In This Episode
The balloons are deflated. The halls have gone quiet. And the entire city of Chicago is, once more, nursing a hangover. But did the DNC really change anything for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz? Max and Erin take a look at the conventions of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, John McCain and others to understand why some candidates get a leg up while others fizzle. How will VP Harris’ boost compare to Trump’s? Is having a clear policy agenda a pro or con for a convention? Has Bill Clinton always been so long winded? Listen to this week’s How We Got Here to find out.
TRANSCRIPT
Erin Ryan: Well, Max, the balloons are all deflated. The halls have gone quiet, and the entire city of Chicago is once more nursing a hangover.
Max Fisher: Erin, I assume you’re referring to this week’s Democratic National Convention and not the people still trying to leave Lollapalooza after Chappell Roan’s set.
Erin Ryan: You might be asking yourself, what did it all add up to? Did the DNC change anything? [music break] I’m Erin Ryan.
Max Fisher: And I’m Max Fisher.
Erin Ryan: This is How We Got Here, a series where we explore a big question behind the week’s headlines and tell a story that answers that question.
[clip of unspecified person at the DNC 1] Connecticut. How do you cast your vote?
[clip of unspecified person at the DNC 2] Connecticut’s the Constitution state, over the submarine, over the jet engine. Over the yukon husky–
Erin Ryan: Oh my God! That was from one of my favorite moments of this week’s convention, the state roll call, which involved Lil Jon.
Max Fisher: And apparently Connecticut Governor Gilbert Gottfried. [laughter] Our question this week, how could the Democratic National Convention change the course of this race? Or could it?
Erin Ryan: Hold up. Max. Are you sure we’re not overcomplicating this? The purpose of the DNC seems straightforward. Rally the party. Get some free airtime. Same for the RNC.
Max Fisher: Well, there’s been a wide variance in how much these conventions matter or don’t matter for the course of the election.
Erin Ryan: So it’s not just a standard five point bounce.
Max Fisher: It’s not. Which brings us to our story for this week. We’re going to look at two presidential conventions from years past that did have a real impact on the race.
Erin Ryan: And we’ll draw lessons from those on how this year’s DNC could end up mattering, too.
Max Fisher: Let’s start, though, with the story of how we ended up with these conventions in the first place. Because it happened a little bit by accident. And when you understand that history, the ways that those conventions matter or don’t matter become a lot clearer.
Erin Ryan: So I looked into this a bit. And yes, the conventions as we know them are now relatively new, but the precursor to those conventions goes all the way back to the third ever presidential election in 1796. Who can forget 1796? [laughter]
Max Fisher: Lil Jon was at that one too, I think. Right?
Erin Ryan: Whoa.
Max Fisher: And they had a balloon drop.
Erin Ryan: Yeah. But he–
Max Fisher: Is my understanding.
Erin Ryan: He yelled ye instead of yeah or yea. No balloon drop, sadly, and no big speeches. When George Washington said he wouldn’t run for a third term as president. Congressmen from each of the two parties retreated to their separate back rooms and decided who to run to replace him.
Max Fisher: So the first party conventions were just a handful of guys in wigs hashing out in the smoke filled back room of some pub in Philadelphia?
Erin Ryan: The same with the early seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race. [laughter] A system that had its appeals but was not meant to last. In 1831, an upstart party called the Anti-Masonic Party tried something new.
Max Fisher: I’m sorry, the Anti-Masonic party?
Erin Ryan: I don’t know why you’re confused, Max. The name speaks for itself.
Max Fisher: You know, you’re right. I’m sorry. It was a stupid question, but there is something reassuring about being reminded that American politics have always been absolutely batshit.
Erin Ryan: Absolutely. Just different flavors. Anyway, the Anti Masonic Party’s big innovation was that rather than picking their presidential candidate in private, they would hold a big rally with public speeches, apparently against the Masons.
Max Fisher: They’re going to get those Masons.
