10.31.2024 -- NLS -- Inside Idaho's Voting Crossroads: Primaries, Policies & Power Plays

On this episode with Neal and Julie, they dive into the hot-button issues of the current political landscape, beginning with a discussion of how candidates are navigating the public’s perception, especially when handling divisive topics. Neal expresses that Donald Trump’s recent focus on policy has made a strong impression, particularly among voters who are still on the fence. They discuss the impact of voting propositions like ranked-choice voting and open primaries, with Neal noting how these could shift Idaho’s traditional political structure. Julie adds her perspective on how some view these voting systems as a push for more moderate or even liberal candidates in conservative states.

The discussion takes a closer look at the group “Veterans for Idaho Voters” and the argument over closed primaries in Idaho. Neal voices concerns that allowing open primaries could disrupt conservative outcomes by inviting non-Republicans to participate. They also touch on the emotional responses these issues evoke, particularly around ranked-choice voting, dark money in politics, and the broader implications for state autonomy.

Finally, both hosts emphasize the importance of voters understanding the long-term impacts of these proposed changes and encourage listeners to consider whether these modifications align with their vision for Idaho’s future.

Transcript

So, Julie, this song is called Stupid Girl. Do you know who sings it? Are you turn it up for me. No. Guys, look, I guess the obvious answer here is Kamala. But. Okay, who sings it? A band called garbage. I change your mind. I just wanted to play this for you. Cause I've always liked this song. I don't even know what it's about.

I don't even know this song. I don't. You've never heard this song. You have. We'll get to the point, I guess, because maybe it's going to be something you recognize. I mean, the chorus is basically them singing stupid Girl, but you never heard this. It's not ringing a bell. Yeah. This is really, What year did it come out that you can feel very techno preppie?

I think 90s girl. I think it's a 90s song. Okay. Anyway, so we thought we'd start the show today with a little bit of garbage. But here we are. It's the Neal Larson show. It's a Halloween edition. We don't even know what that means at this point. But it is Halloween and it's The Neal Larson Show 2020 for scary.

So we thought it's just built in. Yes it is. And, Welcome, Worf. Julie. We're five days away. Like it? We're we're close to measuring the amount of time until the election in hours. It used to be months. Then it was a few weeks. Now we're down to days, but we're not that far from it being, you know, here.

And I'm ready. I'm so ready. Earlier I said it's Thursday, referencing an activity that happens here on Thursdays. And, he goes. He goes. Yeah. Like, he was thinking it was Thursday. We're that much closer to the election. And how excited he was. Yes. I'm thinking now it's Thursday and we have something going on in the building today.

Yeah. Well, which is sort of my very imbalanced and unhealthy perspective right now, which it's just so election like, everything is just centered around the election. Are these conversations is that normal? Well, it's normal for us. It's not normal for everybody. For people? Yeah. You're right. It's it's not. But given the thing. Okay. How are you feeling?

I know I ask you this probably almost every day now, but how are you? How do you feel about Trump? I'm feeling pretty good. It's. I will tell you, it's hard when you ever. You start looking at anything, from the mainstream media. Like, I was on a media outlet this morning. They're acting like Harris has up ten points in all of the swing states.

I mean, to hear them talk, that's what they're that they're acting like. So it's hard, depending upon what arena you're in. All in all, I'm feeling pretty confident for Trump. I think the last three weeks have been spectacular for him. And disastrous for Kamala. Yes. And that matters. It does matter because you're you're playing as you referred to in the 6:00 hour, a game of inches here.

And all we need to do is win by a few inches those votes that people weren't decided or those votes where they finally went, okay, it's gotten so ridiculous. I've got to get out and vote. Yeah, those are going to be the winning votes. And I think that in the homestretch, trumps gather in those in little by little.

I also think that we are full on 100% on offense right now. And I love that. That is where you want to be. Not reacting. Not responding. I think I don't know that I heard Donald Trump even try to respond to the the comedian who had the insensitive jokes like he just moved forward is like, this is your problem.

Yeah. He said, I don't even know this guy. He did a set. Yeah, I'm not owning it. I didn't have anything to do with it. I don't know this guy. Yeah, right. And I'm sure sometimes those decisions can be made locally. Like they're like, well, we want to have a comedian to warm up the crowd. That's somebody else's job.

They got the wrong guy or whatever. That's not Trump's issue or Trump's fault. And I think most people can recognize yeah, well in the debate they got the wrong guy for a political event. Yeah. The guy is really good at roasting people. Yes. He's edgy. That's who he is. So he didn't change his brand? Yeah, it wasn't the wrong guy.

It was the wrong event for that guy. Yes, yes. Right. Yeah. But nobody care. I look, I the only people that I've met that care are the people that are Trump deranged. Yeah I that's it. That's how I feel too I, I just it wasn't that big of a deal. It just shouldn't have been made into the big deal.

But when you're campaign is floundering you have to grab on to these things and try to make them move the needle for you. I think it backfired horrifically. You know, it is. It's a fascinating phenomenon, Julie, where every moment is a gotcha for the the Trump deranged like everything that Trump does, they're trying to find an angle to make that be his fatal misstep.

Yes. Yeah, he did it. Look, he's made enough of his own. It's not you're not going to change people's minds with this. He's kind of politically immortal. Like it? Like he just. You're you're not going to destroy the guy. You got to figure out a different way, because to try and tear him down, it isn't going to work.

It just isn't going to work. So what is my mantra been this whole summer going into fall? Talk about policies. Talk about policies. Talk about policies. Because with Trump, there's going to be people who hate him. It's just who he is. It's that superstar power you're going to have the the polarization. So many people love you. So many people hate you.

That's what it is. Okay, so I was always wanting us to focus on policies. I could turn that all around right now and say that to the Kamala campaign and say, do you know what you did wrong? You didn't focus on policy because nobody wanted to hear about the crap about Trump. Yeah, you made this campaign about Trump, and what you needed to do was convince people that your policies were going to be good for America.

So now then, you dig in. Why didn't they do that? Well, that's because their policies stink. They couldn't do it. No, they can't sell their policies because their policies are that bad. If if the policies were good. Well, I played the the CNN clip earlier of, I don't know, some Karen wishin that Kamala could run and own Joe Biden's policies because they've been wonderful.

Like the chips act and everything else. And it turns out it. No they haven't. All right. Yeah, I know you have that narrative going on in your your brain and you've got these cyclical thoughts about Joe Biden's actually great. It reminds me of Joe Scarborough when he said, this is the Best buy. Never. And if you if you don't agree with this, I mean, I remember we all remember that moment because we played it over and over again.

I feel like you're delusional if you think the the country has done well under Joe Biden. We are not thriving. You might be able to find a couple of things that that worked out okay. And then you exaggerate those into this overwhelming success that has been Joe Biden. It's not true. Nobody thinks it's true. And there's general malaise about how our country is doing right now.

Forget about the I mean, the numbers aren't that great. But even if the numbers were better, people vote based on their perception of how things are, not how things are. And so we don't feel as a nation like we are the shining city on a hill right now. We don't feel like our best days are still ahead. We feel like Joe Biden's been a pretty lousy president, that he has been on par or worse than Jimmy Carter.

That's how you feel about Joe. Most people feel about Joe Biden. I'm sorry if you don't agree with that, but that's the general feeling, which is why they had to ditch the guy three months ago. And and, get get another nominee up to speed or at least try. So let's compare the two campaigns with that concept. Right.

So I, I'm saying I wanted them to talk about policy. I actually feel like Trump's done a pretty good job of that over the last three months. Yeah. There's been a lot of policy conversation, exact policies that he wants to implement like the no taxes on tips policy, his caregiver in home policy that he he, revealed at the Madison Square Garden, rally.

