YouSaid · the spoken record

Stuart Stevens

lines on the record: 79
first: 2016-01-14
most recent: 2016-01-14
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

“Exactly, not with hate. Because ultimately hate is exhausting. And burns itself out. It's a It's a downward spiral. We've been better at that on the local level. We've been better on that on the state level for a lot of reasons. And we just have to. Find the right people and be able to do it better on a national level. Or we'll keep losing elections.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We used to have. And so, what I would hope for the Republican Party to get back to this is that it can begin to somehow speak for those that have been still out there and connect with them in a way. This is the future of politics in America, those who are doing okay but not great but still want to do better. Whoever can reach those people is the party that's going to, I think, dominate. And we've been much better.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of accepting what is happening now as positive. This idea, to use a phrase, new normal. And we don't have a John Steinbeck now. We have a John Stewart, you know, this multimillionaire clever social critic from New Jersey. But he's not someone who speaks to this economic pain. And we have these two pockets of vast, vast wealth in America, DC and Manhattan, where so much of the national conversation is driven that we've lost this connection. We don't have a stud's turkey anymore. We don't have these voices. And that, to me, is a Something that has been lost”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Within our nation. Mean, just our national voices, be it from the New York Times to just those that are more center-left, their voices have tinned to been muted these last seven years and have not spoken up about the poverty enough, have not spoken up about those that are being left behind and dropping out of the middle class because of a fear that they're a concern that it would be Supporting Republicans and hurting President Obama. And we have, I think, been poor because of a lack of those voices. And Republicans aren't very good at it. And what I worry about is a sense of”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Republicans have never been very good at speaking for those left behind. And what I see is that there has been a muting of voices for those who normally speak for those left behind in a desire not to speak up for Republicans and not to criticize President Obama these last seven years and that”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well look I think the last Seven years have not been. Goodyears. I think that they have been, if you just look at the numbers, They have been years of For the first time, we have a middle class that is smaller than the wealthy and the poor. And we have fewer people working and making less money, and the country is less hopeful. We can argue why, and we can argue”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have an open seat. You got to have a presidential candidate who's doing well. Are you going to lose them all? Just ask yourself if Hillary Clinton is winning Ohio at 53 points, I mean Man. It's already tough in Pennsylvania, and Florida is never an easy day. I did the last. Republican Senate race in a presidency year, Mel Martinez. And with George Bush winning, it was still a long slog to get Mel up there. I did Tom Ridge in Pennsylvania. It's hard. You put Ted Cruz up there and, you know, it's just going to be...”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think that would. I don't think if it was cruised, there'd be a third party I think he just gets your ass kicked. You lose the Senate. You know, it was only one state that Romney lost where we won a tight Senate race, and that was Nevada. And Hiller only won by 0.03. But, you know, if you look at these Senate races”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I don't buy those things. But I'm not enough of a political scientist to be able to. Argue why it should or wouldn't. I just tend to think that it won't because there won't be enough energy for it to happen. I think it'll just be an ass kicking and then they'll regroup. But if the loser Penn group.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think. I think of those candidates. I think Chris Christie could win. I think Jebbus could win. I think that Rubio could win. And I think Casey could win. And I think they could even win easily, particularly against Hillary Clinton. I mean, Hillary Clinton is a very, very damaged candidate. I just find that extraordinary that the party would nominate Hillary Clinton. You know, you've never had an incumbent president followed in modern times, followed by a member of their own party of an older generation. We don't pass the flag backwards. Now, it could happen. I mean, things happen that haven't happened. But I tend to think it hasn't happened.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, they're wrong. You know, when Cruz and Mitt Ronney were both on the ballot in Texas, Mitt Romney got more votes, even though Mitt Romney didn't spend a dime in Texas.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well no I mean just as a matter of numbers obviously not you have to do better you know you have to win Ohio you know you're going to have to win New Hampshire you're gonna have to win suburbs of Virginia which have become very different”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Listen, you know, Romney, I think what's interesting, if you go back and look at it. You know, what do we know about this Republican Party? It's increasingly southern even, as you pointed out. Evangelical and populist. What do we know about Mitt Romney? And he won a primary. And, you know, won 45 primaries and caucuses. I think it's been a while since someone without a It's obvious geographic or ideological base did as well as he did. Maybe Bill Clinton, I have to think about it.