The Middle with Jeremy HobsonHow do you feel about your choices this election?
On this episode of The Middle we're asking you: How do you feel about your choices in this presidential election? We're joined by anchor and journalist Candy Crowley, and political commentator Charlie Sykes. The Middle's house DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus callers from around the country. #election #Trump #Harris #2024 #democrat #republican #vote
Welcome to a special edition of The Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson along with our house DJ Tolliver, who is from the great City of Chicago, where the Democratic National Convention has been happening in Tolliver as a born and raised Illinoisan as well, I would just like to say, I don't care what the haters say. Deep Dish pizza from Chicago is delicious, Okay.
And here's the thing, one slices like an entire meal, so it's like economical and delicious.
Indeed.
Indeed, so because we are alive at a different time than usual this week, I want to welcome new listeners to the show. We're going to be taking your calls this hour asking how you feel about your choices this election.
A lot of.
People told the posters polsters they were not happy when it was Trump versus Biden. Now it is officially former President Donald Trump and Ohio Senator jd Vance versus Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walls. And there are still other candidates in the race, including Independent Robert F. Kennedy who is running alongside lawyer and Philantha Pisonical Shanahan. So especially if you're in the political, geographic or philosophical middle. How do you feel about your choices? Now, we're going to get to your calls in a moment at eight four four four middle. That's eight four four four six four three three five three. But first, last week, we talked about an issue that isn't getting much attention in this election, even though it is rapidly becoming legal in many states. That is medical aid in dying, a legal right to die, especially for people facing terminal illness. Great calls on the show, and great voicemails too.
Here's what some of you had to say.
Hi, this is Anita from Saint Georgi, Utah.
My name is Electus and I'm calling from Annaburm, Michigan.
Hello, my name is Brianna and I am calling from Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Hi.
This is Chuck calling from Chicago.
I think everyone deserves the option to make this choice as long as they are of sound mind.
I am concerned about people just choosing to take their own lives, but if you.
Have a terminal illness, you should be able to go in whatever way you want.
I would just like to suggest that our medical system needs to be revamped.
People that are seeking persisted suicide, it should be the final option.
I am a thirty four year old woman who has provided hostas care for both my dad and for my grandmother, and after watching what they both went through when the end of life process, it was really horrific and they deserved to be able to make choices for themselves that allowed them to be the most comfortable possible.
Well, thanks to everyone who called in, and you can hear that entire episode on our podcast in partnership with iHeart Podcasts on the iHeart app or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Now to our topic this hour. Your choice is in this election?
How do you feel about your options?
Now? Tolliver, can you give them the number please?
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four four six four three three five three or right to us at Listen to the Middle dot com.
Let's meet our panel from Glenn Arbor, Michigan anchor and longtime journal as Candy Crowley. For years, she hosted State of the Union on CNN and also served as the network's chief political correspondent. Candy Crawley is so great to have.
You on the Middle.
Well, thank you for having me and.
From Mechwin, Wisconsin. Charlie Sykes political commentator and journalists. You can see him as a regular contributor on MSNBC and read his work in the Atlantic. He's also author of the book How the Right Lost Its Mind. Charlie, Great to have you with.
Us as well.
Good to be with you.
And before we get to the phones, Charlie Sykes.
There are some elections where people say they're voting for the lesser of two evils, They're voting against a candidate rather than for when there are some where people are so unenthusiastic that they don't vote at all, and there are some where people are enthusiastically.
Supporting a candidate.
What does this twenty twenty four election look like to you at this point?
Well, this is where you see the big transformation, because I think there was a lot of grittier teeth, sort of grim death march going into November when it was going to be Biden versus Trump. I think a lot of Americans thought, we look, you have you know, several hundred million people here, and we have these two Jerry theatric candidate. So we had a lot of double haters. The big transformation that I've seen in the last several weeks has been that a lot of demoralized Democrats are coming home, that they're much more enthusiastic. And this is something that we haven't really seen in a very, very long time, the kind of the energy now. Look, Donald Trump was able to tap into some of the energy in his early days, but the shift in mood of Democrats is really extraordinary. Just as a footnote here, the fact that last night they were able to fill up two NBA arenas in Chicago and Milwaukee was really extraordinary because you can't manufacture that. There's no campaign that is organized enough they can get that many people to turn out, and so something's going on on the Democratic side that was not happening a month ago.
Candy Coley, you've covered so many elections.
You moderated a debate in twenty twelve between Barack Obama and Mitt rom What do you think?
What does this election look like to you at this point?
You know, in a word, evolving. You know, I don't think we are where we're going to be, and that has been true since President Biden decided to bow out. So I think where we are actually is still a pretty close race.
I think it is.
