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The SitRoom Ep #89: Lanhee Chen and Kristen Soltis Anderson
This episode of The SitRoom features Lanhee Chen, Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and former Policy Director for Mitt Romney for President and Kristen Soltis Anderson, pollster, speaker, commentator, and author of The Selfie Vote.
Lanhee Chen
Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and former Policy Director for Mitt Romney for President
--- Lanhee discussed what goes into candidate debate prep behind the scenes, and adjustments he predicts Pres. Trump and Biden might make between debates 1 and 2.
--- A veteran campaign strategist and aide, Lanhee said, “the President has his strongest advantage when it comes to the economy, the polling bears this out, and I’d like to see him really focus on that the next time around.”
--- In addition to sharing stories from “debate camp” prepping Mitt Romney—as well as Paul Ryan to debate, of all people, Joe Biden—Lanhee impressed the importance of body language and focusing on “only 2-3 points you’re trying to convey in the debate, even though it’s 90 minutes long.”
--- Lanhee also defended Chris Wallace, noting that moderating is “extremely difficult,” though he noted: “There is a difference between ‘moderating’ and ‘reporting,’ that often gets forgotten by the moderators chosen for the presidential debates.”
--- He also, now presciently, suggested that we are still in for an “October Surprise” that could drastically change the dynamics of the race. . .
Kristen Soltis Anderson
Pollster, speaker, commentator, and author of The Selfie Vote
--- Kristen addressed the fallout from the debate and whether we can really trust polls.
--- She advocated “healthy skepticism” when it comes to presidential polling, but that she worries “conservatives and liberals are overcorrecting after 2016” and choosing to ignore data which depicts a substantially different race than last cycle.
--- Kristen said, ultimately, “polls show Biden is ahead—even further than Hillary Clinton was at this time last cycle,” and she suspects Pres. Trump could try to shake up the race in order to catch up.
--- She closed by reminding us that “polls are often wrong, but not always in the same way as the last time,” as exemplified by Romney underperforming the polls in 2012, while Clinton famously underperformed in 2016. Pollsters tend to “fight the last war” each cycle, so what happens this year is anyone's guess!
Evan Baehr took us on a deep dive into the stakes of the new fight over Critical Race Theory, and the truth behind the federal push to fix Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training.
--- Recalling the excellent work of Teneo friend and Sitroom guest Dr. James Lindsay, Evan explained how “postmodern philosophy is radically skeptical that objective truth exists and can even approximately be known . . . that is, whether a claim is true or not doesn’t matter and misses the point. All that matters is how that claim can be used politically.”
--- Evan shared the viral twitter thread explaining these concepts further: “To understand how social justice thinks about diversity, you have to remember that Social Justice places a heavy emphasis on group identity, and think of people in terms of their cluster of identities.”
--- He concludes with the sad diagnosis that under this framework, “your identity list, and ONLY your identity list (i.e., black, bisexual, woman) determines where you are on the social ladder. How much money you have is irrelevant. Your score in the game doesn't matter, it's the level of difficulty you play on.”
LINKS:
Dr. James Lindsay: https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/pri...
Viral twitter thread: https://twitter.com/wokal_distance/st...
View all episodes
By Evan BaehrThis episode of The SitRoom features Lanhee Chen, Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and former Policy Director for Mitt Romney for President and Kristen Soltis Anderson, pollster, speaker, commentator, and author of The Selfie Vote.
Lanhee Chen
Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and former Policy Director for Mitt Romney for President
--- Lanhee discussed what goes into candidate debate prep behind the scenes, and adjustments he predicts Pres. Trump and Biden might make between debates 1 and 2.
--- A veteran campaign strategist and aide, Lanhee said, “the President has his strongest advantage when it comes to the economy, the polling bears this out, and I’d like to see him really focus on that the next time around.”
--- In addition to sharing stories from “debate camp” prepping Mitt Romney—as well as Paul Ryan to debate, of all people, Joe Biden—Lanhee impressed the importance of body language and focusing on “only 2-3 points you’re trying to convey in the debate, even though it’s 90 minutes long.”
--- Lanhee also defended Chris Wallace, noting that moderating is “extremely difficult,” though he noted: “There is a difference between ‘moderating’ and ‘reporting,’ that often gets forgotten by the moderators chosen for the presidential debates.”
--- He also, now presciently, suggested that we are still in for an “October Surprise” that could drastically change the dynamics of the race. . .
Kristen Soltis Anderson
Pollster, speaker, commentator, and author of The Selfie Vote
--- Kristen addressed the fallout from the debate and whether we can really trust polls.
--- She advocated “healthy skepticism” when it comes to presidential polling, but that she worries “conservatives and liberals are overcorrecting after 2016” and choosing to ignore data which depicts a substantially different race than last cycle.
--- Kristen said, ultimately, “polls show Biden is ahead—even further than Hillary Clinton was at this time last cycle,” and she suspects Pres. Trump could try to shake up the race in order to catch up.
--- She closed by reminding us that “polls are often wrong, but not always in the same way as the last time,” as exemplified by Romney underperforming the polls in 2012, while Clinton famously underperformed in 2016. Pollsters tend to “fight the last war” each cycle, so what happens this year is anyone's guess!
Evan Baehr took us on a deep dive into the stakes of the new fight over Critical Race Theory, and the truth behind the federal push to fix Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training.
--- Recalling the excellent work of Teneo friend and Sitroom guest Dr. James Lindsay, Evan explained how “postmodern philosophy is radically skeptical that objective truth exists and can even approximately be known . . . that is, whether a claim is true or not doesn’t matter and misses the point. All that matters is how that claim can be used politically.”
--- Evan shared the viral twitter thread explaining these concepts further: “To understand how social justice thinks about diversity, you have to remember that Social Justice places a heavy emphasis on group identity, and think of people in terms of their cluster of identities.”
--- He concludes with the sad diagnosis that under this framework, “your identity list, and ONLY your identity list (i.e., black, bisexual, woman) determines where you are on the social ladder. How much money you have is irrelevant. Your score in the game doesn't matter, it's the level of difficulty you play on.”
LINKS:
Dr. James Lindsay: https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/pri...
Viral twitter thread: https://twitter.com/wokal_distance/st...