Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
Kamala Harris VP Picks and the Impact of Military Contamination
Curious about how political ideologies evolve through personal experiences? Our new co-host, Dick Wilkinson, shares his journey from a conservative upbringing in Texas to a broad-minded perspective shaped by his military service.
We'll explore the intricate balance veterans face between libertarian principles and governmental necessities. Hear firsthand how personal and ethical dilemmas unfold during political races and campaign financing. The conversation also touches on the ever-growing bureaucracy and the constant quest for efficiency, highlighting how different political ideologies approach the challenges of progressive change and conservative simplicity.
In a deeply concerning chapter, we address the environmental impact of PFAS chemicals in military communities like Colorado Springs. With local advocates like Liz Rosenbaum leading the charge! We'll also speculate on Kamala Harris's potential VP picks, considering how each candidate could shape her campaign. Join us for a multifaceted episode that seamlessly blends military experiences with political insights and community advocacy.
www.EPCCPV.org or info@epccpv.org
Hello everyone and welcome to the All Things Military and Veteran Podcast. My name is Adam Gillard. I am your host Today. I'm being joined by Dick Wilkinson. He is going to be our new co-host here on the All Things Military and Veteran Podcast and, just as a read ahead on that, we are doing a lot of format changes around here and we are looking to change the name on that. But more to come on that. As we settle on things, we'll make sure everybody's well informed. But, dick, thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Thanks Adam.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm really excited to have you there. You know a lot of people you know say they want to help, but you're stepping up and you're doing stuff in our community and so thank you for stepping up and doing this. I deeply appreciate you and you got a long history of doing it too. Tell me a little bit about you know what kind of where you come from, who you are, what you did down in New Mexico, things like that. Just tell us about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, and I'm glad, very glad, to be joining the podcast as the co-host. I love talking about political topics and especially how they affect veterans and the people in our communities, so it's something that I'm just really passionate about. So this chance to share my ideas and experiences, I'm just really excited.
Speaker 1:As far as my background.
Speaker 2:I grew up in Texas. People hear my accent. They say, oh, you're from the South, but they don't know where because I've been gone forever. Right, but I grew up in Texas and left there with the thick accent and then lived in maryland for a few years and that like what?
Speaker 1:area texas.
Speaker 2:So texas is big and so it's unfair to just say east texas town called sulfur springs, uh way up northeast in uh the it's actually humid there we have water and green.
Speaker 2:You know it's a lot like louisiana. So, okay, um, but that that was a very red republican, uh, dyed in the wool kind of culture and community there. Yeah, um, the you know I was a kid, born in 81, so I was a kid when reagan and bush were in office and that was a heyday for that political movement. Yeah, and so I was. That's what I was exposed to as a kid.
Speaker 1:Did you really recognize it as a kid growing up, though?
Speaker 2:Like how, like politics influenced, like the people around you, when I was that little other than like seeing maybe something on TV, on the news you know, and hearing a parent or a family member talk about it a little bit yeah.
Speaker 1:I think everybody in my family did have some political opinions, they little bit.
Speaker 2:I think everybody in my family did have some political opinions. They weren't politically active people, but they definitely had deep opinions and everybody in Texas has deep, you know strong opinions, right One way or the other.
Speaker 1:We stand on what we say for sure, and so I heard that.
Speaker 2:I heard that in my family members' conversations and by the time I was maybe a teenager, as we all start to gain that view of the world outside of the home, I realized personally there's some things here I'm not real comfortable with.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and there's some aspects of thinking here that just don't match, maybe, how I see the world, and so, you know, as I got older I realized, just party or affiliation wise, that I was probably going to be more interested in the group of people who wanted to. I guess I saw it as along maybe racial lines, cultural, socioeconomic lines of a group where more different types of people seem to fit in Right.
Speaker 2:That's what I was seeing is that there was one group where everybody kind of looked and acted and agreed on everything said the same thing looked alike, agreed alike, you know, lived alike, and that that works right for them.
Speaker 2:But I saw this alternative of a culture where not everybody thought the exact same thing, not everybody would come to the table with the same idea expecting the same outcome. There was discourse and debate, and that's just something I'm personally drawn to. Yeah, I did debate in like middle school and high school, right it's something that I appreciate.
Speaker 2:Right, and so when I was around people that were exchanging ideas that were different just even from each other, I said, okay, I feel a lot more comfortable here, and so that was probably the early kind of cultural shift for me joining the military and man, talk about a melting pot. You know, boot camp was the biggest cultural mind-blower.
