.

Yeah.

And may maybe they didn’t anticipate that. I I wanna go out of my way to give them a benefit of that. And I have heard this.

No. Yeah. Listen. I was I was just on that Carriage Swisher’s pod asked the other day, and she’d interviewed him, and she said he seemed really good. So I think I think you’re right.

There’s definitely people who’ve been talking to him who’ve seen different versions of this.

Right. And and And they said, you know, he’s got a little a little process in this year, but it’s not bad at all. I hope he’s a lot healthier than he showed the other night. I really

do.

Yeah. Well,

let’s just set up this conversation. We just have a little bit of the debate we wanna play just so people can get some context. So let’s play that first.

What qualifies you to be a US senator you have sixty seconds? Hi. Good night, everybody. I’m running to serve Pennsylvania. He’s running to use Pennsylvania.

He got his Pennsylvania has from his own headlays from a a dollar. Let’s also talk about the elephant in the room. I had a stroke. He’s never let me forget that. And I might miss some words during this debate, mush two words together, but it knocked me down, but I’m gonna keep coming back up.

You know, what I support I support on Rovi Way. That was the law of the land for fifty years. He celebrated when it fell down, and I would fight to reestablish on Roe v. Wait. That’s what

I run on. He said very specifically in his primary debate when he was still debating, that he would support thirty eight weeks of mandated rules by the federal government that would prevent any state from blocking As a physician, I’ve been in the room when there’s some difficult conversations happening. I don’t want the federal government involved with that at all. I want women, doctors, local political leaders leading the democracy that’s always allowed our nation to thrive to put the best ideas forward so states can decide for themselves.

Mister Federman, There is that two thousand eighteen interview that you said, quote, I don’t support fracking at all.

I I do support fracking. And I don’t I don’t I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking.

Okay. Thank you, mister Federmano.

Why haven’t you apologized to that unarmed innocent black man who you put a shotgun to his chest?

I I made the opportunity to defend my community as the chief law enforcement officer there. Everybody in Braddock, an overwhelming majority community of of black. Community all understood what happened.

Okay. So you can hear how Federman was struggling to, like, get his sentences out. And I I wanna say, the one thing that struck me was just how fast Dr. Oz was talking. Like, my auditory processing is fine.

And I was struggling to keep up with Dr. Oz. And I couldn’t tell who’s doing that on purpose or if he just that’s just how he talks, you know? But in any event, it wouldn’t have surprised me if Federman was missing a lot of what Oz was saying. It it

might be. And one of the other things, Sarah, have been it was repeatedly told was get down like ours in Pennsylvania. You had a fifty four negative over the summer, which is high. It there was real skepticism for everybody. But it you could sense through this clip you just did.

The the ambition and the glee that he had. He was talking fast because he knew he had him was doing poorly. I mean, I I I would certainly say for somebody who is obviously a well trained position, but you you can’t argue that that’s what he is. He seemed pretty gleeful that that Federman was having some processing issues. But, yeah, it’s politics.

I mean, when you put yourself out there, that’s kind of thing that happened to you. What

did you think about how Federman addressed the issue? Just the top of the debate. When he was like, look, there’s now a fit in the room. I had a stroke.

I think his staff, that was a very good response. I I get that an a plus. Hey, look. Alright. That the problem he had is he just had off night.

And, you you know, if he listened to that focus group of of which for predisposed about Republican anyway, but they were particularly brutal. I I was a little struck by the lack of humanity in it. But again, that people generally don’t feel sorry for the senate candidate.

Howard Bauchner: And

we’ve got a bunch of the reactions to Federman’s performance. Yeah, fair warning. They are not compassionate, but let’s listen.

Even prior to the debate, the guy kits me is kinda like a thug. And after the debate, there was no question he still hits me as a thug. And I feel bad about his medical problems and his inability to really be able to answer questions clearly. But I just can’t believe the guy is even how he was close or ahead at some point in time in this election just amazes me. The way he carries himself, his reputation, being too soft on crime, and too loose on policy as far as drugs go.

And just every single box is checked off the wrong way as far as I’m concerned for Federman. And it always has been. I just don’t get it.

That’s how he did awful. I feel he should be concentrating on getting better. I feel when he had his stroke, he should have thought out and and had somebody stronger, run. And then maybe the democrats party would’ve would’ve been did better. But last night, it hurt.

