YouSaid · the spoken record

Mark Salter

lines on the record: 93
first: 2018-11-15
most recent: 2018-11-15
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, we started off as the presumed front runner, and we built a battleship. And you know, he's a better candidate when he's an underdog, I think. And he wasn't the world's greatest fundraiser. So we build a battleship eventually, as everyone knows, the campaign sort of imploded. I have friends in all those camps. And it was unfortunate. But I think that all of them tried to do a good job for him. But we just didn't have the receipts to cover the expenses. And that upset him very much. And he'd been uncomfortable the whole time.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a funny story I tell about the New Hampshire the night he won. So I went to give him the exits, which were huge, the second round exit. And he said, What are they? I said, they're huge. You're going to clobber them. And he goes, oh, that has implications. I said, yeah, you might be president. That might be one of them.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's really literally a wadded up ball that he unfolds laboriously on camera and reads it like a hostage statement and crumbles it back up and shoves in his back. It's his way of letting everybody know I'm lying. I'm lying. He was a funny guy that way.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ran and crumpled it up like this and threw it. I'm not going to say it. You gotta say it. You know, you gotta say it. So reluctantly, he stuffed the wadded up thing in his pocket. And we fly it on South Carolina and he gets off the bus and the scrum rushes to him and they're all boom mics are there. What about the Confederate flag you said about this? I've already said my statement, which he hadn't. And I've already said my statement. I already crumpled up my statement. I've already said that. I've said, do you have a statement center? Yes, it's right here.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They freaked out. Oh, you've got to get them to walk that back. We're dead. We're dead. We're dead. We're dead. So, okay. No, I'm not going to do it. Nope, I'm not going to do it. You got to do it. No, I'm not going to do it. So if you don't do it, you're going to lose. We'll wear something very mishy, you know, very mealy-mouthed for you. And it was. It was something like, you know, I understand for some people it's a symbol of oppression, but for others, it's a symbol of heritage, you know, and I think we ought a lot of work and play well together or some stupid anodyne thing like that.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Great guys and great filmmakers He had done Face a Nation. I was there with him, and I think Weaver was there with him and Rick might have been there with him. Chief asked him some questions about the Confederate flag, which was this flying over the state capitol and South Carolina He said something like, yeah, you know, I don't know. For a lot of people, it's a symbol of oppression or something like that. I can't remember exactly I worded it. So our South Carolina team, which was essentially Lindsay's and Mark Sanford's political consultants, they've got Hatfield McCoy type warring consultant camps in South Carolina that are worse than anything. There were perhaps between candidates.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So HBO did this great documentary of him. It was great. It actually has Kunehart scene, the Kuhn Hearts. Yeah, they're great, great.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Presidential political, they got tough. And we had experienced people on the campaign, Rick Davis and John Weaver and Mike Murphy. But, you know, and we all joked, oh, now, you know, Jurassic Park, or here comes the dinosaur now behind us. You know, we've awoken the sleeping giant. And I don't think we were quite ready for the extent of not just what we got from Governor Bush's campaign, but what we got from everyone affiliated with their campaign, really the party.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we got right into it doing town halls, but I think they had three weeks. I think there was a three-week gap between New Hampshire.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yeah, it does. I'm sure it did, but he tried to stay the same in South Carolina. He tried really, we went down, so he will not live in an experience when it's over. He just doesn't do it. Good or bad. I mean, that's how he got past Vietnam, I'm sure, or past the Keating thing. He just won't stand it. So we left the night of the New Hampshire primary. We were on a plane and flew to a hangar and did a rally with a bunch of kids somewhere in South Carolina. I can't remember the town.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For all his campaigns turned to me and said, prediction for tomorrow pain, it was something. And I always sort of regret that we didn't just take a moment to enjoy it, but it wasn't his way. So with few resources, we managed this big New Hampshire win and sort of reset the race.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think 19 maybe might have been. And we knew we were going to win. The last event of the night before the Prime Minister, we did a run around the state the morning of the primary, but the last event was in Bedford Town Hall. And it was I mean, I'm sure it wasn't that large, but to us, it was like an Obama crowd. We opened up the doors, we came out from that last town hall, and there was a sea of humanity. There aren't that many people in New Hampshire to start with, and there's just this massive crowd that covered all the street for as far as we could see, you know. And Bill McInturf, who was John's pollster.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be completely to the extent, I mean, I'm sure there was some discretion involved on the part of the candidate, but he was as much himself as a candidate could possibly ever be under that kind of scrutiny. And by the end, those town halls had become rallies. Not that we weren't taking questions or anything, but they'd be almost like carnivals, festivals, all sorts of crazy eccentric characters would show up and he'd haul them up on the stage. The guy with the boot on his head, Vermin Supreme, and some guy dressed in a shark costume. And you'd bring him up, what's your question? And there'd be, you know, and we had gone from, you know, I don't think we had embeds in those days where the actual reporters, you know, and.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Straight Talk Express on his bus bouncing around with us all the time. We couldn't do anything. We'd be going over ad scripts with reporters looking over our shoulders or looking at our polling number and survey research or talking about some shot we're going to take at Governor Bush or whatever. There were always reporters around. They knew everything. He enjoyed their company and would just blab away on the back of the bus bouncing around for the organic.