YouSaid · the spoken record

Paul Begala

lines on the record: 109
first: 2016-07-04
most recent: 2016-07-04
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

“Which is if it's just about resume padding, right? It's just about looking good to try to get into law school, it's a waste of time. So what did we do? I'm very proud of this. It's been in the papers again lately because there was an attack on the campus. I helped create a group called SURE. Students United for rape elimination 1983. It is still there. And after this tragic murder on campus, it's more important than ever. My wife then girlfriend created campus recycling, which we never had until the 80s, and a childcare center, which we didn't have for students. Faculty had one. Students didn't. We delivered on things that actually matter in people's lives. And so student government became popular and became cool because rather than sort of symbolism and symbolic politics, rather than resume padding, we thought, what do students actually need? And we delivered on this thing. It didn't hurt that we helped kill a bill to raise a drinking age too. That made me very popular on campus.”
2016-07-04 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 63 - Paul Begala · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That hallucinatory monument to Hank. But honestly, I learned a lot. And so what I learned was government has to deliver for people in their real lives, that the people who were the nihilists against Hank, they had a point.”
2016-07-04 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 63 - Paul Begala · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sam Hurt wrote the strip. He was a buddy of mine. We had a few beers. And then I got all the Hank voters. Why? Because I went out on the West Mall at Maine Mallet campus and I said, if you vote for me, I'll build a statue of Hank. And here it is. And I waved a sheet.”
2016-07-04 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 63 - Paul Begala · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, Hank turned a corner and frightened a little girl. He was a big glob, you know, sort of dinosaur-looking hallucination. And he frightened this little girl. And she went, bang, with her little finger and a little play gun. And that was it.”
2016-07-04 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 63 - Paul Begala · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the strip, the comic strip, there were hit squads going after him, and the bullets went right through him because he was a station.”
2016-07-04 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 63 - Paul Begala · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because he was a hallucination. So it was perfect. He won, and then there was, well, tragically he was cut down in his prime.”
2016-07-04 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 63 - Paul Begala · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They passed a law, a bill, that we helped push through that said the university can't spend it without student input. So we started getting student input and I was on the committee that helped kind of begin to control those fees. It wasn't enough. So we had a move to reconstitute student government. And we did. And one of the cartoonists at the school paper created Hank the Hallucination to run for student body president. Hank's slogan was, get real.”
2016-07-04 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 63 - Paul Begala · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seven million dollars a year in student fees were being spent by the president of the university with no student input. Well, that's taxation without representation. Power abhors a vacuum, right? So the power the student government had didn't go away. It went to the campus administration, who I did not like and did not share our values. So we actually lobbied the legislature. Our state senator then was former student body president, Lloyd Doggett.”
2016-07-04 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 63 - Paul Begala · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How did that happen? Actually, this was hugely instructive for the rest of my career. First off, defeat is always the best teacher. But the students five years before I arrived on campus at University of Texas, they had abolished student government. And the sort of nihilistic way of the 70s, oh, it's ridiculous. We got there my generation, and we looked around the campus. And back then, this is 1981, 82.”
2016-07-04 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 63 - Paul Begala · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source