Bring Out Your Dead: The Podcast

It used to be that campaign managers didn’t talk about their clients. It used to be that Democrats might have indulged in their time-honored practice of circular firing squads but didn’t actually endorse Republicans.

Welcome to 2026. After several days of minor-league Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens, who lost the Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed, has now endorsed Republican Mike Rogers, citing Israel, and who knows what else. Pique? Her hardcore Zionist fiancé?

The smart money says it’s too late to make a difference. But that didn’t stop Stevens from grandstanding at an event on Sunday, making a pitch to the black voters who could be the key to the Michigan race. At the same time, South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, aka The Kingmaker, appeared on the stump with El-Sayed. Because, kids, Clyburn knows how to be a Democrat. And a politician.

Within hours, Stevens’ staff started resigning.

Joe and Susan break down the likely effects on the Michigan race, the cultural shift away from loyalty in politics generally (or at least the appearance thereof), plus an election roundup, including the data center vote, a likely eddy in Florida while the blue wave surges through most of the country, and what comes after the midterms - it might just be a bigger, uglier war in Iran.

Don’t exhale yet.

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Transcript for the Luddites among us:

Hi, everybody. I’m here with Joe Sottile, and we are fixated on the breaking insane news today, maybe not completely unexpected, but sort of wacky, that Haley Stevens, who lost to Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary, in Michigan is now hugging Mike Rogers and endorsing him just as her,

okay, can I just say it, just extremely unattractive fiance has done. Her fiance is Jewish and is into it. And that’s his pretext for endorsing Rogers. The whole thing of someone’s fiance making news by endorsing someone Is a little bizarre. So Joe is going to talk about this. I just want to frame this news by saying, in my view, and this is my personal view, I feel that this is beyond doubt the most interesting race of the midterms. And to me... It is really a test of the country’s morality because the incredible Islamophobia that has been directed at Abdul El-Sayed. For me, it’s a make-or-break moment for how I feel about this country.

If this works, if that strategy on the Republicans’ part I will never feel the same about this country. And so the ugliness of the last days of this campaign are really striking. Joe, you did me a favor and you kept kind of notes on all the Islamophobic things that have been done.

Right down to J.D. Vance just saying he has weird friends. Some of his friends are weird. I mean, an optimist would say this exposes the extent to which they have nothing to run on, the extent to which they’re stretching on this Islamophobic thing.

I have a sense that it may not work. It may work on specific issues, but I think broadly it’s not going to work. In Michigan, I watched the event with Mike Rogers. And of course, Haley Stevens had to say, I’m out here, you know, practicing my faith in front of my church.

Had to drop that in before she said, went on an ad hoc soliloquy on how the Arab community in Michigan is one of the jewels of the state and tried to blunt what she was doing.

Susan: Not lose them entirely for whatever she’s going to run for next, if she’s even able to run for anything.

Joe: Well, is that the calculus? We will concede you the Arab community and we will try to bleed off support from the black community. It may just be a pure numbers game.

Susan: It’s all about the black community, isn’t it? Because Clyburn came, Jim Clyburn, who is, you know, the kingmaker, he came to appear with Abdul El-Sayed because he is a rock solid Democrat, whatever else you might want to say about him. And he is, of course, in my view, the reason that Joe Biden got elected.

Joe: Yeah.

Susan: Gavin Newsom has been cultivating him like crazy. So Stevens, who is strong in the black community, was clearly trying to counter this appearance by Jim Clyburn. You know what really strikes me about some of these midterm elections is the incredible disloyalty That I’m seeing. And it started with Graham Platner. Just hold on for a minute, because Graham Platner’s campaign manager turned on him. And I heard a lot of, I was doing some reporting in Maine, and this campaign manager is not well thought of there. Now in Alaska, Mary Peltola, the main source of the New York Times story on the ersatz, Dan Sullivan allegedly tapped to split the Republican vote, a story which I find, I can’t help it, I find it amusing. Like the movie Being There. He looks like a nice guy.

Joe: Chauncey Gardner.

Susan: Yeah, Chauncey Gardner. Yeah, the fake Dan Sullivan. But you know she’s still going to win. I’m comfortable predicting that. You know what she said about her campaign manager, who was the main source of the New York Times story?

And I’m not saying that the Times should not have run this story, but Peltola said if she could fire that campaign manager again, she would.

Joe: Right, right. You know, we are in that kind of TMZ culture, right? So if there’s any kind of transgression or something, some kind of grudge that somebody in your staff has with you, or they see an opportunity, there may be an opportunity to get a payment from a tabloid for your story, whatever.

Or it may be just an opportunity to extend your own brand because you want to go off and do your own thing.

Susan: Or get some traction being a lobbyist for corporate interests. I think what happened with Platner’s former campaign manager. Or, you know, the other side and try to, you know, build a sort of second incarnation of your career.

Joe: It did seem a little bit more interesting, actually, when there was some honor among thieves, right?

