Kathie’s team at Iowa Capital Dispatch broke a story on a 119-page study the Reynolds administration commissioned on letting community colleges offer four-year degrees, then sat on for months. The findings: Iowa doesn’t really have “education deserts,” and the brain drain problem is more about low wages than higher ed. Community colleges are already pushing back on the report’s methodology, and expect this fight back at the legislature next year. Read Brooklyn Draisey’s reporting here.

We also got an update on the libertarian ballot cases. Marco Battalia (running under a name that isn’t legally his) and Rick Stewart both had name-based challenges heard in court this week, with rulings expected soon. The tougher case, over Jules Cutler’s affidavit for lieutenant governor, is headed to the Iowa Supreme Court either way.

Last up, a Dave Muhlbauer campaign stop for the Rob Sand campaign at Ember Recovery turned into a real, unscripted moment when YSS president Andrew Allen raised concerns about legalizing marijuana and its effect on kids. Good discussion, and a reminder that this issue deserves more nuance than it usually gets.

We’re off next week, back in two weeks as the fall campaign heats up.

Want to sharpen your writing and get the inside scoop on Iowa politics at the same time? Join us September 27-30 at the Okoboji Writers' & Songwriters' Retreat on beautiful West Lake Okoboji, featuring Iowa Down Ballot analysts Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich. They'll walk you through finding public information, getting your opinion pieces published, and plenty more. Spots are limited, so scan the QR code at the beginning and end of the video or head to okobojiwritersretreat.com to sign up. If you’d like to make a donation to help the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative which supports this show please click the button below. Thanks!

Auto-generated transcript below:

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Dave Price: Hi everybody, welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. I’m Dave Price, joined by Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich, as we get toward the end of July, and my son’s 16th birthday, so kind of a fun… a fun day in my household. How are you, ladies?

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Kathie Obradovich: Doing great, how are you?

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Dave Price: Kathie, I’m gonna call you out, but just to show how I do think women are genetically superior at this, which is probably sexist toward men, but it is what it is. Right before we open this podcast.

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Dave Price: Kathie, as she’s getting ready to do this show, is texting as part of her editor duties at the Iowa Capital Dispatch. So, you know, it just shows how she can break that brain up into multi… little multi-chunks.

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Kathie Obradovich: I would never get anything done otherwise.

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Laura Belin: Women… women are good at multitasking, Dan.

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Dave Price: Honestly, I…

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Dave Price: I am… I learn that every year, year after year. Anyway. Alright, we have a bunch to talk about. Kathie, can you lead off today? Because on… late on Thursday night, Iowa Capital Dispatch had a story that posted about something that you all have been chasing down, really, for a number of months. And to catch us up on this, this was something that came up

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Dave Price: during the past legislative session, where there was talk about community colleges offering four-year degrees, to lay this out generically. And it faced some pushback from the regents, obviously, it faced some pushback, especially from some of the private colleges and universities.

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Dave Price: But your staff found out that there had been this study commissioned to look at this concept. Can you walk us through the journey to actually get ahold of this study?

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so it’s interesting. It’s probably been more accurate to say it’s been weeks, as… Okay.

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Dave Price: It’s better to say months.

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Kathie Obradovich: But, it’s been 8 months, anyway. So, yeah, we covered during the legislative session, the push from community colleges to establish baccalaureate degrees at community colleges, which is, you know, really.

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Kathie Obradovich: something that has never been done in Iowa. Community colleges, have four-year or two-year associate certificates, and they also have programs where their students can transfer to a private college or one of the region’s universities to get a four-year degree. And that was a hotly contested issue at the legislature, the private colleges especially

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Kathie Obradovich: were up in arms over that, saying it would really help them. And really, one of the, the arguments behind it, on the community college side was that there are, higher education deserts in Iowa, that the community colleges could help fill, because

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, there are places where

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Kathie Obradovich: Especially adult students who may be, trying to go back to school to upgrade their skills and get a better job, that they, you know, might not be able to access those, courses, you know, either they’re too far away, or they are too expensive. So, okay, that was the… that was the big driving argument. The bill didn’t pass. And at some point during the process.