Like, I feel like he's done a pretty good job of talking policy and how he wants America to change. The only thing the Kamala the Kamala campaign has talked about is Trump hatred. Now, with those two bases in in play there. Let's talk about how their rallies go. How many times has Kamala been interrupted in her rally with people screaming and yelling at her and not agreeing with her?

Do we see that at the Trump rallies? No, we do not. And I think that's because you created a campaign on the Democrat side that was all about hate. Hate orange man. Hate him. He's horrible. Kill him. They basically said that. Yeah. Eradicate him. Like, those are words that they use. When you create a campaign like that, you get people showing up at your rallies, interrupting and screaming at you because you're the one who's made the bed.

Yeah. That's true. I think there's a gap, although I think Donald Trump is is popular. That's a myth. To say that he's he's reviled by so many people. There's a subset of America that that finds Donald Trump reviling most people like him. His his positives are as good as Kamala's are. Yeah. Like, they're he's not underwater. He or, he might be a little bit underwater, but he's no worse in the in the hole then, than Kamala Harris's.

So, I mean, I look at the there's so many myths that they live in, they have this little media bubble and these little, sort of these bubbles of confirmation bias that they live in. And it's on both coasts. You have the East Coast and you have the left coast or the West Coast, and they sort of live and they, they feed each other.

These, these constant lies. But when Trump goes out and he just talks to heartland America, people drive for hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of miles to go and watch him speak and to experience the energy and the excitement of a of a Trump rally. Julie, you and I have been to three now, all three of them have been in Montana and there's nothing like them like I it it is it is such a unique experience to go at it and and the run up to it.

All of that is just it's a certain energy that he has cultivated around the country that is really kind of, I mean, I would say once in a lifetime. I think Reagan had a very similar dynamic supporting him. But he's a very unique candidate. And this is historically an anomaly. Most presidential candidates that you get some excitement, nothing like this, nothing like the flavor, nothing like the magnitude of of what Donald Trump is creating.

It's great. And then again, comparing the two campaigns, right. You've got the Kamala campaign that's filled with hate. All that Trump bad, Trump bad, Trump bad. And her rallies are filled with that. Even when she went to the friendliest place that she could be, which was at the Washington Mall, friendliest place she could be. She still had people interrupting her rally.

Yeah, the she finally drew a decent crowd at that rally without having some singer show up and either sing or not sing. You know, you betray your audience, but these are her people. Yeah. DC what was it, 93%? Oh, yes. Democrats, 7% voted for Trump. Yeah, this is her playground. And she still had people interrupting her rally. That tells you more about her than anything else.

Yes. Yeah. I also think and we're going to get to the phones here in just a moment. But all of the things that they've thrown against Trump, all of the, accusations, all of the legal effort that they've put towards him, it's only strengthened him. It's only built his mystique and his, his persona because one by one, they just they fall, they they they they fail and they falter.

And he, he truly is a lion. And and I think I think they, they know they cannot defeat this guy yet. And again, I'm going to say it, love him or hate him, if you are not willing to look at how situations play out, you're the one that's being dishonest to yourself. Yeah, I'm not telling you you have to love him or hate him.

I'm telling you to analyze. I'm telling you to look at what's going on between the two campaigns. If you can't see that, you're being deceptive to yourself. Yes. Yeah, I would too. And and if you're hung up on personality traits or something, he said whatever, you're kind of missing the whole point here. All right. Let's go to the phones.

(208) 542-1279. Caller thank you for waiting. How are you today? I'm really cold. I'm good. I got a I got to tell you, I, I, I'm, I guess I'm, I'm, you know, it's just one thing, but I remember my high school history teacher who was very liberal, very democratic. But she never brought her, I guess, her opinions into the classroom.

She taught history, and I was here for my senior year, and we could have all kinds of discussion. She was a lot of fun. And but I was actually talking to her about a week ago and she said, I can't stand Trump, but I have to vote for him just because of policies. But too many people are are.

And she claimed this Trump Derangement Syndrome isn't a real thing, but I think it was just interesting. Here, I've got this. She's voted Democrat her whole life and but she's like, I have to vote Trump just on policy. She's like, the last four years have just been a mess. Wow. And and then the other the other thing is I, I have a ten year old kid who, she asked me just yesterday.

Hey, dad, what's this one that everybody's talking about? I was like, oh, give me a second. I'll. I'll play. I was trying to finish up some work and he's like, well, let me tell you what this kid went off on. And I was like, should I vote for my own son? He do. He is so much about it.

And I was like, where'd you learn this? His older sister showed some stuff. He would look up on YouTube and, you know, at the start of some of the stuff, he's like, it doesn't make sense. Why people want to do this doesn't hurt our voting as well. Yes it does. He's like, okay. And just walked up and I was I was I was impressed, but I was shocked because I didn't realize how much younger these younger kids are listening and let him go out and research it that we don't get indoctrinate.

Our kids necessarily in what we believe or what we know, I guess, but teach them right from wrong and they'll figure it out themselves. What's right and what's wrong. Yeah. I just really proud of myself. So that's all. Okay. As you should be. Well done. Dad. Yeah. Thank you, for the call. And I appreciate that. Good sons usually have good dad.

So, or and moms. So let's go to the phones. Caller. Welcome to the show. How are you? Good morning, Julie and Neal. How are you? We're good, we're good. Fantastic. I have got, Well, I'm calling because I have a very strong opinion about prop one and all of the ads being run in support of it.

Yes. Infuriates me that they're using. I'm sorry, I am so was blown up about this, but it makes me so angry that they're using our veterans as leverage to push their agenda. My grandfather served in World War two. My father was in the Vietnam War. My father in law was a marine across the ocean in the 60s. My husband served in Desert Storm and my son spent eight months in the Middle East.

And all of these veterans, including the elderly, veterans at the community I work at, have always had an opportunity to vote. There's never been a problem, ever. They have never been denied the right to vote or voice in their opinion. And these veterans are some of the most intelligent people I know, and our veterans are our national treasures.

And it just makes me so mad is they're trying to push an agenda using those men and women who sacrificed everything for this country. Yeah, well, you know what? Thank you for your passion. You called yesterday, and we just didn't have enough time for you to, to come on and and fully express yourself. So I asked you to call back today.

And thank you for calling back, because I think people can hear the passion in your voice. What what this caller is talking about is this group that Todd Achilles co-founded called veterans for Idaho Voters. Now, Todd served in the the military Desert Storm or I can't remember what he did. I can't remember which branch, but he served, well, and I won't take that away from him.

Thank him for his service. However, it appears this group may have been formed specifically to help get proposition one passed. And so they needed a talking point. And the talking point they needed was that veterans are being blocked from voting. But in reality, the fact that they are a veteran has nothing to do with their access to voting.

Okay. They just generally they just needed to use people and their favored status that veterans rightfully have in our society to be able to say they're being blocked from voting. They could have done it with nones. They could have created a group of paraplegics. They could have they could have created any group and said they're being blocked from voting.

And the false impression that people are left with is because they're being blocked, because they're veterans. Well, no, they're veterans that made a choice like anybody else did, to not affiliate and therefore not vote in the Republican primary. But they're veterans status has zero to do with it. But yet that's the thing that they're invoking in order to create outrage on this issue.

They're terrible. They're terrible. People. They are. And they're making it they doing it on emotion because they know how important a veteran is and what they've done for this country. Yeah. And I just want to take two seconds real quick and say every veteran out there because Veterans Day is November 11th and they sacrifice. So I could have a free country to raise my family in.