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, a lot of veterans, and about a third of the time on South Carolina. So I think we did 110 or 114 town halls, a record the stance. Until today. And he was quite shockingly candid.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're going to concentrate on two thirds of our time, maybe three-quarters of our time on New Hampshire, which we thought was a sort of temperamental fit for the candidate. And also...”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Believe me, and that was borne out in our experience. But he had no fear of losing. We assumed we would. We couldn't compete in Iowa because it's so labor and money intensive. And Pat Robertson really is the guy that organized the Republican caucuses and very heavily weighted towards the evangelists. And wasn't Bush was going to have those all locked up.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We had good people and he wanted to, I mean, you may have had this experience in politics. You've worked on a lot more campaigns than I have. But when you go in as a pronounced underdog and you're realistic about life and you're realistic about yourself, and you think I'm probably going to lose this, you know, it's quite liberating. It is.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Far away in the front runner and he had all the money and all the party lined up behind him. And we had to pick up oddballs like Lindsey Graham. And I'm joking.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's probably remained to the end his favorite political memory. It certainly is mine. I mean, I can't swear to it that it was his, but I suspect as much.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“After Trump. And he's already suggesting, I knew I shouldn't have gone back to Canberra. That was just too heavy a schedule. I think that's why I have the cancer. I said, I don't think you get cancer from being tired.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“18 hour days and he did that right up until he got sick. And honestly, I mean, at one point, this is dark humor, but when he did get sick, he had just done some crazy Asian trip. He gone Australia and he was on this sort of reassure our allies trip.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did, yeah. And, you know, right away, we traveled together. The only country I'd been to outside in the United States was Canada. And I was almost 35 when I began these insane road trips with McCain. Which are a legend? Yeah, really. It's amazing anyone ever survives them. It's 10 countries in a week or something. You know, just crazy stuff.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we hit it off right away. I mean, right away. So I probably wrote. Two or three speeches for him. I think he offered me the job. And July of'89, because his then foreign affairs LA was leaving to go an assistant secretary of state, I think. And he said, hey, and a conversation went like this, a crowded office, it was hard to even hear yourself thinking it. And he said, hey, look, Lauren's leaving. I'd like you to come here and be my foreign affairs guy and write some speeches for me. Go talk to Chris about the money. And I said, well, can you give me a little time to think about it? And he goes, yeah. Okay, how much do you need? 10 minutes?”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just a very casual guy, you know, a little profane in the way he spoke. And he just seemed very authentic when you walked into a character that you knew would be memorable.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The sort of casual no airsity, the restless energy of him. When you went to his office, it's just, I'd written for, I'd been in other senators' offices before, you know, and it's not quite like an Oval Office meeting, but you're usually on a short clock and it's very formal and it's centered to this and you walk into his and there's like 10 people milling around in there including interns. And they all called him by his first name and he made fun of all of them constantly. He'd have a bunch of TVs going and have two different phone conversations going and be carrying on a conversation with the kid in the mail room all at the same time.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we were talking and then she said, well, why don't you write a speech for us? He's getting an award from, I think, the Raza or some Hispanic group. And so I did because I was freelancing to supplement my income at the time. And I wrote a speech. The speech worked for him. And, you know, he offered me a job some months later as a foreign affairs legislative assistant. And I took it and I ended up marrying a scheduler and having two kids. But for getting lost in a superdome, you know. My life would have been very different.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For the defense department and a bunch of other things. Hit it off and let's get a bear after this, and we're walking down Bourbon Street, and she introduced me to McCain's schedule, Diane McClellan, and her then boyfriend. And she said, well, why don't you come watch Bush's acceptance speech tomorrow with the Arizona delegation? It gave me a floor pass. So I did. I went down there and I met John McCain for the first time.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, so I'd written her speech for that convention, which she, again, of course, rewrote. But I accompanied her to it. And after she'd given her speech, they had set her up with a bunch of the surrogate shop and asked her to do a bunch of interviews. And we had done all but the last one. And I couldn't find it. We were in the Super Dome. It's obviously a big cavernous place. And I just couldn't locate it. So I had a walkie-talkie. And I called down to the shop, send somebody up here. We can't find this. She's getting cranky. She's tired. She wants to go home. Her husband's waiting for her. She's not going to do it if I don't get somebody up there. So they rushed a volunteer up there and it happened to be Tori Clark, who at the time was John McCain's press secretary. He was in his first Senate term, and she had come over from the house with him.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think I was my family was, my mother comes from a long line of Democrats. I mean, she's got ward bosses in Chicago that she called uncle. But she sort of embraced after this 1960 presidential elections, the only time my parents split their vote. But my mother was an Irish Catholic and nothing would have prevented her from voting for the first Irish Catholic president. And my dad was a Nixon voter But she sort of migrated to their side of the family. And I sort of, I mean, I grew up in the 1670s, so I can remember when I worked. I had in, I think it was in 70th summer or 73 or something, I had an impeached Nixon sticker on my hard head only to annoy somebody else that was, but I was apolitical. The first election I voted in was a 76.