Speaker 1:It's by far the most diverse workforce ever in the world. Oh yeah, you know because I have a very similar background as you, but from the north side. I'm from northern Michigan or like mid-Michigan, and it's, you know, 80 plus percent white. So I didn't have a whole lot of exposure to other ideas. And then, yeah, you show up to boot camp and all of a sudden you know your best friends are you know from everywhere? Right, you know, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had never heard someone with a New York accent in person, only on TV right. You know, I never flew on an airplane until I went to basic training, right? So you know that for me to meet somebody in real life and he sounded like people on TV, I was like dude, this is real.
Speaker 2:Like this is the real world you know, and so I really appreciated that. Um, and then I also I'm a kind of a third party uh kind of fan. Early on I went for the green party. Uh, I went to a Ralph Nader rally a long time ago and that was just again really exciting because he was talking about things that were different than what the other parties were talking about, but they really mattered to me.
Speaker 1:The things that he was talking about, and he had solutions too. He had solutions, yeah.
Speaker 2:He was too logical for his own good. Exactly, is the problem right. A little more about my background. I have ran for office. I ran for state Senate in New Mexico, so we'll just kind of skip the military part.
Speaker 1:I was in the army for 20 years.
Speaker 2:Everybody knows what that is. I did signals intelligence the whole time. So I was an intel guy that gave me some really cool experiences. We'll get to talk about all that stuff some other time.
Speaker 2:But I ended up as a warrant officer, retired as a warrant officer from the Army and jumped out the door in New Mexico, albuquerque, new Mexico. I was stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base. That was 2019. And six weeks later, I launched my campaign for state senate in New Mexico. So I had done my research, done some background work, made some connections while I was still on active duty, to just be ready to get out the door, get started. It's something that, about midway through my career, I decided it was going to be my top my next career, right, you know, like that's what I'm going to focus on or at least try to.
Speaker 2:So it was time for me to, I guess, learn the ropes. And so jumped out the door, ran for as a Democrat down in New Mexico, ran for state senate, Did that for a few months, learned what I needed to learn and got out of the way of my primary opponent. That was very built into the community where I was at and I was a totally unknown new guy, so it was a good experience.
Speaker 1:It's still tough to step aside though it is, it is Right, so it was good. It was a good experience. It's still tough to step aside though it is.
Speaker 2:It is, and you know I had mentioned when we first met. I said, man, I took people's money that they had nothing to show for. It is how I felt about it.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and I felt bad about that. You know, I was like if I had lost.
Speaker 2:OK, whatever, like you were along the ride with me, but when I had to just withdraw from the race and some of that money was spent, I felt a little bad about that. But you know, I've always been interested, like I say, in the third party angle of things because I don't like the just black or white choice of politics as we have it most of the time. So it's something that's colored my affiliation throughout my life. I don't know that I've ever voted Republican my life. I don't know that I've ever voted Republican. I really liked John McCain as a presidential candidate, but I don't, you know, I know I didn't vote for him.
Speaker 2:So, but I, you know, I call myself, I have libertarian mindset, but when it comes down to being affiliated with a party, I've always been affiliated with the Democrats.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I feel like the libertarians like resonate with everybody because it makes sense. When you're on a small scale, when you're in smaller communities or familial communities and stuff like that, it makes 100% sense. But as soon as you start adding people to that, it just exponentially grows in complexity whatever that word is. And when you're talking about roads and infrastructure and things like that, just taking care of yourself isn't going to do it Like you need the government to do these things so like.
Speaker 1:And the government, it takes money, yes, you know, but we can take that money and create jobs and get it back to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it takes money up front and yeah, so, like I love my libertarian friends, but man, and there's a spectrum, right, yeah, there's what they call the night watchman, which is like only have a national defense, tax dollars only go to national defense and pretty much everything from there in is privatized, right, okay. And then there is more, even further than that is anarchy, right, but the night watchman is like just this side of anarchy.
Speaker 2:We have civilization that we've established, but there's a lot of free-for-all yeah uh, and then you trend back more towards what looks like just a normal political centrist position, which is, you know, hey, I, I do understand that the that what I consider the evils of government, it sometimes must exist right I don't really think the government. I mean, I I'm OK with some government, but I really like self-determination. You know, I really like as little cultural meddling as possible and all logistics.
