Politics, Empathy, and the Power of Listening: A Journey to the Primary

Grace and Katelyn reflect on their experience of interviewing a multitude of candidates running for state house and senate positions, totaling 374 individuals. Initially overwhelmed by the task, they came to appreciate the depth of insight and variety of perspectives gathered, highlighting the diversity within South Carolina's political landscape. Acknowledging their own preconceptions, they emphasized the importance of empathy, listening, and understanding differing viewpoints without necessarily agreeing. The conversations revealed the wide spectrum of beliefs among candidates, often diverging sharply even within the same political party or geographical area, underscoring the existence of 'bubbles' that shape people's realities and views.

00:00 Reconnecting and Setting the Stage

00:11 The Ambitious Interview Project: A Deep Dive

00:34 Learning and Growing Through Interviews

02:01 Exploring the Political Landscape of South Carolina

03:33 The Technical Challenges of Podcasting

05:15 The Diversity of Candidates and Political Insights

10:58 The Importance of Listening and Understanding

15:37 Reflecting on the Interview Process and Its Impact

21:38 A Disappointing Update on the H4624 Bill

23:15 A Heartwarming Initiative: Birthday Buds

Copyright 2024 Grace Cowan

• All Things Frogmore Stew
• SC Votes - South Carolina Election Commission
• "Give Me More" - VAV - VAV - 'Give me more' (Feat. De La Ghetto & Play-N-Skillz) Music Video Apple Music : https://apple.co/2YbKeEf Spotify : https://spoti.fi/2LBHRZM

Hi, Caitlin.

Hey, Grace.

We haven't talked to each other in so long.

I have missed you so much.

Let's tell everybody what we've been doing.

Here's the deal. You had this cockamamie idea that we should interview every single person running for state house and state senate. And I gotta tell you, when you first came up with this, I was like, what have I gotten myself into here?

It's only 374 people, Caitlin. Come on.

Yeah. At 30 minutes a pop. I'll let you do the math. But I eat all my words and my thoughts and I just want to say thank you because I really, I've learned a lot and I'm really excited to share with our listeners, some of these interviews.

And to be clear, there are a lot of people running for State House and State Senate. And we did send invites to every single one of them. Some people declined. Some people don't have a primary. And some people don't even have an opponent. But we did get a great response. And we do have, A lot of interviews coming up for you to listen to.

And I can't sit like the day that we kicked it off, TJ and I. Did I think it was seven or eight hours straight of interviews and we try to generally, ask the same questions over and over. And I felt like by the end I wanted to just be like, what's your favorite color?

Yeah, exactly. What's your astrological sign?

There are some really interesting and fascinating people in this state and I cannot wait to hear from our listeners what they think about these interviews.

I couldn't agree more. I say it every day. South Carolina's made me a better American. And this process, it really made me put into practice what you and I have been talking about in terms of truly listening and approaching the world with empathy and, putting humanity first because Truth be told, didn't agree with a lot of the people that I interviewed and it was tough.

But when I truly, removed myself from the equation and sat and listened to the process and how they got to their opinion. I could understand and still disagree, but understand. And I think that's it. That's the whole point of what you and I are trying to do here.

Is conversation. Yeah. And, if you want to know who your current legislators are, you can go to our website, frogmorestewsc.com. And we have a scrolling link that says, find your legislator and you can figure out who is currently representing you and then the primary is June 11th. And after we're done talking to people that are running in the primary, then our next project is to do focus groups with constituents. And so then we get to compare what the candidates are saying versus what the constituents are saying and see if they match up.

That's some real tea right there, Grace.

It's going to be so fascinating. And I also want to put this in that, TJ wants everyone to know, our beloved TJ producer, that the sound on some of these interviews is not always up to his standards.

I don't know what took longer, asking the questions or the technical, startup. It was a wild experience.

And not everyone has, a microphone in their house. Not everyone has headphones. Some people were like sitting outside in what sounded like a bird sanctuary. He had a lot of work to do. And we will, once we get into the general, once all the primary races are over, we'll have, a lot of people on then too. So this is going to be a really exciting year. And I'm, I just, I can't even say enough how, interesting the people are that we have talked to. It just, it's been so much fun.