And it meant that you were dealing with just the candidate. You weren’t dealing with all of the other agendas of these other people who want to pursue their own celebrity. So I personally see it as an outgrowth. The American dream of a white picket fence and a house and two cars and two and

a half dogs or however that thing goes, the two kids, has been replaced by celebrity. I think celebrity has replaced the traditional American dream. And anybody can become an influencer and a celebrity. And all you have to do is have no shame.

Susan: Well, I’m not sure if those campaign managers... Exactly are going to become celebrities. It used to be that if you leaked or if you got caught leaking or if you talked s**t

about your candidate, you would never work again in that field.

Joe: But that was before Newsmax and Fox News will bring you on and turn you into a conservative superstar. The case in point for this is Bill Maher. Most of us can’t stand him anymore.

Susan: I used to think he was funny. Don’t hate me for saying that. But now he’s one of these people who thinks he’s much smarter than he really is.

Joe: Well, I’ve actually charted the moment that he changed. He was invited to give a commencement address at Berkeley. Then there was a revolt by the student body against him and he was canceled. And then I think he was restored in the end. But he got I remember him getting so angry about that.

And that’s when he got attached to this Gen Z and the woke Gen Zs and millennials. What that did also in the process, I think, is started to cleave him from his traditional audience. So he’s been in search of a new audience in the center,

and he’s doing it by appealing to, he had Kid Rock on. He and Kid Rock spent much of the show talking about how Bill Maher did or did not get drunk at Trump’s house at another dinner. He is trafficking in the cachet that you get on the Republican media side for transgressing against your own side.

Susan: Oh, this is really interesting. So let’s circle back to the midterms here. So you could say Haley Stevens is doing t…

Our podcast, Bringing Out the Dead, elicited a rousing reception from at least one reader, Jeanette Berkovitz. Here is what she wrote:

Oh, no! Not you, too...I don’t want people yapping at me. I loved you for allowing me to read in silence your stellar prose. Nooooooooooo

I assured her that I hated video, too, especially because, unlike Katie Couric, I don’t have someone to do my hair and make up. I assured Jeannette that I am still writing (see my screed on the truly unbelievable ad run by Ohio’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy against Democrat Amy Acton) as well as publishing incisive journalists like Lucian Truscott and Marc Cooper, along with essayists Brian Cullman and Lori Jakiela.

I also assured her that the Bringing Out the Dead podcast will only last until the election. Well, probably. My partner, Joe Sottile, is getting stoked.

Let’s see what happens.

Herewith: Joe “JP” Sottile, aka The NewsVandal, and I break down this week’s election news. Joe’s knowledge of history gives this podcast the depth and context we try to bring you in all of the Journal’s coverage.

We hope that you will subscribe to the Journal, and if you’re a free subscriber, please consider a paid subscription. The workload is getting heavier, along with the news.

For the Luddites among us (you know who you are) here’s a transcript:

Hey, Joe. Hi.

How are you doing, Susan?

I’m okay. How are you?

You know, muddling through. We’re getting to the end game here. We’re closing in on the final, the big day. We’re going to go live, I think, on that day, aren’t we?

Yeah, and we’ll inflict ourselves on our... My readers, your readers, and our viewers for a few hours until the outlines become clear. I think, you know, we’ve been talking over the week and I think what we’ve seen is this is, one reporter called it the money bomb.

I mean, this is the can’t buy me love, moneyball election. Yesterday, Elon Musk put even more money into the midterms. He’s up to, let me just make sure I get this right. He’s up to

Joe: 450 or 442. I’ve seen both.

Susan: 442. He put another 76 million.

Joe Yeah.

Susan: And, you know, somebody on X might argue that the Democratic billionaires are putting money in, but there’s no comparison.

Joe No. Well, look, it comes back to the Southern strategy. The question is, if you are demonizing your opponents and spending a lot of money to do it, will it move voters? And we’ve talked about this off of the podcast. Trump has actually mentioned the Willie Horton ad at least three or four times now at rallies.

The Willie Horton ad being sort of the ultimate example of Of the Southern strategy working where you demonize your opponent and you get big electoral returns.

Susan Can you just rehash the Willie Horton?

Joe: So the Willie Horton ad, famous ad, Dukakis came out of the Democratic Convention, I think it was in July, with a 17-point lead on Herbert Walker Bush. It was looking dire. Iran-Contra was really dogging Bush, among other things. And Lee Atwater rolled out this ad with Willie Horton, an African-American adjudicated murderer who absconded from a furlough program in Massachusetts and proceeded to commit armed robbery, kidnapping and rape. Atwater’s ad blamed Dukakis, who was the governor of Massachusetts. And also in that election, they ran a lot of ads saying Dukakis was against the Pledge of Allegiance. And by the way, that was also the election where they rolled out Kitty Dukakis’ alcoholism. They rolled out everything they could. And it worked by the time...

By the time you get to the election, Dukakis was soundly beaten.

