Mark Halperin Ranks 2028 Democrats: Newsom #1, Shapiro Rising, AOC Slips?

Hey, energy is important. Energy, to me, is like your health. When all of a sudden it's in jeopardy, then you realize how important it is. Southern Company knows that energy is more than what brings your office Wi-Fi. It's what puts you on the path toward promotion, helps small businesses get off the ground, and gives the city that you live in a breathtaking skyline. Energy is partnership, innovation and growth. It's the fuel of economic progress. And Southern Company is committed to meeting the energy demands of today to ensure the bright future of tomorrow. Go to southerncompany.com and learn more. Southern Company, building the future of energy. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app. Download today. Ditch the clowns on the left and the jokers on the right, and join Michael Smerconish right here, in the middle. This is The Smerconish Podcast for Independent Minds. Mark Halperin is my guest every Wednesday in the third hour of the... What? Yes, in the third hour of the program. Mark, you're making that change. I'm happy to discuss the reason for the change. Tell everybody where you can be heard that you haven't been able to say in the past. Well, we're friends, but we're also fierce competitors. And I realized a while ago that as much success as anyone could have professionally, until you host a program on SiriusXM, you're kind of a failure. King of all media, Howard Stern. King of all, all media, Michael Smerconish. And so now I have my own program here on SiriusXM. Channel 111, Meggie Kelly Channel, every Wednesday, Monday through Friday on Channel 111, I host the morning meeting. It's a second hour of the show I do on the two-way platform. And it means you've had to accommodate me, which I'm grateful to you for, for moving our regular appearance together to 11 o'clock East. You say East here on the SiriusXM, I thought you'd say Eastern time. 11 o'clock East here with you. But so, but I can be heard now on SiriusXM alongside you. How about that? 10 o'clock East every day Monday through Friday for the morning meeting, an extended version of the show I do every day 9 to 10 on the two-way platform. And we'll keep our date on Wednesdays, but moving back an hour as we've just done today for the first time. Yes, sir. I'm grateful to you. For next up, I love when you do this, you rank the respective party potential nominees. If you've done it recently for the Republicans, I guess the only question I have is whether you still have Vance at number one and Rubio at number two. By the way, have you recently published your list for the Republicans? I just, I don't plan to do the Republicans because I think, I don't think Rubio is number two because I don't think he'll run against JD. Vance. I think Ted Cruz is probably two and Rubio is three. I think the Republican dynamic is totally different, incumbent vice president with the full support of the party and the White House. And so I don't think I'll do the Republicans probably anytime soon, but I do the Democrats every month. And again, it's not about the general election. It's not about who would be the strongest in the general election or who's the most likely to win a general election. It's about who's the most likely to be the nominee of the party. OK, and there's some movement in the ranks. You have the list at eight. Why don't we take them in ascending order? And you can offer me a thought as to each. We'll start with number eight. That would be Mark Kelly. First time I've had him on my list, I've been doing this for several months. And people have been telling me to put him on the list for a while. The reason I've put him on now is he did an BBC interview in which not only did he say he would consider running for president in a way that seemed heartfelt, but he went on to talk about his resume and how different it is than other members of the Senate and most other politicians. He's an engineer. Probably most people don't know that. Of course, he was an astronaut and a veteran, and he's determined to take advantage of the moment where, because of that video, he and several of his colleagues made saying people in the military don't have to, cannot obey illegal orders. It's sailed by the president, brought up administratively by the secretary of war. He's raised a ton of money off of it, lots of name ID. He was under consideration to be the vice presidential nominee in 2024, and I think he's a rising stock for sure. Do you have any reporting or do you have a spidey sense as to why he didn't get a more serious look as Kamala Harris' running mate? Well, I don't have inside the vetting operation what the actual decision was based on, but I can tell you the two things people cite most, which I believe have him as eight as opposed to higher up. First of all, he's not the most scintillating guy. He's a thoughtful guy. I don't know if you know a lot of engineers. Most of them are not laugh riots. He's got a pleasant personality, but typically we elect people who can go out and give a stemwinder of a speech. There's no indication he can do that. That's his main strength. The other is there's some stuff in his family background that people talk about all the time. Many people tell me this is part why I didn't put them on the list. I don't put people on the list who I'm skeptical whether they're going to run or not. I think in the end between the fundraising and some of the personal stuff, he may not make the race. But those are the two reasons people discuss most often when they say why he wasn't picked in 2024 by Kamala Harris. