2024 is turning out to be quite a fascinating election year.

Coming up on the next conversations, we've brought together three authorities on presidential politics.

We'll be discussing the 2024 election, but also look back at past elections and year ahead at how recent years may influence the future.

I hope you'll join us on the next conversations We'll see you next time on conversation is with Jeff Weeks.

2024 is turning out to be quite a fascinating election year.

Coming up on the next conversations, we've brought together three authorities on presidential politics.

We'll be discussing the 2024 election, but also look back at past elections and year ahead at how recent years may influence the future.

I hope you'll join us on the next conversations Tomorrow on Conversations with Jeff Weeks.

2024 is turning out to be quite a fascinating election year.

Coming up on the next conversations, we've brought together three authorities on presidential politics.

We'll be discussing the 2024 election, but also look back at past elections and year ahead at how recent years may influence the future.

I hope you'll join us on the next conversations Tonight on Conversations with Jeff Weeks.

2024 is turning out to be quite a fascinating election year.

Coming up on the next conversations, we've brought together three authorities on presidential politics.

We'll be discussing the 2024 election, but also look back at past elections and year ahead at how recent years may influence the future.

I hope you'll join us on the next conversations Next on Conversations with Jeff Weeks.

Or the next conversation's a look back at the news events.

The newsmakers and the personalities of 2023 were joined by journalists and media personalities.

Rick Allison, Andrew Mackay and Lisa Alison Savage.

And by the way, we'll do a little prognostication and look toward what 2024 may bring.

Hope you'll join us on the next conversations Next on Conversations with Jeff I believe it was Mark Twain who said truth is stranger than fiction.

But it's because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities.

Truth isn't.

The 2024 presidential election is a pretty good representation of that quote.

And as we tape this program, there's still more to come.

Tuesday, November 5th, waits in anticipation of what may happen.

On this edition of conversations we have brought together three authorities on presidential politics to discuss the 2024 election, but also to look back at the past elections and also peer ahead at how recent years may influence the future.

Dr. Alfred Cozan is a distinguished university professor at the University of West Florida.

His primary focus is American and comparative politics.

He is also one of the founders of Poly Vote, which is a forecasting model for predicting elections.

Alan Manning is an accomplished attorney with the Clark Partington Law Firm in Pensacola, Florida.

Moreover, he is an author and presidential historian, Having authored the book Father Lincoln, the Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and His Boys.

He is currently working on a book about Theodore Roosevelt.

Professor Doug Mock, I should say.

Dr. Doug Mock is an assistant professor of political science at Morehead State University in Kentucky.

He was a former professor at Pensacola State College and continues to teach an online course for the University of West Florida.

He is working on a book about the Supreme Court and has been published on topics including presidential debating and soon to be a chapter on the Trump administration and executive orders.

Gentlemen, welcome.

Thank you.

Great to see you again.

We did a program similar to this back in 2016, and the idea was we do it again in 2020 and we got interrupted by a little something called COVID.

And so it's great to have you back here.

Now, I can remember us talking back in 2016 and thinking just how contentious things were.

Okay.

I mean, the the shall we say, things had been a bit up, up ended and it's only been magnified since then.

So, Alan, I'm going to begin with you.

As you look back in history, have you ever seen anything like this?

Yeah, it's gotten worse, certainly since 2016.

And as I pointed out back eight years ago, there have been very nasty, contentious elections before going all the way back to 1800, which was John Adams running for reelection against his own vice president, Thomas Jefferson.

And it was a very nasty, bitter election.

Some terrible and hurtful things were said about each of them.

They had been very good friends, really throughout their early careers, and that the campaign, the bitterness of the campaign just wrecked their friendship for a long time.

And Adams lost that election to Jefferson.

And he was so upset about that loss and the way the campaign had been conducted against him that he didn't even attend Jefferson's inauguration.

And then 28 years later, John Adams son, John Quincy Adams, was running for reelection and he was running against Andrew Jackson.

And that was a very nasty and bitter campaign as well.

And during that campaign, some terrible things were said about Jackson's wife.

They had the Adams campaign had alleged that she had married Jackson before her divorce from her former husband was final and therefore calling her a bigamist.

And she actually died after Jackson was elected, But before he took office.

And Jackson really attributed her death to the attacks against her during the campaign.

And he was very bitter toward not so much Adams personally, but against the campaign that was conducted against him.

So there have been some very nasty campaigns before.

2016 was certainly one 2020, and it just continues.

Yeah, well, back in those days, were the constituents as contentious?

I mean, obviously the candidates were.

But, you know, in today's world, it seems like the constituents are just as, you know, almost as bad, if you will.

Yeah, I don't think they were as bad.

I mean, they're certainly can be passion And in a lot of the in a lot of the races, there would be parades and debates and things like that.

I'm not sure that it has risen quite to the level now because everybody everybody is connected now with social media.

Right.

Because you see everything on Facebook.

People can post unfiltered their thoughts.

And so I think that Magnum magnifies the bitterness of it all.

Well, also, in 1800, for example, you didn't have many people engaging in the popular vote.