At one point, I looked away and just listened because I just it hurt me. It just was this awful. And and then, like, he would burn out things. And when Noz was talking, he would burn out, you know, I just it just I he’s in his office. I definitely knew I was voting for Oz.

I know Oz is a a a professional speaker and he’s done the TV shows and all, but he did so well

and I agreed with every single thing he said. I wasn’t confident in his ability to do the job. He didn’t come off polished, and he seemed to be having some difficulties in just speaking and comprehending what was being said and I was probably leaning more toward us prior to the last night’s debate, but that just strengthened my choice.

I’ve

never really heard Federman really, really speak ex temporarily just from, you know, with that it wasn’t in a commercial or wasn’t scripted. I said to somebody tonight, I don’t know if if his act last night was truly a hundred percent a result of a stroke. Yeah. Maybe the guys did that in touch, and he just you know, he he can’t put two or three, you know, cohesive senses together. And it it was just exacerbated by by his stroke.

I don’t know. You know, I I just think that, you know, we never saw him at a press conference. We never saw him in any type of interviews. All we saw was, like, the little sound bites that were that were managed by his by his hammers and and commercials. With the hoodie and the shorts and the goofy goatee.

He just it did look like a like a like a bouncer or sleazy bar. You know, and I’m thinking, like like, how is this guy gonna represent Pennsylvania in the Senate?

Okay. So those comments are pretty brutal. I want to reiterate though something I said at the top. Like, we were trying to get undecided voters and you have to do a screen for these voters two weeks out. I think these were a bunch of people who were Republicans who were not completely sold on Oz because they saw him as a carpet bagger.

But it was a pretty Republican group. There are two Biden voters and one person who left it blank. But I would not at all call this a swing voter group. This was a right wing group, but I still was surprised as conservative as this group was. I was still surprised at the way that they talked about Federman, not as somebody who was a stroke victim, but as somebody who, like, couldn’t get his act together, couldn’t put your words together, like, it was an incredibly harsh indictment, and you were sort of alluding to this before that you were surprised by just, like, the sheer lack of humanity of it.

Well, first

of all, I could think of things, people say, critical about betterment. I I was not forming in a primary. Alright? The one word that would never come to my mind to describe John Edmund would be a fuck. Right?

But I’d say he’s a showman he’s too Lucy Gucci. I could think of critical things to say about Federman. And by wildest dreams, I don’t think he’s a sarg at all. In fact, I think a a little sluggishness in politics sometimes is called for, to be honest with you. But if you voted for Kathy Barnett, Yeah.

You’re not gonna vote for John Fedelman. I’m sorry. Right? Who I actually thought had the best description of Mega of anybody. I I think that she had a subtly brilliant analysis that we just let Trump, because he agreed with us, that Mago was there before Trump and it’ll be there after Trump.

And I think that I I went into that podcast with your cohort and just the last. I said you gotta understand when Trump goes, none of this is going away. You’re not rid of anything. Howard Bauchner: So

going back to the thug comment, maybe it’s just because one person said it. Sometimes this happens in a focus group, like one person says a word and so other people pick up on it. But it strikes me as interesting because I would say thing that they were zeroing in on there as his weakness or the thing that they didn’t like about him was the opposite of the way I’ve heard Democratic groups and also some swing voter groups talk about John Federman, which is that the fact that he’s sort of dresses and hoodies and shorts, like, that’s his authenticity. That’s what they love about him. I mean, the number of people who’ve said some variation of he’s like a physical manifestation of Pennsylvania.

Like, he just looks like Pennsylvania. Yeah. And so they find that endearing about him, and it was interesting to hear this group. See that as, like, mean, and bad, and, like, scary.

Well, you know, Fedelman did have a little bit of a rebel about it. And I think that was some of his attraction. The cargo pants, his physical presence was huge and looming and you you never confuse him with anybody. You know, he would take a quirky stand or two. In you know, he beat the crap out of us in the primaries.

No. There’s no doubt about it. And they had a lot of name recognition and everything, and they they look. And I also wanna be clear. At some point, how well Josh Shapiro does, he could this place is not going.

I I I could see an easier scenario. Where Shapiro might drag him across the finish line. That’s that’s not an impossible hope. But, you know, a lot of his image was his you know, he would take on. He wouldn’t do the things the way other people did it.

Everything about him is different.