Erin Ryan: Yeah, they’re going to get them. That was the first presidential nominating convention.
Max Fisher: But the process for actually picking the candidate was still the same, right? The party leaders would go into a back room and decide among themselves?
Erin Ryan: That’s right. But the convention brought all those party leaders together with the rank and file, giving them a chance to consult and haggle over how they decide. This new format was so popular that the other parties all immediately adopted it too. And that was how it worked for 140 years.
Max Fisher: So for most of American history, the primary purpose of the conventions wasn’t the speech and rallies. It was for the party leaders to come together and decide among themselves, sometimes on the convention hall floor and sometimes in the same smoke filled back rooms, who to nominate for president.
Erin Ryan: You know, I always wondered why it’s not smoke filled front rooms. I feel like all the rooms were filled with smoke for much of American history.
Max Fisher: You’d think you would want better light? Yeah.
Erin Ryan: Indeed.
Max Fisher: Better windows and certainly better ventilation for all that smoke. Anyway, regardless of the room’s location, the speeches and rallies up in the convention hall were meant to help guide the party leaders in that process of picking the nominee.
Erin Ryan: It’s kind of funny that the Venn diagram of people who were complaining the loudest about Kamala Harris replacing Biden at the top of the ticket without a primary and the people who are big fans of constitutional originalism is a big, fat, whiny circle. Because our oldest, longest running method of picking a nominee is pretty close to what we got with Harris.
Max Fisher: And that process lasted right up until 1972.
Erin Ryan: Yes. Bingo. Because what happened in 1972, Max? Say it with me.
Max Fisher: Voter primaries.
Erin Ryan: Oh. I didn’t say it with you because I knew you were going to say it.
Max Fisher: Well, I said it for both of us.
Erin Ryan: I got to save my voice because I got a lot more to say.
Max Fisher: [laugh] You do.
Erin Ryan: Starting in 1972, in response to a rise in grassroots politics and the general tumult of the era, presidential candidates weren’t picked in smoke filled backrooms anymore. They were picked by voters in a series of statewide elections. So not at the conventions.
Max Fisher: But political parties kept holding the conventions anyway because the rallies and speeches were still useful on their own.
Erin Ryan: Also, politicians love walking around feeling like big shots.
Max Fisher: Oh they do.
Erin Ryan: Because everyone knows who they are.
Max Fisher: They love a big crowd.
Erin Ryan: Absolutely. And they stuck around, especially thanks to another big, important invention that changed politics, maybe just as much as voter primaries, TV.
Max Fisher: Yeah, TV is a big one. So that is how we ended up with these conventions that we have now that are sort of one part zombie holdover from a bygone era, and one part TV infomercial.
Erin Ryan: Complete with people being like, oh, nothing works at the beginning of the convention, all of which tees us up for a big question. So what? Do the conventions matter? Does this one in particular matter?
Max Fisher: So, Erin, the conventional wisdom, ah ha.
Erin Ryan: Oh oh.
Max Fisher: Is that each party gets a convention bounce in the polls.
Erin Ryan: But not all convention bounces are equal.
Max Fisher: Right? If they were, then the Democratic and Republican conventions would just cancel each other out, and it would be a great big waste of everybody’s money.
Erin Ryan: That’s crazy. Politicians never waste money. [laughter] So, Max, the University of California at Santa Barbara tracks the polling bounces that each party has gotten from each presidential convention.
Max Fisher: And is there a lot of variation in the size of the bounce?
Erin Ryan: A ton. Usually it’s in the neighborhood of about three to six points.
Max Fisher: Okay, that’s a lot of variation. Like if one party gets a three point bounce and the other gets six, that’s enough of a gap to determine the whole election.
Erin Ryan: Sometimes it’s less. In 2020, Biden got no convention bounce and Trump got only one point, probably because of Covid and because nobody was feeling good about anything in 2020. Even the Olympics sucked.