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's different. It's obviously different because you craft an individual plan to meet a specific need that Massachusetts, which is a wildly different economic environment than most states had. So they addressed it. That doesn't mean that...”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I don't this whole notion that has always struck me as absolutely absurd that you could craft a state government plan and because it worked there it therefore meant that it would work for the country. Under that same philosophy if you support the governor of New Hampshire believes that the only national tax plan should be no sales tax and that we should have no income tax.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obamacaid. And there's some reason to believe that Obama was for Obamacare and Romney was against it. So in that era, although the”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Reporting a lot of people, we should let themselves deport. But as you know, Obamacare was always most popular with Hispanics from the very beginning. And the majority of the Obama campaigns advertising to Hispanics was about Obamacare.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, let's talk about that. So in the summer of 2011 before the primary, the generic Republican was getting 27%. Romney got 27%. So at face value, the primary didn't hurt the Republican. It just didn't help. So people say, oh, you know, the primary hurt. Not really. But it was a squandered opportunity to help. Would be an accurate way to depict it. All of this stuff about self-deport, that was a phrase that he used once. It never penetrated. If you actually go back sort of ironically and look at what he was saying, it was actually in opposition to force deportation that he was expressing a sentiment for self-deportation was kind of unfortunate phrasing. But he was actually, if you read it, it was we shouldn't be deported.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so we start getting numbers from Virginia And he's like, that's bad for Ohio Immediately where his mind goes. If we're not winning well in Virginia.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And much was made kind of off these reporters on the plane. Admit written a concession speech. I've never known a candidate while they were campaigning who wrote a concession speech. I wouldn't let a candidate take time from campaigning to write a concession speech. What an absurd waste of time. The campaign had two speeches. Listen, one of the things about Mitt Romney, he's very analytical. After every debate, he's one of these guys, he only wanted to talk about what he had done wrong. Not, oh, you know, this was beautiful baby. It was always, you know, I don't know, this just didn't feel right. Know this had gone two more questions. I don't know what I would have said. He's very self critical. It's one of the reasons he's been so successful. He doesn't need a lot of praise. So, I mean, if you look at the film, it was a good movie.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As it's very hard to beat an incumbent president of the United States. The money does not help. Sort of separate conversation. So I thought that we had a shot. And then Hurricane Sandy came and it was just sort of flat lined. So But I was never particularly hopeful this idea that Mitt thought he was going to win. Every candidate and every top athlete all to perform at the level at that level, they always have to have confidence. If you ask Peyton Manning in the last quarter of the Super Bowl against Seattle when they were behind what, I don't know, twenty points, if they were going to win, I think he would have looked at you like you were crazy. Of course they were going to win. I mean, you can't go out and perform at that level and think you're going to lose. It's an absolute impossibility.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I felt that we were moving to a way where we had the ability to possibly win at the end, which is all you can ask for, I think, when you're running against an incumbent president of the United States. I was well aware of the fact that no incumbent president who was not in the federal funding system, which did, as it was intended to, level the playing field, had lost in the last $125 years. And that was Hoover, had a bad year. It's very not as bad as”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Moved in a say if you hadn't had Hurricane Sandy that on that next Thursday, Thursday before the election, that Mitt Ronde wouldn't have gone out and made some terrible mistake. We could have lost by more. It just froze the election. We went from having big sweeping rallies around the country to sitting in hotel rooms. If you look at the exip polls, 16% of the people side Hurricane Sandies, and the number one reason they voted for Barack Obama.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know where that. Listen, we were never heading our numbers. High numbers were always very good. Now It's difficult to talk about Hurricane Sandy because then people always say, well, do you think you would have won without Hurricane Sandy? And there's no universe that exists without Hurricane Sandy. But in my experience, every time you beat an incumbent, you always had to be... On the offense at the end. It's like an NBA game. You had to control the ball at the end. Hurricane Sandy greatly took away the ability to control that ball at the end.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I've lived through it. Yeah, you know, Reverend Wright stuff. The election was pretty stable, as you guys have pointed out since then.