Now for people who follow the show or they know that I was not a federalman person, but in that JBL, my secret podcast, colleague, and colleague at the Bulwark, a huge veteran person, and we fought about this in the early days. I’m also from Pennsylvania. Love Counter Lam. Where are you

from in Pennsylvania, Sharon?

So I’m from I think it’s what you called the Kentucky Park. Yeah. I’m from Perry County. It’s about an hour outside of Harrisburg. Kentucky.

Pennsylvania. That’s right. Yeah. Uh-huh. Down to eight hundred people.

No. Okay. Yeah. Right. Mhmm.

I could see some of those people voting for Federman. And when I started doing the focus groups, immediately, I was aware, like, oh, like, Connor Lamb can’t win this. These people love John Federman. Like, the attachment to him was very real. And one of the things people would always talk about is his sheer physical size.

They would be like, I love John Federman. Have you seen him? Have you seen the size of his hands? And it occurred to me that there was something like, cut or natural. You know, people want a fighter these days.

They want somebody who could, like, murder someone with their bare hands. Right. And I have wondered I have wondered if the stroke in taking away some of that big energy that he had of dominating. And instead being, like, no, like, feel sorry for this person. They’ve had this health event.

If that’s causing people to shift how they’re thinking about. Maybe if they wouldn’t articulate that, I guess I wonder if that’s part of it. I mean,

I don’t want I think

it did.

Yeah. I mean,

I could be wrong, but I I’m pretty sure I did it. It was his his real attraction was, yes, guy may not buckled at all companies. You know? He may not do what they all do and get in and go to, you know, Wall Street fund raisers and suddenly work in committee against carried entrance. I mean, he he looked like a guy that was kinda fearless and pea you could see that appeal.

You could almost see that appeal to to people in a tee. That’s what we refer to. Yeah.

Right.

The

center

of Pennsylvania goes up and then it branches out at the top. I was in a car

gone from

Manhattan to Geneva, New York, and we went to a lot of Northern Pennsylvania counties. It’s

it’s quite beautiful part of the world, too bad And it’s the most beautiful place I tried to tell people Well, Brian,

in Western New Jersey, I did a Chris Christian. And I said, when I tell people at home who’s working in New Jersey, says, oh, listen, you don’t understand that Western port in New Jersey. It’s just ugly garbage. It’s a Delaware River Gap. I mean, that’s one of those same place in the United States.

People don’t realize we got

all the trees. We’ve all the

trees. Yeah. We have a lot of trees every day. There’s a lot of mountains.

But, like

I say, I’d still have a chance, and it it was something, you know, innately attractive to Federman about a large swath of

voters. I

understand that. But once he stayed in, I think it bothered people.

Howard Bauchner: Yeah,

well, let me just ask this plainly. How do you think the debate changes the trajectory of the race. Again, as I noted at the top, Oz has been kind of closing the gap. People talk about him having the momentum. How did it change things?

You

know, somebody was talking about Georgia. I don’t think you talked about that last week.

And it

said, you know, nothing has changed. Well, let’s just state I I know a lot of really good Georgia quants. And the early vote is it kinda mirrors the twenty twenty early vote. It widened one by eleven thousand votes. The one thing that’s happened in this kind of partisan environment is not a lot changes, but it’s so close.

Little changes mean a lot. You know, when I first started politics in nineteen eighty eight, I ran Frank Ladenburg’s reelection campaign in New Jersey, and we won by eight, and Bush carried the state by eight, where you’re not gonna have a sixteen point swing now? Forget about that. That has nothing to do with my skill, and I’m not claiming it did. You just had a lot more swing voters.

Well, if fifty thousand votes out of four million in Georgia is like a stunning number of votes in a state that close. So in a state like Pennsylvania, which Trump won closely lost fairly closely, not overly closely, but it’s a really competitive state. And if Federman, if he loses a point and a half, that’s a shit. That’s a lot. We’re living in an era where small numbers produce big results.

Yes. We don’t we don’t get these shifts where you run a negative ad for ten days. His negative went for twenty to thirty eight. No. They don’t happen anymore.

Okay. I totally agree with that. And I do think that it certainly didn’t do anything to disrupt Oz’ momentum if anything had accelerated it. But going back to this question of whether or not he should have debated, you know, we asked this group how they’d react to a candidate just skipping the debates like Katie Hobbs is currently doing in Arizona, which I am very critical of. But that was clearly a nonstarter for this group.