Thank you all for your service. Thank you for letting me come on your show this morning. Thank you, thank you. Your your your silence between your comments preaches a sermon. And and we appreciate that. And we're better off for the phone call. So thank you for coming on this morning. Yes, we we appreciate it very much. 2085 42 107 nine we need to, take a bit, take a break here and we'll come back and continue on this Thursday, Halloween edition of the Nielsen show.

The.

It's 833 on Newstalk 1079. So Julie and I did a little research during the commercial break. This veterans for Idaho voters dead. Todd Achilles started to want to know when he started it. You know the answer to this, Julie. Yeah. Tell them September of 2023, right when their petition drive launched. They needed that talking point. They needed to go.

Idaho veterans are being blocked from voting so that that's the entire reason they started this group. This wasn't a group that we had been advocating for better VA hospitals or advocating for, raising funds for homeless veterans, or there was none of that prior. Yeah. It was launched simply for this voter initiative. And I feel like it's fair to say that in my communication with Todd Achilles trying to get him to join this program and tell us why prop one is so good, in the last email exchange that I had with him, he said he had distanced himself from the group because he was working on his campaign.

So what you can do is listeners can interpret that however you want. He founded the group when the whole petition started, when they were trying to gather signatures, and as it rounded the corner, he didn't even stay with them through the finish line. Yeah. No. Well, he's running in a district. And I point this out in the documentary.

His district 16 B is a 6040 Democrat district. He's going to win that race. Yes he is. So he doesn't he didn't need to. I, I mean yeah you need to campaign. I don't want to work on his campaign. But he. Yeah. So I don't know the whole just all of it. If I were a member of that group as a veteran and I didn't, I'd feel used and abused by them.

I would too, because once this election is over, you're you're not, I guess this I'm guessing this group probably just is going to dissolve. Yeah. Won't be in existence anymore. Okay. We have a full slate of calls. Let's jump to the phones. Hey, caller, go ahead. Hey, how are you doing? Doing pretty well. What's on your mind?

Hey, did you happen to see a Pennsylvania? Appears to be in a time warp. How so? I sent you a text earlier, but, last night, they announced on the. I think it was the F1 race that Kamala Harris has won Pennsylvania with 100% reporting. Oh, yeah, the TV station. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, yeah, I thought that was pretty good.

They're in a time warp. How do they do that? I want to know how to do that. So I can jump ahead and find out which stock is going to be the one to invest in right now. Yeah. That's that would be nice. Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah. You know what's interesting? You know what's weird about this? It always seems like every time we have a big election, there's some doofus TV station out there that does this like this is a mistake that seems to happen with some level of regularity.

And I'm like, why would. And maybe they just want to put dummy data up so they can see what it looks like or they're, I don't know, I, I'm sure in a lot of cases it's going to get, yeah. It's an interesting. So the Republicans won't come out. But I will say almost always in these situations, it's the Democrat that wins overwhelmingly of the dummy data.

Oh yeah. Absolutely. That's because I said they're trying to skew the votes to keep the publicans from coming out because they'll think, oh, they've already lost the why go vote. Yeah, yeah. So ignore the numbers and go vote. No. It's a it's a good point. Thank you for the call. (208) 542-1279. Let's go to this caller. Good morning. Morning.

Hi I'm Curtis I, I've, my boss told me to call it. I just still haven't heard a good argument, against, prop one, and I I'm, I haven't really been listening to all the debates, and I, I, but he told me that I had heard he call you guys a big hurry. Well, I guess let me ask you this question.

Are are you waiting for an argument against prop one to vote against it, or have you already decided you're voting for it because you think you've heard good arguments for it? I, I've been pretty excited for it. But he's strongly opposed to it. Yeah. And I and I'm trying to understand why. Why is everybody so against prop one?

Because I have not, as of yet, heard a good argument against it. How many arguments have you heard against it? I've heard a bunch. Even sent me a big, long YouTube video about it. But, to me it was, didn't make a lot of sense. On why, why, it would be, I guess a bad thing, was the was the the YouTube video about 45 minutes long?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was a real long, Gotcha. That was all about you. Go ahead. Oh, no, you go ahead. Yeah. I went through the YouTube video and I talked all about how it changed in, in, in different things in Alaska. And honestly, Alaska got what they want. They voted for. And so, so what, what they voted for.

And you liked what happened in Alaska? I'm not happy about what happened in Alaska, but that's what Alaska is, what they voted for. So if you're not happy about it, why do you want to replicate it here? I'm not saying that that's what I want, but I'm saying that that's what Alaska voted for. I don't want I don't want liberalism here.

But I don't think that it's right that, because I'm not a Republican, I don't get any say in in our election, you do get a say. You've chosen to not be you've chosen to not be a Republican. Right. Exactly. So if I'm not a Republican, then I don't get any say no. You've chosen to not be a Republican.

You could be a Republican if you wanted to, but you've chosen not to, which means you've chosen to not vote in their primary. Yeah. Exactly that. You've got it nailed on. Exactly on the head. I've chosen not to be a Republican, so I don't get any say you've chosen right. You're no, you're you've made a choice and the consequences of the choice not to be a Republican and not support the Republican Party.

And so that means I don't get a say in my election. You can be a part of another party. You it's your choice. And then I don't get any and I don't get any say if I'm a part of another party, because Republicans always win, right? Straight down the party line. And that's how it works in our in our in our state.

Because if you have an honor next to your name, you win. And and the big Republicans in our area always win because that's where the money is and that's where most of our area don't even look at politics. They just vote straight down the line. And if they have a, an honor next to it, that's what they vote for.

Do you like Idaho? I have no idea what they're voting for. Idaho. But I hate what's happening to our to it with our politics. I hate how terrible we're taxed. And in this area. I hate what's happening with our school systems. It's awful. I mean, the way that I see them is terrible. Brad little of the way you handled who, the Covid policies.

It was terrible. Okay. So awful. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I can't we get a small government conservative because we keep getting big government. Okay. I want to tell you, you're going to go in if you want a small government conservative, you would hate prop one. You're going in exactly the opposite direction of what you're desiring. Fill me in.

Fill me in. How? I'm not going to get a conservative if if we get if you open up the Republican primary so anybody can vote because they want to vote, they're going to vote for the more moderate or even the more liberal candidate. You're gonna get bigger government candidates winning if you open it up wide. If you do that, I don't see that at all.

I don't know why you'd get a smaller government, but the problem is that we have right now, we all we get as big as a caller. Let me ask you a question. What you do, you say you're for smaller government. You ought to be in the Republican Party. Then what's keeping you from being in the Republican Party? If you say you're for smaller government because they all they do is big government.

The Republican Party is not for smaller government. Then what we've seen again and again and again is big government. Look what Brad Little okay. All right. Huge huge money from Covid shut everybody down right. Completely opposite from what they did in Florida. Who do you think would hurt small government? Who do you think would have won against Brad Little if you opened up the primary?

I don't know, I don't I guarantee you that Brad Little would have won with wider margins because he's the more moderate candidate if we. But we've got to be able to have at least some other options in there. And, well, we're never going to have any other of you have a bunch of options. You've had. You know what, you didn't watch the documentary because there were multiple options running against Brad Little, tons of options.

You didn't watch the documentary. It must have been a different one than what I got. I, you know, I'll have to see which one that that, that you're talking about. No, we talked about I, I'm going to tell you the same candidates are probably going to win in an open primary. Then why then what's the problem? What's the problem?

If the same candidates are going to win an open primary, then why don't I get a say in who gets voted in by not just automatically signing up because the Constitution says. The Constitution says that private parties can choose their own nominees. Okay. And then if that's if that's the case, if if it's a constitutional argument, then you can win it in the courts.