Obviously the poles have swung, but they're still and so when you see them, she is maybe two points ahead here and three points ahead there and even here, but they're generally all but one of them I've seen, or within the margin of era, which means may or may not be a two point lead, right, it could be a minus one point. So I think we still have what we had, uh probably with Joe Biden, will never know, but which is a very close race which is going to depend not on the people who show up in those giant as, either for Trump or for Harris, but in the people sitting at home going huh, not really what I'm going to do? And that's what the next what seventy five seventy six days is about?
Right?
And then of course there are some big events coming up, including a debate. As someone who moderated a debate, what did you think about the fact that the debate between Biden and Trump basically ended Biden's campaign and his fifty plus year career in politics.
You know, well, first of all, just as a you know, fellow human being, I think it's and as an aging fellow human being, as all of us are, I thought it was sad, but it sort of tells you what you don't know about debates. Like if you talk to folks that are running campaigns, they'll say, well, the debates rarely make a difference. You know, they'll point to somebody who says, you know, Poland, I guess it was Gerald Ford who said that Poland was under Russian influ or Soviet influence, et cetera, et cetera. But they'll say they rarely make a difference. The problem is they're very organic. You never really know what's going to happen. So the possibility of changing things is all always there. And clearly that was a debate that changed things. Not so much for the questions or you know, any clashes between them, but between the just the performance of a single man.
Let's get to the phones that people are calling in. Maria is in Harrisburg, Ana, Maria, welcome to the middle.
Go ahead. What do you feel about your choices this election?
Well, I have been voting for a long time. I am a seventy year old Mexican American woman, and I was very concerned about Biden's age and Trump. I don't like Trump, so anyways to have a younger person, including a woman of color, and more than that, a woman. I'm beyond thrilled, and I'm actually willing to help out with friends so that we can do something so I can say that I was part of this movement. And the other thing is my son is a journalist in Charlottesville, Virginia, a political journalist, and a ninety five year old woman called him and told him she prays that she lives long enough to vote for Kamala and he the first woman president.
Well, and you, Maria, are in a swing state of Pennsylvania, one that is still even in the polls with Harris versus Trump very close. Are are you seeing this reaction among your neighbors or is it pretty split?
It's pretty split. Actually, I've lost a thousand friends over the situation. So we're putting up signs. So I'll put up two and then my neighbor will put it four. We have someone that we called q and On Debbie, and qan On Debbie puts like fifty signs up.
Wow.
So yeah, yeah, Well, Maria, dude, we are split.
You're split, Maria, Thank you so much for that. Called Charlie Sykes. I imagine we're going to be hearing from a lot of people who bring up this that like sort of know, uh, enthusiasm about Biden, and now they feel not just like voting for Harris, but that she wants to work for Harris.
Well, see, this is what it's always hard to suss out, is you know, what's the sugar high and what's real. I mean, Candy is absolutely right when she says that the election.
Is not going to be decided by people who show up at arenas.
On the other hand, it is certainly a leading indicator when you have when you have this kind of engagement. Look at this small donor reaction, the organic social media reaction, the people were calling up and were volunteering. In twenty sixteen, Donald Trump won the state of Wisconsin by about twenty thousand votes. If Hillary Clinton had got the same number of votes in Milwaukee County the Barack Obama had gotten, she would have won the state comfortably by about twenty thousand votes.
So when it comes to this kind of this kind.
Of enthusiasm, it does affect turnout, it does affect engagement. And this is the thing that we didn't have. But we didn't have this kind of engagement up until now.
So yes, the polls are still close.
Of course, Uh, keep in mind the poles are snapshots that the directional arrow is the key thing. But also sometimes I think poles have a hard time picking up the full level of intensity of support. So one of the reasons why I think sometimes in the midterm elections you'll see some kind of surprises because these races in all the key swing states, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, are you know based, you know, who can motivate the base, who can get them out, who can get them engaged, who's going to be willing to you know, call their you know, call their neighbors, you know, talk to members of their family, drive people to the polls, all of that sort of thing. And then of course you have this very very tiny and shrinking group of swing voters as well.
You know, we've been watching the conventions take place. They've been a pretty big difference. It seems like in the sort of the tone of each of these conventions. The Democrats, you know, with Little John and others, it sort of feels like a rock concert that's going on. But Tolliver, Chicago, where the Democratic Convention is has hosted dozens of political conventions since eighteen sixty dozens of them, and one that always comes up is the very turbulent one back in nineteen sixty eight.
Yeah, that convention took place after the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Junior, and in the midst of the Vietnam War. Things got heated even inside the convention that year. Here's longtime CBS anchor Dan Rather getting rouffed up on the convention floor and.
What's your name?