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Kathie Obradovich: the Reynolds administration commissioned a study from a consultant. Never told anyone this study was going on, but some of the stakeholders participated in the study, so they knew about it.

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Kathie Obradovich: And then the study, was received by Department of Education, in June.

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Kathie Obradovich: At some point, the study actually was dated in March, which is while the legislative session was going on. The Department of Education says they received it in June, but it was never released. And so…

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Kathie Obradovich: We put in a Freedom of Information Act request, and after being handed around, you know, various departments, we finally got a copy of it yesterday morning. And it was really interesting, because the study basically said, you know, that there really isn’t education deserts in Iowa. That, they, you know, people can

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Kathie Obradovich: access higher education, either through, you know, within an hour’s drive or online, and that there’s plenty of access, etc. And, also, and this is maybe even the more interesting part, they said that

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Kathie Obradovich: Iowa’s workforce woes, you know, the concerns about the brain drain are really due to the business climate, and not how higher education is performing in the state, which I thought was pretty interesting. So, you know, we can use our imaginations about why the governor’s office wasn’t in a big hurry to release this study.

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Kathie Obradovich: But, you know, the community colleges are still pushing back. They’re saying that the

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Kathie Obradovich: Their definition of an education desert was flawed, or at least different from what the community colleges are using.

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Kathie Obradovich: community colleges say a 30-minute drive is, is really more practical for people. And, you know, I think they have a point there. But also arguing that, you know, online, doesn’t serve the bill. So they’re pushing back, essentially, especially at the education desert part of that. And, you know, I think that there were some recommendations that the private colleges don’t like as well, including

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Kathie Obradovich: putting, more, you know, kind of putting more conditions on the Iowa Tuition grant, which is taxpayer money that private colleges get.

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Kathie Obradovich: For student scholarships. So, anyway, this is a… just an interesting point, with actual research that’s gone into this issue. I would expect it to come back again next year, and we’ll see how this study plays into the discussion.

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Dave Price: Was there any context on when they talked… Yeah, for sure. Sorry, Laura.

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Laura Belin: Yo, I didn’t even know about this report, so very nice work in finding out.

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Kathie Obradovich: I’m Brooklyn, Drazy’s part.

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Dave Price: Multitasking, here we go. Exhibit A. Hey, did they have… was there any context when you mentioned that the challenge is the business climate? Was there any contact with that?

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, and we did post the report, so, you know, you might want to dig into the details there, but, you know, they’re essentially talking about, you know, the fact that, Iowa has lower wages, than surrounding states, people leaving for, for lower wages, or for higher wages elsewhere, etc.

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Kathie Obradovich: And, you know, that they’re saying that there’s enough graduates to fill the jobs, it’s just that they’re getting… they’re getting out of Dodge when they… when they.

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Dave Price: Better opportunities elsewhere.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, yeah.

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Laura Belin: I’m sure the bill will come back next year, but the…

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Laura Belin: chair of the Iowa Senate Education Committee, Lynn Evans, he did survive his primary challenge, which had nothing to do with this bill, but I remember when he said that he wasn’t… he just didn’t think this was ready to move forward. And so unless there’s new leadership with the Iowa Senate Education Committee, I’m not sure that this is gonna have any more success next year than this year, because

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Laura Belin: Lynn Evans’ district includes Buena Vista University, pretty important private college for the whole

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Laura Belin: Storm Lake area, and I think the legislators who have private colleges anchoring towns in their district are not going to want to kneecap those colleges by allowing community colleges to offer four-year degrees.

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Dave Price: A nice, a nice scoop, for sure. 119 pages, that report is, so, you know, get yourself a good, strong cup of coffee, and sit down with that sucker this weekend, but I’m sure that thing is packed full of little nuggets that’ll…

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Dave Price: Probably be helpful, actually, as we think about this race for governor and these legislative races as well.