Max Fisher: Yeah, it was a bummer year. Okay, so that’s how low the convention bounce can get. How high can it get?
Erin Ryan: The highest ever convention bounce was for Bill Clinton in 1992 with 16 points.
Max Fisher: Whoa.
Erin Ryan: Yeah. A guy can give a speech. Next highest was Jimmy Carter, who got a nine point convention boost in 1976 and ten points the next election.
Max Fisher: Okay, well, this is all a lucky coincidence, because the two conventions I want to talk about today are Carter’s in ’76 and Clinton’s in 1992. Those seem the most comparable to Kamala’s convention this week. And so maybe the most instructive for understanding its likely impact on the race.
Erin Ryan: If those are also the two most successful conventions in history, that seems like pretty good news.
Max Fisher: That’s good news. So to tell us the story of Carter’s big 1976 DNC, I talked to the Pulitzer winning historian Kai Bird, who has a new book on the Carter presidency called The Outlier. Here’s Kai.
[clip of Kai Bird] He didn’t have much of a national profile at all. You know, Jimmy Carter sort of came from nowhere. He won the nomination in the summer of ’76. And in 1974, just two years earlier, he was on one of these quiz shows on TV where the audience is supposed to guess who the mystery guest is. And it was Jimmy Carter. No one knew who who the hell he was. So he had a big job trying to introduce himself at the convention and in the subsequent national campaign. And as we all know, it was a very close election.
Erin Ryan: Wow, shades of Tim Walz.
Max Fisher: It is shades of Tim Walz. Yes. And so Carter’s big task going into the convention was to define himself for the country that most didn’t know him. I asked Kai how Carter went about this, and he said that Carter actually mostly avoided policy issues and sold himself on the basis of having personal integrity. Here’s Kai again.
[clip of Kai Bird] You know, he didn’t really run on issues. He ran on himself on the fact of who he was. A decent, born again Christian who was a southern liberal. And, you know, that didn’t fit into many boxes that were familiar to the electorate. He sort of was a curiosity, but he came on the national scene at the right moment. He had one window of opportunity. It was a very improbable campaign in many ways. But, you know, this was two years after Watergate and the resignation of a president in that scandal, and just one year after North Vietnam conquered the South and declared victory. And so America had lost this terrible, long ending war.
Max Fisher: Something else that Kai talked about, and I think this might have some echoes with Kamala’s campaign today, is that Carter also used the DNC to present himself as just a friendly, likable guy with a sense of humor, which people loved after years of politics feeling and again, maybe this sounds familiar, angry and dour. Here’s Kai.
[clip of Kai Bird] Carter was less known as a national politician than any of his predecessors. And so he comes to this convention, and it was well managed, and he got his bounce, and he got a chance to introduce himself to a lot of voters who didn’t really know who this guy was. Gerald Rafshoon was his great communications director and Rafshoon crafted for the convention a very funny video that introduced Carter, and it was a series of cartoons all focused on Jimmy’s famous, very um, TV smile. And uh, it was sort of self-deprecating and uh had a funny note at the end you know you see these series of cartoon images of Jimmy and his big smile and, and then the screen goes black and all you see is a set of teeth and a smile in the blackness. And then you hear Rosalynn’s voice offstage saying, cut it out, Jimmy. Turn off the light. Go to sleep.
Max Fisher: So. Erin, what do you think? What lessons should we learn from Carter’s super successful 1976 convention? Thinking about this week’s.
Erin Ryan: Well, I think that it speaks to the fact that when you’ve had a certain amount of time with a certain type of leader, people are just interested in having a change. Um. If the leader is kind of on the goofy side, then the voters tend to want someone who’s a little bit more serious, maybe a little older. But on, you know, the other hand, Carter benefited from the fact that they had all these dour, serious–
Max Fisher: Coming out of the Nixon era.
Erin Ryan: –men. Yeah.
Max Fisher: Yeah.