The electoral College was a real thing back then in a way that it wasn't today.

Could I build off something?

Please do.

Please do that.

That Alan said.

I agree.

You know, every four years you hear this is the most negative in history or this is the most important election in history or something like that.

I don't remember every presidential election since 1972 personally, and a lot of these same themes cycle and recycle over and over again.

So there is that.

And Al Allen is right to to point out that things were very ugly in 1818 60.

Things were very ugly, certainly in 1824 and 1828.

But one thing that I sort of discern that I wouldn't say is just recycling, but is sort of a new phenomena, is that the insults and the negativity?

And I it's not even that I have a problem so much with the negativity as such, except to the extent that it crowds out substance.

And something I'm seeing in recent recent presidential campaigns that is different just within my lifetime.

It's the remarkable lack of presidential candidates engaging in substantive issues anymore.

I've heard very little of that in this campaign.

I heard very little of that in 2020.

And I think that's really a regrettable trend that we've seen just in maybe in the last eight years.

One of the things that my research focuses on is looking at presidential debates and sort of doing a word analysis of that.

And then if you contrast the earlier debates, of course, they began in 1960 and then they pick up again in 1976, and we've had them them ever since.

The substance of the conversation then, as compared to now, can't help but really, really strike an intelligent observer.

A presidential candidates didn't used to condescend to their constituents the way that I perceived them doing today.

I could not imagine.

We haven't yet had the Trump Harris debate, although we have had the Trump Biden debate.

I couldn't imagine them having a conversation anywhere near the level that Kennedy and Nixon did in 1960, or Carter and Reagan in 1980, or Bush and Dukakis in 1988.

And I think that's something that is relatively new and something I find really unfortunate that it isn't.

You want to add the color of the ground very well.

Speaking of debates, I mean, in as we look at this election, clearly the Biden Trump debate was a game changer.

You know.

And what did you make of that?

As you as you watch that debate that night, what was going through your head from a from a historian standpoint?

Well, I'm not a historian, but actually I refused to look at the debate when they started and they began you know, it was so unseemly.

I turn off the TV.

I didn't want to watch it.

So I didn't watch the Trump-biden debate.

So I'm not sure when I watched the next chapter, I start watching it.

But if the generated like it did the first debate.

TRUMP Actually, I think I watched the second debate.

TRUMP It was much better.

But the first debate, I just turned it off.

It was it was really bad if if there were.

But I don't know that debate actually do that much.

You know, it's entertainment.

You know, I maybe move the needle a little bit, but not a thing.

They do all that all that much.

So yeah.

You've spent time studying debates.

I mean I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

How I mean, clearly in this particular case, it turned out to be a game changer for for Biden, for sure.

What were you thinking as you watched?

Well, there's a couple of things.

Dr. Design is absolutely correct.

There isn't much historical precedent for debates being game changers.

One possible exception was 1976.

And this this illustrates a point that I think the literature shows pretty convincingly is that we don't look for effective, substantive conversations.

We look for for foul ups.

We look for four, four candidates that are going to say something that sounds really stupid or that doesn't come across.

Right.

So when I mentioned 1976 and perhaps the most famous flub, if you could call it that in presidential debate history, Gerald Ford said there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, which was a really startling thing to say in the polls right after the debates showed that Ford had won.

And then after 24 hours of a drumbeat of a media coverage saying what is the president of United States thinking that he doesn't know that the Soviet Union dominates Eastern Europe, then they decisively switched and showed that the Carter had won.

And of course, Carter went on to win a very narrow victory.

So that may be one exception to the rule that debates.

I don't even think in 1960.

I don't think the debates were a big game changer necessarily.

This one was obviously not on the level of the candidate who did poorly lost, but the candidate who did poorly did so poorly that he essentially was was forced to withdraw from from from the presidential race.

Well, I'm reading a book right now, actually, by a speechwriter for for Reagan and it turns out that he had actually worked for Nixon before.

I don't like his name.

I don't remember it right now.

But he was getting Nixon was trying to get it back in the game, and he would use him as a conduit to sort of give advice to the Reagan and and, you know, I think I'm struck by how much even politicians like like Nixon, they pay so much attention to little things that happen in a debate.

Right.

Like when Carter measures Amy, his daughter.

Right.

And my God, you know, can you imagine a president consulting his daughter over, you know, a missile nuclear?

And I don't know if I think it's a lot of theater, you know, a lot of drama and theater.

But, you know, I think already the polls were showing that Reagan was was going to winning and it was very close to it.

And that debate making a difference, I really don't know.

But I think on the on again, on I think on the debate, I knew a guy whose name was Jeff Gordon Armstrong from the Wharton School.

He was one of the co-founders of the Apollo when he was he was the one.

He was the founder.

And then, you know, I was one of the co-founders, if you will.

So he said that there was some research that showed that if you listen to the Nixon Kennedy debate, that Nixon one.

But if you watch the debate is that Kennedy won.

Yeah.

And that actually everything Nixon of Nixon said, you can win a debate, but you lose the audience.

The point is to win the audience.

Yeah.

And so that's a vital Reagan to win the audience doesn't matter whether you win or lose the debate, win the audience.