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Kathie Obradovich: There’s way more in there than we had time to report yesterday.

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Dave Price: For sure. All right, Laura, this will be part 6 in your soon-to-be-released Netflix documentary on Iowa libertarians. Their court struggle.

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Dave Price: Man, it… it’s just one more chapter to this, but you… you were in court once again this week, for the latest development in this series, and, you know, I’m trying to be funny, but how many… how many parts to this has there been?

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Laura Belin: So, there are two… well, technically, there are three cases

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Laura Belin: Two of them are sort of consolidated. There’s the case involving the libertarian ticket for governor and lieutenant governor, Nicholas Gluba and Jules Cutler, that was basically an all-day evidentiary hearing and oral arguments on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday morning.

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Laura Belin: a different judge heard the two cases related to Marco Battalia trying to get back on the ballot in the 3rd District, and Republicans trying to get Rick Stewart off the ballot in the 2nd District. And those were…

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Laura Belin: they weren’t exactly consolidated into one case, but they were consolidated in the sense that the same judge is hearing both of them, and it was back-to-back, because both of those appeals have to do with the candidates’ names. So, I guess I’ll start with that one, because it’s simpler to understand.

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Laura Belin: Marco Battalia, turns out, is not his legal name. Mark Anderson is his legal name, and even though he’s run for office a number of times before as Marco Battalia, he was challenged this year because he signed his candidate affidavit as Mark Anderson, his legal name, but all of his petitions said Marco Battalia. And the state panel that considers these kinds of challenges split, voted 2 to 1 with the Republican

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Laura Belin: Secretary of State Paul Pate and Attorney General Brenna Bird saying that Marco Battalia should not be on the ballot because the law does not allow candidates to run under a fictitious name. Whereas Rob Sand, the Democrat, dissented from that decision. He said that the law does not specify that you have to use your legal name or your real name, it just says the candidate’s name in the form the candidate wants it to appear on the ballot.

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Laura Belin: And he also, pointed out, there’s this legal concept called estoppel, which means that if you’ve done something before, that it would be unfair to try to stop you now. So, since Marco Battalia had already been on the ballot a number of times, that it would be unfair. So, I felt in the court, to me, it seemed that the judge was fairly skeptical of Marco Battalia’s

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Laura Belin: arguments there that the judge seemed to think that candidate’s name, it has to have some relationship to the candidate’s real name, even though the statute doesn’t say real name or legal name. So, we’ll see how that goes, but I kind of felt that the judge… the way the judge’s questioning went, it seemed fairly sympathetic to the idea that the law might allow you to run as a shortened version of your name, but not just a complete

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Laura Belin: different name, like Battalia versus Anderson. And then the second case that was consolidated with that was about Rick Stewart, the libertarian running in the second congressional district. The argument that the Republican objector made was that his petitions all said Richard Stewart, but he signed his affidavit and wanted to appear on the ballot as Rick Stewart. And Alan Ostergren, the attorney for the Republican objector, said.

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Laura Belin: You know, he could… certainly, he could run as Rick Stewart, but in that case, he needed to put Rick Stewart on his petitions, not Richard.

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Laura Belin: So the state panel unanimously rejected that argument, kept him on the ballot, and I think it’s very likely that the judge is going to rule to keep Rick Stewart on the ballot, because Rick and Richard are just two versions of the same name.

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Laura Belin: The case for governor… boy, I don’t… there are so many different legal and factual disputes, and I don’t know which way the judge is going to go with that one. The main issue is that the libertarian candidate for Lieutenant Governor Jules Cutler did not submit the required affidavit of candidacy. So there’s a factual dispute over whether she tried to present the document, and the Secretary of State’s worker rejected it, or said it wasn’t needed.

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Laura Belin: There are also all kinds of legal arguments over whether the state objection panel’s consideration of this was fair, and I feel that the judge could just make it very simple and say she was required to submit this document by June 2nd, she didn’t, end of story.

