The big political show. With two NFL games on Monday we decide to go off-book to talk about another passion of ours, politics. We chat with Phillip Stutts, a political consultant and campaign specialist in Washington D.C.

In part one of the show, we talk about Phillip’s career, working on many campaigns including the Presidential campaigns of George Bush and, gulp, Dan Quayle.  Wet get into a brief debate about the merits of Bush’s reign as President, and if being a good guy is enough to qualify you as a successful POTUS.  With regard to Quayle, we talk about working on a campaign when you know the candidate has no shot to win.  What do you have to do differently, and what do you do when the campaign folds. No potato(e) jokes, I’m sorry to say.

Stutts also ran Bobby Jindal’s first gubernatorial campaign so we talk about the differences between running local, regional and national campaigns. He also parallels some of the obstacles Jindal had in Louisiana to some issues Obama may have in both the south, and rural America.  Really interesting similarities.

In part two of the show, we talk about the current election process.

First, who is Sarah Palin and is she qualified to be one heartbeat (and a weak heart at that) away from running the country.  Phillip likes the pick, so we ask why, and wonder when she’ll have to face media scrutiny.

We talk about the conventions and ask a real political strategist (and pundit) how each side fared. Was it as simple as Obama going way over the top and McCain is a bad public speaker?  Was there more to it?

That leads to who these conventions are for? Hasn’t most of America already made up its mind? So who exactly is watching the conventions, and is there much crossover, or are the conventions a vehicle to galvanize each party.

We talk a little media, including my thought that all anchors should have to disclose their voting record. This is topical with regard to MSNBC’s recent shakeup, so we wanted to address it on the show. I feel we should know more about the people we get our news from, and I think knowing who they voted for, or who they plan to vote for, will help us determine exactly how skewed their coverage is.

Staying on the topic of media, we ask about the John McCain alleged affair and marvel at how quickly that story went away. Brilliant.

Last, we talk about the overall coverage, and I assert that politics are for smart people, but campaigns are geared towards dummies. It’s the campaign’s job to dupe people into voting for their candidate by any means possible. Phillip calls me cynical and asserts that I don’t give Americans enough credit, which leads to a spirited debate.

No typical TV pundit yelling, just a very informative and lively debate between left and right. Hopefully a good listen.

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