And it shouldn't be based on a vote. They did 2011 all a federal judge Judge Lynn well windmill ruled in in the Republican Party's favor. They've already won this battle. If they've already won the battle, then why is it on the ballot? Because a bunch of deceitful people are trying to move Idaho more liberal. That's the bottom line.

That's the reason it's they're already open before 2007, it was already an open primary. Anyway, I shut down previously this proposition that it did become this big government control, the way that it is in the state of Idaho. This proposition isn't just about that, though. You're getting a a 50% more of the proposition than open primaries that is filled with deceit and lies and confusion, by the way, and is going to be very easy to cheat and to audit.

So, yeah, you're making an argument the other way around. You know, you just made an argument that this already existed in Idaho. No ranked choice voting has not existed in Idaho. So that's a deceitful argument. Let me talk. Open primaries existed in Idaho. Go ahead. Okay, so we have to be accurate about the talking points. Open primaries existed in Idaho previously.

Then the parties decided to close, specifically the Republicans, and it was held up in court. The other part of the proposition, the ranked choice voting, part of the proposition, you're not even even considering it in your argument about how much it will damage Idaho. You're only talking about the open primaries. Okay. It will. I have spoken to people.

We have interviewed people from Alaska. There has been immense damage to Alaska. And the last person that I talked to from Alaska said, well, your option is if it passes, you learn to game the system. So we're introducing more deceit, introducing concepts of learned to game, the game, the system. That's how you make ranked choice voting work. That doesn't sound like a win.

I don't think the gaming the system is already happening with the system we have. No, it's not not changing with changing it to you know what? You know what? You. Yeah. Hold on a second. Caller, I need to call you out really quick. You did not call up to be convinced. You called up today because you had a specific point that you wanted to get out.

You have no, you you have no desire whatsoever to have your mind changed. I have no, I have no desire to hear the same talking points again and again. Then why did you call? You've already made up your mind. I have, I, I, I said I have. I'd like to hear what the argument is that actually changes my mind.

I'd like to hear what the argument is. That's actually different. I have not still heard an argument that that tells me why there's a problem. Because freedom matters. Does freedom matter to you? Freedom. And and and I will tell you that parties have the freedom to choose their own nominees. But a two party system is never, never what our what our what our, founding fathers and envisioned as a direct two party system.

The way that we have it has to break. How is that ever going to happen with the way that it is right now? All that it's ever going to be is the two party system completely in control. And in the state of Idaho, that means a one party system completely in control all of the time period. Okay. That's all that's ever going to be okay.

I'm going to ask you something we haven't even talked about yet. I asked you if you liked Idaho. You said you do. You wish you it was more conservative. That's basically the stance that you gave a smaller government. Okay. When two thirds of the money that has funded this proposition has come in from out of state, it is dark money.

Two thirds of the funding for this proposition is out of Idaho. You make an argument to me now that that's good to keep Idaho conservative. Where? Well, I don't understand how that's an argument against anything. You want is where money is coming from. Dark money from out of state. You have no problem with it. That's not that's just telling where the money's coming from.

Dark money in-state is what ended. Brad Little. Where do you think he's getting all his funding from? Okay, I'm gonna. You know what? I don't think we can continue. We can't continue if that is meaningless to you, if you don't see the dangers in having out of state dark money heavily influencing the outcome of our elections, then I don't know if it's even worth having a discussion, a difference.

I don't see the difference of the dark money being funded, that it's being funded out of state for this versus the dark money. Okay, then and then we come from a completely different paradigm because I think it's Idaho voters opening their own wallets to impact Idaho outcomes, that that should be at play here, whether I agree with it or not.

At least it's Idaho money. At least it's people who live here. Dark money out of Idaho. Are people trying to change Idaho? I don't know, I don't know about all where all that money's coming from. It's coming from PACs in Colorado and California and Virginia. Massive amounts of money. What's that? Who are these? Not who are these PACs and what are their goals?

They're liberal PACs. They want Idaho to be more liberal. That's why two thirds of the money has come in from these PACs. And what is what does that prove? Okay, you know what? We're we're yeah. We're done. We we're we're past time we reached our limit. Yep. He I he wasn't looking to be convinced. Now he's got his mind made up.

He may be a troll. Like I don't. All right, we got a break. Hold on. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, that was. We'll be back after this.

It's 853 on Newstalk 107. I. Julie, our phone lines are absolutely full, but we don't have time to take all of these calls. So if you all want to hang up and call back in the next hour, we will take your calls then. But we've got to turn right around and, take a break. We'll come back and we'll wrap up this hour.

We'll hit the reset button for our two right here on Newstalk 107. I.

Think that is going to do it for this hour, but we have another hour ahead on this Halloween edition of The Neal Eisen Show. And we will take phone calls. We'll open it up. We'll let you have your say coming up here in just a few minutes. All right. Welcome back. It's hour two on this Halloween. You know what?

We had a request for some spooky Halloween music. I think while we're talking here, I'll. I'll pull some of that up. Okay. You're going to get the Michael Myers cued up. Yeah. Brush, the dust off of the, music tote and bring out some of the Michael Myers. Okay, so at any rate, I want to welcome you back if you'd like to join us on the program.

2085421079I couldn't quite I didn't quite know what to do with that call, Julie, because if you truly want limited government, you would not want open primaries. Yeah, here's the deal. The call is full of contradictions and that's fine. Yeah, I think that you have to perform mental gymnastics to do some things. I think Republicans do this even I don't think this is limited to, to either side.

There are mental gymnastics that have to happen in order to buy into a point. And, that guy had done I mean, he was he was right there with Simone Biles. Yeah, that she was flipping all over the place. I love Idaho, no, no, no, it's fine. Dark money infiltrates Idaho like he was all over the place. Yeah.

What are you going to do? I don't I don't know to me that that threat is so obvious. You don't even need to explain it and I don't even know how to explain. And he acted like it was ignorance. Like like there's no problem with that. It doesn't it doesn't matter. No matter doesn't matter if, money's money I don't, I don't yeah.

Like like if somebody was trying to sell you, a Honda Accord that's worth $40,000, and they're like, trying to get rid of it really fast for 1200 bucks, you know? Would you go, oh, I don't think any of this matters. I look at the deal I scored. I'm not going to look and see what the motivations are here for people doing things.

That just is no, I'm not going to do that. Like that doesn't it doesn't pass the smell test. And for all of it, for nearly all of us having massive amounts of out-of-state cash coming in, influencing the outcome of our elections, that doesn't need an explanation as to why that's a threat to the Michael Meyers spooky music. Yes.

Right. Yeah. No kidding. No kidding. Yeah. So I you know what? I've reached this point because we had a bunch of people texting and going, you must have the patience of job. And, you know, I think there's a certain point where we had a lady call up a couple of weeks ago. And based on what she had told me, I said then I think you should vote for it because I realized it when you won't listen to an argument or when common sense is not a language that they speak or whatever, let them have their choice.

Like you're just like you should vote for that. And I think it that guy sounds like he's comfortable with illogical things happening. He ought to vote for prop one because that's what you're going to get. Get. Well, he and I'm at the beginning of a conversation when you mentioned what Alaska got, he was referencing the documentary and he was referencing your documentary.

He should come right out and say it, but he was. So he's referencing the documentary and that Alaska ended up, you know, having some buyer's remorse. Well, they got what they deserved. Oh, okay. Let's not learn any lessons right. That guy drank Drano and ended up in the E.R., but I bet I could drink Drano and not end up.