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Laura Belin: But they could… I mean, the judge did seem sympathetic to a few of the libertarian points about the state panels.

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Laura Belin: hearing being unfair, so it’s possible that the state panel’s decision could be overturned, but again, that one is also going up to the Iowa Supreme Court either way.

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Dave Price: So it’s… this is gonna be a while.

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Laura Belin: Well, the judge

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Laura Belin: the case about the Battalia Stewart, Judge Patrick Smith, he said he’s gonna try to get a ruling out next week. The libertarian cases for governor, that’s more complicated, and the parties are actually supposed… the deadline for them to submit their briefs is today, so Judge Joseph Seidlin didn’t say exactly when he’s going to rule, but there are a lot of balls in the air on that one, and I don’t know if he’ll rule next week or the week after that, but it all has

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Laura Belin: to happen quickly, because it’s going to be appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court, and then the Iowa Supreme Court needs to have some kind of briefing and arguments. I’m sure that’ll be on a very accelerated timetable, but the ballots need to be finalized by, depending on who you talk to, either the end of August or early September, so this is all gonna come together quickly, and I’m sure that the judges are gonna be… In the past, we’ve had these cases where

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Laura Belin: you could tell the judges were working weekends and really trying hard to turn these opinions around as fast as possible. And I think the Battalia Stewart cases are just simpler, so I expect that ruling to drop before the one related to Nicholas Gluba and Jules Cutler.

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Kathie Obradovich: just to remind people what the stakes are here, I mean, we’re talking about close races, potentially for governor, for these congressional seats, and Republicans, I think, are right to be concerned that a libertarian candidate can draw, votes away from Republican candidates. I mean, that’s why we’re all paying so much attention to this.

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Kathie Obradovich: And why, you know, the…

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Kathie Obradovich: Especially the Republicans are really pushing this case, not just accepting the State Objection Panel’s decision, even on Rick Stewart.

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Laura Belin: And I agree that, on balance, probably the Libertarian candidate on the ballot draws more from Republicans, but the libertarians, for what it’s worth, they dispute that. They say some… I mean, Marco Battalia, for instance, he has an anti-war message, a pro-legalization of drugs message, so they argue that there are voters on the left who also find their message appealing.

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Dave Price: Alright, there is one other thing, one other event, I went to this week. Kathie had a reporter from the Iowa Capital Dispatch there as well, and it was a Rob Sand… I found this interesting, and frankly, even in the news release that went out about it before… beforehand from the SAN campaign.

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Dave Price: Because the names on the list, so you had Dave Mulbauer, the Lieuten governor candidate, and you had Brian Loci, who’s a state rep from Bondurant, a Republican who had just lost his

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Dave Price: Republican primary, so he’ll be losing the… leaving the legislature. And you had Andrew Allen, who is the president and CEO of YSS, this… the Youth Recovery

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Dave Price: Center Enterprise, and so they went to Ember Recovery in Cambridge. And so this was set up to showcase what they do at this center, which is pretty remarkable, honestly, when you go there. It’s almost kind of overwhelming to…

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Dave Price: look at what they have, and we are all familiar with a friend who… multiple friends, really, who have… who have unfortunately found out how difficult it is to get service. And in this case, this is pri… Amber is primarily focused on young people 18 to 24 for substance…

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Dave Price: abuse, recovery, along with mental health crises. And…

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Dave Price: The setup for this is that Dave Mulbauer decided to go public with the fact that his son, one of his children, had a mental health crisis last year, and because of

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Dave Price: contacts that Dave had, he knew about Ember, and that connected him with this facility, and he credits this with helping his son.

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Dave Price: And going through this program. Brian Loci’s case was different, and one of their boys from a very young age had a substance abuse issue and dealt with it.

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Dave Price: for a number of years. At the time, this Cambridge facility was not there, and so Brian and his wife found treatment for their son in several other places, including Minnesota, and then there was a place in, southern Texas where they went to, too. So the setup was pretty remarkable. I was, you know, sometimes… sometimes I’m sitting there and, you know, you kind of…

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Dave Price: You can kind of forget about the politics of stuff.

