The Winning Strategy
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Welcome to Sisters-in-Law, the podcast, where Janice and Davida Mathis, real sisters, real lawyers, and we hope to have some really good talk. Episode 11, The Winning Strategy. Well, Jan, we saw the unconventional convention from the Democratic Party this week. What did you think about it?

I thought the technology that they pulled off was remarkable. I thought it was relatively seamless. I thought they hit a lot of high points.

There was some criticism that as diverse as it was in terms of representation of various ethnic groups and certainly gender, that it was not diverse enough. I didn't share that opinion, but I heard it enough to know that there was some who felt that way. And then I heard some criticism that there wasn't enough policy instruction.

But I think the real message of the convention was we are the Democrats. We look like America. We may not always agree, but we always persevere because the American project is more important than any of our individual agendas. Well, I agree with you that the format was seamless.

I wondered how they would pull it off, but they pulled it off beautifully. I thought they pulled from a lot of different communities. And what is usually the most boring part of any Democratic National Convention or any party convention to me is the roll call, the procedural type of stuff. Well, they managed to make the roll call interesting. It was like a tour around America. And I really enjoyed it. I guess I enjoyed it so much because it was so much a surprise that

that it would be meaningful being able to see people in their own environments in different parts of the United States with their different ethnic and cultural outfits and presentations was really uplifting to me.

I did not share President Trump's assessment that it was gloom and doom. I was really uplifted spiritually by seeing all the different groups of people. And I don't share the opinion that it was not diverse enough. It was quite diverse. I was very uplifted by Joe Biden's acceptance speech. Many are saying that it was the best speech of his career ever.

I'm not sure about that. It was a wonderful speech and it covered a lot of topics. It had a lot of policy to it, more policy than I think I'm accustomed to hearing during the national presidential acceptance speech.

There's a lot of policy to go over at this time because, as he stated, we're facing so many crises at the same time in the United States right now. It was not his best speech to me. It was a wonderful speech. But I heard Joe Biden speak in Sumter, South Carolina, in February, right before the South Carolina primary. We were in Sumter in a church gym.

And the audience was full, although it wasn't huge. The venue was full. Someone brought out Joe Biden's notes and put them on the podium. Avery would say lectern, podium is not the right term. And they set the mics up and set up all kinds of doodads and whatnot. And I was close enough to see it. Then a few minutes later, someone came and took the notes away from the lectern. And then Joe Biden came out and he talked to us for an hour.

about policy, about domestic policy, foreign policy, about economics, about jobs, about justice, about the coronavirus, although it wasn't then what it is now, but just managing an epidemic. He talked so much in depth that it was shocking to me. And people all over the auditorium or the gym, as it was,

were able to raise their hands and ask questions. And he fielded those questions like really nobody I've ever seen. And the conclusion, I came to a couple of conclusions after seeing that presentation, that he has a vast knowledge of government and how to govern. Now, whether I agree with him on each and everything, that's a different topic. I agree with him on most of what I heard that day.

but he had a vast knowledge. And the other thing that it convinced me of that he had full recall and full capabilities mentally. His mental abilities were certainly not in any negative light from that speech that I heard him give. And I think I heard him give two speeches that particular day, but the one in Sumter really shocked me at how much he knew and how much he could recall without any notes.

But the speech that he gave at the convention was reminiscent of that, I guess, not as surprising as the one I heard in Sumter. Because, of course, Trump and the Republicans have been and some Democrats have been calling into question whether or not he was mentally capable of handling speech. Especially.

It proved one thing to me that has been proven over and over again, and we ought not ever have to raise the question again. You cannot give any credit to any assessment that Donald Trump makes of anybody, including the Democrats. The fact that he has been floating forever, Sleepy Joe, kind of settles into your mind whether you are inclined to believe it or not.

But that performance in South Carolina and surely the performance at the convention should have settled any question about whether or not Joe Biden has the intellectual capacity to be president. The other thing that I thought was remarkable was the extent to which the Democrats were on board. Bernie Sanders, people who rivaled him, Klobuchar, the team of rivals was fully present.

And often the Democrats don't have message discipline. But each one of them started out by saying, we must first defeat Donald Trump. And then we can come together to resolve any policy disagreements or differences that we have. Elizabeth Warren, you know, Elizabeth Warren doesn't agree with Joe Biden on everything. But there was remarkable message discipline among the top Democrats.

I thought that was remarkable. I thought it was positive because you could keep the focus on what it should have been, which is how would they rule differently than what we have now? One thing we know for sure, everybody surrounding Joe Biden a year from now will not have been indicted on federal charges, unlike what we have now. And so I was heartened by it.