Erin Ryan: Kind of boring and kind of like uh sinister men. And Carter was the opposite of that. So I think that Carter had a chance to show how he was different than the way that things were, and that really benefited him.
Max Fisher: I really think about how much I feel like I have heard political commentators talk about how Kamala’s big challenge is that she is undefined for voters, which does reflect in polls. People feel like they don’t know her as well as they do Donald Trump. And talking about that as a liability. But hearing about Carter’s DNC, I’m actually not sure it’s a liability. It actually sounds like it might be kind of a strength to be a little bit of a blank slate, a little bit more vibes based than policy based. There’s actually some research that I looked at from political scientists at Stanford and Berkeley that found that being undefined can actually be a big boost with voters that voters like, kind of like the idea that if you’re a little bit of blank slate or they like the idea that they don’t know you as well because it’s harder to be polarized against you, which is, of course, one of the defining trends of our era. And it kind of, I think, is helping Kamala to get around the double hater problem of people who hated both Biden and Trump and the fact that she can come out of the DNC like being like all laughs and smiles and good vibes, but maybe not getting as much into policy might actually be a strength for her.
Erin Ryan: Mm hmm. I also think that not to not to beat the drum of feminism, but I think that women have it a little bit harder than men. The longer we tend to know a woman in public life, the harsher our judgment of her seems to be.
Max Fisher: Right.
Erin Ryan: I think Hillary Clinton had a problem in in 2016 with people who had known her for so long that they had figured out why they didn’t like her. And I feel like with Kamala, because she’s a little bit more undefined. People haven’t had enough time to figure out why they don’t like her.
Max Fisher: Mm hmm. Something Kai Bird also talked about was that it was really hard for Republicans to pigeonhole Jimmy Carter in ’76, partly because he was so undefined in his public image. Was like, hey, he’s got a big smile. He’s from Georgia. Everybody likes him. That it was much harder for his opponent, Gerald Ford, to be like, he’s inexperienced or he’s too liberal. And it feels like that could be helpful with Kamala too, where the Republicans are like kind of trying to paint some picture of her for voters. But none of it is sticking because they don’t have enough to work with.
Erin Ryan: And they don’t know enough people who are like Kamala. There aren’t enough people in the public sphere that are multiracial, Black and South Asian women.
Max Fisher: Right.
Erin Ryan: Who are former prosecutors and like she is a mix of so many different things. Um. She’s a member of a blended family. Her husband is Jewish. Like, there’s she’s got stepchildren. Her husband’s ex-wife is supportive. Like, there’s all this stuff going on. And I think that the Republican Party is just like, oh, there’s if they try to pigeonhole her one way, she has like a balancing trait on the other side that she can just play up. So I think that they’re having a hard time because, you know, as Donald Trump said, what is it? Is she Indian, is she Black? Like they can’t figure it out. And I think that’s to her benefit. [music break]
[AD BREAK]
Max Fisher: Okay, Erin, this brings us to the other Democratic National Convention that seems similar to this year’s. It’s also the DNC that produced by far the biggest polling boost of any presidential convention of the modern era, 1992 Bill Clinton.
Erin Ryan: Max, I take it the big parallel here is once again a less well-known, fresh faced candidate being received as a breath of fresh air.
Max Fisher: Yeah, Clinton was slightly better known than Carter had been. He’d been Arkansas’s governor for 12 years, but his one prior brush with national politics had been a disaster. He had been given a 15 minute speaking slot at the 1988 DNC, but had rambled on for half an hour and his speech was so tedious he got booed. He got booed by the DNC.
Erin Ryan: Oh no.
Max Fisher: Here’s a clip.
[clip of Bill Clinton] If we ever get to the point where our parents don’t prefer their children’s future to their present, we’ve had it. And don’t you ever forget it. Michael Dukakis will never, never, never forget it. [crowd booing] In closing. [cheers] [laughter]
Erin Ryan: Oh man, not to go all gallows humor, but in closing would be a really funny epitaph on on the gravestone of a person known to ramble on.