Let’s listen.

I think

it’s important for the people that you’re going to represent that they get a chance to hear questions answered and issues addressed.

And if

a person’s unwilling to deal with that, they’re either hiding something or they’re not fit for that type of a position? I heard

it referred to as as a job interview with your constituents. And that’s why I think it’s important that their their b, as I said in my prior statement, that Yeah. We didn’t really hear from from Saturday, you know, except for the commercials during the entire campaign. And I think the public has a right to see how they react to one another and how they respond to each other’s statements and what their policies and positions are. And just see how they act in their feet.

I

wish that he they would have to debate sooner because a lot mail in ballots have already been processed, and those people didn’t get to see the debate. So I think they would have changed if they voted for them, they would have changed their vote.

SO WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THIS? SO I KNOW YOU SAID THAT YOU THOUGHT THAT FEDERMAN HAD TO Like, once he was running, he had to debate. That’s just like something expected to do, and they seem to agree with that.

Yeah. Obviously, you can’t say when somebody said the guy had a stroke. If we haven’t heard him talk, if if he wants to run for the senate, political parties and campaigns use debates in any way they want to. If you got somebody you you need to debate, you’re behind, you have a skilled debate. Well, of course, you want a debate.

If you have Bill Clinton, you want a debate seven nights a week. Right? I’ve had other candidates where that wasn’t that anxious to debate. So what you do is you you do the moon event at a, you know, rotary club in a small town. I’ve all done that.

Let’s just get over the self righteousness and its democracy and Lincoln Douglas and you know, the ancient Greeks debated in the public square. It’s all bullshit. Alright? You use it or whatever you can. But this is one instance where you can’t say it’s illegitimate for us and the Republicans to say he he needed the debate.

He was jammed in a corner when he decided to run. Right? So while I have this moment before I forget because I I really wanna take this opportunity to make a large appointment. Many things or a result of fear.

Fear in

investing,

fear in sports, fear in business, fear in companies. The problem that Democrats have No one fears them. Yeah. Elito does not fear him. McConnell does not fear him.

Alright. None of them do because they get all gased up in, you know, in a row, and don’t forget about

it. And

I have to tell you, there’s some legitimacy to that. When you have a political party that the other party has no fear of, this is what you run into. And until we decide is a political party that we want to have candidates that are good communicators, that are capable of knocking the live and crap out of the opposition where they’re scared. You know, by my my daddy was a this is so long ago, no one remembers it, but he was a champion college boxer at LSU.

And

he used to always say, when they come in on you, if you hit them with a good jab, they’re gonna be scared to come back again. You have to establish your perimeter.

The first thing

the military does, and they come in somewhere, they establish perimeter. You try to break that perimeter. We’re gonna we’re gonna blow the shit out of you. And that’s the way that politics works. I mean, people could say, I hate Bill Clinton, but everybody was scared of it.

Because they knew he was gonna be skillful. Right? And the Republicans for for understandable reasons in the dov decision in their mind just proved the shadows a lot of who hide and, you know, northwest Washington and screaming and yelling and in front of Cavanaugh’s house. And then Kansas happened, well, I was the only national democrat to go to Kansas. They didn’t even mention abortion.

They mentioned freedom. They mentioned backdoor deals. The messaging there was pretty effective. And you said now, of course, the gases run out because they don’t leverage that. To say they told you that they will go by out of bars.

So you didn’t believe them did you. And they did.

And so because

he comes in, over two weeks before the election, it says, we will shut the government down to force cuts the Social Security and Medicare. In one thirty second spot, you get to say, it told you that they would ban abortion. You didn’t believe them. They did. Now they’re telling you they will shut the government down, which will hurt everybody in order to force seniors on a fixed income to deal with what we have.

I believe them. You should too. They don’t do that. They don’t do that. They’re incapable of taking the next step.

And it’s highly frustrating. And thank you for letting me get that off my chest. But I just have to do that and I have to say that the in altitude to take a situation where people go, goddamn these people are really I didn’t take them do that. And if I told you the number of focus groups, I saw people call them with focus groups, where after the dog decision, people couldn’t believe it. Well, no.

No. They don’t take that away. That’s a fifty year. Right? I’m a thought about that.

And

you leverage that

to say they’re gonna do other stuff. But we’re incapable of doing that.

Thank you for letting me get

off my chest. Let’s go back to the focus.