It doesn't mean it's going on. That's going to happen to me. It'll be bad. Okay, let's go to the phones. 20854210 17 Caller thank you for waiting through the break. How are you today? Oh, I'm doing just fine. Yeah. Yeah, the previous caller, that was pretty frustrated. Last night I was, online, on YouTube. And for some reason, this one program popped up out of nowhere.

But I realized guys like the previous caller has the same mindset. The following the failed math of the Flat-Earth Society's. Yeah. You can't convince in any other way. Yeah. I worked in the space program for a while, and, I've been following the space program since I was a little kid, folks. The same flat? Yeah, but it won't matter how much proof you provide them.

They're. They're dug in and they're locked in. Exactly. I deal with the same situation with one family member. That just can't see it. Yeah. And, like. Oh, you had an ax. Tried to use the. Look what happened in the last argument, and it's just deer in the headlights. Yeah, yeah, well, it is anyway, it it is frustrating.

And, thank you for the call. (208) 542-1279. Fortunately, I will say this. We've heard a number of stories, Julie, from people who are now who have switched like they they were all in on prop one. They loved the idea of open primaries. Once they got the full grasp of the landscape, they're like, I don't want that. And and they changed their position, which I actually admire them more for that.

Like, I don't view that as a sign of weakness. When the full story comes in and they go, oh yeah, I'm not going that direction. Which is why with that caller, the first question that I asked referenced the second half of the proposition, the ranked choice voting part of the of the proposition, because that seems to be that linchpin, the one thing that makes people go, wait, that's in there.

Oh, I didn't realize that that was part of the proposition. All they talk about is open primaries. So that's why I went that direction with him. He clearly knows ranked choice voting as a part of it, which is then why with my second question, I went to the dark money. If he's going to deny both of those aspects that ranked choice voting is a disaster and that dark money is not healthy for Idaho.

He's not. There's no changing of the mind there. Yeah, the people have changed their minds, I think are the ones that realize they've been lied to. Yes. Yeah I think you're right. Yeah. And they don't like being lied to. So I also find there's a very self centric view of, of this that everybody needs to accommodate to me.

I should be able to have my cake and eat it too. I should be able to be an independent but tell a private political party who their nominee should be. Yep. Someone was texting me yesterday asking me questions about proposition one. Yeah. And they And they said so they're just expecting the whole thing to change for them.

And I said, absolutely. They're the vegan at the party with 100 people, one vegan, 99 meat eaters. And the vegan is demanding that the menu be all vegan. Well, not only that, it's like they're showing up at a barbecue. Yes, it's an already designed meat party. Yeah, like it's a brisket competition. Yeah. And they're showing up as the vegan.

Yeah. Demanding it. Good point. I mean, it's the Republican Party deciding the Republican nominee. So you have a choice to make. This is not hard. If you want to help decide who that nominee or who the nominees are going to be, you join the party. If you don't, you don't. Yeah. And if you don't want to be at the brisket party, let the brisket party exist and make your own darn vegan party.

Yes, yes, I know we don't have to do this endorsement till tomorrow, but you know who has the best brisket? They do. Grandpa. Grandpa. And if you want to have a brisket party, get them involved and they. You will not be, remorseful over there. Now. So how are we really doing this? Yeah, absolutely. They're great. People love them.

They've become wonderful friends of ours. It's GPS, Prime meats. They have everything you'll ever need as far as throwing a meat oriented party. Yes, a barbecue, a thanks. You know, all the things that you need. If you're looking for quick meals, they have crockpot meals. It makes your life easier. If you're looking for pre-portioned hamburgers. I, got some of their already, seasoned up hamburgers that are pre-portioned.

Oh my goodness, they were so spicy and so good. That is on my next order because I that is right up my alley. Totally up your alley. You would have loved them. I'm slightly offended you didn't bring me a sample. You cooked it. But it's okay. It's all right. I'm over it now. Well, when it's t t prime meats, the meat's gone.

Let's stick around. It doesn't, it doesn't, doesn't stick around for very long. Check out their packages and specials again. GP Prime meets.com. They do delivery in the Idaho Falls area for free. Over $75 orders. But it's a nominal fee for orders less than that. And they actually do deliveries all over all, every state over the region.

So ask them about that. Let's go back to the phones. (208) 542-1079 hey, caller, how are you today? Just fine. Good. Say, I have had to, discuss, prop one with, friends and neighbors who come from, California and Idaho as familiar with it, long before it popped up on Idaho screen. People get their hackles up on the details because they're complaining the, general election with the primary.

But but you can simplify it by saying, excuse me if you've already done this 100 times, but, you can simplify it by just saying the only purpose for a primary is for the parties to determine their candidate. There is no other purpose. So once you've skewered the political parties efforts, you steered the general election. That's too much to.

So I want to say, yeah. No, I that's a that is a great a great point. And, and I talked to Julie about this last week. That part of the problem is that the primaries feel an awful lot like the general, because you go in, you're using the same polling place, same ballot, you know, areas where you go in and you sign it.

The same people are they're working the polls, all of that. So you feel like, oh, this is just a wide open public election. The purpose of that, though, is very private. It's publicly funded, but lots of publicly funded. Things aren't open to absolutely everybody. They're just not. That's just how the system works. And so one of the functions of those taxes are to allow the parties to choose their nominees.

That doesn't give everybody the right to participate in it. The judge is already I mean, multiple court cases have already determined this. Yeah. So the whole money argument's weird to me too, because I could just keep going and going on publicly funded, institute sessions with tax dollars that I don't participate in. I'm not required to go to the library.

Gas taxes, right. I choose I can choose to go to the library, or you can choose not to go to the library. It's still going to be funded by tax dollars. Yes. Right. Okay. That's true. There's so many others. I'm not part of Medicaid. I don't get any benefit from Medicaid. It doesn't help my family at all. Guess where my tax dollars go to Medicaid?

Yes. I don't I don't have a child involved in the public education system. I guess where my tax dollars go, the public education system. Yeah. Like I can just keep going and going and going. They that argument has no weight to it at all. There are government funded programs all the time that I don't participate in, that I don't get to stomp my foot and say I decide the rules for that.

It it's that's a point also that you can instantly diffuse by saying, but you have the right to register with that party and vote in their primary. Absolutely. That's how you can access that taxpayer benefit if that's what you choose to do or not do. Hey, so nobody's preventing you from taking those steps. I could I could adopt a kid right now.

I could choose to adopt a kid right now. Yeah, or to foster child. Then I would have a kid in the public school system. It's a choice. Yeah. I could choose to quit my three jobs and start making significant less money. Then I could participate in Medicaid. Yeah, I can choose to go to the public library, or I can choose to not go to the public library.

You're right. I mean, these people, they're either arguing disingenuously, they know this and they're arguing disingenuously, or they have no idea how the system works. Right? Dishonesty. Stupidity. Take your pick and you're in control of your choices. Yeah, you have that choice to me, I. Yeah. All right, let's go to the phones. I've talked this to death.

Caller. Go ahead. How are you today? Good morning, Neal and Julie. This is Portland in Danny. Kyle. Oh, hi. How how are you guys? Doing pretty well. If you didn't mind, I was going to talk about ranked choice voting, obviously. And just a scenario, but I wanted to just, like, give a quick ten second spiel about more about who I am.

So that way it's like, I'm not this mystery person. I grew up in Idaho. I moved here when I was ten. I went to Meridian High, really in middle, you know, you know, went to Bible college and and Boise and Garden City, Boise Bible College, you know, I, I grew up in Idaho. And, you know, it's for the majority of the time that I've been there, it's it's been a red state during through, you know, and so when I think back to ranked choice voting, just with the top four rate, so the top four primary.