Max Fisher: Give long, rambling speeches. I think Bill would like that. So this actually feels a little reminiscent to me of Kamala’s trajectory too, in that four years ago she also kind of face planted in her case in the 2020 primary. Like she dropped out early, she didn’t contest a single state. And then four years later, much like Clinton in 1992, she’s gone from like kind of a party reject to now the face of the party.
Erin Ryan: Yeah. There was a recent time magazine piece that talked to a Harris aide who noted that in 2020, a lot of new candidates had this happen to them. Her staff kind of bubble wrapped her.
Max Fisher: Yeah.
Erin Ryan: Didn’t really let her get out there. And now there is no choice. But there’s no playing it safe. They’ve got to let her get out there. There’s also some shades of Clinton ’92, in the way that Kamala is seen as a break from the Democratic Party of yore.
Max Fisher: Right. Clinton’s whole thing at the 1992 DNC that ostensibly made it such such a success was positioning himself as representing the, quote unquote, “New Democrats,” who were supposed to be a brand new party with fresh ideas.
Erin Ryan: Never mind that those fresh ideas were mostly in the vein of hey, what if we governed like half way Republicans?
Max Fisher: [laugh] Yeah. Coming out of 12 years of Reagan Bush and 12 years of straight Democratic losses. Clinton’s big reset was to hold on to some liberal social values, namely abortion rights, but otherwise embrace a lot of conservative policies like shrinking welfare programs and lifting financial regulations, which worked out so awesome. Erin.
Erin Ryan: Yeah. Repealing Glass-Steagall.
Max Fisher: Great choice.
Erin Ryan: Love it. Clinton was also selling youth and personality. A month before the ’92 DNC, he played saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, which was one of those change politics forever moments. Here’s a clip of Clinton’s interview with Arsenio.
[clip of Arsenio Hall] When I look at you on paper, I mean, it’s like the perfect guy. Rhodes scholar, youngest governor, tell me about your flaws. What are your shortcomings?
[clip of Bill Clinton] We don’t have enough time. We’d have to have a bucking party if you want to listen to my flaws.
Erin Ryan: Oh, my God.
Max Fisher: I know.
Erin Ryan: How long was the Star report? The ’90s were wild. Just wild.
Max Fisher: So the DNC itself that year was actually not super eventful. It was a lot of Fleetwood Mac and a lot of boilerplate speeches.
Erin Ryan: But the point is that Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, came out of it with the biggest convention polling bounce on record, and it held through November, with Clinton winning 32 states and beating George H.W. Bush by 5.5 points. Now, I was a child in 1992, and I still remember my parents driving us down to an Iowa County fair to see Bill Clinton on the stump. He wore a 4H hat. He shook people’s hands.
Max Fisher: That’s fun.
Erin Ryan: And then I remember the day that he or the morning after Election Day that year, the headline on the Saint Paul Pioneer Press said, Clinton [?]. Just across the very top. And it showed Bill Clinton in a baseball cap at a McDonald’s counter.
Max Fisher: Of course, at a McDonald’s.
Erin Ryan: Celebrating.
Max Fisher: That was his his summer White House was McDonald’s.
Erin Ryan: His Mar-a-Lago.
Max Fisher: That’s right.
Erin Ryan: McDonald’s.
Max Fisher: Okay, so, Erin, what do you think is this week’s convention setting up Kamala for the same kind of boost that Clinton got in 1992? Like, do we see any parallels here?
Erin Ryan: Yes. And it’s not just because of Kamala Harris. Um. Because, you know, she’s a great speaker and people are really excited to see her. People were really that’s why everyone came to the convention. I think there are so many different draws in the DNC this year that made it appear that the Democrats are the party of like party. That they are they are putting the party in Democratic–
Max Fisher: Yeah.
Erin Ryan: –party.
Max Fisher: Yeah.