And that makes me think of that saying that I love from Barbie. Which I've said on here before, it's that we can know things and still need to hear them. And I bring that up because we know that on some level we, we all live in our bubbles, right? We know that unless we go out of our way to have a conversation about an issue, we likely only get reinforced with what we believe because we typically surround ourselves with people that believe the same things as we do. And one of the most interesting takeaways for me in this process has been no better proof than in talking to most of these candidates of how much we all live in our bubble.

100 percent. The talking points that people brought out on both sides. You could almost predict them, especially when we were doing them back-to-back, you'd ask the question and you just know what was coming.

Sometimes what I would do is not look at what party they were before we did the interview and just try to see in my head if I could figure out and almost every single time that you could tell, like almost immediately. And in fact there have been a couple of times where I've had, the experience of talking to two people from the exact same county that live like very close to each other. And when we asked them what the number one issue was in their district, they could not have told me two more completely different answers.

Do you think it's a party thing or is it a socioeconomic thing?

I think it's a bubble thing. I think that it is where we get our news, what our friends are talking about, that when we repeat one liners that essentially these party lines that mean nothing, people agree with us and the people that don't agree with us just don't say anything.

And so you assume they agree with you. That to me was one of the biggest takeaways, that there are people living side by side that are living in two completely different realities.

And then the second thing, and this I guess ties into that, was that I don't really believe that many of these people have actually been out and talked to a variety of their constituents which I think should be the most important thing when you're running for office.

What I will say though, is that I don't think that they have the infrastructure or the time. You and I have talked previously about the fact that this is the part time gig that pays you 10, 000 when you're actually elected and campaigning is tough. You've talked about it before. I had five minutes of experience on a mayoral campaign down here. It is 24 hours a day. It's exhausting. And if you don't have cash to do it, it's impossible.

And really I mean it limits who can run, because Most people have full time jobs and most people need to work in their full-time jobs, all of those hours of the day to get paid.

Unless you have a flexible job, unless you're retired, it is a very difficult task to be able to afford to do it and to have the time. And it's, it truly is limiting. And then, like we said before, once you win, Who can go and sit in Columbia for four months out of the year and not work in their everyday job all day?

Speaking of going to Columbia, that was actually one of my favorite questions we asked, which was if you had a magic wand and you win and you arrive on your first day at the state house, what policy would you change if you didn't have to deal with any of the governmental bureaucracy? And I really loved the answers to that because even though they said, One thing was their district's number one issue and one thing was their state's number one issue. They sometimes would come in with a completely different thing that they would change with a magic wand. And I was like, wait. Aren't you solving the biggest issue?

Priorities, Caitlyn, priorities. So the primaries are June 11th and you can vote either in the Democrat primary or the Republican primary, but you can't vote in both, but you don't have to be a party member to vote in either of the primaries. That is one great thing about this state is that we have open primaries. And the Republicans, have more districts set up, thanks to gerrymandering, that are solid Republican districts. And so the Republican primaries have a lot more people on their ballots than the Dems do.

And there are a lot of variations of the Republican Party and that was interesting in talking to some candidates of, so you're in the same party as the person that's already in the seat. It's a pretty safe Republican district. Why are you challenging that person? And a lot of people didn't really want to answer it.

I think a lot of it has to come down to the abortion issue for sure. I mean you look at some of the senate races.

Henry and sandy said yeah. Exactly. Every single sister senator is being primaried. There was a district that's in the Western part of the state and there were five people running for the Republican primary. The incumbent decided to retire. And this candidate, and I'm not going to say their name cause I don't want to influence anybody, but this candidate is a registered Republican. And I just thought, what an incredible moderate, Republican Party gone by conversation with this individual who really is just so sick of what's happening at the Statehouse and how intense and polarized the Statehouse is and just I identified so much with the eye rolling over the talking points and I just had the best conversation with them and I really hope that our listeners listen to that Interview in particular because I feel like there are more of those people in South Carolina than we would maybe believe.

The other question that I found fascinating that we asked most of them was what in their life have they done that they feel like has prepared them for this job? And there's a guy who is an AI specialist and he went through this whole, like explanation of why it is so very important for our government and particularly our state government to be on the forefront of AI rather than reacting to AI. There were really interesting candidates like that, that had, one or two things that they specialized in and felt like, That was something that was important for the state. And I think that those are the people that when you just get a flyer in the mail, or you see an ad on TV, they can't go into that kind of detail. And those are the people that aren't talking, just party lines and using, one off lines that everybody thinks they want to hear. Those are the people that we should be listening to.

I completely agree. I can't wait to listen to that interview.