I thought Michelle Obama was remarkable. I thought Barack Obama was his usual self. I thought that Bill Clinton was as remarkable at explaining complex public policy as anybody in public life. But I realize now that Joe Biden was more than just a glad-handing politician.

that the reason he was such an effective vice president was because of his deep knowledge of how the government ought to work. Well, I agree with that. And I can't let this moment pass without talking about Kamala. Kamala did something that was like walking a tightrope. And I mean this. I mean, when she came out to speak, you know, Trump had said she's a mean and nasty lady. She's the nastiest, meanest, most hatefulest woman on earth type of talk.

But she came out and she was likable. She was sweet. She talked in a nice voice. And she did a literal roll call. And the roll call wasn't necessarily a roll call for white America. Her roll call included, I went to Howard University, a historically black college.

I am a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Then she called out the Divine Nine. I have never heard the name of an African American sorority or fraternity called out in a political speech in this nature. I've never heard the words Divine Nine said in a presidential campaign. And that's why I call it a roll call. She was telling us

African Americans who understood what she was talking about, that she is an African American. And I've never seen that done before. Right. That was not something that President Obama could do. And it wasn't something that Michelle Obama could do.

Well, she could have, but she wouldn't. Well, she didn't have the background. I mean, she couldn't do it with any authenticity. Jesse Jackson didn't need to do it because it was clear who he was and where he came from and what he was about. And we haven't had major candidates other than those. That's right. You're absolutely right. And what is a knock on Kamala? The thing that you hear whispered is, is she black enough? And what she was doing...

She was calling the role. Now, being able to call the role is not quite the same thing as being able to identify as black. But I thought it was an effective way of getting the message across that. Don't worry about my blackness. I know more black history, as much black history as you do.

Well, I hope to talk more about this later, but I was surprised and pleasantly so when I heard her give that roll call. She tried to call the name Mary McLeod Bethune, whose shoulders she stood on and so many others that she named. I was heartened. You know, I'm a history person and she gave a very good brief history of where we come from politically.

And she did identify herself as African-American. Now, of course, I had to do some Googling after I heard her speech. And when I Googled, I found a lot of pictures of her when she was at Howard. Real interesting, when she was at Howard University, it was at the same time Jesse Jackson was running for president. And it was at the same time Jesse Jackson was getting arrested for demonstrating against apartheid. And the pictures of her were a little curly-headed,

brown-skinned girl out demonstrating against apartheid when she was a freshman in college. So she didn't say it wrong. She said it right. She identified as African-American. And I think also that the story she told about every time she mentioned her parents, not just at the convention, but in every interview, she talks about how they met.

And there's nothing more grounded in the black community than having parents who were activists as well. That's sort of a credential that we use. I'm black because not only that, I grew up in an activist household. And I thought she made effective use of that, too. Yeah, I was very heartened. Well, Jan, I wanted to talk more about a subject that you and I can talk about without anybody else.

Telling us anything about it. I was inspired to talk about this by a couple of things. A couple of episodes ago, you talked about how Michael Dukakis was ahead in the polls against

George Bush I in the summer, that he was many points ahead of George Bush. If I can ever go up by 17 points at Labor Day, which is typically the beginning of the serious last charge of any presidential campaign is Labor Day weekend. So let's set the stage. We're talking about the 1988 presidential election.

Michael Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts, was the Democratic nominee. And George Bush I, not the second, the first one, was the presumptive Republican nominee, and he became the nominee. And at Labor Day, when both of the conventions were already over, George Bush was the nominee.

Michael Dukakis was 17 points ahead of George Bush. Now, those points, I don't remember this part, Jan. I remember a lot of it, but I don't remember whether that 17 points meant that he was 17 points ahead in the popular vote, which is really not the vote.

I don't know whether it meant he was 17 points ahead in a national popular vote or he was somewhere around 17 points ahead state by state, which we know the presidential election is not a popular vote. It's 50 different or 52 different or is it 56 different separate elections?

I don't recall either, but I do know that back in 88, there wasn't as much careful attention because we had not had several elections in a row where the winning candidate did not win the popular vote. Polling has changed over these 30 years so that now there are better polls to measure what the electoral college vote is likely to be.

instead of focusing as much as it did back, I think there was more focus back in 88 on an overall national vote. Right, a popular type of vote. Right. But he was 17 points ahead. We'll leave it at that. And one reason we know so much about it and we know about it personally is that you left your law practice and I left my third year law school.