And I think in the end won one other in a couple of other examples where there may have been a moment that did have some change.

One was in 1980 and the Reagan Carter debate and Reagan I think, was told ahead of time that you need to look presidential.

People are concerned about whether you're going to be up to the job.

And so but when he made his famous statement, are you better off than you were four years ago?

And that that standard is still sort of applied even today.

That was I'm not going to say it was a game changer.

I think the polls were trending toward Reagan, but it maybe kind of sealed the deal a little bit.

One negative thing that happened during one of the debates, some of you may remember, is in the 1992 debate, which was a three way race between Bill Clinton, the first president Bush and Ross Perot.

President Bush was caught looking at his watch at one point.

And that kind of conveyed to the public that he wasn't into this.

You know, he kind of wanted to get it over with, maybe the audience wasn't important, etc.. And that that I think hurt him to some extent, whether it he would have still lost, you know, we'll never know.

But that was certainly a negative thing that came out of that debate.

And that illustrates one of the ways that debates can turn on trivialities.

Yeah, because when Bush was asked about that later, he said, I was worried that Bill Clinton was getting a lot more time me and I just wanted to make sure that my time was equal.

That was his explanation, you know, but that, you know, a debate I don't know about an election, but that a debate maybe can turn on such a nice distinction.

You know, Bush looked at his watch, I think illustrates I think that maybe the commentary the comment.

Yeah, that's that's a fair point.

I mean, the commentary, I think, sort of shapes the conversation after.

I think that's true.

Well, I mean, optics truly matter and going back to your point with Kennedy and with Nixon, you know, yes, they said it.

If you listen to it on the radio, you felt like Nixon won.

If you watched it on television.

And it seems that I recall that Nixon refused to put on makeup.

That's right.

And Kennedy did that, apparently had spent some time out in the sun that day and looked refreshed.

And, you know, so optics do matter, you know, from that standpoint to the shadow, right?

Yeah, right.

So so it's kind of it's kind of interesting from that perspective.

ALLEN With President Biden dropping out like he did this deep into the race, has was there a historical standard for that?

There were two prior incidents, certainly different circumstances.

But in 1952, President Truman, who had succeeded Franklin Roosevelt when Roosevelt died in 1945, served out the remainder of his term.

Truman was then elected to his own four year term in 1948.

He was eligible to run again in 1952.

The constitutional amendment that put the two term limit was not applicable to him, and so he was eligible to run and all gave all indications that he was going to run.

And I think he even entered one of the first primaries and either lost or came very close to losing and dropped out shortly after that.

The second one and the really the more famous one is Lyndon Johnson in 1968, where Johnson had, of course, succeeded Kennedy when Kennedy was assassinated, served out the remaining year or so of Kennedy's term, then was elected to his own term in 1964.

He was also eligible to run again in 1968, but had become very unpopular with the Vietnam War, some of the civil rights issues, and he had everyone thought he was going to run.

But but he ended up dropping out very early on.

Interesting.

Back then, they didn't start running for president a year and a half before the election and Johnson dropped out.

I mean, it was March of 1968 when he dropped out.

So it was he was not deep into the primaries, but it was right at the beginning of the primary season.

It was almost like after the first primary in New Hampshire.

Yeah, right.

I think he won the one second, but he won.

Had a great yeah, his opponent had a great showing.

And I think Johnson saw the writing was on the wall and didn't want to lose.

And so he stepped aside.

Then Kennedy jumped in for good.

Robert Kennedy did jump that and Humphrey And that was at a time when the still the a lot of the delegates were not necessarily chosen through the primary system.

The party machinery would pick the delegates.

And so vice President Humphrey actually didn't win very many primaries at all, but still won the nomination because he had control of the party through Johnson That's right.

And it was after that that in the McDonald Frazier Commission that the way we nominate presidents changed because Humphrey would not have won the rank and file.

He was far less popular than Eugene McCarthy or Robert Kennedy before before the Kennedy assassination.

Of course, the cases that Allen refers to, what they all have in common is that you had incumbent presidents who were, as you say, saw the writing on the wall.

They were all likely to lose.

Biden was likely to lose this race.

Johnson was probably going to be defeated in 68, and Truman almost certainly would have lost in 52 people.

Forget about Harry Truman, that he was an extraordinarily unpopular president.

And people forget that because, you know, he's so highly rated by historians today, correctly, in my judgment.

But he was extraordinarily unpopular in 1952.

And if Eisenhower had been his opponent, presumably he would have been Eisenhower would have would have won that race in a landslide.

I have no doubt.

Were you surprised that President Biden ran again?

I mean, because there had been obviously talk about his age and declining popularity, etc., for for quite some time.

I mean, were you surprised that he decided to give it a shot?

I was only because, well, his age, I think, was certainly a factor.

And, you know, very few presidents have successful second terms.

It's and it's usually a tough slog for most of them.

And he could point to some accomplishments and he could have left office.

Popular, unselfish.

I'm going to hand it over.

I came in, I said I was going to do this.

I accomplished it.

I'm stepping aside.