So there's a good chance that Republicans could win all four top four positions. You know what I mean? Well, I would say there's that. Yeah. And I don't mean to correct you. All four who say they're Republicans could win. That's the you're right. Right. You know, it's like Idaho is a majority Republican, and I don't see that for changing anywhere in the near future.

Most of the people that moved to Idaho are Republican. Yeah. You know, you know, it's I do see I hear your ideas, arguments. But I think, you know, there's a good chance that, you know, not only just the top four, but even in ranked choice voting, it's it's the candidate has the good a good platform that the majority of its constituents agree with, which are Republicans.

There's a good chance that RGV and Idaho wouldn't change too much. You know, it's, Well, so then then why change it? I there's a good. Okay, so, for instance, I forget this gentleman's last name. But Tom just get, Scott Hardin. Right. And Tom won in an open primary, but he lost in a closed primary.

Just got hurt it. Which to many of us, you know, some of us, I would say Scott's a little concerning you know? But that's my point. It's just like, you know, just even within the Republican Party, the kind of Republicans you get are different based on when we had open and closed primary. Okay. So you're saying in, in the primary, you might get all four Republicans.

Is that something you want personally? No, I'm not a Republican. I don't love you guys less. I used to be a Republican. I voted for Donald Trump, but well, and that's fine. Dan, let's stay on topic here. So if you don't want that, then why are you for it? I'm for it because I like the idea of having them, at least the majority of constituents, approving for somebody, you know, it's like.

So somebody already has their first, you know, first place votes, like, you know, like, think about, all those candidate Dan, how are we not a majority right now? Yeah, that's already down. That's already happening. Right. There's a report, majority Republican affiliation. But even within the Republican Party of Idaho, there's there's faction, right. You know, and and some people like certain factions better than others, you know, like there's the Dorothy Moon faction and and well, that's that's not going to change with rank.

That's not going to change with ranked choice voting. I mean, you had 60 people vote against Mary Pelton in Alaska and she wins. So the majority was not honored in Alaska. I don't know too much about Alaska's real choice voting record, but the way you know, the way I look at it, it's like, you know, we have elections where people win 35%.

You know, of the registered voters approving for them. And that doesn't seem to be getting the results. The people want it. People want. And Medicaid expansion, you know, and our legislators gutted it. And people want cannabis. Legislature or at least decriminalization, you know, they try to advance a constitutional amendment. You know, it just there's, you know, we want our schools fixed.

And, you know, there's like tons of, we had $1 billion in surplus that could have fixed our schools. You know, it's it's the things that the people want that aren't being done. And that's the reason why I receive would be a great, you know, it would put different people from different factions of the Republican Party. We do want to do with the those things.

Well, Dan, I appreciate your call. Thank you. I don't there's a lot to unpack. There's there's so much to unpack. And I think it's really important that we talk about this is deep in the weeds. But I just want people to think for just a second. We do a jungle primary. We get rid of the parties, and you take the top four.

If you have three Republicans and one Democrat in that top four, please tell me how that doesn't damage conservatives, because it absolutely does. Yeah. When you have three quote unquote conservatives to choose from, you're diluting the vote. The Democrat is standing alone with no pressure, no reason to. They get to be that person that just kind of hangs out in the middle.

They don't have to do anything logical. All of that, like it's not good for Idaho. This is why you should solve it in May. So it's a it is a clear distinction between candidates in November. Yes. And that's important or you get better results. We just made ranked choice voting sound even scarier. Put a little music behind. We'll be back at 927 on Newstalk 1078.

Oh, boy. Well, we got a text that says, sounds to me like your last two callers would be happy if Idaho turned liberal. I think our last two colors. I think you might be correct on the the like the the future of it. I actually think our last two callers are very they're they're centered on their own personal feelings.

Yeah. That's what they're centered on. Yeah I bottling Dan brings up great points. We have him on our Facebook Live all the time. It it I don't have a problem with it because it makes people think and it makes people stand on their values. I'm okay with that. But paddling down would also not be be honest if he didn't say he wants a legislature that's going to pass marijuana.

Yeah, that's what he wants. Yeah. And so I would prefer that he just say that versus try to defend a poorly written proposition that should have been divided into two. Yeah. You know, it. I'm not going to argue that your marijuana point, Dan. I'm not going to argue it. If you want it. You want it. You're deal me, do you?

But don't hide behind something so that you eventually get your marijuana right. Yeah. That's advocate directly for that. Yes. That's all I want. I you because to be honest that should there should have been two separate propositions. They never should have been married together. Yeah, yeah. Open primaries are like allowing atheists to help choose the pastor of a Christian church.

No. Well, yeah. Or allowing my neighbor to vote on what my family has for dinner. It's ridiculous. You know, I my son was asking me about about this, and I said, you know, the fact that we have closed primaries is not a problem, but it's a symptom of a problem. The real problem is the complete collapse from the early to mid 90s to the early to mid 2000s of the Democrat Party in Idaho.

That's the problem. They don't feel like they have a home that doesn't become the Republicans problem. The collapse of the Democrat Party is the Democrat Party's problem. And so you can't force Republicans to change how they're doing things because your your house burned down. That doesn't give you the right to come and invade my house.

So you got to fix your own house or you didn't care for your house. You used bad policy ideas like leaving the faucets on. Yes. And your, your house flooded and now you want to be in my house. You ruined your own house. Yes. That that I'm sorry that happened to you. And I'll donate to the Red cross to help you.

Whatever. I'll make meals for you while you get your house all fixed up. But that doesn't mean you get to come into my house and then change the rules in my house and say, oh, let's turn on the faucets in this house, too. Yes, that's what they're trying to do. So I don't look, I, I think in a healthy system, when you have a healthy Democrat party and a healthy Republican Party, I think that I don't care if it's open or closed primaries because people who view things differently, they've got a robust contest.

They can decide on somebody they like that's competitive. But when you have this out of balanced system and all of a sudden Democrats and left leaning independents feel like they're entitled to vote in the Republican Party because it's decisive, that's when you have to have closed primaries. You have to, yeah. So here we go. Oh, I didn't bring up more Halloween music.

Maybe we'll go back to Michael Myers. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Where are you? I don't have it. Here we go.

I got so busy talking, I didn't keep up any more Halloween music. My bad. Dang it. Forgive me. Julian, I have a spectacular analogy. Yeah, yeah. If your house burns down, I will donate to the Red cross. Julie will bake some sour dough bread for you. We'll bring over some Grand peaks Prime meats, ribs so that you have something to eat.

We don't want you to starve. And we need you. We want you to have a little bit of temporary help. It doesn't give you the green light to move into our homes and then decide how we run our homes. Yeah, because if your house burned down, because you left an open flame and walked away, don't then come into my house and say, oh, it's a really great idea to leave an open flame and have us have a go to dinner.

Yes. Right, right. The problem here is that the Democrats house burned down from about 1994 to 2000, 2 to 4. The Democrats took a hard left. It was Clintons that came in and Hillary, and it absolutely destroyed the Democrat Party in Idaho. They haven't recovered since. Their numbers have been anemic for 2020 plus years. Now, that does not entitle them or left leaning people to go.

I get to go in the Republicans house now, and I get to determine how they who their leaders are. I get to determine what their platform is and how they function. I'm sorry you don't feel like you have an outlet where you can vote for a viable candidate. That's not the Republican Party's problem. Yeah. Look they're trying they're solving their own issues.

You solve yours let them solve theirs. Yeah right. And quit lying. Quit lying to be part of the Republican Party. Quit. Quit pretending you're something that you're not. If you really have something of value to offer, enough people will follow you. Yes. If you build it, they will come like, come on. Yeah, yeah. If you have if your policy ideas are so spectacular, make your own.