Speaker 1:And so that's just. That's the flavor, like, whatever the whims of the whatever the culture is going to Right. So it's like the bureaucracy helps us kind of maintain some stability in our overall government. Yes, true, so you know that's one thing like. And again it's one of those things where you're like I wish it wasn't true. I don't like it, I hate waiting for the VA to process my shit for a month. Yeah, but like it's one of those necessities at this point so that you know we can have stability.
Speaker 2:Long-term established business plans that work, yes. If they require five layers of administration to work, that's a problem, right, yeah, and that's where I can agree that bureaucracy protects us against this big, you know, kind of flapping in the wind flag of how government gets done, you know, and differences in quality, you know, and of service and things like that. But I think this is the nature of anything. This is not a downfall of our form of democracy or the way we've constructed our government. It's just one of those things of over time bureaucracy will just grows it does.
Speaker 2:That's how it naturally builds itself as more layers and more layers. Right, and it's one of those. It's a Pandora's box kind of thing and so my take on it is like let's get in there with a machete and you know I don't want to get rid of people's jobs or whatever, but I do want efficiency.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that should always be a goal.
Speaker 2:So I want to rely on what you're saying, that bureaucracy creates these predictable outcomes in government and quality of service.
Speaker 1:But I also want to try and push that envelope at all times, right from a legislative perspective, oh yeah how can we do this more efficiently?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, and when I, you know, you know, kind of started like thinking of like, uh, the labels that we throw up, people, and like the progressive label and stuff like that, when I, when I think of progressive, it's things like that where we're making progress towards a common goal in multiple areas, you know whatever area it is. But, yes, you got to be constantly improving things and not just, you know, wishing for that utopia or whatever. You know, whatever you want, like it takes work to get there. Every day you have to like legislate and fix things and pull things back from the bureaucracies. Every day takes work.
Speaker 2:Now here's the thing, though the folks that aren't in the room right now, the people that have a more conservative mindset, they have. I don't want to say it's an easier job, but what you just said is true Progress requires incremental steps. It requires pain, maybe, at each step, it requires debate and compromise at each step, and all those things are hard, yeah, getting rid of stuff doesn't require that right you know, just shut things down, like you know somebody's going to stand outside the door and complain next week.
Speaker 1:But if there's nobody there, to answer the door, it doesn't matter right in their mind, right?
Speaker 2:it just doesn't matter, you find it it somewhere else right, you get that thing, resource. Whatever it is, just go do it somewhere else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and so for them.
Speaker 2:their solution is a lot. It may be true that it's less painful.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's easier or better, but if your settling- point is how hard is it to get there?
Speaker 2:that you know, and they just want to repeal some laws. Right, and you can. It's really easy. Yeah, you can show that result.
Speaker 1:You can show that result really easily.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and so sometimes you know that, that the truth of the fact is. Well, if we're just going to get rid of stuff to appease, you know our own. Uh, you know what I say appease, meet the needs of what we believe our constituency asked for. Yeah, that's a lot easier to do, I guess. It doesn't require as much buy-in. You don't need a coalition, you don't need stakeholders.
Speaker 1:Really, Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I'm really excited that you're on here, because I definitely have the further left view and you being able to bring me back is good, well, and.
Speaker 2:I'll indulge with you. Sometimes it's definitely just my own personal topics where I get offended by even the centrist view. Sometimes I'm like this has got to get better. So don't worry, We'll meet in the middle.
Speaker 1:Often One of the things that we talked about focusing on this podcast is the Colorado Springs area, just the front range here local politics and trying to get our veteran perspective on local politics out into our community. Right now, about 15% of our community is veterans, and then there's I mean that means almost you can double it for family members and people one step away from veterans and things like that.
Speaker 1:So this is a huge, huge military veteran area. We have some of the biggest posts on base Fort Carson. Actually, I just read that Fort Carson just closed down a couple units because they're preparing for the next wars and things like that so they're going through their reorg down there.
Speaker 1:Then Space Force here with Peterson Schriever, usafa up north is still there, you know, cranking out cadets. So it's a huge, huge military area and having this type of presence here in this area, you know we have a lot of influence on what happens. So we really want to try and focus on local politics from a veteran perspective to get things done, because we know how to get things done. So one of the and I've got something to add there.