Erin Ryan: They were having fun with the state roll call. There’s all of these viral clips now that are side by sides of the RNC roll call and the DNC roll call. And, you know, we have, you know, people cheering for their own state. You know, the sound of Prince’s music coming up in Minnesota, just a huge roar erupting as they get ready to cast their ballots to nominate their state’s governor as uh the VP. So it just I think this convention shows that the Democratic Party, like the Harris campaign message, is the party of the future and the party of fun.
Max Fisher: Yeah.
Erin Ryan: And the party of people enjoying themselves and the party of freedom. And the Republican convention was one of fear and res–
Max Fisher: Shouting.
Erin Ryan: Restraint.
Max Fisher: Yeah.
Erin Ryan: And and shouting. And Hulk Hogan, for some reason, um and so, so yes, I think that it is possible that this one could be significant, but not just because of Bill Clinton just being able to absolutely kill it with a long speech. It’s because of a bunch of different factors.
Max Fisher: Yeah. I agree the joyousness is really important, and I think that it is really hard to overstate the significance of having relatively young faces.
Erin Ryan: Yes.
Max Fisher: At the DNC, like I feel like that is something we are learning is that that conveys a lot to people on its own, irrespective of policy that like new, fresh break, starting over, fresh start. And I think it’s also not for nothing that the 1992 DNC was obviously very like deliberately crafted to be, it’s like it’s a new party. We’re starting over. It’s like the old Democrats are dead and gone, and now it’s this new guy. And they’re not saying that at the 2024 DNC because Joe Biden is is technically still alive. And so no one wants to be like, that old party is dead now and the Obamas are there. But so much of it is built around Kamala replacing Biden that I think the overriding feeling across all of it, even if they don’t say this explicitly, is like it’s a new party. It’s a fresh break from the past. Like Obama, Biden, however you feel about them, that is the Democratic Party of old. And that feels like that has a parallel with Jimmy Carter too. Um. Well, Erin, we should note that there are some other examples from presidential convention history that are, you know, to be honest, less encouraging for Kamala.
Erin Ryan: Yes. John McCain’s RNC in 2008 comes to mind. We talked about this last week. He unveiled Sarah Palin as his running mate and got a big boost in the polls.
Max Fisher: It pushed him into the lead for the first time all that year.
Erin Ryan: And Palin provided the boost she did, in part because she was new a break from the past, not unlike Carter or Clinton before her. Then people got to know her a little bit better.
Max Fisher: Boy did they.
Erin Ryan: And they did not like what they learned. And so McCain’s polling lead evaporated.
Max Fisher: You know, I think 2008 is interesting in another way too. The Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, is exactly the kind of candidate you would expect to get a huge convention boost based on these other ones that we’ve looked at like, young political outsider, fresh start for the party. But he only got a little four point bump. And maybe that was because the Democratic primary had been so bitterly contested. Maybe it was some other reason. I’m not exactly sure, but the point is that the convention bounce isn’t guaranteed, even when you do have all these factors in place.
Erin Ryan: Exactly. And there’s still quite a bit of time between the conventions and the elections.
Max Fisher: Yeah.
Erin Ryan: So there was a seismic event in 2008, which you may recall. In September um, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch both, well, one collapsed and one was folded into Bank of America. That was the absolute height of the financial crisis.
Max Fisher: Right.
Erin Ryan: And that kind of changed the trajectory of the race, too. So there’s always going to be more stuff that happens after the conventions that can also change the outcome of things.
Max Fisher: It’s a good point. The convention bounce might not necessarily have a chance to gel based on what happens in the world.
Erin Ryan: Exactly. Well, let’s take a step back. We’ve learned that presidential conventions can really matter for determining the course of the election. We looked at times when they put a candidate decisively ahead and times they fizzled. What do we think it adds up to for understanding the likely impact of this year’s conventions on the last 70 days of the race?