Yeah. Agreed. Let's go back to the phones. Hi, caller. Welcome to the show. Hi, Neal and Julie. How are you doing? Good. I know this voice. Yes, you know my voice. Hey, listen, this past hour is what talk radio was all about. You had that lady, who had relatives in the military, you know, and she was very compassionate near tears.

Then you had that stubborn guy. You're not going to convince them of you talking into the wind. But let me, from my perspective, as you two know, I'm a Navy Vietnam veteran. Okay. And what? And there's this ad. Oh, I'm an Air Force veteran from Idaho, and, I'm all for prop war. And after all, you know, that's the patriotic thing to do that is so darn deceptive.

Oh, in other words, you a veteran. You better vote for it. Be patriotic. That's nonsense. People take the time, you know, intelligent people, they realize how lousy prop one is and it should be, you know. But as a vet myself, I resent that I'm a veteran. Hey, be patriotic. Vote for it. That doesn't wash with me. And it should not wash with thousands of other, veterans here in Idaho.

Yeah. Agreed. Bob. And and in this context. Absolutely. Thank you for your service. But you're you are spot on here. This group is leveraging people's veteran status to try and engineer a very, very ideological driven outcome on this issue. That's true. And then here's the those that gets me. I'm sure you're following the Texas race with Ted Cruz, Senator Cruz running for reelection.

Chuck Schumer from my home state of New York. Oh, he is so despicable. That guy. They are pouring in $100 billion to defeat Cruz. How does that relate to one? As you two pointed out, two thirds of the money is out of state. I damn well excuse my language. Don't want some out of state. Tell me how we should vote.

It's up to Idahoans, just like Cruz. He's being inundated, in his, opposition. That way. I don't like out-of-state money. Idaho. You know, it should be donations from Idaho. Just like Cruz's example. You should come from Texas. It just it is just so irritating to me. And I imagine he hates both of you as well, you know?

Yeah. But at the same time, if you have to explain it, there's no sense in explaining it, because they're. If they don't see the obvious concern there, you're not going to convince them. So yeah. Talking it to the wind, it's just but but still that's what makes talk radio so great. You two are spot on with any that but other you know, conservative issues as well.

That's what make talk radio so good. It's you know radio is an intimate thing. Like when I was in TV, nobody remembers me from TV. But I remember be real. Well, I mean, just I'm an ordinary schmuck from New York, you know, and I don't have any great talent because radio is personal. You're driving down your highway, you're listening.

You know, in the car radio, you're at home, you listen, but you talk to the intimacy of radio at home. It's much more personal. Yeah, very much so. Yep. Absolutely. Hey, great talking with you, too. I hope you and you too, and me and millions other will be smiling where hopefully Trump will make it. And also prop one will be defeated.

We'll see what happens on Tuesday evening. Agreed. Thank you Bob Zell, good to hear from you. 208542 179. Let's go to our next caller. Good morning. You guys have a busy morning always, don't you? It's crazy for sure. I appreciate your show and your patience with people are amazing. Thank you. I would just, comment to more or less on this ranked choice voting.

I think one thing that has come to my mind repeatedly over this multiple weeks of conversations about it, is that if ranked choice voting, comes to fruition, let's not forget who the Democrats are in regards to like, the drag shows and the transgender issues and all these, you know, the porn in the libraries and all that kind of stuff, that it is a method for the Democrats and those of that ilk to make this happen in our state.

And that is deplorable to me. And I, you know, I think if this is if this passes, that's that's a pathway for all this stuff to come and more pressure in the States to allow these laws to pass. And I think, I think a lot of people are forgetting that kind of stuff. They're talking about schools and all this other stuff.

But I think we should not forget what the Democrats really, really want in our society. Yeah, no, that is true. And and that's a good point. This isn't just about winning elections. This is about getting an entire complex of political outcomes that they see over the next 15 to 20 years, that they want exactly, no doubt about it.

And, allow that to happen. We cannot allow that to happen. Yeah. That would it'll just change everything. Like, I don't even think we can imagine. Yeah. Agreed. Thank you for your call. Let's go to the next caller. Welcome to the Neal Larson Show. Hi, Neal and Julie. Hi. I'm. I'm a 28 year old Air Force veteran, and I guess you could put me in the, anti veterans for open primary.

But, watching the World Series, a baseball analogy came to me about open primaries, and that is who gets to choose the lineup. Did we ask the Dodgers to choose the Yankee lineups? Did we ask the White Sox or the Mets or any of the other teams to choose the Yankee lineup? No, the Yankees got to choose it.

And that's the way we should choose a candidate that, the parties get to choose it. Not some outsider, not an independent. And I just like to share that analogy with you. Have a good day. I love that analogy. Thank you. Very time appropriate. Oh so congratulations. Yeah. Dodger fans, by the way. And as far as election seasons go, we're in the bottom of the ninth, right?

Yeah. Where are we at on time? Can I make a point really quick about the dark money? Yeah. I'll try to be super fast here, because I bet we still have callers. You're good. But in reference to the dark money, let's step away from ranked choice voting for a second look at the dark money that got these liberal district attorneys elected in these very crime ridden areas, and how much worse the crime has become.

Because that's exactly why they wanted the Liberal DA's there anyways. Yeah, they wanted to create chaos. Those DA's got put in place because that's not a position that has a ton of money influx to it. But all of a sudden dark money was infiltrating these races. And these liberal DA's got elected. And these cities saw such negative outcomes based upon these liberal DA's now just amplify it to statewide races.

That's what we're getting with the dark money. There's a reason they send that money in. Yes. Yes there is because it works and they get certain outcomes that they want from. Absolutely. So if you're going to if like the caller forever ago who wanted to ignore the dark money, well that's what you're going to end up with is what the dark money wants to bring in.

Okay. Ghostbusters. Yeah. Oh, good pick there, Julie. It's 942 on Newstalk 107 and we'll take a quick break. We'll come back. We've got more calls standing by on Newstalk 1079.

This is something strange in your neighborhood. Who are you gonna call?

This is something weird and it don't look you. Who are you gonna come up? Oh, okay. Hold on a second. Oh, let me pause this. Hey, Facebook. How are you?

We were listening to a voicemail that somebody left, and I don't think they realized they were talking on a recording, and something happens. And then they said, what the bleep is going on? Dropped the. What the kerfuffle is going on. That's a Jason. Yeah okay. So there there is an issue typically. And I don't think I've put in the voicemail message that we, we reserve the right to use your voicemail messages on air.

So I'm not going to play it on air. But we had a guy that's it. That said, it's not really fair that in Idaho sometimes the only election that matters is the Republican primary. It's still not the Republicans. That's not my problem to fix for you. If you move, if you don't like it, leave. If that's unfair, then make the Democrat party better.

Yes, you got some options. You can leave and go to a more liberal state. You can make a vibrant party all on your own if you think there's that many people who want to belong with you, get on it. Well, here's the thing. They say there's 270,000 of these people join, join ranks that is a very viable political force in Idaho.

If you want to do something else, yep, then do something else. But there's something is stomp their foot and I don't get a vote. Why do you like, why my head hurts. Hey, look, I'm okay. That you have feelings, that you're frustrated, that you you don't align with the Republican Party. I do have those feelings. All right, that's fine.

You don't get to change everybody else because your feelings are discomforting. Yeah. You. Yeah. It's the barbecue. It's the brisket. It's. It's like, maybe you don't like the other restaurants that are in town. That's not the barbecue joint's fault. Okay, I'm going to give you a very. How much time do we have? A minute? Yeah. Neal and I have both heard from different people, different avenues.