Take your hands off of men unless you intend to arrest me. Don't push me, please, we really want to know you will, but don't push me.
Take your hands off.
I may unless you're planning to arrest me.
Wait a minute, right a minute.
Rot As you can see, I don't know what's going on, but these are security people apparently around Dan.
We're obviously getting rushed.
I had to talk to them, man, and we got bodily pushed out of the way. This is a conor thing that's been going on outside, though this is the first time we've had it up an inside the hull. Well, I'm sorry to be out of bed that somebody felt him in his stomach.
As Dan Rather would say it was getting hotter in there than the Laredo parking lot taller. What that's what he used to have? All these ratherisms. There was another one I looked up for this very moment in the show, but it just didn't make any sense, and.
So I just chose that one.
Next week hotter, Yeah, exactly next time he said it was tighter than a two small bathing suit and a two hot car ride on the way home from the beach or something like that.
Wait, I heard a good one too. He looks like a lost ball in high We there.
You go, There you go. We will be right back with more of the middle.
This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning. In the Middle is a national call in show. We're focused on elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically, and philosophically.
Or maybe you just want to meet in the middle.
This hour, we're asking you, how do you feel about your choices in this election?
Tolliver, what is the number to call in?
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four four six four three three five three. You can also write to a Listen to the Middle dot com or on social media.
I'm joined by longtime CNN political correspondent Candy Crowley and journalist and commentator Charlie Sykes. And before we get back to the phones, Candy Crowley, you covered that incredibly close race between Bush and Gore in two thousand. Bush was declared the winner with a margin of five hundred and thirty seven votes in the state of Florida, and there was the third party candidacy of Ralph Nader that definitely played some role in Florida. How consequential could the third party candidacies be this year, especially Robert F. Kennedy Junior, who is still polling between about two and seven percent.
Right, you know, again, Charlie's right, these are snapshots in time. But the latest we've seen is that Robert F. Kennedy is beginning to go down in that thing. It depends on what state you're talking about, right, if it's in one of the blue Wall states or in state I think, no matter how you look at it, and we've sort of they've done all these sort of studies about it and see that RFK tends to take away from both of them pretty equally. I don't think it's the same same as a parole or a nator. I think it you know, unless it's in one of those, it's where like it's a thousand votes and they go to the third party, then you've got a problem.
Charlie six, What do you think We've heard from a lot of voters on this show over the last several months who were not going to vote for Biden because of Gaza or his age, and we're looking at Kennedy instead. Is that still a big factor with Harris?
Do you think, well, it might be. I mean Robert F. Kennedy's campaign seems to be imploding.
I mean his VP, you know, his VP running mate is already suggesting that she might drop out of the race and endorse Trump.
I think that one of the things.
Look, I mean, third fourth party candidates can always be spoilers.
You know.
Here in Wisconsin and coming back to my homestate, you know, people are still you know, relitigating twenty sixteen where Jill Stein got enough votes to deny Hillary Clinton the electoral votes here. I think one of the big differences is that I think voters are, particularly when you get very close to the election, are going to see this as what it is, was the binary choice I think that a lot of voters are going to be reluctant to throw away their votes. However, there's always going to be that contingent there, so I agree it depends on what state you're talking with.
But Robert F.
Kennedy Junior does seem like increasingly irrelevant and it's hard to see how he gets much traction going forward.
Let's go to India. Who is in Minneapolis, India? Welcome to the middle, go ahead.
Yes, thank you for having me. I have always voted Democratic. I'm a Fesota, so I always vote. But unless this genofid ends, I'm going to vote Jill Stein third party. It is a single issue for me, even with well well as being my governor, who I approve of as vice president. Great choice. Something's got to change or a third party for me.
And yeah, how do you feel about.
Okay, so you're talking about the situation in Gaza, how do you feel though about Trump on that issue? Would you be more upset if Trump won than if Harris won? Given that issue in particular.
I guess I'm really tired of being having the lesser of two evils be thrown against people like myself. I'm going to vote with my conscience, and you know what, if Trump gets in, then I'm going to blame the Democratic Party for that, not myself.
India, thank you for that que this way.
Yeah, that that is true, and we're seeing the protests outside of the Democratic convention. Candy Crawley, what do you think about that issue, the gaza issue, and how that may still affect people's feeling about their choices in this race, even though Biden is off the ticket.