Quit our job. You quit your job, and I didn't drop out of law school, but I took a leave of absence for a semester, and we ran off to Boston where Michael Dukakis had his headquarters, and we worked for a national presidential campaign. It was a great honor. And I'm going to tell this part of the story that I don't think I've ever told before. You know it's true, though. When you went to the Democratic Convention as a Jackson delegate, I believe,

Yeah. You met a man named Christopher Edley, who was a professor at Harvard. Was he a professor at that time? Yes. You knew a lot of people on the platform committee because you were on the platform committee. You knew a lot of DNC people. I was on the DNC at that time. I got on the DNC after the convention. Yeah. And Christopher Edley was so impressed that he was.

ask you to join the campaign in a top type of role. It was top for me. And when you told me about it, I said, Jane, you can't leave me.

I don't remember that. You used to call me, don't leave me, because I would tell you not to leave me. But I said, I know you called me, don't leave me, but you can't leave me. You got to take me with you. I got to go to this national campaign. And we thought we were going to win. And I'm going to say this because it's true. That's when we met Susan Rice. Susan Rice, who was the ambassador to the UN. She was a college student at that time.

I mean, everybody was there. Ron Brown was there. Eleanor Holmes Norton was our debate coach for the platform committee. You call the roll. Lottie Shackelford was at that time one of the co-chairs of the Democratic National Committee. The guy, the great congressman from Pennsylvania. Bill, what was Bill's name? William, I can't remember his last name, but a very stalwart member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

It was a who's who. And we all met on, was it Boston Street in Boston where the campaign headquarters was. That was a remarkable time, but it soon turned badly for the campaign. He had campaigned on the Massachusetts miracle. Budget deficits were rampant throughout state and local government.

And Dukakis was able to show that he had turned around the Massachusetts economy with something called public-private partnerships.

And of course, the reason we were there is that Jesse Jackson had negotiated with Dukakis that he would integrate, much like the Bernie faction, that he would integrate some elements of the Jackson campaign into the Dukakis campaign. That was what created the opportunity. Yeah, Chris made the offer to me, but the larger deal was made between Jackson and Dukakis as a way of healing the party divide and going forward to

to try to beat Mr. Bush, who had been vice president under President Reagan.

Well, let me tell you why I want to talk about it today. Because you mentioned it about a month ago in a previous episode of the Sisters-in-Law podcast. And I tell you, I didn't want to talk about Dukakis being 17 points ahead and then losing the election in November. I didn't want to talk about it. I talk about the days on the Dukakis campaign, and I don't talk about Dukakis losing. I talk about the experience that I gained. And it really was a wonderful experience, except we lost.

But I didn't want to talk about it. But today when I was reading the New York Times, like I do every day, there's an article in the New York Times that was talking about exactly that. How Bush mounted a comeback in 1988 and his strategy for winning the election.

And the comparison was that Trump could still win the election the same way Bush won the election using the exact same strategy. I want to talk about it then. And I really don't want to talk about it now, but we got to talk about it. We got to talk about it if we hope to avoid it. I got to take my head out of the sand and talk about it.

And I'll just start it off and you can finish it after I say these two words. Willie Horton. Yeah. Yeah. That wasn't the only thing. There were actually, I think, three turning points in the campaign that happened within days of each other. One, there was a debate. And in the debate, Dukakis, who was a cool customer, he was a Greek man.

heritage, he's still alive, of Greek heritage, and he was cool. I never saw him angry or visibly upset or ruffled. He was always cool, calm, and collected. He was a governor, after all. He was a very experienced trial lawyer. And when they asked him, but he was anti-death penalty as a matter of philosophy, as a matter of principle. They said, if your wife was raped and beaten, would you not want the death penalty

for the person who killed your wife? Well, for Dukakis, that was given his temperament and given his philosophy. That was an easy question. He said, no, I don't believe in the death penalty. It does not deter crime. And he gave a lawyer's answer. It came across and the media spun it as being cold and calculated and insincere. But he was being just as sincere as he knew how to be. Even if, and nobody knew

any better than we did in the campaign how much he loved Kitty Dukakis because she would interrupt meetings, she would sometimes behave in a way that might be considered inappropriate, but he was never anything other than affectionate and supportive of her. So it wasn't any lack of affection for Kitty. It was just he's a lawyer's lawyer and a governor's governor. If you don't believe in the death penalty on Monday, you don't believe in it on the day of a debate. So that was one thing.