Speaker 2:You know, I think we all take on this mentality too of if not me, then who? Right, that's the motto for the Travis Manion Foundation If not me, then who? And? And I, you know, just as you said, if we're 15 actual service members and then another 15 of our families, and if we're sitting around waiting for somebody else to take action around here we're not, we're not, it's not gonna happen, right you know.
Speaker 2:So yeah the emphasis is on us from ownership of being in the community and from having that veteran kind of label. We get, we get it double yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 1:So, um, one of the first things I wanted to talk about here is one of my good friends. She's running for HD21, liz Rosenbaum. She's been fighting for eight years for the PFAS chemicals that are in the water systems down in the Fountain-Wigwam water system area and she just got a grant for $300,000. And this is a civilian, she's not an elected official, nothing like that. She's running for office, she's ran for office before, but she is just a normal person fighting for the life of her friends, neighbors or family because these chemicals, uh, they've been shown to cause a lot of damage.
Speaker 1:Um, so the pfas chemicals, uh, you know, they came, came in, like all the non-stick stuff, the teflons and things like that that you know we created them and there's, you know, a whole myriad of them. There's like 10 of them or something, I can't remember. Um, but one of the big things that they're used in is the firefighting systems. So, like when the bases would use them to, like, you know, run a firefighting drill and things like that, all that foam and everything like that would just, they would just dump all these contaminants down. And so, you know, colorado Springs having all these military bases, yeah, they did it, everybody did it, yeah, you. So you know Colorado Springs having all these military bases, they did it, everybody did it, you know. And it got into the water systems and so now downstream, down in Fountain, they weren't being taken care of by the Air Force. Like you know, the Air Force is kind of focused on the Colorado Springs taking care of this water systems. The stuff down in Fountain was kind of left Out of sight out of mind almost Right.
Speaker 1:So these Forever chemicals were starting to build up down there. But Liz went to bat for us and got a $300,000 grant to start the testing process, to be able to test these things and start coming to plan to remove. I really hope she planned on some kind of uh, um, like the QC you know what I mean Like, like where the money's going and things like that, and like follow up all that Cause that's one of the things that the government's terrible about. We, we, you know we don't define our requirements up front.
Speaker 1:Um, but, but yeah like uh, we've seen it in multiple communities now where where the the presence of the military has led to class action lawsuits and things like that. What are your thoughts on the military's responsibility here in our community to help clean these things and get things better?
Speaker 2:Well, I'll be honest with you, I don't think I've been stationed anywhere where there wasn't some kind of contamination or cleanup effort that had been identified by the local community or the state county and there was some long-term, you know plan to fix whatever that problem had been. Uh, so it's, unfortunately, it is a true statement that the presence of a military base maybe not even a large base, but depending on the activities at the base could have led to local contaminations and, uh, and it was happening in times when, I think, everybody understood that water washes the bad stuff away, but it doesn't wash it very far away, apparently you know.
Speaker 1:So these, the way that these pfas chemicals, since they don't break down, yeah, they just build up and so, like whenever you got, like, even when you look at like water pipes, where you get that crud around the circle, it's's the same type of thing. But like down the river, where, where, where it just it builds up and like it just does not break down, yeah, um, and just keeps poisoning and it's, you know, been shown for different types of cancers, um, huge impacts on, uh, pregnant women, children, um, you know, especially, uh, yeah, and a lot of places.
Speaker 2:It's been fuel contamination too, as far as military contaminations where you're getting um diesel fuel leaking into the water supply, things like that into the water table, where again it's got this really long lasting effect because it's not going to get washed away it's going to sit right in that layer for a long time yeah I mean, I think my personal opinion is this is one where the price tags always sound astronomical and when you're talking about local government spending like a county having to spend $50 million to clean something up, that is an astronomical cost for a county, but for the federal government that's not that much money especially compared to the expenditures that happen around that military base. It's a billion dollars plus at any given base.
Speaker 1:Right In billions.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it seems like a penance compared to the amount of money that gets spent on operations and maintenance and sustainment there. I don't understand. Personally, I don't understand where the friction comes in around. It always sounds like the argument is around cost and complexity, but if we really put it, compared to overall defense spending, it's not that much money and I think we're here to protect the citizens right.
Speaker 1:Like the military is there to protect citizens from foreign aggression, we can't bring our own poison to the table and say you know we're here to protect you but we also kind of hurt. Yeah, we're going to hurt you and I know that's not the intention, but we're aware of it now.
Speaker 2:yeah, we're aware we can do more well, and that's what frustrates me as much of a factor as I think it usually is.