Now, well he's off the ticket, but his running mate of the last four years is his vice president, is on it. Look, I think some of those protesting, unlike this voter who's made up her minds, some of those protesting I think are looking for a signal from her. Now she's talked about, you know, we need to have a cease fire, she said to all the right words, but it hasn't I guess, been in the right context. But I think they are looking for something that says where you know, if they're waiting for her to say We're not going to give any more weapons to Israel, I don't think that's going to happen, but I mean, at some level they're waiting for a signal from her that she feels differently than Joe Biden, which of course puts her in, you know, sort of a strange place. But she's not going to separate from Israel, I don't believe. But there may be a way she can formulate an answer that will satisfy some of those protesters, but not all. And then either you do the binary choice and because you think, look, you know, no matter what I do, one of these two people is going to win. Who's better on this? Or you vote for a third party Canada to put your protest in.
Charlie Sykes, Yeah, I always need to feel the need to push back against anybody that uses the term genocide to describe what's going on in the Middle East.
I think it's.
Slightly obscene to describe Israel's active self defense. Look, i am deep concerned about their tactics, and I'm very concerned about the loss of life in Gaza, but this is not genocide and not not to be compared to to genocide. Now, I will say that I thought that this week was going to be a tipping point on this particular issue. You were mentioning the nineteen sixty eight the Democratic Convention in Chicago.
By the way, I was there.
I was there on the floor the day that you played that of the dan Rather were just a baby at the time. I was thirteen years old in a page to the delegation, So I got to run around with this sort of nerdy little vests and everything.
But you know, I was among.
Those who were very concerned that you would see a replay and that you'd you know, forty fifty sixty thousand protesters descent on Chicago, and that the Democratic Convention.
Would really be.
Overwhelmed by by the chaos and even the potential of violence. Instead, these you know, pro Palestinian protests turned out to be an overhyped fizzle. I think I saw one estimate that while they had expected thirty of forty thousand people, maybe three thousand, three five hundred showed up. This was the week in which I think the Democrats could have been tested. I think their momentum could have been derailed by the protest. But as we've seen many, many times, sometimes there are protest movements or you know, activist movements that are louder than they are large, and I think that you're seeing that right now play out in Chicago.
Again. There's a couple of more days.
But I think one of the most important things that happened and this week was that this Democratic convention in Chicago is not a replay of the nineteen sixty eight Democratic Convention in Chicago.
Let's go to Meredith, who's in Kansas City. Meredith, Welcome to the middle.
Go ahead, Hi, Hi, thanks for having me. I'm a retired teachert and in the past couple of weeks, I've spent my own money on stickers, signes, t shirts, and I've donated both to Kamala and Lucas k Kunz.
Who's running for Senate in the state of Missouri against Josh Holly.
Right against Yes, Yes, I'm elated to have Kamala as a choice.
And how did you feel about Biden?
My kids are in their late twenties and thirties. I love Biden. I think he's done a great service to our country and well qualified, but maybe it was time for him to pass over the baton. And I actually sent him a thank you note and told him so wow. I told him about my own experience of retiring and how he needs to go find and things that he loves to do. And thank you so much for all of his years of service.
Meredith, thank you very much for that call. Let me go to another one. Rick is in Philadelphia. Rick, go ahead, welcome to the middle.
Well, I feel like my selection who I support is Robert Kennedy Junior. And I feel like it's been very frustrating because when I talk to, say, my parents or my neighbors who are in the boomer generation about him, they're like, well, we don't see anything on him. Is he running, why is he participating the debates? Why isn't he on the nightly news? And I just feel like there is a well, there's definitely a conservative effort by the DNC to keep them off ballots across all fifty states, but there is, you know, potentially also an effort to just keep them off the mainstream media. In the past twelve months, I think he's only had three live interviews on mainstream media, one Fox one and one ABC. And it just doesn't seem like it's very democratic system.
Rick, Uh, we got you there, your lines breaking up a little bit. But Charlie Sykes, what about that? Do you think that the media, Uh, it's a difficult choice, a challenge for the media to sort of decide how much to cover various candidates that are not polling very high, uh anytime along the way.
Well, also somebody who is uh, you know, a reckless fabulous like R. F. K.
Junior.
I mean, this is a problem that they haven't solved with Donald Trump either. What do you have when you have somebody who spreads this kind of misinformation?
However, I do think that.
It was a good deal of media coverage about the story of the baby bear, that that that that he you know, faked the death of you know, posed, you know, posed with pictures with the the dead bear and then and then you know, throw it in Central Park. So you know, we got a little bit of a glimpse of who Robert F. Kennedy you know is. And simply because he's running for president his name is Kennedy doesn't mean that the media has an obligation to treat someone like him seriously because he's a deeply unserious man.
I'm afraid, Tolliver.
I know that there's some comments coming in online at listen to the miiddle dot com and on social media.