And I think there was an opportunity for him to do that.

So I was a little surprised that he decided to run.

What I like to see as a historian, a political scientist, then 15 years from now, who will look at the records of the White House and the for the second for the Biden administration, what has been done about the second Woodrow Wilson administration that when Woodrow Wilson was basically incapacitated and who was actually running the White House then?

And I think eventually we'll find out who actually was running the White House on their on their thereby.

I think he was pretty much out of it for one, the little tidbits we get on who actually was running the White House.

Yeah, you know, I think that's correct.

I don't President Biden's I think it's been clear for some time, not just months, but for a couple of years.

I'm not a medical doctor, but that in my judgment, you know, there's something going on that I, I want to be careful about what I say.

But I think, you know, I'm glad, Doctor, because I brought up Woodrow Wilson, because when you read biographies of Wilson, he thought he was running for a third term.

And of course, he he he was completely incapacitated.

We now know by by by a massive stroke.

And and he had no business being president the last year plus of his administration.

But into 1920, he was convinced that he was going to run again.

And he had to have folks sort of step in and say this is just not possible.

And I think you had a similar situation with with President Biden.

I mean, look, it's hard to give up power.

Sure.

Right.

Nobody wants that's one of the reasons we honor George Washington, is because he could have been reelected over and over again for the rest of his life.

And he chose not to.

But but, you know, Washington was the exception.

It's hard to step down when you think you can win.

And I think ultimately, the clincher for the president's decision not to continue was I think he was convinced that he was not going to win.

What was really his decision?

Well, I yeah, to be found out because I wanted to find out.

Yeah.

And for future historians.

Yeah.

And by the way, the evidence seems to indicate that in Woodrow Wilson's case, it was his wife that was running the show.

In fact, to the point where I think they found some documents where they think she even signed his name to things that that signature looked an awful lot like.

Yes.

Writing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That is fascinating.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I agree.

I think that it will take some a decade or two, but eventually this story will be told what what was going on behind the scenes.

It will it will come out at some point as to what has been going on or what was going on behind the scenes.

Well, if that and let me say this, because I know all of us want to tread very lightly on this and none of us are pretending to be a doctor or make any kind of diagnosis.

But going back to what we were speaking of a moment ago about optics, okay, whether President Biden has any medical issues there or not, we don't know.

But the optics would give one an impression that perhaps there are some struggles.

So going back two to maybe ten years from now, we look back and some of that is legitimized.

What kind of responsibility is on his cabinet?

I mean, what kind of responsibilities on Vice President Harris to stand up and say this is he's not up to the job.

The vice president's in a very difficult situation under the current constitutional amendment that deals with what we call disabilities.

If the president becomes disabled, unable to function, but still alive.

And it's a decision that's made by the cabinet and the vice president.

And of course, the vice president has a conflict of interest in that decision making.

And so I think most vice presidents would in that position wouldn't want to seem like they're trying to push the president out and really would try to leave it up to others to be the driving force behind it.

That's my guess as to how it would play out.

Yeah, Invoking the 25th Amendment is would be a very politically tricky thing.

And it has to be the president's own people who do it.

And from a political standpoint, I think that's that's very tricky.

The 25th Amendment was was partly a response to the assassination of President Kennedy and folks thinking, well, what if he had lived in a vegetative state?

Now, the original Constitution does specify that the vice president assumes the powers and duties of the presidency in the event of the death or the inability to carry out the powers and duties.

But it's not it's not clear how that would be executed.

You know, and that's one of the things that the 25th Amendment, I think, clarifies.

I don't really think the 25th Amendment was intended to be used in a case like this, more like in the case that a president is so clearly incapacitated.

And the other provision about presidential succession is is is not self-executing.

So the 25th Amendment spells out a way to execute, a way to remove a president.

But I I'd be surprised if I ever saw it happen in my lifetime.

I frankly would be surprised if a single cabinet member would vote in favor of it, let alone a majority.

Well, I was going to say they would have a conflict of interest to most likely know clearly the vice president, but there would be a conflict for most of the.

So, yeah, that's a that's kind of a tricky situation there.

It is.

I guess from that standpoint, I'm as as we sort of look ahead with this and and we talked about this is not the not the first time around that we've seen somebody, you know, step away.

But what is the biggest challenge in your view?

What kind of what Vice President Harris faces from a standpoint of the way that she came in to?

I mean, it was almost like she was I guess was almost she was anointed essentially, Right.

I mean, so there was no other competition, if you will.

What are your thoughts on the way that transpired?

Well, the fact that she was anointed, because one of the sort of themes that the Democratic Party has has put out there with respect to President Trump is that they're looking to save democracy because he's he's a threat to democracy.

I won't express any opinion as to whether I agree with that theme or not, but it's hard to make that case when nobody voted for Kamala Harris's as as the presidential nominee.

So in some respects, that, it seems to me, sort of takes that that issue away from her.

And then substantively, you know, like so many presidential campaigns, this one will be about enthusiasm.

It'll be about voter turnout.

I mean, you know, there's enough people that want to vote for Donald Trump that he can win.

There's enough people that want to vote for vice president.