Speaker 1:That's really my big takeaway. Yeah, well, you know, frustrates me is like they still try to cover some things up and they still try to fight it and they try to drag their feet on it.
Speaker 2:Um, but, like, like that base commander personally went out and dumped the oil into the ground.
Speaker 1:Right, that's not what happened, right no?
Speaker 2:That's what it feels like. Yeah, like they're going to lose their career and not get their general officer look Right If they're the ones that has to go to the newspaper and say, oh yeah, we spilled the oil Right Like, but we know that's not true, Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually it's like the the reverse, where, like, if you, when you're trying to cover that stuff up, that's when you that's when you're in trouble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, but I'm gonna get away with it. Yeah, I'm smarter than yeah. Oliver north, I think, was the guy's name right, yeah, he rings a bell it's a colonel.
Speaker 1:I saw him on tv yeah, yeah, that's what's wild too, you know, because I was, you know, raised in the 80s too I was born in 81 also Going back and looking at some of the stuff that you kind of heard in passing, and then you kind of dive into it and be like I remember that name growing up. Then go read about all these the Iain Contra and things like that, even the stuff I find out about how the hostages got released the day that there was some shady shit going on.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Sure.
Speaker 1:Sure, you know, like he should not have been negotiating before, you know, yeah, um, but yeah, so back to the uh cleanup. Yeah, yeah, the cleanup stuff. Uh, yeah, you know Liz got this uh grant. Um, she goes to the National PFAS conferences and things like that, so she's just doing great things. Imagine getting her elected into office and actually getting the resources and where she can just focus on doing that stuff, because she was working with some other initiatives too and Colorado is known to be clean air.
Speaker 2:Clean water is a priority here. It's one of the things that attract people, both tourists and citizens, right? So I would think that if you're in the Colorado legislature, that there are people there that are interested in working on that with you. So the fact that she's running for the state house is probably a really good place to try and work on those initiatives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she'll get a lot of stuff done up there. The next topic that we wanted to talk about is back into the circus, back into the national presidential race. Right now, we still haven't heard who Kamala Harris is picking for VP. We still haven't heard who Kamala Harris is picking for VP. She's going on a big like eight-city tour, like starting like next Tuesday. I think she's starting in Pennsylvania next Tuesday, you know, hitting all the battleground states and things like that. Who do you think she's looking at right now? Well, we know who she's looking at. Who do you think she's really looking at and who we know who she's looking at. Who do you think she's really looking at and who do you want?
Speaker 2:Well, those are probably two different answers. Who do I think is seriously in it and who do I want? I think a really top contender is probably Gretchen Whitmer, the governor from is it Minnesota, Michigan, Michigan? Okay, governor of Michigan, I think she's. I think there's some desire for an all-woman ticket. That'd be interesting, you know, as an antithesis to the other side of the ticket. You know the counter, that counter ticket. I think there's some value in that. I think Gretchen Whitmer's had her name at the profile level that's required. I think she's made the policy statements and got the battleground story behind her own candidacy. That could do it.
Speaker 2:So I think she's a top contender. I do think that Senator Mark Kelly is probably a top contender from a little bit of a different perspective, in that he's in the national level already he's a senator and he's got national level recognition as an astronaut and his military career and then I think I'd like him and I think he's an excellent candidate For me.
Speaker 2:Personally, I've always loved Mayor Pete. I've always loved Pete as a judge. He's a secretary now, so he's got that cabinet-level experience. He's a military veteran as well, but he doesn't wear it on his sleeve quite the same way as Mark Kelly does. But I think that he would absolutely uh brandish that.
Speaker 1:You know, if he's the vice president, he would make it a part of his agenda in many areas, right. So yeah, that would definitely be a great counter. Um, yeah, yeah, I wasn't even thinking about, about mayor pete there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's definitely an interesting character, like I've seen him show up on the little chart of the six or eight people that people are speculating, right, he's, he's on that chart, yeah. And then, uh, I saw him on the daily show uh recently and you know they asked him straight up are you being v? Right, he's on that chart, yeah. And then I saw him on the Daily Show recently and they asked him straight up are you being vetted? And he's like, you know, if you're being vetted, was kind of his answer like yes, I'm being vetted, yeah.
Speaker 2:So he acknowledged that he's in that mix, yeah, but I don't know, he'd maybe be a stealth kind of guy to pull out of the hat.