Give us a few yeah, Tom writes, My choices in twenty twenty four would not be either candidate and my choice has never made the final since I started voting in nineteen seventy six. Jim and Independence Missouri Rights. I'm so sick of both political parties. What would happen if we abolished party affiliation and have candidates focus on their merits like education, business, social or academic achievements and what they can bring to the table. Our government officials waste so much time blaming the other party instead of doing their work. I feel like we hear that one a lot.
Yeah, you know, that's an interesting one, Candy Crowley, just the idea of the amount of time that the two parties end up spending focused on going after the other party versus as as Jim says, they're just doing their work.
True, that except for when everyone talks about Joe Biden and looks back at his four year term. What do they talk about all the things that he accomplished, most of them having to accomplish them through congressional approval as well. So things get done, not all the big things get done. I remember when I first started covering Capitol Hill and they had parental leave, you know, newborn and parental or family family leave they called it. It took them fifteen years to pass family leave, and it just it's mind boggling how slowly it goes. It frustrates people who have a certain view of what they want the government to do and what they want them to pass. Things get done. Do they spend a lot of time attacking each other? They do. Does the media go after that moth and flame? Absolutely, But it's not that things don't get done, it's that sometimes the things that people think they most want is not addressed.
Yeah, let's go to William, who's on the line from Minneapolis. William, welcome to the middle. What do you think about your choice as this election?
Well, let me just say that I am a lifelong Democrat. I have voted for every Democratic president in nineteen eighty four when I started with Walter Mondale for.
He seven million of us couldn't be wrong. But I I feel that with now I think Biden has.
Been a tremendous president. I think he's done so much good for the country. There are some things I disagree with him on, but nonetheless I think he's been good. And I and but I also felt that it was time for him to pass in the time and for the Democratic Party to take the next step to to head on to the next generation of leaders.
And what worry to me about Biden dropping me out was the Democrat Party was not going to be.
Harris. Yeah, it was going to be that.
It was to be a paid of nineteen eight.
We're going to have you know, Boodha judge delegate.
Right, delegate or yeah, delegate right.
And we saw in the and we saw in the convention that as as they went through the roll call that that that wasn't the case, and you had just about all the delegates going to Kamala Harris and that By the way, if there are Republicans out there who are very happy about their choice or unhappy about their choice of Donald Trump and the race, please give us a call at eight four four four middle that's eight four four four six four uh three three five three. I'm want to go to Eli, who's in Lawrence, Kansas. Eli, what do you think of your choices?
Yes, hither, thanks for having me. I'm quite energized by this change, you know. I'm excited to vote for Kamala and Tim in the coming election. But I am not particularly happy with how everything transpired with the asking of Joe Biden to step away from seeking the presidency because it was mired in so much agism. And you know, I'm in my mid twenties and I definitely think that young people are underrepresented in our government. At the same time, though, the optics of the presidency, I think, in some ways have taken a much higher role than they should compared to the actual policies. And I think that Joe Biden shares so many of the same policies that Kamalo would have, and I do believe that he likely would have been able to execute the role of the presidency in a second term, even if it might not have been optically to the standards that people would want.
ELI.
Thank you for that, Charlie Sykes, What do you think of that somebody in their mid twenties who says they're upset about the agism they saw in Biden being kind of pushed out of the presidency or the presidential contest.
Well, as a senior citizen myself, I'm sensitive to all that, but I don't think that's what happened there at all. I think that, look, there comes a point where.
You lose a step.
You know, the best athletes in the world can't throw the fastball. They can't throw the touchdown pass. Joe Biden had served his country for fifty years, but he's eighty one, eighty two years old. And I think that what happened at the at the debate was not that something changed, was that something was exposed, something that.
We had not been forced to deal with.
And I have to say that a lot of I sort of have the flip side to all of this that I think that there were a lot of people who were shocked by what they found out and then became very angry when they realized.
That this had been covered up.
Look, we all know that you can have bubbles in American politics, and we talk a lot about, you know, the alternative reality silos on the right that gave us Donald Trump and that culture personality. But I think what we also found out was the Democrats were also in denial. They were ignoring the evidence of their own eyes and had formed a bubble around Joe Biden. And I think if you look at the public opinion polls, you'll see that overwhelmingly Americans thought that he was too old, that he did not have the capacity to do this. And the reason there was a change at the top of the ticket was because I think Democrats realized that whether or not he could have served another four years, he was not going to be able to execute the prime directive of twenty twenty four, which was to win this election. So at a certain point you have to say, Grandpa, we love you, but we've got to take the keys.
Away from it.
We got to take you away, oh boy, and not have you drive it anymore, you know, Tolliver. Some of the excitements surrounding the entry of Kamala Harris is reminiscent of Barack Obama's nomination back in two thousand and eight.
That's right, and back then Joe Biden was the VP candidate. Here he is accepted thing the VP pick at the two thousand and eight convention.