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Dave Price: And when I was looking at this table, you have, Brian Loci, whose son successfully went through

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Dave Price: recovery for substance abuse, and Brian and Mary, for those who don’t know, won the Powerball a number of years ago, so they’ve also, in honor of their son’s success, they donated a lot of money, frankly, to Ember as well, and so there’s a gym there.

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Kathie Obradovich: this.

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Dave Price: Where the young people, can play ball and stuff. So they’re very much connected to this. But, one thing that sometimes is just… I just feel like sometimes these… politics is so polarized, right? So we’re looking at this table where we have

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Dave Price: Here’s the guy running for Lieuten governor as a Democrat. Here’s a Republican state rep.

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Dave Price: Who’s…

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Dave Price: maybe leaving politics now, but nonetheless. And then you have Andrew Allen, who’s the head of this, who is now 31 years sober. As a kid, he went through a bunch of stuff.

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Dave Price: Overcame that, and now he leads this thing that’s helped, like, 5,000 young people, something like that.

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Dave Price: Then they also had this young man who was an addict as a younger guy. He’s still young, but when he was, I think, a teenager, he was homeless and an addict and all that, and now he’s one of the counselors there, so he has a really cool story. And then there was this really sad case where there’s a mom who was part of this whose son struggled with a bunch of stuff and ended up

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Dave Price: Dying in a car wreck. She became an addict.

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Dave Price: she received treatment, and now she’s a dedicated advocate. So just, you know, sometimes you’re like, gosh dang, this is just, like, a powerful event, like, forget RD, all that kind of stuff.

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Dave Price: So it was just a remarkable kind of event. But, Kathie, you also, you had a staffer there, Caden, who wrote about this, but sort of the news of the day, if you will, despite the power of all this, and Mulbauer talked about… I had asked him about, you know, his decision to go public with…

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Dave Price: Because that’s hard to talk about this stuff, right? I mean, their son really had a hard time. And, you know, he kind of got choked up talking about it, and he’s like, you know, hopefully people can… this brings awareness, that kind of stuff.

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Dave Price: One of the things that came up organically during this discussion was that Andrew Allen brought up Rob Sands’ position on legalizing marijuana, recreational marijuana.

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Dave Price: And his concern, and he can cite a bunch of stats, is that if kids try stuff, like, before the age of 14, they’ll… they might be…

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Dave Price: more likely to become addicts later. And so his concern is, if we legalize pot.

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Dave Price: does that sort of change the atmosphere and kids think, basically, it’s okay? Which, you know, it’s kind of one of those unscripted moments, right? And I’m… I’m wondering what the campaign thought about it, but, you know, frankly, it’s a legit question, right? We wrote about it for TV as well, and Caden did for you.

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Dave Price: And we talked about… Mobauer answered it in their roundtable discussion, and he answered it within the gaggle with reporters afterwards.

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Dave Price: And it’s saying that, you know, they want this regulated like alcohol is, they’re not talking about this for kids, they want programs out there and awareness out there, to make sure that, kids know not to try this stuff, drugs and alcohol and all that stuff. But, it really became… I mean, it was a good, rich discussion.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, and you know, I think that this is an issue that needs more discussion in Iowa. I mean, it’s… it gets treated as a, you know, just sort of a black and white.

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, whether you’re for it or against it, etc. And there’s so many facets to it, and, you know, there’s the argument that, you know, it’s potentially possible that marijuana is less harmful, you know, for your body over time than alcohol, but there’s really not enough study, etc. So, I mean, I do think that there’s a lot of robust discussion

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Kathie Obradovich: And so, you know, I think the campaign probably didn’t know that it was going to come up at this event. But, you know, I think that they don’t need to shy away from it. They need to embrace, you know, this discussion. But as a reporter, as a journalist, when you see something unscripted come up at one of these events.

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Kathie Obradovich: It’s like, oh, wow, there’s actual news here, you know?