Speaker 1:I love hearing him just talk with Fox News. It's so fun listening to him talk, because he doesn't really put up with any BS. He's so intelligent.
Speaker 2:That is why I like him as the candidate in this position specifically is because he is not going to have a Democratic answer and a Republican answer for a question that you ask him. He's not going to go at the fundraisers where we're trying to, you know, get money. I'm going to go talk about this, yeah, but then when I'm on Fox news, I'm going to go talk about this. I think you're going to get the same answer. You know you're going to get the same look, the same guy with the same answer on the same, no matter who's in the room. Right, I respect that.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a veteran. That speaks to his integrity, right, you know that, yeah, it's his integrity.
Speaker 2:And it's that veteran thing of like. If you're asking me a question, I'm giving you the honest answer, and because I know I can't afford to ever fall back on this and say, oh well, in there I meant this, but out here I meant this.
Speaker 1:That's not how we get stuff done. I've been in the military Right yeah, can't do that, and that's what blows me away when we hear Speaker Johnson saying he wants a biblical republic to his fundraisers.
Speaker 2:There you go, and then kind of dancing around it, yeah, and then he ends up on CNN and is like wow, of course not American values. Blah, blah, blah. That's exactly what I'm talking about. How can you?
Speaker 1:look people in the eye and just bold-faced just bullshit lie. How can you look people in the eye and just like bold face just bullshit lie. Yeah, you know, it just blows my mind. I think Mark Kelly is going to be well. I think he'd be my best pick. Yeah, because I think, you know, coming from a state with a blue governor, you know we would be able to replace that Senate seat.
Speaker 2:Oh sure, with a blue person, that is important.
Speaker 1:You know, obviously he's got the astronaut and the military things, which is pretty badass. I actually have a picture with my first three kids. The fourth one wasn't born yet my wife and I. He wrote a children's book about a mouse astronaut, yeah. So I got him to sign it and got a picture.
Speaker 1:But then when you look at him, being from a border state, so you know he can speak well to that and he can focus on that. So he would be a good selection for Kamala just to hand that over to him to see where the borders are, you know, because he can speak very intelligently on that and from personal experience, be intelligently on that and from personal experience. And then with his wife, you know Gabby Gafford. She's running, or I don't think she's running it, but you know they have their. I think it's a lobbyist group, the Gaffords PAC. Oh, it's a PAC, that's what it is. It's like you know about, you know responsible gun laws and legislation. So you know he has some hot topic things that he has great experience on.
Speaker 1:But I think that the governor from Pennsylvania is another person, shapiro, I think his name is. Just having an East Coast person, I think, would help out a lot on that side. So yeah and so yeah. Back to her schedule. Her first days in Pennsylvania and like her seventh days in Arizona, so like she's hitting their stops too, you know.
Speaker 2:From a strategy perspective for her, what do you think is more important right now? Is it to find someone who balances what is seen as her shortcomings? Or, like you said, east Coast, west Coast, or she's been beat up about her involvement with border issues, so maybe she's got somebody who can be a champion of that. Is she looking for somebody to balance her out or is she better off looking for somebody who really leans on the base and just delivers a turnout.
Speaker 1:Voter turnout off the blue side.
Speaker 2:Are we snagging independence or do we need to excite the base and get people off the couch? Which one is more important for her to beat Donald Trump?
Speaker 1:Not in the vacuum of what's the best strategy.
Speaker 2:How do you beat the opponent that she's against?
Speaker 1:right now. That's a great alibi there. Yeah, because for me and my thought I would want somebody that can just get things done. So, when you look at and get the hot topic issues done so immigration, gun control that's why I really like Mark Kelly. But yeah, like you said, and I think he can get people excited. But yeah, like you said, and I think you can get people excited, but On the Democrat side I think you have A more Better character candidates. So, like, I think everybody's going to be Everybody's kind of excited to vote right now. Just in general, like over the last month, the tone has really shifted A lot, you know. Yeah, I can agree with that.
Speaker 2:Um, I still, I still think, uh, and we'll talk in, you know, inside baseball here but I do still think there's risk on the democratic side of people staying at home, right, uh, you know, just people that aren't very active, definitely not people that are sitting in rooms like us right now talking about party stuff, right, but I'm saying the bulk of the voting base that is registered as democrats. I do still think there's some, some risk of complacency that people think trump's already won and that, you know this, changing candidates just made it worse you know there's, there's a lot.