Millions of Americans have been knocked down, and this is the time, as Americans together, we get back.
Up, back up together.
Our debt, our debt to our parents and our grandparents is too great, Our obligation to our children is too sacred. These are extraordinary times. This is an extraordinary election. The American people are ready.
I am ready, but Rock is ready.
This is his time, this is our time, this is America's time.
Such a difference it's tolliver to hear him speak then and now, although I guess when I listened to myself sixteen years ago, I sound different too.
Yeah, me too.
There you go. We'll be right back with more of the middle.
This is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. This hour, we're asking you how do you feel about your choices this election? You can call us at eight four four four or middle. That's a four four four six four three three five three. I'm joined by journalists and commentator Charlie Sykes, as well as former CNN Chief political correspondent Candy Crowley. And before we go back to the phones, Candy Crowley, there are independent voters that are gonna make a big choice in this selection, the middle, you might say, and these candidates Harris and Trump are gonna have to go after these independent voters. What kind of issues do you think will rise to the top as a result of that.
Well, I think number one, the economy, Number two, the economy, number three, the economy. I think, you know, immigrant generally, uh, you know, generally it is the economy. Immigration certainly is in there, or the border border problems with undocumented workers. But I just I think it comes down to that. I'm always sort of amazed at those I love talking to those one to two percent people because I think this is so such a choice that it's hard for me to believe that we're in August whatever this is day and there are people going you don't show to do Trump, you.
Know, but there are are.
There are, no there are. I have to tell you that. I used to preach that to my staff all the time, saying there are no such things as the undecided voters. This was like two weeks before an election. I said, that's crazy. They're either not going to vote or they're not telling us. And I picked up my youngest son at Union station. At one point. He got in the car and he said, Mom, I don't know whether to vote for John McCain and Barack Obama. And I thought, an undecided voter sitting in my car. So there are It's just this is such a choice. It's hard to believe. But they're out there, and I do think it's the economy in their lives. I think that's what is going.
To One of the nice things about this show is whenever we say we want I need a suburban woman voter from the Midwest. I need an eighteen year old, we say, I want to hear from a middle voter. Here we have one. Now, John is in Glastonbury, Connecticut. John, go ahead, what do you think?
Yeah?
I was saying, you know, to the the first took my call that I'm disappointed we don't have a choice in the center of Donald Trump is so far right outrageous that it's not like the eighties where there were more decisions that you could way back and forth. Right now, the physically conservative, socially liberal, moderate, un affiliate voter, I definitely feel I have to vote for Kamala Harris because of the insanity of Donald Trump.
Okay, so a middle voter you feel like you have to vote for Hairis.
I do?
It's I mean locally and on the state. I tend to bounce back and forth. I looked at the candidates. Now there's just no choice because the Republican Party is so co opted by Donald Trump's craziness. You know, there's not issues. It's keeping the person with issues out of White House.
Thank you so much for that call. John.
Let me go to Linda, who's in the Chicago suburbs. Linda, what do you think about your choices.
Hi, Well, I voted for Trump the first time, and I'm embarrassed to say, you know, I went with the we need someone who's more of a business person, et cetera. I live in a neighborhood that's probably half I would say, half blue, half red out here in the suburbs, and believe me, there's a lot of Trump people in Chicago area. But anyway, I watched Trump the way he behaved and how just again, how he handle relationships and his derogatory behavior. And then I think the two things kind of the last straw thing first was January sixth, and then the second thing was Roe v. Wade pushed me to the other side. Absolutely, I would not vote. I don't think I will vote Republican again.
Will you vote for Harris this time? Or you is going to not vote?
Oh?
No, I'm voting. I'm there voting.
Absolutely.
Yeah, Linda, thanks, thanks so much for that call. Charlie Sykes, I heard a little wow there when she said it was January sixth and Roe v Wade.
What do you think of that?
No, I think that the Roe v. Wade is going to continue to be a major issue here. It is interesting the number of Republican women that I've talked to who had the same kind of reaction to all of that. And again, I'm not sure that we've really measured the intensity of some of those those shifts you had, you know, a fifty year president that was thrown out. We saw some of what happened in the in the midterms. I think it's going to be an issue, you know. I this this question of what do voters in the middle do is fascinating to me because I feel, like the previous caller, I'm consider myself centrist, maybe center right, and so it's not like I get exactly what I want. But obviously, given the choice between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, I'm gonna go with Kamala Harris, even though I disagree with her on so many specific policies, because at a certain point it's not about the specific policy. I can disagree with you on six of ten or eight of ten policies, but given the magnitude of the threat that Donald Trump poses, I'm gonna do it anyway. And I am struck by the number of centrist voters that you know, if you would have asked me a year ago, would they be willing to vote for Kamal you know, Kamala Harris. I would have said no, I think it would be a very, very tough sell.