There's quite a a vibrant, swinging community in East Idaho. And it's that kind of swinging. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We and we've heard this from different people that's quite vibrant. Okay. I don't show up at their little swinging parties and tell them they're all going to hell and that they need to change. And we're reading the Bible. If they want a swing, go do it.

You do you. I'm not going to show up at your party and tell you you have to change. Don't show up at my party and tell me I have to change. Yeah. Oh. I don't get it. I mean, yeah, no, I mean, we could come up with a million analogies. This is so paddling. Dan says the secret lives of Mormon moms.

It's so crazy. That's why I didn't get all all worked up over that show. Yeah, I just didn't get worked up over it, because guess what? They can do whatever they, they want to do. That shows kind of a you're not hearing much about it anymore. Yeah. Well that's because everybody's watched it. I think they are doing a season two.

I think they're in the middle of filming a season two features nozzle two brush rules design. All right. It's 940. There we go. 947 on news Time. It went to a vacuum commercial, so I couldn't turn it up. All right. I don't even know what this is, but it's part of a Halloween playlist. Spooky scary skeletons and shivers.

It's called spooky. Scary skeletons. Okay. They're right. 85421078. So we typically, although I need to put the disclaimer on our voicemail so people know if they leave a voicemail, we can air it on the air. We're not going to air, but we did get one from someone complaining that it just doesn't seem fair that in Idaho, you have to be a Republican to decide who the Republican nominee is going to be.

Because yeah, we know that's a decisive election in May. Yeah. Are these people helpless? I guess they feel like they don't have any choices. I mean, I've just never placed it at anyone else's doorstep to provide me choices. Yeah, I was raised. You go out and you make your way. Yeah. You make your way in the world. You work hard.

In fact, my dad had tons of connections to all different food service places. And when I was 16, he looked at me and said, don't ask me to get you a job. I don't do that. You can go out and find your own job. Yeah, and there would be people I'd be like, oh my gosh, that's so mean.

But do you know what it taught me? It taught me that I've got a skill set. Yeah. And I can go out and market myself. And so I come from a place where I do not expect other people to change for me. Yeah, I'll encourage them. I'll come here. I'll share my my opinions. I'll say their opinions. All I'll argue for and against things.

But the ultimate choice lies with you. Yeah. Don't lay it at other people's responsibilities. Don't make them fix your problems. So, Julie, do you remember the number we looked at this yesterday? The Republican primary. We looked up a certain year. It was at 2018. And Brad Little one, do you remember how many votes he had? Oh, we looked it up.

167,000. Was that what it was? Maybe somewhere around I think it was, but I think okay. Because then I rounded it up to 170. Yeah. Okay. Let's go with one seven. Yes. Just to make it. It's somewhere in that neighborhood. You have the argument that there's 270,000 people complaining. They could they could create their own party and have their own nominee and completely eclipse the numbers that show up for Brad Little in 2018.

Yeah. Gather your troops, people, I don't understand. You have the numbers to do your own thing. Yeah. Gather your troops. Stop trying to come in and change you don't need to invade the house. You don't need to commit. You've got plenty of people. If they're accurate and it's 270,000, there's plenty of people to create a very formidable force in Idaho.

Do that. Okay? You don't need to come in and dictate how the Republicans operate, who their nominees are. You already have the people you need to get that done. So stop it with that argument. Right? Right. But that's a number that they're using because that's the amount of people who chose not to vote. Right. That's the yeah, they're calling them quote unquote disenfranchized people.

The problem is all of those people don't belong. Don't believe the same thing. No. Well, I understand that you understand that. Yeah. But if they want to make the argument, like there's this large body of people out there that are being disenfranchized, they really can't logically make that argument. Yeah. Because those people could be a potent force on their of their own volition.

Well, what it means is that you haven't created a product good enough to, to draw all 270,000. Yes. Yeah. And again, I go back to I mean, we've talked to independent people, Julie, that are like, don't speak for me. Like I know I'm an independent and I know that means I can't vote in the Republican primary. That's the choice I've made.

It's like, you know, that's called being a grown up. That's going you know what I, I know that I'm an independent and the, the price that I'll pay for being an independent is that I won't be voting in the Republican primary. I don't understand what is hard about that. I don't either if you want the, the luxury or the, the prerogative to determine the Republicans nominee, then become a freak and Republican.

Yep. Is that hard? It is for a certain group of people or something. All right. We're going to go to the phones. Caller real quick. We have about a minute. Go ahead. Yeah. Just real quick. So during Covid we lost a lot of our rights, you know, or at least we felt the loss of our rights, especially the freedom of assembly.

But you know what we did have we have the freedom of choice when it came to where we lived. And you know what a lot of people did? They chose to leave and go to places like Idaho. Yeah, reason for that. When it comes to moderates, I'll use their own words. This proposition aims to, at a minimum, vote more moderate to moderate Republicans, if not Democrats.

But I'll go with moderates because that's what they said. Yeah. I want you to think about what would moderate or rather extreme five years ago, ten years ago, 20 years ago, what was moderate, what's moderate today, I want you to consider that. And for the Democrats and for the moderates trying to steal my state away from me, you know, that's the nature of the beast.

We did the same thing, another state. But at least be honest and in your own ideas instead of being so freaking deceptive. Oh. I have a great thank you. And that that is a great point. Be honest about where you're at. We'll be back after this. 954 light creatures crawl in the catch up to walk in the flesh Blu ray.

It's just not the same. If it's not Michael Jackson, it does feel not genuine. Yeah. Chasing down logical fallacies is like herding cats. Yeah. Somebody sent in a text that said, I'm so upset I don't get a say in what Carl's Jr has on their menu. I want them to have whoppers, but they don't listen to me.

They should change their business name to Burger King, bro, right? Yeah. Nobody wants consequences, right? I know they don't. They don't want consequences. No. Someone said there were five independents on my ballot. How do they have no choice? Again, again, I like it. This is way when we boil it down completely. You and I both say ranked choice voting is a proposition of deceit.

Yeah, that they have used deceitful data manipulation, hiding of facts. Weaponizing a group of people that you should never abuse. I mean, people shouldn't be abused anyway, but yeah, specifically, that group shouldn't be abused and they weaponize them. It it's a campaign of deceit. Yeah, yeah. Yikes. That was loud. It's a little aggressive. Oh, we're still on that one.

Doo doo doo doo. Okay, you guys, you're reporting the snow. And guess what I'm seeing outside of our window is it snowing? It is. We're in the heart of Idaho Falls, and, there's snow coming down. We heard it was out in the Arco desert. We heard it was up in Rigby. Yeah, it's in Idaho Falls.

I always feel like somebody's watching me. All right, we'll do this one. Yeah. Okay. Let me turn this up. Turn us up. And I don't think. Let's plug the party. Okay. And, the watch party. Okay.

I'm just an average man with an average life. I work from 9 to 5. Hey, hell, I pay the price. I want to be left alone for my average home. But why do I always feel like I'm in the twilight zone. And I always feel like I might want to be all right? 958 on Newstalk 1079 we do have some phone calls.

We'll get to those on Facebook Live. We don't have enough time to take any more calls right now. However, Julie, we do want to remind our listeners, you and I, we're hosting an election Night watch party at the Shiloh in. Yes, we'd love for you to join us. It's super easy to get a ticket. It's free. Do we just want to know how many people are coming?

So text the word ticket to (208) 542-1079. We're going to be bringing you national results, local results and statewide results. We'll have lots of screens up. There will be music. We're going to have some light refreshments as well. So it's just going to be a great night Tuesday night. This next week. So we'll see it. The Shiloh in between 7 and 10.

All right. Have a great Thursday. Julie and I will be back here tomorrow on Newstalk 179. Want to be who's playing tricks on me? Some.