HARRIS that she could win for the real questions.

Well, who gets to the polls?

Who actually cast votes?

So so the vice president has to be very careful.

And we've seen this abundantly demonstrated because those who are most enthusiastic about her are going to be those who are pretty much on the left end of the political spectrum.

Now, most Americans are not on the extremes of the political spectrum.

Most Americans are not far left or far right, but most enthusiasts or most people who are really, really into politics tend to be firmly right or firmly left.

So her challenge is, is to to drum up support turnout among her base, which is which is very left while not offending sort of the swing voters the middle of the road voters with scary, you know socialist sounding ideas and it's a hard out of I wouldn't want to be in that position.

And one thing you've seen is that she hasn't said too much substantively yet.

And I think I think that's the reason.

And I think I mean, that's her biggest challenge.

One of the things that Nixon kept hammering in his advice to Reagan was keep hammering on the bread and butter issues, the economy.

And I remember also when Nixon won in 68, remember law and order, Law and order, because there's a lot of disorder, a lot of crime and so forth.

And when you look at the what are the surveys that asked the public what is the most pressing problem in the country, in your opinion?

They measure the economy, the measure crime, illegal immigration.

Those are the three highest.

They want to get the most attention.

And I think I think if Trump would if Nixon if the ghost of Nixon would come over and and try to whisper things in Trump's ear, that's what he should be hammering.

He would say economy, crime, illegal immigration.

And I think he's doing better in that in that respect.

He's sort of I remember I saw an interview with a man I never heard of before, the Russian immigrant who came here 20 years ago.

And he's his computer analyst, some sort of, but he actually also has a podcast and interviewed Trump for a whole hour and he tried to ask Trump about 2016 and I'm sorry, about 2020.

And Trump sort of evaded the whole thing.

He's is not I wasn't talking about 2020 and revisiting that issue.

He kept talking about illegal immigration, the economy and crime.

He kept just talking about that.

And also he also mentioned Afghanistan.

And the way I got it done was handle or mishandle.

I think it may be so.

I think I think Trump is being a little more focused this time.

So so I think I think so.

We'll see if he can if you're going to address effectively the things that are most on the minds of people now inflation, crime, illegal immigration.

Every every day some news I think goes out somewhere Aurora, Colorado, or this or that.

And, you know, if he can just hammer those things and he's been doing that, I think repeatedly.

I think I think I think maybe I think he's going to do better.

He is doing better in the polls and in the models than he did in 2016 or 2020.

That's right.

I recommend that people watch.

Of course, look at the vote.

I am no longer with the public whether retired from the public vote a couple of years a few years ago because I was running on a book and I just it's still there and is as well is well done.

But but there's another side.

I take the Polyvore and I also check not FiveThirtyEight too, but also the silver bullet.

And I. Nate Silver Silver bullet.

Then Nate Silver actually was the one who had the FiveThirtyEight a while back.

And he's a he's actually a very, very good forecaster.

And anyway, he's showing Trump ahead on the Electoral College vote, not on the so-called popular vote.

Right.

But the issues are not distinctions in the in the presidential elections, the American way of electing presidents is not the popular vote.

If the Electoral College and if not even the electoral if Electoral College does not appear in the Constitution.

Right.

They talk about electors.

So so we need to focus on what's going on in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Georgia North Carolina.

Those are the five states that keep coming up as being the important state where it's been decided and put out here.

He's ahead in all of them except Wisconsin.

Michigan is now ahead by a little bit.

It's not like a lot, Right?

So it's kind of still very close, but it's actually his last probability for Trump, winning it like 58% probability that he will win the electoral the decision, the election, really right.

Not the in the Electoral College, because the popular vote doesn't matter.

Right.

In fact, you know, I have an article on that.

I call it in defense of the American way of electing presidents.

And I say you copy.

I think all the Yeah, yeah.

Except me.

I think silver today had Trump at a 62% probability which is but it's not that's not as impressive as it might sound.

You know I was a lot more impressive than he was when he in 2016.

Well, that's true.

That's true.

And, you know, whatever other poll in 2050, in 2016, Silver had him at 25%, which was the highest of anybody.

Any other forecaster.

That's right.

But but I do I do want to point out, let me put it this way.

If if I told you you have you're going to get on a plane and it had a 62% chance of landing safely, you wouldn't get on that plane.

Right.

And it's the same thing.

It's a point that I think needs stress.

These election models and silvers are very good.

One of the things you saw after the 2016 election I saw repeatedly and you're right, Silver had dropped below 30% probability and a lot of folks said, well, see, he was wrong, but that's incorrect.

That's not the way.

I mean, that means, you know, there are a lot of variables that are going to happen up to the election.

And even on Election Day, the weather in certain parts of the country may affect turnout for one group or the other.

I i.

So when Trump had a 25% chance of winning in 2016, I will confess I was stunned when Trump won.

I didn't expect that either.

But to say that silver was wrong then is not correct.

You know, a 25% chance of something happened.

You might say that he was right.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because the other was that one in four chance forecaster me like 1% or 2%, something like that.