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I don't think that it was decisive at all in the election. There's no data that would show that. Through these things, be it Religion and guns”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Listen I don't think it was, as Mitt has said, I don't think it was. Well said, I think it was an example of a candidate trying to play political consultant, which never turns out well. I was actually at that event, though I wasn't in the room. And I think someone asked a question and he was responding to that question. I'd never heard him, and I was with him a lot, voice that particular phrasing before, you know, that You”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I think if Donald Trump were the nominee, which I don't think he will be, there'd be a third, a very strong third party candidate.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you have to wait and see. I think ultimately there's two ways to look at it. When someone runs and is defeated, you can say, okay, the opposite of validation. That's a rejection. So if we all agree that if Donald Trump wins, it means something. So I think it's only fair to say if he loses, it means something. You have to let voters speak. I mean, that seems to me that that's a process. And there's been a tremendous rush to say that Donald Trump doing well means X, Y, and Z I think we have to wait and let voters. Voters decide”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm personally deeply offended by it. And it's one of the reasons that I speak out about it, because I feel sort of almost a moral obligation to. I think what Donald Trump says and has come to stand for is despicable. I feel an obligation to stand up to it. I don't think Donald Trump believes in anything. And I think that if he thought that he could get a rise out of a crowd, he'd be up there with a hammer and a sickle in a second. It would be to the barricades. I felt the same way about Chris McDaniel, that if Trotskyites were in power, he would be up there singing the Internationale. But it's still hateful. I think you have to stand up to it.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't think There's a Trump emotion. And if Trump starts winning, And became a nominee. I think you can call it a movement.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If he was president of 12-year-old kid, I mean, you've never had a candidate who was so ripe for negative attacks just because he'll respond to everything.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not that many again by far the largest accumulation is in this right to rise pack. The Jeb Bush pack. I think they spent like 50, 60 million dollars. I think had they spent $50 or $60 million contrasting Jeb Bush with Donald Trump, it would be a Jeb Bush Donald Trump race. I think Jeb Bush would be winning that race. I don't understand why they haven't done this. Jeb Bush would be better off if they had. I think that Donald Trump is like a zeppelin floating overhead, this large, slow-moving, hydrogen-filled thing just waiting for people to start poking. And he is incredibly... Thin skinned. I would object that he's just reacting to me. He reacts to everything.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Another Republican debate in South Carolina. But I... I think there's two approaches to Donald Trump here. One is that, as Marco Rubio said, as a candidate, you could spend all day responding to Donald Trump. You're then letting Donald Trump drive the race. You have to talk about why you want to be president of the United States, which is something that Barack Obama has done when he was a candidate did very well. You have to put your vision out there. You have to talk about ultimately no one on that stage is running because Donald Trump is running. They'd be running anyway. And it's sort of a black hole you can get sucked into. And as you know better than anybody, David, presidential choices every day is about deciding what is important and what is critical.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think each of these candidates is in a different place physically on stage and a different place in their candidacy at a different moment. I think that The obvious person who was standing next to him, who has been directly insulted by him, was Jeb Bush, I think that Jeb has the largest resources. I think Jeb now is stepping up to do this more. I think he should have done it sooner. I think he probably regrets that he got done first after. Gone after Trump sooner. I am baffled why his pact hasn't done it. Jeb now himself is doing it more. I would expect in this debate you're going to see it more. You're going to have a smaller feeling.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think a couple of things. One, I think each of these candidates, it's been a very crowded field. And each of the candidates has struggled to trot it in their few minutes on stage in these debates, tried to tell their own story. And they've had very, most of them have had very limited resources to try to tell this story. If you've been someone like Chris Christie, you've been governor, you've been a prosecutor, you're up there on stage, you have to ask yourself, am I going to talk about prosecuting organized crime, cutting taxes, doing this, or am I going to start getting in a food fight with Donald Trump and these precious moments? It's always, you know, Sophie's choice. You've been up there. And it's very difficult. You have three people down. The stick owns camera, you're not one on one with the guy. It's a very difficult”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Large market. He's selling hate And there's always a certain market for hate. And I think ultimately it's a loser's market.