Max Fisher: I mean, one of the things I keep coming back to is that TV really matters. Like, I don’t really watch a ton of it. I don’t think about it. I like just have my streamers.
Erin Ryan: Oh you’re so cool.
Max Fisher: Well. I cut the cord. What’s cooler than that? But like, I keep being reminded that the reason we have this nominee in the first place is because of the televised Biden Trump debate. Like that was the thing because so many millions of people tuned in and watched it that like, flipped the poles on Biden and led the party to push him out. And maybe the same thing could happen now with the conventions, you have so many people tuning in, it can be a really decisive moment just because it happens in that box in the living room.
Erin Ryan: Mm hmm. And, you know, you have to, you know, for comparing the DNC and the RNC, Trump rambled on for like 90 minutes.
Max Fisher: I know it was not a good convention–
Erin Ryan: At the RNC.
Max Fisher: –for the Republicans.
Erin Ryan: It was like–
Max Fisher: It was really bad.
Erin Ryan: It was really it really exposed how just unhinged and undisciplined Trump is when it comes to being a leader and being at the center of the stage. And um yeah, I think that TV is absolutely a big deal. And seeing him on stage with Harris, who he recently, uh declared that he was better looking than, which is a very weird thing for him to say.
Max Fisher: I don’t think even he believes that.
Erin Ryan: I don’t think–
Max Fisher: He believes a lot of crazy things, but I think that’s one that even–
Erin Ryan: It’s–
Max Fisher: –he deep down is like, no, this is not true.
Erin Ryan: It is objectively false. Uh. But we’re also going to see another televised matchup between people that could kind of sway the election. We’re going to see, uh we’re going to see the vice presidential candidates square off. We’re going to see America’s dad, Tim Walz, square off with–
Max Fisher: Oh my God I can not—
Erin Ryan: –JD Vance.
Max Fisher: –fucking wait.
Erin Ryan: Who has the most extreme daddy issues of any running mate.
Max Fisher: That’s true.
Erin Ryan: That we have seen in quite some time.
Max Fisher: Do you think he’s going to cry on stage? What if what if they do the scene from Good Will Hunting where JD Vance cries and they hug and then he heals JD Vance?
Erin Ryan: Okay.
Max Fisher: That would be beautiful.
Erin Ryan: Yeah, I think that’s good. I think that that would provide a convention style bounce. I think that also being undefined as we discussed is a huge asset. You know, Kamala Harris right now is undefined. People can put whatever hope they want into her. And I think that, you know, Barack Obama might have benefited a little bit from that too.
Max Fisher: For sure. Yeah.
Erin Ryan: He had a pretty short uh Senate career before he was elected president. And a lot of people projected their hopes for what he could be on to him. And–
Max Fisher: Yes, which he invited.
Erin Ryan: –he, exactly. And but it worked in his favor. And then when it turned out he wasn’t everything everyone wanted him to be at all times.
Max Fisher: Right.
Erin Ryan: People got disappointed.
Max Fisher: Right.
Erin Ryan: But it won him two elections. So there you go.
Max Fisher: I agree, Kamala is definitely in a place where she can be all things to all people. Something that I am trying to keep in the back of my head as the like other side of that is that she got this amazing boost in her favorability ratings the moment she became the nominee. She went from something like 15 points underwater to, I think now basically tied or is like, she’s two points ahead and unfavorable or favorable, which for 2024 is amazing.
Erin Ryan: Crazy.
Max Fisher: Yeah.
Erin Ryan: Yeah.
Max Fisher: Crazy good numbers. And it’s like, that’s great that she could have that overnight flip. And she could only do that because she is undefined for so many people. But the risk is that does that mean it could flip again if something happens, if the debates go poorly. So I think right now it’s really working for them and the convention. I my hope is that it will gel her enough for people that she is, you know, inured to another big swing in her polls, but doesn’t gel her so much that you start to get the reverse polarization and the kind of double haters and people saying, I don’t like this or that about Democrats, and I feel like they are threading that needle of defining her just enough, kind of like Jimmy Carter in ’76, where it’s like, we like him. He’s so fun. But without like a point that Kai Bird made is that Jimmy Carter, like one of his big things was civil rights, but he really did not lean into that, into the DNC, partly because they knew that was going to be polarizing for a lot of voters. So they, like, just kind of saved it for the presidency, which seems like it worked.