It was, however, on some of the interviews, a little difficult to stay neutral.

Who are you telling?

Ripping the arms of my chair at points, white knuckling the whole way through the interview. And yet, like I said already, just trying to remember this person has every right to be running and to believe what they want to believe and to talk through, their side of the issue. But my goodness, it was an exercise in restraint.

I want to make clear that many people said a lot of incorrect things. But in the realm of what we're trying to do, it was really just to let people talk and not to go back at them and ask them about facts or data or whatever.

So listening to people spout off some things, was also really hard for Republicans and Democrats. To not say, stop using that line. You're just repeating something that you've heard a hundred other people say that you think people want to hear, but that is not what people want to hear. They want to hear about you. They want to hear what your experience is and why you've come to this place. They don't want to hear the same old blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Hands down the best interview I did so far was a person from the workers party and grace. And I tell you, I had to mute my microphone because honestly I was cackling. Not an individual that you would assume would run. so smart, not polished at all. And I just thought, This is the kind of person we need in the state house. They sure would stir the pot.

for sure. I interviewed one of the guys from that party as well. They're very smart guys. They are running for multiple seats. But, at one point the guy said something about socialism and I said, Are you sure you want to say socialism? And he said, yep, I do. I definitely do. And I was like, okie doke. All right, let's keep going.

That's what I mean. I just was like, there's no filter here whatsoever.

But I love it. I love, love, love that we have so much a variety of people that are out there and putting new ideas out and putting different talking points out and you and I have talked offline about this, but we had a question that was like, what is the number one issue in your district? And I felt like. For the most part, people had the same answer, and that told me that, they're probably asking their constituents, are these your big issues? And constituents go, yeah, whatever, instead of really doing deep dives into stuff. And so the top issues, the themes were housing, roads, infrastructure, those are all the top line things.

And I know those things all tie into some other things, like people said, people in my small town don't get paid enough, or there's not enough childcare, or people have to drive far to get to a hospital. Like those things were afterthoughts. But to me, those are the most important things, right? If you're pregnant and you're living in a town where your closest hospital is an hour away, that's an issue., there are like real things that I don't know. We're paying enough attention to.

Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I will say though, I do think, in a way that I didn't expect, I do think they're trying. I'm not just saying you're insinuating they aren't. It's I came into this not knowing what to expect and sometimes having a pretty Debbie Downer view on, the quality and caliber of individuals who are running. And I just, I feel like I've been proven wrong and I'm grateful for it.

Same. I also have found that everyone has a sense of humor and so that was really a fun part of it too, is that you can have a light and jokey conversation. One of my favorite questions was like, what would your best friend in third grade tell me right now if I called him and asked him to tell me a funny story about you?

That's good. I love that.

Yeah, it was cute. And people came up with some funny things. A lot of people were like, Oh, he would have told you that I was going to run for office. I was like, really? So you weren't doing keg stands in college? And some people are like, no, absolutely not, Grace. And it just genuinely reminded me about how, like you said earlier, what interesting and curious people we have in this state that are loving and kind people.

I think what I have walked away from this experience feeling is South Carolina deserves this. It deserves the fullness and the richness of the dialogue and for our state to be the state that we want, this is exactly what needs to happen. It's fun to be part of the process.

And I think too, there's something that we've said before on this podcast, but you're either a good politician or you're a good legislator. And I think that this process has also, really pointed out that who, you can distinguish in a lot of these conversations, who the people are that are good politicians and are charismatic. And they, again, they spat off the party lines and they get people fired up. And then there were people that, when asked, okay, that's what your biggest issue is, what's a policy that you would propose to solve that, and what do you envision the outcome to be once that policy would go into place and not everybody knew the answer to those questions.

But there also were people who were happy to say, I have to learn more about this, particularly when it came down to the lightning round with the judicial selection committee, a lot of people said, I'd love to answer this, but I actually, I can't form an opinion, which I appreciated,

To be clear, we wanted to be able to talk about hot button issues with every single one of the candidates without getting too far into the weeds. So we did this process at the end of the interview that we called the lightning round and it basically is every hot button issue from abortion to marijuana, to schools, to, judicial Merit Selection Committee, like all of the top line, most emotional issues that people are talking about in our state and the candidates were able to give us a one, they disagreed and 10, they fully agreed with whatever legislation was that was proposed or already in place.