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She was hard. She wasn't mean, you know, or anything like that. She wasn't an abusive boss or anything, but she was just, you know, it was, here's your assignment, do it correctly the first time.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She was a very intelligent, very learned, fiercely anti-communist, but sort of came out of that democratic labor, you know, and she had lots of friends still, you know, And they were all a lot of them were after the various schisms. And they were all anti-Soviets, you know. She was no nonsense.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Georgetown professor and said, Hey, I went to Georgetown as a government major, and they gave me a job in the press office, you know, and I really just did it so I could hang out with my friends, started off clipping newspapers and taping interviews and transcribing them and that kind of stuff. And then eventually became sort of a press assistant press officer or something like that. And the press counselor asked me to write a speech for her one day. And that sort of started me on the road of writing.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it was, you know, I never took a class with her. She taught at Georgetown, but again, my life has been a series of fortunate accidents. So I graduated from college. I had an internship at the State Department. And I always thought, well, I'll sit for the Foreign Service exam. I was working in a little research and intelligence analytical intelligence office in the State Department. And all my friends who had gone to the business school in Georgetown had moved to New York and went down to Wall Street and were making what at the time was the unheard of salaries like $50,000. This would have been 81. I missed them and all I wanted to do was go to New York and hang out with him. I had to get a job and I knew Kirkpatrick had been appointed the ambassador and she had brought half her friends from Georgetown there. So I went in and saw the personnel person who was married to a”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought, you know, I mean, I kind of grew up a happy kid. Don't get me wrong. I'm loving parents on a loving extended family and big family. I had a great childhood, nothing terrible ever happened to me. I wasn't abused by the parish priest or anything, you know. But I've always, I don't know, to be honest with you, David. I don't know where it comes. But I know the world can be a pretty fucked up place. You'll pardon my grammar. It's a podcast And I admire the people that know that and do something about it anyway.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How did you? I don't really know where it comes from. You absolute are a kindred spirit. You know, I watched a lot of concentration camp footage when I was a kid. And, you know, I don't know where I got it, but I just.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, where I said he was like a romantic cynic. And I mean, he saw the world with all its corruption and all its cruelty, but believed justice was still possible. And that kind of realistic sensibility and the guts really it takes to have hope when you have that kind of sensibility. A very potent combination, I think.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But more than that, I mean, Trevor would look at the world as he saw it and not pony punches and he'd tell these stories where a malign fate or misbehavior on the part of his characters would lead them to some. Lesson wonderful but there would always be a little revelatory moment at the end of his stories where he would settle you with a hey, you know, I mean there's still hope. And McCain definitely had that ability and I assume it came from his experiences in Vietnam where he saw, as he would describe it, I saw the worst and best people can be in the same experience. I wrote something about him after he passed away.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, that's my mom. You know, she went back to school while she was raising us, got her degree, and then started teaching. But, you know, she had to keep us amused or find show us how to amuse ourselves, which in those days was pretty much opened up the door to the house and said, come back for supper, you know. But she took me down to the library and got me a library card when I was very young, taught me to read before I was in school. And I always had a reading bug, you know, and I read as much fiction as I read nonfiction. And I think that's all there really is to being a good writer is the better and deeper and more widely you read, the better, the better you write.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A little over four years. And then I went to the, I didn't have any grades. So I went to the one state university that seemed liberal about that was Northern Iowa. She used to be the old teachers college in Iowa. They took me and I sort of spent two years teaching my learning how to study and taking it seriously. And then I transferred to Georgetown after a couple years.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Politics was almost accidental. I never had any particular ambition for it. I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I was in high school in the 60s and 70s and I kind of hung out rock and roll was kind of all that interested me in some sports, but didn't go to college when I graduated, didn't have particular good grades. I was truant a lot of the time. A job working on a railroad out of high school and did that for about four years till I think we were a derailment and the dead winner one night and We had to go fix the track, and it's about 20 below, and the wind's howling off the river, and everything. I thought there's got to be a better way to make a living than this.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For a mining company, a limestone mining company. He sold hydrated lime, was eventually vice president for hydrated lime sales.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, when I was growing up, very prosperous people, when I tell people I'm from Iowa, I'm from the Iowa side of the Quad cities, the west side of the Mississippi. People think I grew up on a farm or in a small town or something, but it was a manufacturing town. There were a lot of farm implementries along the river. John Deere's headquartered there. They had a big caterpillar plant. Alcoa has a big plant there. And, you know, up until the 80s, it was a very prosperous, thriving, happy, fun community. I'm Catholic, and there were about 12 Catholic parishes, and it was a great place to grow up.”
2018-11-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 286 — Mark Salter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source