STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Paul Begala has been listening to Stephen with us. He's a longtime political strategist who helped orchestrate Bill Clinton's presidential win in 1992, among many other things. Mr. Begala, welcome back.
PAUL BEGALA: Steve, thanks. Thanks for having me.
INSKEEP: Granting all the errors and omissions, did you learn anything from this autopsy?
BEGALA: Oh, my gosh. It's not just the errors and omissions, OK? It's - I mean, as your reporter mentioned, affordability, cost of living inflation - it's barely even mentioned. Imagine the after-action report after the sinking of the Titanic and it doesn't mention icebergs.
INSKEEP: OK.
BEGALA: That's what drove the election. By the way, apparently, they didn't even speak to President Biden, Vice President Harris, Governor Walz or any of the top strategists. Not Mike Donilon, not Anita Dunn, not Steve Ricchetti, not Bruce Reed, not Jen O'Malley Dillon, not Steph Cutter. So imagine a medical autopsy, where you don't examine the brain, the heart, the liver, the lungs, the kidneys. But, man, we know everything about her left foot.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
BEGALA: Man, we got that left foot nailed, Steve.
INSKEEP: As you're talking, I'm thinking of something I read from Dan Pfeiffer, of course, was a former Obama operative. I read him. He's on Substack. He's talking about the Democratic Party chair who commissioned this report and finally released it. Quote, "Ken Martin is not up to the job, and his continued presence is going to make the DNC woefully ineffective heading into the midterms." What do you think about that, that the party chair ought to go?
BEGALA: You know, I'm not on the DNC. It didn't really matter to me. Didn't matter to most voters, but it's hard to argue he's doing a good job. OK, we are winning, but I don't think anybody believes Democrats are winning because of the party chair. And this thing is an embarrassment. What I don't understand, honestly - I don't know Ken Martin. I'm sure he's a great guy. If - I teach at University of Virginia. If one of my students submitted a paper like this, I'd give it back to her and say, look, you got to rewrite. You got to do the research. You got - in other words, why didn't they just give it back or hire somebody else to do a proper job and then release that?
You know, we need to know why and how Vice President Harris refused to run on economic change on change. I think it was 'cause of sense of loyalty to Biden. I don't think she's dumb at all. I think she's brilliant. But she didn't run on economic change. And she was asked - that was the most disastrous interview on "The View" when she was asked, what would you do different? And she said, I can't think of anything. People wanted change. I mean, it's pretty - you walk around the neighborhood, you're going to open a food truck, and everybody says, man, I love burgers. Golly, I want burgers, Steve. And, you know, you say, well, I don't care. I'm opening a vegan taco stand anyway.
INSKEEP: People wanted change, you're saying, and she ended up arguing for the status quo, whatever she...
BEGALA: Right.
INSKEEP: ...May have wanted to do. There's another thing that I think about when I think about the Harris campaign, and that has to do with the attention economy. She was suddenly nominated. She got enormous attention. She gained in the polls. She had a good speech. And then a couple of months passed, and she had nothing more to say. Trump said outrageous things, but they were new things and got all the attention. Did that matter?
BEGALA: Absolutely. I think that's very wise. You know, my longtime partner, James Carville, says she didn't get any votes on Election Day she didn't already have on Labor Day. And I went and rewatched that "View" interview so I wouldn't be unfair to her answer, and I wasn't. In the interview, she's introduced and Joy Behar says, this is your first live interview on television. That was October 8.
INSKEEP: Wow.
BEGALA: I mean, of course, she should have done "Joe Rogan." That's the big thing everybody talks about. But I will say this in her defense - she had the best debate performance I've ever seen - ever. And I've trained Bill Clinton for all his debates, Al Gore for all his. She had the best debate since Lincoln beat Douglas, but she didn't capitalize on it by feeding that attention economy.
INSKEEP: Now, with that said, we're talking about tactics here, and I guess tactics matter. But I wonder to the extent that - to what extent substance matters here. There's always a debate anytime a party loses, should we move left? Should we move right? Should we be socialist? Should we be populist? What are you thinking about the Democratic Party's position on issues and the Democratic Party's unpopularity as a brand heading into these next couple of elections?
BEGALA: We are fighting that out right now. And I just watched in Virginia and New Jersey moderates win landslides. Mikie Sherrill, the new governor of New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia. They ran self-consciously as moderates. Now, Zohran Mamdani won as a democratic socialist in New York.
INSKEEP: Yep.
BEGALA: But it was the weakest performance of a successful Democrat in New York in a hundred years. It was very - actually a very weak win. But good for him. So that works in New York, and that's impressive. But in a state where the Republicans were controlling every statewide office, Abigail Spanberger wins a landslide. So the data - The New York Times poll out this week says by 2 to 1, Democrats want their party to move to the center, not to the far left. But we can have that fight. I don't really think that's what crippled Kamala at all. The biggest things were immigration, of course, and even bigger than that, inflation. The biggest event was Joe Biden deciding to run.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
BEGALA: And not giving her a chance - to only have a 107-day - that's not even mentioned.
INSKEEP: In this report. Paul Begala, thanks very much. It's a pleasure to hear from you again.
BEGALA: Thanks, Steve.
INSKEEP: Take care. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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