0:01

The Armstrong and Getty Show.

0:13

Every time I hear this song rest of my life. Thanks

0:15

for ruining it for me. Alan Tipper

0:17

Goore and Bill and Hillary Clinton. This

0:19

was their song when they're running for president and just

0:22

just picture when they won the presidency and the nomination

0:24

on stage dancing around with this song. Perfectly

0:27

good song. I like ruin my

0:29

Alan Tippergore dancing to it, one of their

0:31

many sins. Please welcome back

0:33

to The Armstrong and Getty Show. One of our faves and

0:35

years. Lon Chen Uh David

0:37

and Diane Stephy, research fellow at the Hoover Institution,

0:40

Director of Domestic Policy Studies UH

0:43

at Stanford University, and recent

0:45

guest on special Port with Brett

0:48

Bear Awesome, in which he equitted himself

0:50

quite beautifully. LONGHI, how do you like that experience?

0:53

Oh? Yes, you know it's it's it's

0:55

a good show. It's a good show,

0:57

great show. Breath

0:59

of very guys so enjoyed

1:01

it. Yeah, and it's a serious news

1:03

show. And anyway, I had to be

1:06

nervous as held to be on that panel. But you're you're

1:08

an eminate man. You handle it well, so well

1:10

done. So listen a lot of national

1:12

polls in the news recently, including the one

1:14

outlier that freaked people out briefly. But is

1:17

there any point in national

1:19

polls when that's not how we pick candidates

1:22

in the primary system. Boy,

1:25

that's a great question, um, because

1:28

and it's not something that a lot of media talk about.

1:30

You know, they spend a lot of time hyperventilating over

1:32

these national polls and what each one means. But

1:34

the polls that matter are are the ones

1:36

in the early states like Iowa and

1:39

Hampshire and Nevada. Obviously,

1:41

those polls don't tend to come out until we get

1:43

a little closer to those to those

1:46

elections, and there are a few polls

1:48

in those states, like, for example, in Iowa, the Des

1:50

Moines registered poll is considered the gold

1:52

standard, and that's the one we really have to pay attention to it. But

1:54

it's a great point. The national polls at this point

1:56

of the campaign are relatively meaningless.

1:59

Their name i de polls, you know, their polls about

2:01

who knows who. And that's why I

2:03

you know, my argument for why Biden, I think is still

2:05

doing relatively well is because let people know

2:07

who he is. He's a known commodity, he's

2:09

got a little bit of that Obama halo effect

2:11

around him for Democratic primary voters, and that's

2:14

why he continues to do relatively well. I

2:16

have one question that I'm personally interested in the answer,

2:18

and I hope the listeners are too, because we've been discussing

2:21

this. We'll pull them do Bernie

2:23

and Elizabeth occupy the same

2:26

territory enough that if one of them

2:28

gets out, the other one gets most of their

2:30

supporters, as in Biden usually

2:32

has those two added together,

2:34

and it seems like if one of them got out, you'd have a tie

2:36

between either Bernie and Biden or Elizabeth

2:39

and Biden. Yeah, that's

2:41

the argument I've been making. I've been saying that.

2:43

Really for Biden, the worrisome fact

2:45

is that you've got a relatively high

2:48

percentage of Democrats who

2:50

affiliate with either war And or Biden.

2:52

Let's call it the far left to the party. So,

2:54

you know, the poll where Biden was Uh

2:57

was in trouble earlier this week that came out from

3:00

Monmouth University had

3:02

essentially Warren plus uh

3:04

Sanders at and

3:07

had Biden somewhere around. And

3:10

so while I think it's the case that the

3:13

vast majority of Bernie's support

3:15

would go to Elizabeth Warren and probably vice

3:17

versa. Uh, it's probably not all

3:19

of them, but it's enough that if I were the Biden

3:22

campaign, or if I were any other candidate trying to run

3:24

a more moderate strategy in the Democratic Party,

3:26

I would be concerned about how big that

3:28

number is because that block is clearly

3:31

the ascendant block within the Democratic

3:33

Party. But and when you start to look at

3:35

it, it's, yeah, it's it's a big number. But the

3:38

way they do things, as we saw with Trump,

3:40

all you gotta do is beat the rest of the people, doesn't

3:42

Your number doesn't have to be that big as long as you beat

3:44

everybody else, if everybody stays in the race. So

3:47

is there going to be a lot of pressure on either Bernie or

3:49

Elizabeth to get out? Otherwise Biden bests them

3:51

both because they split the

3:53

They split their number, so

3:56

that I think there will be. But the interesting question

3:58

is who applies pressure to who and and who decides

4:00

to bow out. So far, if you'll observe

4:03

from the debate by Warren

4:05

and Sanders have been very friendly with

4:07

each other. They haven't attacked each other. They've

4:09

been very supportive on the campaign trail,

4:12

they've barely, if at all, kind

4:14

of hit each other, and

4:16

and and so at some point in the campaign, as

4:18

the field narrows, and let's presume that Biden

4:20

and Warren and Sanders are in there for at

4:22

least the you know, next several months, which I think is

4:24

true. I think Bernie and Warren have some staying

4:27

power, and I think Biden does too. At

4:29

some point there's going to have to be an ego matchup,

4:31

and someone is going to have to say, look, okay, fine,

4:34

it's it's pretty clear that my even this is

4:36

not my time. And the question is do you

4:38

see Bernie Sanders stepping aside? Do you see

4:40

Elsbeth Warren's But right now I don't see

4:42

either of No, So then what do they do? Let

4:46

me pipe in with the latest moin registered

4:48

poll um of the Dems,

4:51

Biden has um,

4:55

Bernie is in second with six, and

4:58

Warren really in a time at that

5:02

adds up to of likely

5:04

caucus goers UM two,

5:07

Biden's twenty four. Now that

5:09

doesn't mean there's no chance one

5:11

of them drops out, so that won't happen. But I

5:14

wonder if you know how a Lonnie the

5:16

media is number one stupid and

5:18

number two, you can win

5:20

Iowa by a tenth of a point

5:24

or even be Rick Santoruman actually win,

5:26

but nobody talks about it because they misfigured.

5:29

But the media will scream, uh, you

5:31

know, Biden wins Iowa. Biden wins

5:33

Iowa. I Biden with moments blah

5:35

blah, by want by a tenth of a Boyington. We're about to

5:37

have the other votes. Will that

5:40

be the case if you got

5:42

Liz and the old guy

5:44

Bernie with a combined thirty

5:46

one percent to Biden's twenty four Yeah,

5:50

I mean, you don't have to win by much. You

5:52

just have to have to be able to claim that you won.

5:54

And remember that in past elections, the

5:57

story in Iowa has been not

5:59

necessarily who wins, but who finished the second

6:01

or who demonstrates momentum or

6:03

who finishes better than expected. So there could

6:05

be a lot of different narratives coming out of Iowa.

6:08

And you know the results you mentioned there,

6:10

you know, Biden, you know, with maybe what was

6:12

it a five or six point lead, you barely have thirty

6:15

seconds by the way, Yeah, I mean

6:17

that's not very much given the marginary error of that

6:19

pole. That poll probably have marginal error four or

6:21

five points, so we'll have to see. But the

6:23

Iowa contest, in my mind, is more

6:25

important this cycle than in any previous

6:27

democratic cycle because the fields so big

6:30

and it's so crowded on that progressive left. So we'll

6:32

have to see what happened. That's interesting, yea. Indeed, Lonnie

6:34

Chen of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University,

6:37

always enlightening. Sorry for the short

6:40

chat today but we're a little behind, but thanks for

6:42

Millian, good to talk. Thanks, thank you.