YouSaid · the spoken record

Steve Israel

lines on the record
74
first
2018-05-21
most recent
2018-05-21
sittings or episodes
1
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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

  1. “It is, and I guess it trains you to listen, not to pontificate, not to give long ideological speeches, but to listen to what's on people's minds. And at that level, what's on their minds is there's been a pothole in front of my house for three years, councilman. I can't get anybody to pave the pothole. What are you going to do about it? And I took those lessons to the Democratic congressional campaign committee. And I remember saying to candidates at candidate trainings, When you knock on somebody's door and they complain about a pothole, if you give them your position on highway funding, you're going to lose. Instead, grab a shovel, get some asphalt, pave the pothole. And that's what people want.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I mediated those, and then I went to Congress where at least I could be in Washington three nights a week. When you're a town official or a mayor, they see you every night.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “It shouldn't be, but I made it one. And here's what I learned. Number one, it's always about constituent services. I can't tell you how many people would come up to me and they would say, you know, I disagree with how you voted on that zoning issue. But you helped me out in getting a stop sign. So it's about delivering. It's about, as you said, David, keeping your promises. That was number one. Number two, there is nothing so virulent and passionate in American politics than when a neighbor puts up a shed too close to the other neighbor's fence. Those, I mean, you talk about border wars. That's where the real border wars are fought.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Plain view, yeah. When I was chairman of DCCC, I used to tell my candidates, and you tell me what you think about this, that in the final two weeks of the campaign, they shouldn't get too hung up on their polling or data. I said, just listen to the narrative. Listen to what people are telling you. If you can go to a kitchen table or a dining room table and hear what's being discussed around the table, that will give you a sense of whether you're going to win or lose. And I think that Hillary's campaign just stopped listening and were just too data-driven. Stop pulling.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “And we lost those congressional districts. The members didn't lose, but Hillary lost many of those congressional districts and lost those states, which tells me one of the lessons in politics that I love is based on an old Navy saying, take your eyes off the radar and look out the window. I think we had our eyes on the radar, the data, and Donald Trump. I can agree with you.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida because I knew that those were the states that she had to win. And my colleagues in many of those states were telling me she's not going to lose, she's not going to win my district. My Democratic colleagues, Matt Cartwright from Scranton, she's not going to win my district. And I went into the headquarters, I have to be honest, and alerted the folks there, you know, to that possibility that in that aggregate of states, it looked like we just weren't penetrating. They disagreed with my view, which is fair. Was a congressman and not involved in the campaign on a day-out league basis. So I just”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Very honestly, and I walked into that campaign headquarters 10 days before the election, I chaired the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee in the House. So my job was to fashion a message for every House Democrat, which had I done that, they could have just given me the Nobel Prize. There's just no way of doing that. But I pay particular attention to my colleagues in...”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “For the rest of the country. That population just became so anxious that they were looking for an alternative to institutions. And by the way, they would have been fine, I think, voting for Bernie Sanders. They would have been fine and they were fine voting for Donald Trump. It's not that they were voting for anybody. It's that they were voting against the notion of institutions and responsibility. They just wanted a big change.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “You know, it's so fascinating, as you know, I chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, so I have a real feel for districts and what's in the environment. And I told Hillary Clinton in 2016 at an event that I was concerned about what was happening in Suffolk County. And I said, of course, you're running for president, so don't worry. She said, no, no. I represented Suffolk County. I want to know what's happening. And I told her that this is a county that voted for President Obama twice. And this is a county that was drifting. And it's not that I would see Trump signs. It's that, frankly, I would see locker-up signs. Around Suffolk County, which tells me that the kind of radical changes in the economy, people's fear for their safety, whether it was gun violence or Ebola or beheadings, their loss of faith in institutions made Suffolk County kind of the canary in the coal.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Yeah, you know, I volunteered as a kid on every campaign I could volunteer on. So I worked on congressional campaigns. I worked in county campaigns. I went to work for the first Democratic County Executive of Suffolk in, I think, 30 or 40 years. It was a big”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Legend. And the thought, can you imagine this? The thought of somebody spending a million dollars for Seaton United States Senate was just breathtaking. Nobody could believe it. Ottinger did it and he lost.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “To find these days, but yeah. So Ottinger and that one last liberal Democrat, liberal Republican, they split the vote and Buckley, who was a transplant from Connecticut, won. Here's another obscure factoid from that race. That race, 1970, Dick Ottinger's Senate race, was the first election in America where a candidate spent over a million dollars. And it was Dick Ottinger. His political consultant was a guy named David Garth. Oh, yes. I don't know if you knew him.