Speaker 1:Did you hear that a lot? Because I don't hear that like the changing candidates. Not necessarily that it made it worse, don't't get me wrong.
Speaker 2:No, that just like it shows weakness within our overall party and, like you know, just that there's not a coherent strategy for what the Democrats want to achieve. Those kind of things, that that, and even just the political risk of swapping a candidate post primary like that's never happened before. Like there's a lot of people that are just like, well, you're giving them, you're giving them, yeah, all these reasons to just win easily, right, and so I do think there are people that feel like maybe it's the, that it's a lost cause I think so.
Speaker 2:Um, that would be my concern and I guess maybe my strategy out of my question, if I had to pick one, would be excite the base, um, and make sure they turn out. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know how much the independent vote is really up for grabs anymore.
Speaker 1:So the way, like we know who is going to vote for the Democrat, we know who is going to vote for the Republican no matter what Right yeah. One of the big complaints that the independents had was that it sucks voting for people in their late 70s and 80s. Yes, that was removed from one side, you know. I think Joe Biden needs a lot more credit for making a decision that a lot of us 99% of us would never make.
Speaker 1:To step down and give up that mantle. That's a George Washington-esque type of decision. Yeah, that was huge Washington-esque type of decision. Yeah, that was huge. Yeah. So you know, the Democrats at least removed that from that independence. So if that was the thing that was keeping independence from going over, I think that addressed that. So I think a lot more independents are going to go that way now.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you what else it did. As far as President Biden's choice to do that, whether people believe it was a choice or not, that's a different thing. I think it was a choice or not, that's a different thing. I think it was a choice. I don't think there was any way that, while he was advised and maybe even pressured, clearly it was his choice, absolutely.
Speaker 2:What it did, though, is the statement of another Trump presidency is a threat to democracy was a very bold statement that the campaign throughout, regardless of who's at the top spot there, has held as a true what they believe is a true statement, right, as Biden was becoming, you know, not willing to step aside, but people wanted him to. That was the thing that people picked up and said if he, if Trump, is really a threat to democracy, then you have to do everything you can to make sure he doesn't win, and some of that value of that was crumbling, right. Well, the decision to step aside reinvigorated that to be a true statement. Right, it said we as a democratic party, I as Joe Biden believe that this is an existential threat to our country and I'm not going to put my personal interest of being a two-term president or just my pride of not stepping aside. I'm going to set that aside and I'm going to believe what I've been telling you all along, which this guy could ruin it all, and so I'm willing to give whatever we all think this is up to defeat him.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think that it put that back in the center of the conversation with the credibility that it needed to be the driving force behind their campaign. I know that Kamala doesn't seem to be running with that right now, because it's a doom and gloom kind of statement, right. So right now she's trying to flip the message, be positive, invigorating, hopeful, right, and will continue to do. I hope for the rest of the campaign. But that doom and gloom message will probably come back out when it's close to the time to get out the vote.
Speaker 1:You're going to hear both.
Speaker 2:You're going to hear the doom and gloom of no really, if you don't go and vote. And if you don't go and vote, and. Bluetooth Waiting for connection. Usb speaker. If you don't go and vote, and you don't go and vote for me, yeah, then that thing we've been talking about, that looming specter, it's still there and it's still coming for us. Yeah, I think you're going to hear it again sometime around the end of, uh, you know last year, right, we're first week in November maybe.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, well, man, I think we're going to call it there and wrap it up Again. Really excited to have you.
Speaker 2:How long did we?
Speaker 1:run on that. Right now we're at like 35 minutes, oh really.
Speaker 2:Felt longer it did. It felt like it was about 45, closer to an hour maybe, cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me read these real quick, just so I can have these done. Quick word from our sponsor. The All Things Military Veteran Podcast is proudly sponsored by the Native Roots Cannabis Company, colorado's leading locally grown and owned dispensary chain. Native Roots has been our largest donor since we were founded five years ago and we thank them for their continued support. They have 20 locations in Colorado and Native Roots is ready to educate and serve recreational and medicinal patients alike. Again, thank you for listening to the All Things Military and Veteran Podcast. We can be found on over a dozen podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, google Podcasts and Spotify. We hope you find our program rewarding and informative. Please check us out on the web at epccpvorg. Sign up for the newsletter there, where you can get to know about our lunches, things like that. You can drop us a line also through that website. Thanks everybody for listening. Hope you're having fun out there. Stay safe, cool.