And I was in the spin room that night and I said, oh my goodness, this is getting ready to be a problem. The next thing was Democrats at that time, this is before Clinton, at that time Democrats were perceived as being soft on crime. And he had a furlough program where he let some

inmates go home for long weekends as a way of relieving prison overcrowding and showing compassion. And one of those people was furloughed. He had nothing to do personally with reviewing the furlough, but it was under his watch, committed a heinous crime while he was out on furlough. Immediately, the Bush campaign seized on that, made a commercial campaign.

They made it reminded me of one of the Trump commercials of this year, the one where a woman is sitting in her home and they're talking about the suburbs are going to be overrun by people who are dangerous. Well, they made a terrible looking picture of this guy, Willie Horton, and it played and played and played and played. And then the other thing

He didn't have any foreign policy experience. He had never been in the Congress. And he made a terrible mistake of staging a photo op in a tank with one of those metal helmets on. He looked like an idiot. He looked uncomfortable. And that looked insincere. And I think those three things, and it seems so innocent now, but those three things turned the tide of the campaign.

Well, let me talk about, you know, I'm itching to talk about some of this. The whole Willis Horton situation was that Willie Horton was convicted of raping and murdering a white woman. And he was furloughed. And as you said, Dukakis didn't personally determine who got furloughed and who didn't. But it was definitely a program that was implemented under his watch.

And those people in probation, pardon and parole and furlough, I guess, interviewed Willie Horton and reviewed his case and determined that he was eligible for that furlough program. And he did commit a heinous crime after he was furloughed. And they

published his picture all over creation very similar to what Trump is doing it's not an accident I heard someone say in the last couple of days Trump is crazy but he's not stupid

Right. The whole they're coming to get you in the suburbs is their Willie Horton. It's Trump's Willie Horton. Exactly. Black, ugly man who's going to hurt you if you don't elect me or reelect me. But the interesting part about Trump's strategy and his Willie Horton's strategy is that.

He's talking about the marches and some of the violence that happened during the marches after the killing of George Floyd. Those marches and that unrest happened during Trump's watch, not during a Democrat's watch. What they attributed to Michael Dukakis was not directly Michael Dukakis' fault, but it did happen under his watch. But

the protests that they're showing in Trump's commercial happen under Trump's watch. That's one difference that I've seen. And another difference is that he is using, he is posturing as taking a page out of Nixon's Law and Order Silent Americans playbook to send troops. Now Nixon never sent troops into the cities of America.

I guess maybe at Kent State National Guard, but that's not military, not really. But he's using that trope. I can get tough. I can crack down. I can quell these disturbances and these uprisings. But it is so based in something other than what is factual. It's just not the truth that he can do much about it or that he has done much about it. I mean, if he called the summit,

of the mayors of the 10 largest cities to talk about how we make sure people can protest. If he didn't run out of the White House with the Bible turned upside down and start spraying people with tear gas with military dressed in camouflage with him, there might be some credibility. But he has no credibility on that issue.

Yeah, and let's not leave out Nixon's Southern strategy. Nixon was an intellectual in a certain way, but also a street fighter and a little bit crazy also. But the Southern strategy has blew up under Bush the first.

And it's even enlarged itself under Trump. And the Southern strategy is make the white community scared of black people and afraid that they're going to lose what they have. That works now better in a way. And it works is less effective in another way. It works better because white people, certain white people are more afraid now.

And certain white people are more willing to see that black lives matter and that health disparities are real and that equal opportunity is yet to be achieved. Otherwise, you wouldn't see so many white folk out demonstrating in the George Floyd protests, not just in the United States.

but all over the world. So there are some similarities, but there are a lot of differences too. Yeah, the reason it works is not as effective is because more white people see the issue with the horrible death of George Floyd in front of our faces, the white people's faces as well as ours and Breonna Taylor's story is being told all over the earth. White people see the problem or some do.

And the other thing that you mentioned every time we talk about voting is most people, is it under the age of 18 or under the age of 24? I get it wrong, even though you try to tell me right every time. Most of them are not white. Under 18. Under 18 are not white. For the first time this year, Americans under the age of 18 are majority people of color.

And so while older white people might be afraid, they're a big voting group, but while older white people might be afraid and that Southern strategy, that Willie Horton strategy might be effective among younger white people, it might not be because most of them are brown.

And many of them participated in the protest. We didn't plan to talk about this, but what net effect do you think Kamala Harris will have on the ticket? Clearly, she's going to mobilize and energize Black women who vote all the time.

But what effect will she have on the participation of black men and what effect will she have on the participation of white folks in terms of them being able to vote for this ticket to have a black woman a heartbeat away from the president? Well, I've got a lot of answers to that. I've been saying this for a couple of years now. Will black people get out and vote if there is no black person on the ticket?