In fact, I was in.
A meeting in early July where I said, yeah, I think it would be it's gonna be very, very hard if Joe Biden drops out to get these swing voters to go for her. And yet in the last month I've seen more of a willingness because I think of this backlash against Trump. I would say one other factor, and I agree with Candy about the the undecided voters.
I can't imagine you're undecided. I wonder.
Whether or not in that those final days when they're deciding not to vote, who to vote, what role just pure exhaustion is going to play voters who go you know what, I just cannot take four more years of this chaos and the BS. I just can't take another four years of living under trump Ism. And I do wonder how big a factor that's going to be. Not you know, we will talk about the border and crime and inflation and all of these things, but I wonder this year it's just something we want to turn the page. I mean, two thousand and eight, you talked about two thousand and eight. Obviously in the middle of a big economic meltdown. You could say the two thousand and eight was about the economy, but in the end it was also about change, and it was about just turning the page.
Wonder if this will be the same thing this year. I don't know.
Yeah, let's go to Andrew, who's in Denver. Andrew, your thoughts on this selection and your choices?
Hi?
Yes.
My first comment is that I think the media accepts this, I don't know if you call it a meme or wherever, that we have to vote for the lesser of two evils. I think there's one clear evil in this race, and I don't think that voting for Kamala Harris is voting for an evil. The second point is that if people are unhappy with only having two choices, then they need to support ranked choice voting. The only way to get a legitimate third parties is to build up grass roots and the only way to do that is with ranked choice voting. Yeah, and then you would have more two choices.
Andrew, you know, I think we did an entire show on ranked choice voting. But Candy Crawley, this has come up a lot. There are two states I believe it it's Alaska and Maine that are already doing some ranked choice voting. This is something that's gaining some popularity in this country where you wouldn't be voting for one or the other, but you sort of give choices of who you want and then if your choice doesn't make it, then your second choice gets put forward.
Is that realistic? Do you think? In a broad way in the United States?
Never say never. I think it's difficult because the system is so sad. People just to say, why can't there be a third party? And I say, because it's the system is set up for two parties.
It just is.
So it means, you know, taking that entire system down, which is hard to do. Obviously you can do it state by state, but I just not immediately. That would probably be my answer. I can't see that happening anytime soon, just because of the difficulty of a moving the parties which have a lot of power and be just logistically doing that sort of thing.
Let's go to Lolo who is in Middle Tennessee. Lolo, what are your thoughts about your choices this election?
I will thank you for this show.
I think it's really important. I'm kind of a fish out of out of wa I'm sixty nine years old. I've been in the South seventeen years, in Middle Tennessee. I'm born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, in one foot in the city, one foot in the country. I've voted Democrat my whole life. But also the older I get and having lived in the South for seventeen years, I'm not turning more conservative at all because I live in the South. Just being older and more mature, I'm concerned about the Democratic Party becoming so it's stuck in this ideas of you know, a refreshing wave, which is really really important, and we need the message of hope big times. But there's some really big issues and that I'm concerned about, and I don't know, I don't feel comfortable passing a vote for Harris, although you know, there's no way I could vote for the Mega Party, absolutely not. But I do think we need to have some serious, frank discussions about immigration, and they're complicated issues, even Roe v.
Wade.
Of course, we need to have protections for women's rights, and this is a big deal, but we also need to have kind of a mature a more mature, reckoning with all of those issues, and so I don't think my views on things should make me a Republican. I feel like I see people leaving to go to the Republican Party because maybe they are concerned about these issues. We need people in this center. So I really appreciate Charlie Sykes, and I want to say, hey, I kind of love you, and I feel like I feel like I'm in the party of Charlie, but on the opposite. So anyway, I wanted to make those comments more maturity for all sides. We've got to talk about, frank issues. Immigration is a big one. Yeah, one of the things that's going to keep me from voting for her.
So well, let me take that.
Let me take that to the person you're a fan of, Charlie Sykes and ask him immigration, Charlie Sykes, do you think once Kamala Harris starts actually, you know, doing some interviews, maybe doing a press conference or two, that we're going to hear her really articulate a vision for or the border for immigration. Will it be any different than Biden, which who tried to pass this big bipartisan plan and then it was blocked by former President Trump.
Yeah, I mean, she's going to have to address this.
And by the way, those are you know that that's a key point is that amazingly they came up with a bipartisan plan, and so, you know, to the caller's point, there actually was a serious, grown up discussion about immigration policy between Democrats and Republicans, between liberals and conservatives.
And they came up again.