So as somebody who comes from a Republican comms background, I am forever surprised by how much Democrats do not go on offense, and I’m constantly preaching the importance of permanent offense. I guess, in this instance, the strategic question is you’re on Federman, you’re up by a few points. What I heard from this group, but also how I felt myself. They’ve been seeing Federman’s ads. I’ve been seeing Federman’s ads.

It’s got a really good ad game. Like clowning us relentlessly. And he looks good in those ads. And so I think that it was jarring to see him and be like, oh, Oh, no. Like, he’s not what I thought.

I am a fan of debating and I think Katie Hobbs who has not had a stroke should absolutely be debating. Carrie Lake and she should be on offense and she should be being aggressive, I think that I might have not had Federman debate. Like, I would just use the stroke as an excuse. Well, yeah. Right.

You know,

who can disagree with that today? Now, well, back, once he decided to run, he placed himself in a position where he almost had to debate. And so when you do TV spots, you know, this is always the thing. Do you have director oriented TV or editor oriented TV. Right?

A director or entity spot is somebody right to script the guy looks in the cab right, walks around, you know, delivering his lines with throwing a stick and king Kimaho runs into water and gets it back and takes it to the eight year old kid. Right? In editor oriented TV, you just film a guy for three hours. Is you go pick the best thirty seconds. Well, obviously, what they did was edit the orientated TV where you can make with three hours of film or tape you can find thirty seconds to say anything.

And

you’re

right when people saw the spot which was, of course, highly agitated and highly selective and, of course, what rational person wouldn’t do that.

But

I do think in their defense, I think they were hoping he would have a good day and he didn’t.

Yeah.

I’m I’m I’m always a little elected to say, what would I do if I were running that campaign

in that

situation? Well,

and that

is very kind of you, but I had a strong opinion about that one. Alright. I wanna talk about ah’s. You know, we had done a group a week before the debate. Of a similarly screened group.

It was like we had a similar set of screeners. And in that group, only three out of the nine in that group was voting for us. And so this group, though it was certainly more conservative in its orientation, was a clean sweep for us. But we found that the group still had a little skepticism of Oz, but that the debate what it had done is it took people from, like, leading Oz to solid odds. Let’s listen.

I

was listening

to both. I don’t know. I I don’t know why why I was kind of open to betterment, but it really hit home last night. Probably wasn’t gonna vote at all from I was just gonna leave that one blank because I I didn’t like better me either. I’m not really sure what he what he believes in.

And it the thing with the he took the the shotgun and to held it to the African American’s chest. I heard that story a while back and it really bothered me. I don’t like people like that. And I don’t like woolies. And he seemed like a bully to me.

I always had felt that I would vote for

us just

because of the campaigning commercials and you know, the fact he was, you know, his stand on bringing, you know, statutory states, all the stuff. I just don’t like them. You know, I don’t like them. And, I mean, ours, he’s gotta be able to do a better job. It just worries me because ours not being from Pennsylvania.

Does he really understand what we need? You know, I I think he’s tried to educate himself on that, but you know, I don’t know. He’s got it. Ours has

got it to be better. Because most people that better provide didn’t vote for Biden because I liked him or or what he stood for. They hated Trump. I don’t want that to happen in our state. So I’m going to vote for us.

I mean, he’s well like I said, he’s well spoken. I think he’s trying. Even though he’s not from Pennsylvania, he’s trying. He’s

I think

to a way better job. So, yeah, he’s got my vote

now. I

was definitely leaning towards us. I don’t really trust Oz that much. I don’t really feel like he’s like a real Republican. I did vote for him in the primaries as well because he was endorsed by Trump and I did believe he had the best chance. So that’s why that’s why I voted for him.

He’s not my favorite person. I really liked McCormick, but that that’s where I’m at with Oz. So, Federman, I feel like everybody’s a bug, but, I mean, I feel that way too. I just feel like he doesn’t look like someone who really cares about his job or I I don’t wanna say to you seriously, I would hope he would, but it’s, like, I don’t feel like that’s the best person to support us since for represent us in Pennsylvania. I think he’s a big dope head, and I think that that’s what he’s trying to promote.

And I’m not for legalizing recreational

marijuana. I think

that we did find the one, like, grad student who was against legalizing marijuana there. So what did you think of Oz’ performance? Let’s talk about him for a little bit because I find him repellent.