Well, I'm going to turn that around and say I believe African-Americans are more motivated to get out and vote for the Biden-Harris ticket because Harris is on the ticket. And that is a part of the Democratic winning strategy. Most Black people who vote are Democrats or vote Democrat. But the enthusiastic support from African-Americans that came out for Barack Obama did not come out for Hillary Clinton.

And my question, or maybe my premise, is that African-Americans will only respond enthusiastically if there's an African-American on the ticket. And so Kamala certainly fits that bill. She's African-American, also Asian-American. And she also has a whole lot to recommend her in terms of her background, her training, her demeanor.

and just the way she presents herself. So I think that it will help the ticket ultimately, but I think there are some who will sit out the election or not vote for Biden-Harris because Harris is a woman of color. Well, it's going to be interesting to watch it play out. I certainly hope that people will compare

the incumbent to this ticket and this broad sampling of Americans from the Bernie Sanders crowd all the way to the more conservative elements of the Democratic Party and see that the choice is clear. I don't think it could be clearer. It couldn't be clearer to us. There are some old white folks that could be conflicted about Kamala.

And there are some black men who could be conflicted about. Oh, yeah. Well, let's just talk about it. You know, the black men wouldn't vote. A lot of black men didn't vote for Hillary because Hillary was a woman. That's exactly right. And that could play out and work against Biden and Harris. I don't know. I hope it doesn't.

but it could work against a lot of black men are disaffected that's a nice way of saying they're just mad at the world and they don't see any way out of it except to be against everything and everybody especially black women who they perceive as having supplanted them was that harsh enough? it's true enough I wanted to go back to something you were talking about earlier that death penalty question you know we were um

You were my boss in Boston at the Dukakis campaign. Nominally, yeah. That's the only reason I got up there because you went and I said, don't go, don't leave me. Don't go without me.

But one of my assignments was to work on responses to questions that we knew would be answered for the debates, would be asked for the debates. And I worked on constitutional law, which included death penalty. I worked almost the whole time I was there until the debates on developing the issues of death penalty.

And we knew where Michael Dukakis stood. He was an intellectual. He was a lawyer and a law professor, Harvard law professor. He was cool, calm, and he still ran the government of Massachusetts while he was campaigning for president, which was

Because we used to have to go to the statehouse to get him to sign off on stuff. I used to have to walk up to Beacon Street and hand position papers through the door and stand outside the door and wait for him to check it like he was grading the paper and hand it back to me. I used to always get check marks, which was a good thing. But we knew that the death penalty was going to be an issue because the Republicans made it an issue.

It's not crystallized as the death penalty, but it is the law and order question that's rearing its ugly head. And I remember, you might not remember this, but I remember when that was the first question in the debate. I don't remember that it was the first question, but it was the first question. And there was a pause after the question. The black man who was the...

The reporter from CNN, I can't remember his name. Bernie something. Bernie, I can't remember. I can see him, but I can't remember his last name. But he asked the question and Michael Dukakis paused and I felt like I could see the wheels in his head turning that

And if I could put words to what I thought I saw, it was, oh, they're throwing me a red herring. They want me to chase after what's not the issue. And I'm not going to fall for it. I'm going to go directly to my stance of being against the death penalty. Well, in a law class, in a courtroom, that would be the right thing to do.

Not go for the okey-doke, don't go for the shiny object, get to the crux of the issue. But when you're in front of millions of people who are looking to you for a human response, it wasn't the right thing to do. I knew the right answer. And I said it as loud as I could in that two or three seconds between the time Bernie asked that question and the time Michael Dukakis answered it.

Say I would want to kill him myself with my bare hands. It wouldn't have to be a death penalty if he did that to my wife. I would want to do this, but I know that we're not a country of men, but we're a country of laws. But that human response was left out.

And most people don't think like lawyers. Most people don't jump past the red herring, don't jump past the shiny object. They respond to the shiny object. And then when they come back to their senses, they reason through it and say, you know, the intellectual answer. But he didn't do it like most people. And it made most people think he was...

crazy, uncaring, didn't love his wife, was a robot, out of touch and all that other stuff. I tell you, my heart sank like never before. And I thought he didn't say anything that I put on those position papers, but he didn't need any position papers. That was busy work because he he was a very, very brilliant person.