You know, think about how countercultural that is given the environment that we're in right now. Then you had a very very conservative senator from from Oklahoma who you know, signed on to and said, this is the most conservative piece of legislation that that we've ever you know, come this close to passing. The Democrats were on board. The only reason they did not actually tried to fix the problem by this by passing this legislation, which had strong support, was because Donald Trump said, I don't want you to pass it because I think that that would hurt my campaign and that would help Joe Biden. I mean, you want to talk about just one of those moments where your shoulders sag and you go, okay, So it really comes down to your campaign over actually fixing the problem. It's a real problem. It's an incredibly complex problem. Grown ups need to solve it. They almost did, and Donald Trump tubed it. The other thing that I guess for me because I probably agree with the caller on this, I don't think we've had enough attention on the fact that both Donald Trump and the Republican Party seemed to be absolutely committed to mass deportation, trying to deport ten to twenty million people from this country. This will be one of the great humanitarian disasters of our time. And they have not explained how they're going to do that. Round people up, use the military, put them in cars and camps.
What are we talking about here?
So I guess this is that moment where if there is a compromise, let's go with it. But we also need to say no to something as horrific as rounding up millions of people, which, by the way, is not going to happen.
It will be a complete disaster. So I agree with the caller on that.
But the reason we did not have that grown up conversation is because of one person, is because of Donald Trump.
Let's sneak one more call in here and Sean, who's in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Hi, Sean, Welcome to the middle go ahead.
I'm really happy that Tamala is going to be the candidate. I feel like for the United States to be the shining city on the hill, our democracy has to be completely inclusive. I feel that it has to be very inclusive and everybody needs to have their vote. And I think that Donald Trump is simply the bit of me of rich white elitism.
Sean, thank you for verry much for that.
Candy Crowley, I'll just go to you on that, and a couple of things there. One he brought up Donald Trump's wealth that has come up a lot this week at the Democratic Convention. I wonder how much you said economy, economy, economy. I wonder how much the sort of middle class versus wealthy is going to be the theme of this and how these candidates are going to go after people in the.
Middle Well, certainly the middle classes. Where where the Democrats If you just listened to the last two days, this is all aimed at, you know, the middle class, and of saying Donald Trump and his billionaire friends are about to get a tax cut. So it certainly is they do speak to the wealth gap from the Democratic side. On the Republican side, it doesn't has not seem to those who are supporting Donald Trump. It doesn't matter to them. I mean, it's interesting the people that he attracts, which tend to be you think this the sort of the more middle class, blue collar voters, and they don't seem at all bothered. And I don't think health is a problem in the US. Everybody wants to be wealthy, so they don't tend to punish people for being wealthy acting wealthy as something else.
Charlie Sykes, what do you expect turnout will be like? In the selection in twenty twenty I look back at was sixty six percent, which was the highest rate in more than a century. In twenty sixteen, when Trump won, it was only fifty nine percent. In two thousand, when Bush won, it was fifty four percent. What do you think it'll be like this year?
Well, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that this will be the biggest turnout election ever because I think people are engaged on both sides. It is not going to be boring. We have only about what seventy eighty days to go, but I'm expecting a massive turnout. I'm not sure what I would have said before Joe Biden dropped out of the race. But you're seeing a complete transformation of the mood.
Kendy Curly, what do you think turnout?
I'd have to agree with that, just because I I do think that the crowds that you're seeing in these arenas, we all know how they're going to vote, but what we're seeing is the enthusiasm. And if that kind of enthusiasm, which Trump supporters have as well, that's going to translate into a huge turnout and wouldn't that be nice?
Well, I want to thank my guests, veteran anchor and CNN chief local correspondent former Candy Crowley, and journalist and commentator Charlie Sikes.
Thanks so much to both of you.
Thankk you so much.
Thank you, and we say farewell this week to Joanne Jennings, who has for the last year helped get the show off the ground.
Joanne, thank you for everything.
And next week we're bringing you my conversation with a number of former military and government officials involved in the new documentary Wargame, which looks at what would happen if there's another January sixth style event, but this time with a split in the military as we wrap this hour, I want to acknowledge that we've lost one of the greats of public radio, a man named Jape Pearce, who is a mentor to me at a young age in Champagne, Urbana. He lost a battle with cancer this week, far too young. He was on the board of NPR for many years, was the radio general manager at Illinois Public Media for more than a decade, and most recently he was the head of WVIK in the Quad Cities, which is.
Airing this show right now.
In fact, Jay was the first person to sign on to air the Middle when we were piloting the show two years ago. He taught me so many things, but one of the most important was to remember that there's joy in doing radio. That with all the serious stuff we have to talk about, we should remember to have fun while doing it and keep smiling.
Jay. We will miss you. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Talk to you next week.