Susan: And I think Atwater later, after he had brain cancer, didn’t he have an attack of conscience? Yeah, well, the attack of conscience?

Joe: That happened pretty early on because after the victory, he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Howard University, which went over like the Hindenburg, as you would imagine. He ended up having to resign. By the way, Lee Atwater, an accomplished blues guitarist, one of his best friends was B.B. King.

And they used to jam together. And I think he did not, for some reason, it did not dawn on him that the Willie Horton ad was one of the most racist Southern strategy style ads ever.

Susan: I just want, you know, as you tell me this, what’s striking me is the Kitty Dukakis alcoholism. I remember also that being weaponized, and it’s bringing to mind something that we all thought about. And we’re wandering a little bit here off the money trail but obviously we are all thinking about this moral depravity of the Vivek Ramaswany about Amy Acton. This ad where they unearthed Amy Acton’s mentally unhinged mother who Amy Acton had, this is for the Ohio gubernatorial race, Amy Acton had not seen since she was 12 when she was taken away from this woman whose husband, Amy’s stepfather, a grand jury found, indicted him for sexually assaulting her. And I think her brother as well. Vivek Ramaswamy ran an ad with the mother saying that Amy Acton is a liar. Oh, my God, come on. And then J.D. Vance, this is just to catch people up, called Acton a whiner.

Trump, of course, endorsed Ramaswamy and said, it’s, you know, double down, dude, and just keep going.

Joe: Yeah, he said, I wish I had an ad like that I could run. He sort of ad envy he was sort of playing with.

Susan: So I think that, I think that, I mean, it’s interesting to trace it back to Willie Horton, where we’re, we’re absolutely just stepping on women and doing it in a personal way. Not weaponizing them on issues. As well as, you know, all the stupid jingoism and flag waving. So, I mean, you know, did that set the tone for the contest to see how low you can go?

I just want to say that it backfired. And as I put in my story on Substack, I had no interest in this race before or very little. After the ad I sent $10 to Amy Acton. Full disclosure, I’m a journalist, I’m not supposed to do anything in elections. But this is visceral. Not just for me. J.B. Pritzker’s wife sent $500,000 to Acton. And I think her smaller dollar donations are also rising. And now there’s a decision desk, HQ, which is non-partisan…they’re very good….

Joe: They’re very good.

Susan: They give her a 61% chance now. So, you know, this brings us back to the squishy subject of polls. You know, how much can we trust the polls on this purported blue wave? Right. Especially with what someone called, I love this, as I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, the money bomb of Republican cash.

So this is the question. When the Willie Horton ad came out, I found it depressing because it worked. This is one of the things about negative advertising. The thing that sucks about it the most is that it seems to work. It does work, yeah. So the question is, is it not going to work this time, right?

Because the Amy Acton ad did not work, right? Right. So far, it looks like it’s been blowback.

Is the money going to prove decisive? That’s the question. Right.

Joe: So in Texas and in Florida, particularly the Texas race where Elon Musk is pouring a lot of that money, there are the ads that say James Talarico is going to come to your house, take your child, remove the child’s genitals or change the genitals and then re-deliver the child back to you.

Because that’s basically what the ads are saying.

Susan: Yeah, Elon Musk is echoing them.

Joe: Right. So in a sense, there’s kind of a test of the American voter happening here. Is it going to work? I also think there’s another part of this money bomb thing.

You know, we don’t have three major networks that everybody is watching all the time. Television is not the central network, the dissemination device that money can then amplify a message through. Everything is so fractured. And by the way, millennials and Gen Z’s are so, they’re such digital natives and they’re so skeptical of everything they see.

Is this going to move anybody but Gen X and boomers? [The money] So this money issue is we’re going to have a better sense of it when it’s done. And it could be that it’s th…

Why not do a podcast? Everyone else does. Besides, we’ve got J.P. Sottile, a veteran Washington, D.C. TV producer who’s also a mad news junkie (see The Rundown and NewsVandal). Unlike the rest of the Journal contributors, he actually knows something about video.

Quick bio: Sottile - his first name is Joe - got a master’s degree studying fascism. Who knew it would be so useful? Then he squandered his education covering politics, economics, and national security, working for PBS NewsHour, C-Span, and a couple of think tanks.

Most of you know me, Susan Zakin. I’m the Boomer (late-stage, please! Jones, really) to Joe’s GenX. While he is the master of detail and just a little OCD, I’m always trying to see the big picture. We disagree on music, except maybe Dave Alvin.

Here are some of the questions we’ll be looking at, in no particular order:

* What happens if Democrats take over both the House and Senate? Will Americans’ day-to-day lives actually change over the next two years?

* Does money in politics matter as much as it used to? (Lookin’ at you, Elon Musk, and your $355 million for Republicans in the midterms.)

* Is corruption the message that will finally give the Democratic Party a way to convince voters they’re not a bunch of elitist a******s?

All this and more, plus blow-by-blow coverage on election night.

Susan and Joe