He knew a lot. It was the right, ultimately it was the right response, but he didn't say it, right? Because he didn't show a human side. And most people think with their human side first. You know, there was one other parallel

Jesse Jackson electrified the Democratic base and many Democrats generally. I mean, he carried states like, was it Wisconsin that he carried? He was carrying states in the Midwest and there was a loyal contingent. I'm not surprised that Kamala Harris

first came in contact with Jesse Jackson when she was a student. Because I don't meet many politicians of this era who don't have a Jesse Jackson story. And so when some people thought that he had earned a spot on the ticket, and that was not to be. It just wasn't feasible for a Black man at that time. We're talking, what's that, 40 years ago? Don't say 40. It was 88. 88.

But there were some Blacks who were disaffected because they felt that Jackson should have been on the ticket. And it sort of parallels in a rough way the Bernie Sanders crowd. I remember at the convention when Hillary was vying for the nomination, she didn't get it. Her Bernie Sanders followers, I mean, she did get the nomination, but Bernie Sanders followers

were rude and booing and stomping their feet and were terribly disaffected. I think the Democrats have done a better job. I hope it's not wishful thinking, but I do think the Democrats have done a better job of lining up all the elements of the party. I go back to this Warren and Sanders, making sure they have a real role to play, making sure that there are talking points that everybody's adhering to.

I heard Nina Turner on television. She's a stark supporter of Bernie Sanders. And she was very, very critical of the Democratic Convention. I hope that they're able to keep the Bernie crowd reasonably satisfied so they don't feel that they have to sit at home or vote for Trump in protest. Well, let me say this about the Bernie crowd. You know, South Carolina is first in a whole lot of stuff and mostly bad stuff.

I never forget the legacy of being the first to secede from the Union, from the United States of America and form the Confederate States of America. And the ghost of the Confederacy is very prevalent around South Carolina, which means we do a whole lot of racist, stupid things because of it.

But South Carolina has another identity, and the identity is in picking Democratic candidates, because this is the first primary in the South where African Americans make the difference in primaries.

One reason that the Bernie people were very enthusiastic around here, the campaigners were very enthusiastic, but the voters weren't very enthusiastic, at least not enthusiastic enough to come out and vote for Bernie. And that might be a function of who his, many of his supporters are. Many of his supporters are young people who I love and who I want to draw into the party.

but young people who would voice support, but would not vote their support. And so I don't, Bernie didn't win any primaries in the South. No, and neither did Senator Harris. Right. And many said when Senator Harris got out of the race,

When she got out of the race, many people were saying this was just sayings. I don't know any proof to it, but she was getting out so she could be considered for vice president. And I thought, what a silly thing to think. I thought it was silly. And I think it was. I still think it was silly at that time under those circumstances. But circumstances change and you have been at the core of a lot of that change.

where African-American women have really voiced their opinions. And their opinion was that, you know, we are the backbone, not only of the party, but the country. And we deserve more recognition and we deserve a seat at the table. Not so much recognition, but we need to be in the decision making roles. And so all of that, not all of it, but the groundswell

of the black women's voices didn't happen until after South Carolina. So it seemed ridiculous then. And it was ridiculous then that she was getting out of the race because she wanted to be considered for vice president. I think she was getting out of the race because the campaign wasn't doing very well. It kicked off very well. And then it petered out, but you know, things changed after that.

And clearly she has proven herself in the week since. And clearly it was black women in South Carolina who breathed the breath of life into the campaign of Vice President Biden. Well, many say it was our dear friend and leader, Jim Clyburn, and Jim Clyburn's contribution was invaluable.

But it wasn't just Jim Clyburn because the black women were supporting Biden before Jim Clyburn voiced his opinion. He did not voice his endorsement until pretty late in the primary race in South Carolina. It was less than a week, wasn't it? Wasn't it that final week? I believe so. And most black people in South Carolina, according to the polls around here,

said that Biden was going to win. I didn't know he was going to win all 46 counties, but he did. And it wasn't all because of our dear friend and leader, Jim Clyburn. It certainly, Biden certainly owes a debt of gratitude to him, but also to the women of South Carolina because we pushed that thing. We drove it, I'll say it like that. And the driving of that point was not lost on Biden. He feared

The point was made over and over again that if you don't enthuse black women, you are diminishing your chances of winning a general election is not enough to have the black woman's vote. You need them out campaigning and urging others to be enthusiastic about your candidacy. Well, we talked enough about 88, but I got to say this.