Erin Ryan: I also think as a as a final note, I think that the Democrats are introducing Kamala Harris to the to some voters, they’re introducing Tim Walz to many more voters. I think that both of the candidates are standing in for things that the campaign stands for. And by that, I mean, you look at Tim Walz, now we know what he did as governor of Minnesota. And so he becomes a stand in, when you see him you think paid family leave. Uh.
Max Fisher: Right, yeah.
Erin Ryan: Free lunches and breakfast for school kids like he becomes so when he just appears on the campaign trail, from now on, he will be linked to those issues. So he doesn’t–
Max Fisher: That’s always what you think of.
Erin Ryan: Yeah, he doesn’t need to harp on them.
Max Fisher: Yeah.
Erin Ryan: You think gun owner who thinks about Second Amendment uh being Second Amendment restrictions in a reasonable way, like he he is somebody who has learned from his mistakes. He is someone who has grown as an adult. You see, Kamala, you think this is somebody who is like the fresh face of the party. She’s got new ideas. So I think that the conventions, if they are successful, they will link the image of both of those people to issues that matter to large numbers of voters. And the good news is Democrats have the issues on their side in this election. There is massive supermajority support for paid family and medical leave, for universal health care, for background checks, for abortion access. These are things that if Democrats have successfully linked the candidates to those issues in voters minds, they don’t even need to really say very much about them.
Max Fisher: Yeah. That’s true. Well, I am going to be watching very closely to see what happens to her poll numbers and what kind of a bounce she gets, because the Republicans, as we said, got zero out of their convention. So anything that she gets is going to be great.
Erin Ryan: I wonder how much the JD Vance couch rumor played into that [?] because it was really taking off right around the convention. Uh. But he’s also a deeply unappealing man.
Max Fisher: That’s true. There’s a lot–
Erin Ryan: So.
Max Fisher: –of reasons that they–
Erin Ryan: A lot of reasons.
Max Fisher: –didn’t do well.
Erin Ryan: A lot of reasons. Okay. Well, Max, let’s go out with let’s call it one of the more notable convention speeches from this year. That’s right. It’s Wrestlemania’s Hulk Hogan endorsing Trump at the RNC.
[clip of Hulk Hogan] You know, even though you guys are real Americans, you better get ready, because when Donald J. Trump becomes the president of the United States, all the real Americans are going to be nicknamed Trumpites because because all the Trumpites are going to be running wild for four years.
Erin Ryan: What?
Max Fisher: I, I don’t know.
[clip of Hulk Hogan] So with the power of Donald J. Trump and all the Trumpites running wild. America is going to get back on track. And like Donald J. Trump said, America is going to be great again. [cheers]
Erin Ryan: Okay.
Max Fisher: I truly don’t know.
Erin Ryan: He does not sound well. And two, a lot of people in Hollywood, a lot of writers are under or unemployed right now. And it is wild to me that they couldn’t hire one of them to write that speech.
Max Fisher: I applaud everyone who turned down that assignment. I really do.
Erin Ryan: Good for them.
Max Fisher: Yeah. [music break] How We Got Here is written and hosted by me, Max Fisher and Erin Ryan.
Erin Ryan: Our producer is Emma Ilick-Frank.
Max Fisher: Evan Sutton mixes and masters the show.
Erin Ryan: Jordan Cantor sound engineers the show, audio support from Kyle Seglin, Charlotte Landes, and Vasilis Fotopoulos.
Max Fisher: Production support from Leo Duran, Raven Yamamoto, and Adriene Hill. [music break]
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