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think cracking the Halperin Code for the first time coming in at number seven is Rahm Emanuel. No, he's been on the list. You know, the way I do this reporting is I take the previous month's list, I think about my own perception of how people have done over the intervening month, and then I send my working list to two dozen Democratic strategists, and I ask them, who would you move up, who would you move down, who would you take off, who would you put on? Rahm Emanuel is a favorite of the consulting class, and a lot of the people I ask are elected officials and consultants, and they like him, they know him personally, and they want someone in that lane. What's kind of extraordinary about the race overall is, with the exception of AOC, there's really nobody who's in that pure Bernie Sanders lane, and that's the lane that I think would have gotten the nomination in 2016 and 2020 if the Democratic Party hadn't rigged it. So nobody in that pure lane, and then there's really nobody in the pure Clinton tell-the-party-hard-truths lane except for Rahm Emanuel. And so part of the reason he's on the list is that's a lane, you know, that's a lane of saying our party needs to move to the center to win, and he can raise money. But I still am skeptical that he can get through a nomination process given how the base doesn't particularly like him in a lot of cases. I see overlap, we're going to get to Josh, so we may as well get to him now. I see overlap between a Rahm Emanuel lane, if there is one, and a Josh Shapiro lane. 100% agree. If there's someone on the list who also has that lane, it would be Governor Shapiro. He doesn't tell hard truths to the party as explicitly as Bill Clinton did in 1992 and as Rahm did. Implicitly, some of the things he's for are against the base of the party. But you rarely hear the governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania say, here's where my party got it wrong, and the Republicans were right. He just doesn't phrase things that way explicitly. And so it's a slightly different lane. Coming in at number six, mayor, secretary, Pete Buttigieg. What does he do about South Carolina? And then I mean that whole constituency. Yeah, you know, his inability to get black votes. And you start to see even Democrats question his record. As you know, he's the mayor of a small city in Indiana. He was transportation secretary, but some people say, was he good at being transportation secretary? Again, I'll say there's no perfect candidates on the list, right? Everybody on this list has flaws, and that's true of anyone who runs for president. So his biggest weakness right now, people cite all the time, as you just suggested, he has negligible support amongst black voters, and black voters play a huge role in the Democratic nomination fight. But I will say his other strengths, his ability to raise money, his experience of having run before, his deep connections in the media and within the party. Let's say Jim Clyburn endorsed him, congressman from South Carolina, that would solve a lot of his problem with black voters in a day. So I think, let me get to a point that will come up with some of these other folks, because it didn't apply to Mark Kelly or Rahm. If you talk to Democrats at grassroots, fundraisers, activists, politicians, what a lot of them will say is we got nothing against gay people, women or women of color, but we shouldn't nominate any of those people for president in 2024, it's 2028 It's too serious an election and the experience of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, a woman and a woman of color, says it's just not worth the risk, you know. We don't know that they lost because they were women or Kamala Harris' case, a woman of color, but we can't take the risk again. And, you know who I hear that the most from? Women of color and women in the Democratic Party. So, Pete Buttigieg is a gay man, and that may account for some of his problems with black voters. It's hard to know, but no doubt that that's a concern that people have about him. AOC comes in at number five. Did you put the ranking together before or after Munich, and does it matter? I put it on after Munich, and I was going to take her off the list completely, because I really do think, not just the gaffe as a standalone, but what it says about her readiness and then her prickly reaction to the criticism, where she called The New York Times to complain. That is such an unrealistic expectation that she explicitly expressed, saying, you know, I was there to talk about serious things, and they were covering me in the context of being a candidate, sorry. That's the way the world works. The reason I didn't take her off was, with two exceptions, because every one of my sources thought she should be high on the list. They continue to believe that she can raise money, and again, if you believe, as I do, and many of my sources do, that the Democrat default will be to nominate someone from the Sanders wing of the party, she's it right now. She is it right now. And so, rather than take her off, I moved her down a notch. I moved her, she actually moved up a notch, just because other people moved down a notch. But my inclination was to take her off the list entirely. Let me just reset. Again, this is Mark saying here's the list of those most likely to win the nomination. This is The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM. Sling, it's the live TV service that puts viewers in charge of their entertainment at an unmatched value. Streaming live sports, shows and movies starts at just $4.99 and everything works instantly across your favorite devices. The best part, total control over the channel lineup. No paying for tons of channels that never get watched or local channels that are already free. There's also no long-term contract. Live TV is available only when it's wanted with flexible options like monthly subscriptions or one-day, three-day or seven-day passes. Subscriptions can be paused anytime and entertainment doesn't stop. Over 600 free channels stay available even after pausing. I love it because I can be anywhere and my Sling TV puts me back in my home seat in my living room at home. Choose and customize your channel lineup or pause and watch for free. Sling lets you do that. Visit sling.com to learn more. Hey gang, a well-built wardrobe. It's all about pieces that work together and hold up over time. And that's what Quince does best. Premium materials, thoughtful design, everyday staples that feel easy to wear and easy to rely on even as the weather shifts. Quince, they've got the everyday essentials with quality that lasts, organic cotton sweaters, polos for every occasion, lighter jackets that keep you warm in the changing season. The list goes on and on and on. Quince, they work directly with top factories and they cut out the middlemen so that you're not paying for brand markup, just quality clothing. That's what I love. I've had great experience. I'll tell you this, I gave lots of Quince for the holidays. I wish I'd received more Quince, but me in my closet, it's the cashmere pullovers, the hoodies that I love. It's really great stuff and it's reasonably priced cashmere. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com/smerconish for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. quince.com/smerconish. Free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com/smerconish.