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Not then, I was too young, but going to work for Dick Ottinger exposed me to those lessons. This was a case where Ontinger should have won, but there was a liberal Republican, Godell, and a conservative.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Bob Matsue was a freshman member of Congress and he hired me on as his part time legislative correspondent. Those were the days. When you had a computer operator inputting constituent mail and I did that, so I went to GW during the day and at night I just inputted constituent mail and then I began writing letters and then did that for several years. And one of the surreal experiences that I had was this. Bob, as you know, David, he passed away while he was in Congress. He was the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which I became. And I served with him for, I think, one or two terms, and then he died while I was in Congress. So the first guy who hired me I got to serve with, and then he passed away, and his wife, Doris, was elected.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Did you do that? I did. In fact, I thought that the greatest value of going to GW was that the faculty there, they worked in the State Department. They worked in the White House. These were not just people teaching theoretical textbook examples. These are people who had to roll up their sleeves during the day and experience and participate in government. And that was the best learning lesson for me.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Another example of how the federal government and state governments lift up the middle class. I want you to go to George Washington University and David, I remember this also so vividly. I knew I wanted to go to Congress or be a writer. And I was at my dining room table with my parents. And my dad said, so I was in 11th grade. My dad said, so where do you want to go to college? And I just looked at him proudly and said, George Washington University. And he kind of, his lips kind of fell a little bit. And he said, you have the grades to get in. I said, yes. He said, you have the SAT scores to get in. I said, yes. He said, you have the money to get in. And I looked at him and said, what do you mean do I have the money? No, no, no. The question is, do you have the money? And he fell sad. And he said, I don't think we can afford to send you.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Politics is about resonating, right? You've got to be able to tap into people's anxieties and hopes. I was going to offer universal health care for all the students at MacArthur High School, but I chose the student lounge instead.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “It was a winning slogan. I won the student body presidency and delivered on my promises, which included a student lounge, which we opened up, and discounted pizza in the cafeteria. So I delivered.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Play I remembered vividly. I was in fourth grade and Robert Kennedy had been shot the night before. And I was sitting at my Little desk at Gardner's Avenue Elementary School in Levittown, New York, and suddenly there was an announcement from the PA speaker, and it was the principal of Gardner's Avenue announcing that Robert Kennedy had died in surgery. And even in fourth grade, I started questioning, well, why would somebody do that to somebody else? And I just became so intrigued with the power of ideas that this guy gave his life because of what he believed in. And so I started reading the news and watching the news on television and just became hooked on the notion of power in order to help people as opposed to hurt people.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Absolutely. And I was raised in Levitown with, I had three dreams growing up in Levitown. One, I wanted to one day serve in the United States Congress. That dream came to me in fourth grade. The other was I wanted to be a novelist. And the third is I wanted to play center field for the New York Mets. The Mets thing didn't work out very well, but the other two did.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “So I settled in Brooklyn. My parents, my dad came home from the Army. Thanks to the federal government and this thing called the GI Bill, my father was able to afford a small house in Levatown, which was the first real suburb in America.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “You know, I placed on my walls in the capital my grandparents' original immigration certificates, which were those certificates on my walls were a daily reminder to me of what this country is about. And when Republicans would excuriate immigrants and call them names and vilify them, I would stand at those immigration and apologize to my grandparents who I lost so many years ago. But they were my guiding forces. They were my best political consultants. Whenever I had a tough vote in 16 years in Congress, I would look at those permits with their pictures on them and just say, you know, what should I do? What would you give a not? What would you give you nachus, which I would tell Republicans as a parliamentary term? He's pride. And, you know, and so they were my moral compass in 16 years in Congress.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “The Stetels of Russia. So, my grandparents fled persecution, poverty, and pogroms in Russia came here. I don't think they ever would have thought when they came here they'd have a grandson with the title congressman who would fly on Air Force One. But that's what America offered.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Well, first of all, it's great to be with you. I'm in the presence of a master and honored to be doing it. I'm a product of America's quintessential suburb. My folks lived in New York City. Dad came home from the Army.”

    2018-05-21 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 244 — Steve Israel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source