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Dave Price: I thought, I thought so, for sure. Like, when they brought it up.

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Dave Price: But people have those questions.

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Dave Price: And so it… I mean, it was… it was worthwhile to talk about. Go ahead, Laura, sorry.

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Laura Belin: No, it’s a legitimate question, and I just… it made me think… I was not at this event yesterday, but it made me think about last year, late last year, when the Attorney General, Brenna Bird, signed on to a letter with a few other attorneys general around the country, expressing concern about the Trump administration’s policy to reschedule marijuana. And one of the arguments for rescheduling it is that then it would make it easier to do some of these

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Laura Belin: studies on the long-term impact, and how harmful is it, or is it less harmful than alcohol or some other drugs? So, and then I’ve also read things that the marijuana that people are smoking today is more potent than what people may have been smoking in the 70s and 80s. So, in any case.

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Laura Belin: It’s… it is a worthwhile discussion. I can… I have seen Rob San answer questions about it, and he has definitely talked about it in the context of, like, alcohol and things that adults should do. He’s never downplayed the problems of youth.

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Kathie Obradovich: news.

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Laura Belin: Use of any kind of drug.

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Dave Price: This was a good example this past week, Kathie, you talked about how nuanced and complex this all is, and I had a conversation with a TV colleague this week, and I feel like the longer I do this, the more it becomes apparent to me, but especially in television, you are so often driven by the clock.

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Dave Price: And there are some stations out there that are starting to do things a little differently as, you know, the research is showing how people… what people want, and I’m talking about just on the TV side, may be changing. For years, consultants really pushed this thing about boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, like in a television newscast. You need to have, like, 10 stories in the first section. We call it the A block.

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Dave Price: of the newscast.

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Dave Price: And it’s… But, you know, if you’re, like, sitting in your cubicle selling insurance all day, or what have you, like, you have your phone, right? So you have all of these headlines already. So you’re starting to see some places put a little thought into, is that really the modern-day way to deliver news? Like, do you really need… should TV be headline news? Should it be more substantive, whatever?

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Dave Price: And it’s still primarily, you’re driven by the clock, so most of the TV stories are somewhere, like, a minute and a half long, a minute 45, something like that. But this story, to me, brought up yet another example about…

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Dave Price: how we’re trying to treat things, both… I do the same thing with my column, with my…

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Dave Price: different, journalism projects that I’m part of, like, sometimes you just can’t… like, you can’t go after everything in one chunk, right? You talked about the, you know, the story you broke on Thursday night, like, it’s a 119-page report, for crying out loud, on community colleges. I guarantee you that you could sit there and come up with about a half-dozen follow-up stories if your staff has the time to do all of this stuff, you know what I mean? Like, and I feel like with the legalized marijuana.

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Dave Price: It ended up giving us a great entry point to do yet another angle of this conversation, which I think is valuable.

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Kathie Obradovich: Well, and I would also argue that the children’s behavioral health issue is also worthy of a deeper dive.

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Dave Price: Hmm.

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Kathie Obradovich: You know, we’ve been talking for years in Iowa now about the lack of services that there has… there was just an effort here in the last legislative session

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Kathie Obradovich: For, you know, some of these acute, diagnoses, and, you know, building up some of those programs and changing some of the insurance barriers, et cetera.

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Kathie Obradovich: this kind of treatment. So I, you know, they’re both, you know, worthy subjects of more discussion, and if it’s happening in the context of a gubernatorial race, all the better, because

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Kathie Obradovich: It raises the, you know, the level of attention.

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Dave Price: Alright, alright, just as a note to folks as we wrap up this week, we’re gonna take one week off, so we’re gonna take a break for the coming week.

