Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer in the studio to examine early voting and the Republican Party’s narrow path to victory.
Leahy: We are joined right now by our very good friend. I’ll all-star panelist, recovering journalist, and all-around good guy Clinton Brewer. Good morning, Clinton.
Brewer: Good morning, Mike. I’m getting jacked up on Mike’s nuclear-strength coffee here.
Leahy: So here’s the good news. It is a known brand that I’ve made for you.
Brewer: (Bellows) Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a minute. The coffee is a known brand?
Leahy: The coffee is a known brand.
Brewer: This is not like the thing that says just coffee in black on the white label.
Leahy: I tried to get Mike Lindell’s My Coffee. We’ll try that out. Okay. But it’s a known brand. It’s the brand that had a store virtually every two miles in America. That brand. Also known as Starbucks. It’s the house blend.
Brewer: It’s very good, Mike. Thanks.
Leahy: And you have a clean cup. It’s a styrofoam club because I’m too lazy to wash them.
Brewer: There’s a sleeve of them in the corner.
Leahy: (Chuckles) But anyways, welcome.
Brewer: Thanks, man.
Leahy: You’ve got to have coffee at this time in the morning. And we also Clint, I have a very important topic to discuss in the first half hour of the program, and I’m going to go back kind of late 2008, right after Barack Obama won everybody was depressed. Oh, my goodness, this left-wing socialist is going to be the president.
What are we going to do? I started Top Conservatives on Twitter, which led to the Tea Party Movement, which in turn led to the Tea Party election of 2010, where Republicans took back the House with a net gain of 63 seats. This was all good stuff, but I think we’re actually back even further than we were. The red wave turned out to be a pink fizzle, and Republicans underperformed.
The only thing that would have been worse than the outcome that we saw would have been if the Democrats held onto the House. And we almost had that. It’s very narrow: 222 to 213.
Brewer: We’re like a big college football program that’s hit the skids and just fired a bad head coach.
Leahy: Yes, we ought to fire the head coach. We ought to fire the entire staff.
Brewer: Line director. Cheerleaders.
Leahy: The Titans just got rid of John Robinson.
Brewer: Wasn’t that amazing?
Leahy: It’s basically A.J. Brown’s revenge, right? Because he traded A.J. Brown, who’s had a great game. But let’s go back to the analogy here. Let’s talk about what is the path going forward for the Republican Party? Broadly speaking, I’ve talked about this many a time, it’s a very narrow path to victory in 2024.
The Electoral College basically is going to go through. We got to win all the states that Trump won in 2020, and we’ve got to win back Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. Maybe Pennsylvania, but mostly, it’s Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. That’s the narrow path to victory. And meanwhile, the Democrats have clearly figured out it’s not about votes, it’s about ballots.
And they’ve figured out how to vote by mail and figured out how to take advantage of the law and bend the law in those key states that allow voting by mail. And they’re just kicking the you know what out of Republicans in that.
Brewer: Yes, I mean, we bought in as conservatives; bought into this narrative that you have to vote on election day or your vote might not be counted. And we’re losing the early vote. We’re losing the early votes is really what we’re losing. And here’s the problem. When you wait till election day, a lot of variables are in play.
Leahy: What could possibly go wrong? Oh, I don’t know.
Brewer: Weather.
Leahy: Weather could go wrong.
Brewer: Your kid could get sick.
Leahy: Printers don’t work as they didn’t work in 71 out of 223.
Brewer: Set aside all of that. Just life can happen, right? If you wait till election day in the hands of the gods, so to speak, right in the hands of fate.
Leahy: Fate. Let’s say fate.
Brewer: It’s not wise.
Leahy: I have an idea about the path forward. Would you like to hear it?
Brewer: Yes.
Leahy: We’ll have to wait till after the break, but it’s not the thought that’s running through the Republican Establishment right now, or the folks that are looking at who’s going to be the next chairman of the Republican National Committee. We’ll talk about that when we get back in studio.
Oh, I love the Charlie Brown music.
Brewer: It’s my favorite Christmas music of all. This is my favorite song, my favorite Christmas.
Leahy: We did it just for you.
Brewer: Thanks, man. Merry Christmas, Mike.
Leahy: Merry Christmas to you, too, Clint. We’ll be back with the solution to the country’s problems right after this break.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