Well, have you ever seen the John Oliver Doctor Oz deck?

Yeah. It was years ago, though. It was like a long time ago.

Doctor Oz be clear, he’s a well trained, well educated physician. He is a huckster and and a dishonest huckster. I mean, he promotes stuff that he makes money own, the use of shit. Right? And anybody that has any doubt about it, just Google John Oliver, doctor Oz.

It it was so brutal you could look at it. One of my favorite books was by a guy named Kurt Anderson Cove. Fantasy land. And just how susceptible we’ve been to huxurism and snake oil and and everything else. So he’s definitely in that tradition.

He’s an operator in every sense of the word, but yes, you see a skilled communicator. Yeah. He had a successful TV show. People were living they’d send him money that they didn’t have, that he didn’t need. The reason you don’t like him because he’s actually a fraud and a hoax and worse than that, he should know better.

But that’s just where it is. But this group was never gonna vote for Federman if if he would’ve walked on water. Yeah.

I guess that because there were two Biden voters, like, you know, you heard a couple of people say, like, wow, I was thinking about leaving a blank because I really didn’t like us. And I guess this is where I think Oz probably made the biggest difference for himself is he brought some people home who didn’t trust him, didn’t like him. That’s fine. And you said this earlier and I just think it’s true that, you know, if you can grab a point here or a point there and these just razor thin races, It’s a game changer. And and I

think that

his ability to solidify a bunch of people who might have left blank, that’s where he did. He brought people home. Right. But I I guess, I I just really was surprised that Oz didn’t try even a little to be like, you know, as a doctor, I understand what John Federman is going through. He could have done a lot, I think, to make himself look like less of a dirt bag, and he didn’t even try to do that.

A a hulkster doesn’t care, and that’s what he is. I mean, he could put on a huggable throne any act that they think is necessary. He will look right at you and say if if you spend money you don’t have on these vitamin supplements, you’re going to feel better in live rock. Well, you’re not gonna do any such thing. I’m actually a a big fan of PG Barnes, but for a lot of different reasons.

My favorite p t barter thing is he put a sign up and he says egress this right. And I’ll walk out and interplay a quarter to come back in. But Bonham actually have some depth to him. They actually gave people something for their money. Mars didn’t even give anything for you money.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know? And

I think that your point is exactly right. Yeah. If you start with a fifty four percent negative in Pennsylvania, you have some negative among republicans. Just take that closer divided. You you’re not gonna get to fifty four just among Democrats.

Alright? That that’s gonna be some saw republicans that don’t say much of you. And that probably brought them home. And as we talked about earlier, little things on a margin in these really competitive states and competitive gracias really make a big difference. Yeah.

So, I want to wrap up with we’re going to listen to a variety of voter that we have not covered much on this podcast even though we’ve done several about Pennsylvania. And the reason that we haven’t covered this much of this, we haven’t been able to find a bunch of these voters, which is Doug Mastriano voters. So we had to have this much more conservative group in order to find any of them, but we did. So let’s listen to how Doug Mastriano voters talk.

I

vote it from Oserano. I vote it for him mainly because Trump supported him. But I’m nearing all this these rumors, and I can’t find if they’re true, like, he’s going to make everybody re register to vote. I can’t find that anywhere. And then he was at his January sixth thing.

There was nothing wrong with him being there to protest. He wasn’t breaking into the capital. That was wrong. But you can protest. It doesn’t that’s the that’s the right.

You can be there to protest. I mean, he wasn’t called he wasn’t you know, fines or anything. But I don’t know. But what I think about them is I’ve I like I I just reread it right before this I came on hand. I reread his policies, and I like his policies.

I I I agree with his policies, but he is a little radical. Mostly just voted for Mastriano because

he had Trump’s endorsement, but we haven’t really talked about this. I don’t know if the plan was too. But, like, I’m really worried about more, like, social issues with the selection too. So I feel

like the

Democrats are making, like, a much bigger deal out of a portion for this election. So I agree more with Mastriano’s view on that than Shapiro’s. The other thing too is, like, I’m just super concerned about, like, China’s influence on us and social media’s influence, and I don’t like this push of, like, promoting, like, trans diallologies in these young kids. So I want someone with more conservative values that sees past that craziness. So that’s that’s why I really feel like we just need big Republican wave right now.