And when he came out with 25% everybody were piling on him.

You know, that's wrong.

You're crazy.

And turned out that you know, you know and the the important point here is and I think this is something we've seen more awareness of, especially in light of the 2000 election and the 2016 election, where we have disparate impacts or disparate outcomes between the electoral vote, which is what matters, and the nationwide popular vote, which is irrelevant, except as it impacts the electoral vote.

But to a certain extent you still see the leads in the story about the nationwide popular vote.

And this has shown a pretty steady, small but a pretty steady lead for vice president.

Here's the problem, as Al points out, is that doesn't matter.

You know, and it's it's frustrating to see that is the lead of the story all the time.

It's all there's a you know, Harris is up by three points or whatever in the nationwide popular vote.

Yeah.

Because I mean if she wins California by 30 points.

Right she will.

That doesn't help her in Pennsylvania or Michigan, Wisconsin or Georgia or Arizona.

But she needs to win those states as well, regardless of how much she runs up.

The score in California or New York.

Or are some of those those bigger states that she's that she is going to win.

And some of that is why why it is showing her a big lead because she can win these big population states by a lot of votes, millions of votes in the case of California, New York, Illinois.

But Trump can win some of these other smaller states by very small margins.

And so overall, Chirac's up a lot of votes, but not necessarily in the right place.

And that's exactly what happened in 2016.

And what we're seeing here with California or New York, we're talking about he wins Los Angeles, San Francisco, basically those two huge metropolitan hub.

Right.

New York and New York City.

And so we need to kind of be very careful where we say he wins California or New York, because actually his huge margin that Hillary Clinton had right in 2016 was in basically four or five counties.

Yeah, exactly.

That's right.

The Los Angeles and some some of the San Francisco County.

Now, those places are not all that representative of the rest of the country.

I would argue that an electoral college, so called is much more representative of the country than Los Angeles.

It's just.

Yeah, without taking anything away from Los Angeles, not representative of the country.

Well, like somebody said one time, there's a whole lot of real estate between Manhattan and Malibu, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I have nothing against Los Angeles or New York either, But.

But it's a good point, because if you look at the map of the Electoral College in 2016, broken down by county, not by fleeing by precinct or by precinct, you see a flood, a sea of Trump red.

I mean, you could fly from coast to coast and not fly over a county that Hillary Clinton won in in 2016.

So maybe sometime we'll have a debate about the Electoral College.

But it does require that you have your breadth of support as well as depth of support.

This is an argument for keeping it well.

And I have to ask that question because it comes off.

A lot of people say we should do away with the Electoral College.

What are your thoughts on that?

Well, first of all, it would require a constitutional amendment because it's in the Constitution.

There is a workaround which which would take quite a while to go through.

The detail is called the National Popular Vote Movement.

In a nutshell, states pass laws saying we will award our electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the nationwide popular vote provided, however, that this law only takes effect when states with the magic number of 270 have a same law on the books that would make it impossible for one candidate to win the popular vote and yet lose the Electoral College.

So that would be a constitutional workaround.

But of course, the small, smaller states don't want that.

The bigger states that are still swing states, Florida don't want that.

And I don't think that has any chance of of of getting the requisite 270 if you if that doesn't happen, you need a constitutional amendment and you're not getting a constitutional amendment.

You're not getting 38 states.

And it's not clear that the thing that actually would pass muster constitute from a constitutional standpoint.

Yeah, it's controversial from a constitutional standpoint to call the national popular vote very trying to get around the Constitution.

But unless and there actually is a book by the, the dean I don't know if he's a retired dean, but the dean of one of the prestigious California law schools, maybe Stanford.

Edwin Minsky, I think his name is.

It's it's I don't want Chemerinsky.

I don't want to hawk his book here, but he actually said we need to we need to tear up the Constitution and start over.

I haven't read the book, but but I understand that's the idea behind it.

And maybe one of his objections is the Electoral College.

If we stick with our current constitution, it needs a constitution amendment.

It's not happening.

So we're either blessed with it or we're stuck with it, depending on your perspective.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah, I agree with everything Doug said.

I mean, it's not going to go away soon.

So the candidates just need to figure out a way to win with it the way that it is.

You know, it's it'll certainly be, you know, things have a tendency to go in cycles and.

Right.

So regardless of what happens this time around, do you foresee things maybe balancing out a little bit more where there's not so much of the, you know, contentious, mean spirited type of approach to things?

Or do you think that the catch out of the bag and this is the future of America?

Because going back to your point earlier, Doug, you were talking about, I believe that know the the far left or far right has a tendency to kind of, you know, be the folks who are excited about everything.

And, you know, use the analogy, you know, the the tail wagging the dog.

You know, do you see us continuing in that sort of environment?

Well, my pessimistic self says until and maybe I shouldn't even say my pessimistic self, maybe I should say my civically minded self says until more mainstream folks get in the political process early on.

I think the logic of the way our elections system works are electoral two party system kind drives us to the conclusion that it's it's, you know, the genie is out of the bottle sort of thing.

I seen some indicia of hope, that things might change.

But look, here's the problem.

Nobody that I know.