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Those most people feel that there are these large, powerful forces in their lives that have influence on them and they don't know what to do about it. And we've had other periods like this in American life, and it led to great religious movements or great populist movements. We're talking about this earlier. I think that he is very manipulative. I think that he believes in absolutely nothing. He's someone who's changed parties five times, which is more than he's changed wives. And he's able to manipulate that. And there's certain appeal to that. But I think that”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think it's always easier to predict the outcome of these things and the timing of these things. It's like looking at a sports team that fundamentally isn't very good. Maybe they can have a run, but you know they're going to get beaten by a better team ultimately in a long season. I think that he has a certain appeal. He's a candidate of anger. We have a country that has 23% of the people think we're going in the right direction. There has been a period of the greatest inequality in American history. The last seven years have been fantastic years if you owned assets. The stock market is booming. People who were doing well are doing better. The rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's clearly wishful thinking. I um I think whenever we be a politics, sports, or finance, whenever we find ourselves saying, well, this time it's different. It's not, turns out not to be different. You know, when it's 1999 and we say the Nasdaq's going to go to 10,000 pets.com is going to take over the world. Well, it doesn't. Housing prices are never going to go down. Well, they do. Donald Trump...”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I spent like five minutes on Anderson Cooper predicting not for the first time that he was going to lose Iowa, which he is, and that he won't be the nominee, which he's not going to be”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was out there after screaming from the battlement to say that to go out to try to get... People to vote for you and to call these people to say that you were trying to get Democrat votes and that was illegal or something where we don't have voter registration was racist. I was screaming that from the Battle Ones. We all know what we're talking about, and it's wrong”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. The idea that 50 years after Freedom Summer, these people want to participate in the selection of the United States Senator. I know. I know.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And in that race, you had these predominantly African American precincts. They take South Jackson. The previous election had been six years earlier. If you go back to the general election when Barack Obama was on the ballot, you go in these precincts in Jackson and you'd look at them and you'd have, say, Box 21. I know these precincts like the back of my hand. Mega Ebrazo precinct. Barack Obama would get like 1,400 votes. Dad Cochran was on the ballot. He would get like, you know, 200 votes. So in the primary, in the runoff, he would get maybe 82 votes. So it was not some miracle that these people were voting for Thag Cochrane. It was not some gimmick. Most of them were repeat customers. And since the whole message that was being delivered was that we were going to pick our senator in this election, the idea here.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it was even worse than that because what they were saying is you're trying to get Democrats to vote for you. So when you don't have party registration and you're saying you're trying to get Democrats, what are you really talking about?”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know how to answer that. We try to get people to vote for us. You know, we don't have party registration in Mississippi. So. I don't think.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't see that. I'll be honest, you look at Mississippi. We had Voter Ay for the first time. And if you look at the Cochrane race, the complaint was that African Americans were voting at a higher level than they ever had before.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I agree with you. And if you really believe that and say, and you're a senator from New York like Hillary Clinton, your own state doesn't have early voting. So let's fix that first before we start worrying about a state that maybe doesn't have enough early voting. Zero is the ultimate. So it starts to get where the moral outrage becomes a bit transparently political. Do you think?”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we should, I'm sort of a radical on this. I'm open to crazy stuff they do like, you know, mandatory voting and you get fined. And where I break down is when we say, oh, Ohio reduced early voting and this is a sign that they're doing voter suppression. And yet New York doesn't have any early voting. So if we really believe that the test of voter suppression is early voting, the logical conclusion is we will focus first on states that have no early voting. That would be the states like New York that have no early voting. So I get sort of my little spider moral spider.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which is bad to have that difference in turnout. It's bad to have people that disengaged. You should have more of a leveling. And when you do, you have better governance. And you look at the states that have less of a drop off. They tend to be better governed states.”
2016-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 23 - Stuart Stevens · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source