I’m just so

fed on with the politics. And the vice of this and government that I just want every republican in there. And I I want I want change. So that’s kind of my thinking, and that’s kind of why I did what I did. But I think Josh and myself are going to just I think we need a massive shift from the democratic thinking and, you know, Biden and the loose borders and just the the the policies out there right now.

And hopefully, we can come together a little bit as a country I’m not sure that’s gonna help either by doing what I’m doing. I would

have to go

with

Mastrono

because I

prefer

some

of his policies. I know that, you

know, I

didn’t like what he did in this text. I don’t think any any politician should have been there crossing lines. But, again, I like more of what I hear about them. Than shapero.

Okay. I

can wrap my head around the ospederman thing. I cannot understand why voters would vote for us. Veterans is not my cup of tea. I wouldn’t ever vote for doctor Oz, but like that, I can wrap my head around. Mastriano is a crazy man.

And In the swing voter groups, I can never find the swing voters are all going shapero. But there was something about listening to this group that really freaked me out. And I kinda need somebody to talk me down because I guess I got worried that you know, there’s even like a woman in this group who knew Josh Shapiro, likes Josh Shapiro, said he was a nice guy and a nice family, but still wasn’t gonna vote for him. Maybe it should be reassuring that that five out of this group. So there were still three people who were not gonna vote for for Mastrono.

But, like, in your understanding, Pennsylvania and just following these races. I would say I’ve counted Mastriano out for a long time. Is there any chance that just like lurking underneath the surface? There’s enough of a vote for for Mastriano, that that actually comes more from the like you heard there, like, I’m frustrated with the democrats. I’m frustrated with the state of things.

I just want something different, and Trump endorsed this guy.

That look, if I found on wind, folks pick up six sentences or

something. I don’t

know about that four. Alright. My favorite is a guy that’s tired of the divisiveness, so he’s voting for Mastriano. Because when I see somebody, you know, who’s really interested in unifying anybody. I probably Doug Mastriano is not the first guy to come in my mind.

My impression of

people who say they wanna unify is usually, like, I want us to unify around my my sense of things. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

In his beyond extreme, but I I guess you could say, at least he doesn’t hide it. I mean, he doesn’t sugarcoat it. And I the other thing I don’t quite get is these anti semites. So just you know, they they just talk in ways that they wouldn’t have talked a few years ago. I mean, where if Shapiro’s kids go to school, good.

Well, I mean, it’s nauseating. So if Mastiano’s a head on election night, it it’s not it’s not a good sign for anybody. Touch English. Like, one of the

women, she was Jewish. She was aware of the antisemitism, but she still wouldn’t vote for Shapiro. That is some tribal stuff, man. I think you you

these are just hardcore partisans that have paid up their mind, and, you know, they’re playing double croats in the same way. But, yes, it it’s really pretty remarkable. Yeah. I

mean, I always find it very grounding because, you know, you watch people and there are a number of people in the group and they seem very nice in their parents and they, you know, very involved in their kids’ lives in their school, but they are they are hard partisans and Trump supporters, and they want somebody aggressive who’s gonna fight, and they think Democrats are destroying the country, and it’s pretty intense. Yeah. And I’m not

equating. I know you can’t equate anything, and that’s what I’m not gonna do. Be very careful upfront. But Hannah, talked about the banality of evil. Yeah.

And, you know, I run-in the people I have my own family, people that I know have done all my life. If if I had sick they would show up. Right? They will will leap at my funeral. They’ll text me on my birthday.

It bleeds some of the craziest crap that you could imagine. They’re good parents. They’re working people. They’re they’re good neighbors and to stuff that comes out of their mouths is like staggering. And, you know, we tend to think of, you know, racist and anti semites or something like that is I’ll come out of a crowd.

You can do no such thing. No, you can’t. And all

the people

in your focus go, well, you know, work here and do that. It just seemed like, you know, very kind of friendly people part of the tapestry that makes America, but it it can be very baneful news, I guess, the point. Well,

another bright spot to end on for the Focus Group podcast after listening to our real voters. James Carbull, thank you so much for being here today. Thanks we’re coming on,

and it’s just an important one to to work

through after this debate. So so I appreciate you jumping in. Get get get get all

my friends after Bull walked my back. Please.

I will. And thanks to all of you for sticking around for another episode of the Focus Group. Next week, we have our final episode before the election. We’re gonna be in Nevada talking about the senate race there as well as the governor and secretary of state races. So we will see you then.