And if you look at the polls, I think you see this, true writ large.

Nobody wanted a Biden Trump rematch.

Nobody.

Nobody wanted that.

And yet somehow that's what we were getting until the president dropped out.

So.

So why are we getting these matchups that nobody wants and I think the answer to that question is, is because it's the political activists, the folks who whoo hoo hoo hoo.

And even in smaller, non-representative states that go early in the in the primary system, you had a big brouhaha, with respect to Democratic Party rules a few years ago, a couple of election cycles ago, where where states who were later on the primary calendar tried to leapfrog and were willing to lose like half their delegates because it's so important what happens in Iowa and it's so important what happens in New New Hampshire.

That system is dysfunctional and it's not like anybody designed it.

You know, there's not a master designer somewhere who said, let's put New Hampshire and and Iowa.

Or in the case of of what benefitted President Biden, then Joe Biden in 2016 in the state of South Carolina, nobody had this master plan.

Let's put those states first and make them disproportionately influential.

But that's where we are.

And I frankly, I don't know how to fix it.

It's party activists, people who sort of in an amateur sense do politics for a living, who make these decisions.

I mean, does anybody out there really think, well, this was democracy at work when when we got Donald Trump and initially Joe Biden?

Again, I don't think so because poll after poll showed nobody wanted that.

So there have to I think there's going to have to be some nobody wanted that, you know, I mean, well, when I say nobody, I mean I'm exaggerating.

But let me qualify.

The overwhelming majority of Americans did not want that.

Democrats didn't want Joe Biden.

Republicans didn't want Donald.

A lot of them.

You know, and no, I don't know.

I agree with that.

I think the the the absolute.

Yeah, absolutely.

But but would they be any different if it were be DeSantis against a Newsom?

Would it be any different?

I mean the issues are still there.

I think personality can play into that.

You know Trump's a big personality obviously and and that if you had two people who were had more of a statesman type personality that would substantively debate the issues, I think that's what we're sort of yearning for.

But whether those people could rise to the top or not, you know, that's that's the big question in this environment.

And, you know, one other thing I would just add to this and this is at the congressional level, but I think it influences at the presidential level one of the, I think, causes of a lot of the division in the country is the the way that we have done reapportionment, redistricting every every ten years.

Because what's happened in the House of Representative is that out of 435 seats, you know, whenever reapportionment is done, the lines are redrawn and there's the the political party that's in charge in that state has a lot of influence in drawing the lines in can favor one party or another and out of 435 seats, there are probably only about 80 seats that are competitive.

Okay.

And what that has done is that in both parties, the election is really held in the primaries.

The winner of the Republican primary is going to be the representative from that district.

The winner of the Democratic primary is going to be the winner in that district.

And so what has happened in both parties is that the extremes they out conservative each other or they out liberal each other to to win that seat.

And so the people that then get sent to Washington are the right are the extremes and not looking to compromise and so on and so forth in this.

And I think that has been part of the problem in this whole debate thing is that that the Republicans or the Democrats, they just the middle is sort of gone from the political spectrum at this point.

And I think if you don't have that middle, then when you get up to the presidential level, you're going to see the same thing you're going to have.

You're going to have just this this very divisive type campaign.

And it's I've just I find it interesting in a way, because and I'm going to be very kind of general about this, but I would say that I'm not too far off in saying, you know, 46% of the people are going to vote for Trump no matter what, and 46% of the people are going to vote for Harris no matter what.

And it's really that 8% in the middle that is going to decide this election.

And I always find it interesting that sometimes the candidates still don't talk to that 8%.

They're they're kind of going after their 46%, which you're going to vote for them anyway.

And I think that and that is just part of this this division.

And people don't want to look weak in their own party.

If they're if they compromise on something, then they're going to be attacked in their next primary election as being weak.

Well, and I think I think Alan raises a really good point, which is now when you're campaigning, given that, you know, each party has a certain base that they can absolutely count on, this wasn't always true.

I mean, you know, Walter Mondale won 41% or something in 1984.

George McGovern didn't hit 40% in 1972.

So this business of everybody has a base of 45% is a relatively new phenomenon.

And I think one result of that is there's more of an emphasis on turn out my people than there is a lot of persuade.

The persuadable because there aren't that many on persuadable.

You know one of the questions I got a lot in 2016 was why was Donald Trump coming to Pensacola or this area so frequently, which he did?

Well, the answer to that question is easy is because his internal polling showed that he was doing really, really well in Pensacola, Florida, was going to be close.

So turn people out in the Pensacola area, you know, a relatively small market.

They've got an inordinate amount of attention from Trump in in 2016.

So you have a different focus.

And one consequence of this is is, well, you know, the art of of accommodation, the art of compromise, or even you know, to be seen as as willing to entertain compromise, it's almost viewed as traitorous with some folks.

And this notion of redistricting, I think that's a good point, too.

There's actually a name for it in the in the political science literature.

It's called vanishing marsh marginals, a marginal is a congressional district that could swing either direction.

There used to be hundreds of them.

I don't I don't think there's 80 left.