And to your point, yes, there were several of the questions where a lot of people said, I'm going to go with five because I don't really know enough about that topic yet to be able to give a true answer of whether I fully agree or disagree.

And so I know I harp on this, but once you really start looking at how this whole process works, about how limited we are in getting to know the people running for these jobs that directly affect our lives. And once you see the numbers of each of the districts and you see how solid each district has been created to be for one party of the other. It really is very frustrating. That it doesn't feel like right now we truly have a representative democracy because when you hear these different candidates talk. They're all over the map on what they believe and, that's really important to be able to have people all over the map representing us and not just, one party in 88 of the house seats and the other party in 36 of the house seats. We are so much more nuanced as a state than what our legislature represents.

And to that point, I think regardless of how nuanced they are on this podcast or in life, once they get to the state house, they're part of the party system and they are told how they're going to vote many times. And as inspiring as this is a process, there's still more down the line that you got to pay attention to in order to keep them nuanced.

But if their districts were not so one sided Then they would be held accountable to more views than just one side Yes to be able to continue winning their seat And that makes everyone's experience better. And again, I think we can just call it a day today by saying, this state is an interesting, fascinating, wide swath of people state and we should all every day be so thankful that we get to live here and that we get to be surrounded by thoughtful people who even have the courage and the will to do those jobs.

Couldn't agree more.

So Caitlin, what you got for your whole nother thing?

My whole nother thing is A little disappointing, to be fair. Oh no. Yeah. So we talked earlier this season about the H4624 bill, which for those who didn't listen to those episodes, it's the transgender care bill. And, if you followed the process, it got passed in the House with a few amendments, it was sent on to the Senate debated and added some, quite frankly, pretty restrictive amendments back, and then approved it, and in that process, it was very clear that You can't count on one party all the time to carry, the vote count in order to squash something. You would assume all Democrats, felt that bodily autonomy was appropriate . If you fight for bodily autonomy with pro-choice then you should fight for bodily autonomy with transgender health. That wasn't the case And so back to our conversation around nuance, you know it's always important To look at who the candidates are that you are voting for, regardless of whether or not they have a D or an R behind their name, they're not always going to see eye to eye with you, So the bill is on to the governor's office and if the governor doesn't veto within five days, it will become law. So it's sad.

This is where the great irony of parents rights comes in, here is a perfect example of parents, having their rights taken away over what they can do for their children. Exactly. That's tough.

So save us, Grace. I hope your whole nother thing is a little bit more lighthearted than mine.

Mine is a little bit of a, self-promotion. How about that? Ooh. I feel like, this is one thing that I am very proud of. So several years ago when my kids were toddlers, every weekend I was at A toddler birthday party, delivering a present to a kid that already had a ton of crap. And at one of those parties, a girlfriend of mine said, My son's birthday is coming up in a month.

I know you've done some nonprofit work, and is there a kid that you know of, that we could buy presents for in lieu of getting them for my son. So there was a little boy that I was working with. His name was Jayvon and, I paired him up with Theo. Jayvon's mom sent us a list of things he needed and things that he wanted. They were three at the time and my friends sent the gifts to him. Javon's mom was like, you have no idea what this means for us. I was gonna not be able to pay a power bill because I wanted to get my kid some things for his birthday. After that experience, I thought, I could do this for more kids.

And so I started this nonprofit called Birthday Buds. And we started with 30 kids. And I went out and found people that would pair up with the kids, the 30 kids that I'd found. And every year until they turned 12 on their birthday, the mom would send over to me a list of things. that they needed, like underwear or hair ties or socks and then a list of things that they wanted.

So we tagged it the gift of giving, which is a way to teach your kid community and the value of understanding that all kids like the same stuff for the most part and that It's important for you to acknowledge that, there are people living in all different sorts of situations.

And from there, from those 30 kids, 13 years later, we now have 3, 000 in the program. We have kids all over South Carolina. We have kids in New York and Boston, and we have donors from all over the country. If you would like to be an adult donor, if you'd like to sign your kids up to be donors, you can go to our website, birthdaybuds.org. So that's my whole nother thing.

I love it. I'm a big birthday person. So this is awesome.

Me too. I'm an only child. And the birthday was like my best day ever all year. I loved it.

Your personal holy day.

That's right. Day of grace. How about that?

Day of grace. I love that.

Caitlin, that was a great show today.

So great. I'm really excited for this.

And that's all the stew for today.