When Jesse Jackson ran for president in 84 and even more so in 88, he registered so many voters and inspired so many people to get involved in the voting process and in the election process to run for offices that

It reverberates to today. We certainly reverberated to Barack Obama's being elected, enough people being registered to help push that election in favor of Barack Obama. History, I hope, will tell the truth about that, because if it had not been for Jesse Jackson's run for president in 84 and 88, there would not have been Barack Obama as president.

in 2000. There was a very concrete reason. I'm sorry, 2008. One very concrete reason was a change in the party rules. One of the things that Jackson negotiated was to get about 25 seats on the DNC.

And those voters, people like me and Donna Brazile and Mignon Moore, went on the Democratic National Committee. And one of the first rule changes was to award the state delegates proportionately.

So that even if you did not carry a state, it was no longer winner take all. And if you analyze how Barack Obama got the nomination in 08, it was largely because even when he lost a state, he picked up some votes because the delegates were awarded proportionately to your how you performed in that state's primary.

So even in places like Texas, he could pick up votes in Texas, places that Democrats struggle and places that a black person would struggle even more. He was able to pick up delegates and take those delegates with him all the way to the convention. And that's how he was able to win because of a rules change. And I have to say this about Reverend Jackson. Reverend Jackson didn't get a whole lot out of the 84 and 88 elections for himself personally.

but he used the power that he gained because of all those people he inspired to register and because of the changes in the rules that he used the power that he gained to help the

the Democratic Party to help other people, to help other people way up and down the ballot get elected. I hope history will tell that story as well. I saw a piece on CNN not too long ago that talked about Jackson's influence on the party.

I would submit to you that his speech in 88 in Atlanta's Democratic National Convention was in Atlanta in 88. The room was the center was so full that the fire marshals shut it down when it came time for Jackson to speak because people were expecting a speech. Now, I also heard Barack Obama in 2004.

I was there when the room went silent. When he started talking about not red America, not blue America, but the United States of America, you could hear a pin drop.

But that speech was no more electrifying than the message that Jackson laid out in '88, "They catch the early bus." He really laid the predicate for the Affordable Care Act in that speech that night. "No job is beneath them. They wipe the bodies of the sick. But when they get sick, they cannot afford to lie in the bed they make up every day." That was the predicate for universal health coverage way back in 1988.

And on so many other issues like land for peace in the Middle East, like drug treatment on demand, like the issue of excessive use of police force. Jackson's influence on the policy prescriptions of the Democratic Party live to this day.

And that's why I call it, and I know you call it too, the Democratic Party of 2020 is the Democratic Party that Jesse Jackson created. And I don't think it's hyperbole. I don't think I'm overstating the situation. This Democratic Party wouldn't be what it is now if it had not been for Jesse Jackson.

And I don't want them to be written out of history. People have short memories, but we are living on what he helped create. It would not have been created if he hadn't run for president in 84 and 88 and insisted on inclusion and insisted on changing the rules. I want to talk a little bit. We talked about strategies. We talked about Trump's strategies and we talked about strategies from

Dukakis years, 1988 and even beyond. But I want to talk about our personal plans for voting, our personal strategies for voting. I think we talked about this a couple of episodes ago and I've seen it on television. I saw it on the convention, the unconventional convention where they were talking about plan your voting.

We have to have personal strategies for voting because we know that the Republicans have a strategy. Part of their strategy is to keep us from voting by destroying the post office, by defunding, throwing away sorting machines, sending them out in parking lots, not letting people work overtime.

Anything they can do to keep us from voting by mail and anything they can do to keep us from voting, period, they're going to do. The dirty tricks are on. They're better now for them because they practice them more.

But we can't be defeated by their dirty tricks and games. We have to have our own strategy. And the strategy is not just a national strategy or statewide strategy. It has to be also a personal strategy. Well, my personal strategy is

I hope you agree with that, Dan. But my personal strategy is I'm not going to vote by mail here in South Carolina. Now, some people will. And I hope this strategy works. And I think it will work for some. But my personal strategy is to vote absentee. And in South Carolina, voting absentee means that you go vote early. You go in person to vote early.

It's an oxymoron. You vote absentee by being present. I'm going to the voter registration office so I don't have to mail in my ballot. I don't have to wait for it or depend on them to mail it out to me because they've proven to me that they won't mail it out because that's what happened to Avery. The first year that she was eligible to vote for Barack Obama, which was 2012.

But I'm going early. As soon as voting opens, I'm going into the voter registration office. If I have to have a walker or a scooter or jazzy, it's all right. I'm going on in there. You have to have one of 24 reasons that you're voting absentee. My reason is I got a few reasons. I'm working on election day and also I'm handicapped. And I'm going to present my voter registration card and my driver's license.

and go in there and vote early and put my own ballot in the box and pray that they count. And I think they will because they're not going to be able to tell mine from anybody else's after I drop it in there. Well, I have already requested my vote by mail ballot here in Maryland.