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Dave Price: as we then get ready for the final push, I don’t know how many weeks that is, but… I mean, seriously, I can’t…

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Dave Price: I’ve had so many discussions with close friends about this, like, this campaign is like something else, right? Like, there are so many competitive races, and it’s like, this is no knock on anybody we’ve had in office, so I don’t want anybody to take it that way. I’m not ripping on…

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Dave Price: any Republicans, Democrats, whatever, but, like, having these open seats, I mean, we have, like, an open Senate race, an open gubernatorial race, we have…

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Dave Price: two, no offense to anybody, but we have two competitive congressional races, maybe it’ll end up being three, like…

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Dave Price: some legislative races to watch. There are some other statewide offices we need to pay attention to, like, this is, like, this is something else, right?

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Kathie Obradovich: It’s like Christmas. Well, it sort of is.

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Dave Price: And it’s like, there’s always this, you know, the fun, like, horse race side of it, but, like, as we just had this discussion today about, okay, we have one guy who’s talking about he wants to legalize weed.

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Dave Price: And so, here’s… here’s sort of an unscripted moment that came up at a campaign event. Like, this isn’t just some random thing that came up elsewhere. Like, this was actually at their campaign event.

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Dave Price: which…

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Dave Price: Amen that it did. Like, we have covered stuff in the past that’s so overly scripted, and stuff… these remarks have to be approved ahead of time.

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Dave Price: So, unless I’m really reading the room incorrectly, I don’t think this was that way, and Andrew Allen, the head of YSS, had also talked about they’ve invited Zach Lane, too, because I don’t want to make this sound like a Democratic thing.

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Dave Price: But I think Andrew… I mean, Andrew has 30-plus years’ experience at all of this. I think he brought up, and it was a legit thing to brought up, it was a great discussion. I hope we see more of that kind of stuff, where this… these events are not so…

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Dave Price: ridiculously scripted that real stuff can’t come up during these events, you know what I mean?

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Dave Price: And also the fact that Mulbauer didn’t avail with reporters afterwards. And we have already seen some campaigns that aren’t very accessible. And I hope the closeness of some of these races in particular will

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Dave Price: Give that kind of push, and

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Dave Price: And hopefully the public will demand this as well, that these people…

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Dave Price: are answering questions, and many of these questions before November. That’s my soapbox.

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Kathie Obradovich: I’m hoping these candidates decide to show up at the State Fair, because, that… that is the most, you know, to me, an opportunity for some of these organic, moments.

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Dave Price: moments.

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Kathie Obradovich: And, you know, hopefully for the candidates, they don’t involve stepping into anything organic.

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Laura Belin: She’s.

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Dave Price: Always the headline writer. That is one in the works right there. You’ve got that in your back pocket. Yeah, but can we not… let’s not go over the top, though, with the heckling, though. Like, a little passion’s okay, but let’s not be crazy, please. Like, these made-for-viral moments that the opposing campaign does, can we not have that kind of stuff?

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Kathie Obradovich: It’s true, although the heckling did give us Mitt Romney.

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Dave Price: Man, right?

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Kathie Obradovich: generations are people, too.

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Laura Belin: Yes.

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Kathie Obradovich: Or it’s just.

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Laura Belin: Thinking about that.

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Kathie Obradovich: One of the biggest stories of that campaign.

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Dave Price: That is true, that is true. Thank you, ladies, good to talk to you. Enjoy the week to focus on your other professional duties, and we will reassemble in two weeks.

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Laura Belin: Thanks, see you then.

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Kathie Obradovich: Yeah.

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Dave Price: Thank you to all of you who have become new subscribers. We very much appreciate you watching, listening, reading, however you consume this podcast week after week. Thanks to those of you who’ve become new paid subscribers to help us pay the bills. I know we talk about this week after week, but that’s really… we don’t have advertisers on this sucker, so it, we are really dependent on those of you who appreciate our conversation here week after week.

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Dave Price: We very much appreciate whatever you can do to help us defray the production costs so we can keep doing this week after week. So those of you who’ve been doing this, we very much appreciate you, and I hope you’ll think about this as we take a week off.

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Dave Price: next week to think about if you have a way to try to help us continue this in the future. Have a good week ahead, and we will talk to you in two weeks.

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