I think there may be I think there are maybe 30 or 40 left, you know, a congressional race that legitimately could go one way or the other.

And Alan is absolutely right.

The decisions made in, you know, the first congressional District of Florida, let's face it, the decision is made when the Republican primaries over.

Sure, that's it.

And again, the literature shows pretty convincingly that however much we kid ourselves, otherwise, we vote for people who think the most like us.

You know, if you ask somebody, what do you base your vote?

I will say I think I would look for we look for integrity.

We look for experience.

We we yeah, baloney.

We look for people who think like us.

Well, if if if if the party activists who who are making the decision in July as opposed to November.

Well that's the people that are aren't amenable to compromise.

Well, a couple of things I can say about that.

One is we could increase the number of congressmen.

There's no reason.

There's no magic number.

Why do we have that many?

435 We could have more, right?

I mean, there the law was passed back in 1914.

I think it was right.

The limit, the number.

So we have actually relative to the population, we have a relatively small number of representatives.

England, for example, the UK has like over 600.

Right, Right.

The other thing I would say is sometimes we are too solipsistic.

In other words, we think the problems that we have are unique.

We see a lot of tension in France.

So, you know, this this this polarization is not unique to us.

Look, look what's happening in France right now, all right?

And They split three ways and there's no way.

Do you know there was an election in two of the states in Germany last Sunday and there will be another one this Sunday.

And the parties in the center, they collapsed and you had parties and a new party on the left and and the Alliance for the the alternative for Germany got a third of the vote.

we have to realize that these problems are not unique to us.

Okay.

They are across pretty much the democratic spectrum.

The democratic countries.

And I think some of the issues I think we face some of the same issues of immigration, the economy, and in our case, abortion is it's a very divisive issue.

So I think to look at abortion today and to look at the the polarization on that issue compared to the slavery issue back in the 19th century, I think there are some parallels.

And I don't see a very I think maybe there might be a better chance to sort of try to moderate that, because when you ask people about abortion, you know, we have some people like under those circumstances and others say all the way up to birth, if their child were raised on abortion, let him die on the table and not assisted that, as some people actually say that.

So but there are people that are somewhere in the middle and that would be a little better, a little more amenable to some sort of a compromise than slavery.

You either accept slavery or you don't.

And so that brought us to the Civil War.

But in this case, I think there might be a way to sort of find some some differ in Florida, we have a we have an amendment just to to do just that.

And so we'll see how that turns out.

So but those are very contentious issues.

I don't think the yes all the things that you say I true.

But say if if we're getting to the farthest to the left the guy in the Democratic side getting the say, a third or four or 40% of the vote and going to the nomination, well, how about second having a second round?

We can have a second round in the nomination process.

And this time, if they threw in large the number of districts, the other thing you can do is do not allow congressional districts to do cross county lines, draw congressional districts around county lines.

Okay.

So then you have that you can gerrymander so much, right?

So that would be a way to do it.

So there are ways that we can handle those problems.

In some states like Iowa, that's what they do.

They have their congressional districts are they do not cross country lines.

And then, for example, if Dade County, which is going to get quite a few congressmen, well, you can follow maybe school district lines or you could follow know here we can follow school district lines or county county districts.

You know, the district one or so forth.

So so there are ways that we can engineer.

We can kind of engineer the political structure to handle those things so they're not insurmountable.

Some objective sort of natural way to draw lines as opposed to what's going to win the party that controls the legislature.

The most seats have a little less than 2 minutes.

Thank you.

But I want to ask all of you, I think you said you were working on a book.

I published a book and the name?

The book, Lots of politics.

It's available on Amazon publisher Rutledge Allen, you have a book already and working on another and working on a book on Theodore Roosevelt.

It's still working on the manuscript.

Hope to have it done in a year or so.

Okay.

And Father Lincoln out there, still out there, came out in paperback also a couple of years ago.

Very good.

And Doug, you're working on something yourself.

I am working on a book, Natural Law and the History of Supreme Court Jurisprudence and my current research focuses on doing world studies of presidential debates.

And I'm kind of illustrating how the substantive content of that what I alluded to, I think at the beginning of this program has has deteriorated markedly in my judgment.

And I think there's objective evidence for that, not just my judgment.

Fascinating, fascinating conversation with you three.

I mean, again, the kind of recap when I opened the program, I mentioned the fact that we had gotten together back 2016 and had had a great conversation.

And then unfortunately, due to COVID, we're unable to do it in 2020.

So I'm thankful that we were able to get back together here in 2024 and hopefully we'll sit down and do it all again in four more years.

That would be that would be fun.

Dr. Alfred Kazin, Allan Manning, Dr. Doug Mott, our guest, talking about presidential politics, kind of looking at the current environment as well as looking back in history and maybe just kind of taking a little glance at what we might be looking at as we as we move forward in this world.

So thank you all very much.

And we greatly thank our viewers for watching our program.

And by the way, you can see this and many more of our conversations on the PBS video app and also out on YouTube.

You can also check us out of our reorganized conversations.

I'm Jeff Weeks.

Thank you so very much for watching.

I hope you have a wonderful year ahead.