I've been voting by mail before I moved to Maryland. I voted by mail in Georgia because most often on election day, invariably on election day, I was out trying to get other people to register to vote or I was on the radio or doing something that was campaign related. So I am very used to voting by mail. I do think rather than mailing my ballot, that I will take it to one of the secure drop boxes that are all over PG County.

But before we make that plan for how we're going to vote, I would encourage people, know your status. There have been purges in some states. In Georgia, several hundred people were knocked off the registration rolls. So before you make your plan, start your plan by checking to make sure that you can confirm your registration status and your polling place. And that will help you decide whether you want to vote early, whether you want to vote

by mail if it's available in your state or whether you want to go on election day. I don't want to go on election day because I think that the lines may be long and I think there may be Trump is threatening to send out sheriff's deputies. I don't know what authority he has over sheriff's department other than he thinks they might be sympathetic toward him.

But I don't discount his willingness to do anything to win. That's what Michael Cohen says about him. That's what his niece says about him. The post office attack is evidence that he will do anything to win. And so I don't want to wait until Election Day. But if you do wait until Election Day,

Just go prepared to stay as long as it takes. And if you're denied, make sure you tell them you want to challenge ballot. And if anything happens that you think is inappropriate, 1-866-OUR-VOTE, report it to the election protection hotline. 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Well, those are very important points you raised, Janice. I want to say,

It's very, very important that you check your registration status and do it now. Do it as soon as you get this information. My favorite website for checking your voting status, your registration status is vote.gov.

V-O-T-E dot org. Vote dot org. You can check the state where you reside and it will take you straight to your local election board so you can determine whether your registration is valid, whether your vote

Address needs to be changed or anything needs to be done regarding your registration well prior to the election. Remember, the general election is on November 3rd, 2020. You must have all registration issues resolved by October 3rd, 2020. One full month before the election, you have to have all those issues resolved.

In most states, I will, and don't get confused by this, but there are a handful of states where you can go in and register same day on site registration and voting, but don't count on that. There are a handful of states that you can do that. Maryland is one of them. D.C. is another. D.C. They're mostly blue states where you could do that, but don't wait. As soon as my ballot comes, I am going to open it up, fill it out, and send it and take it back.

hand deliver it back so that I know it arrives. And I think whatever method you choose, the sooner you establish a method and prepare for it, the more likely your vote is to count. And for those who want to go on election day and vote, I know many people want to do that. Like Michelle Obama said in her speech, be prepared.

Be prepared to have a strategy for eating, for taking your medicine, for having water, for even going to the restroom because the lines are going to be long more than likely. So be prepared. Be a

Be a real scout and be prepared. Have your snacks. Have everything you need for your physical being. Be ready even if you have to take a walk like I'm planning on taking, but I'm going early, where you can sit down along the way. Be prepared with that. Be prepared to get there early. If you have to take the day off from work, you shouldn't have to, but if you...

Need to take the day off from work so that you can get to the pole early. Go on and put in for your time now. Don't play with these people because they got all kinds of strategies. But I'm just not one of those people, Jan, that believes that evil is going to triumph ultimately. But that doesn't mean we sit down and wait for our boat to come. Sometimes we have to build the boats.

and make the strategy. And I'm all in favor of doing that. Well, I'm sure that we've talked about time, but we're going to keep talking about voting. Are there some final thoughts that you want to give, Jan? Just one little detail. And that is, if you plan to vote early, your polling place for early voting may not be, and most likely is not, the place where you would go if you were voting on election day.

Make sure you know where you're going if you're going to vote early. And every state

Every county has a board of elections or election judge website. It's worth spending a few minutes on that website to see exactly what the criteria are in your jurisdiction. Remember, we have 2,000 voting districts in the United States, each one with their own procedures and rules. And if you want to study up on the candidates, I found a very nice website called Vote Smart.

You can put in a candidate's name and find out what issues they care about, who's giving them money, what their positions are. And it's worth studying if you want to make sure. Sometimes you don't feel like you know the candidates well enough. Visit VoteSmart.org. And don't forget Vote.org to check on your voter registration.

We can win this thing. We got to have a strategy. We got to have a winning strategy and a winning frame of mind too. And my frame of mind is that I don't care how many dirty tricks they play. The people can win, but we have to be smart and we have to prepare. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. You've been listening to Sisters-in-Law, the podcast. Real sisters, real lawyers, really good talk. Thank you.