YouSaid · the spoken record

Tom Vilsack

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2016-08-15

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2016-08-15

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1. “Well, Robert Kennedy in 1968 was quoted often when he quoted George Bernard Shaw, when he said, some people look at things as they are and say why, and others were and say why not. I think that's what politics is. I think that's what Democrats say. They say why not. And that's what's moving this country forward. I'll tell you, I am incredibly proud to be a Democrat today. Watching that convention and taking a look at the people in that hall, the diversity, the messaging, the concerns that have been expressed, the speeches that have been given. I leave Philadelphia just immensely proud of my party and of my candidate. And I'm looking forward to, as I say, hauling out the trash or doing the dishes or whatever it takes to make sure she gets elected.”

   2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “It's there, and I think the campaign is smart enough to understand the opportunity. And the great thing about it is it's not going to cost a lot. It's not going to, it's not like you have to have millions of volunteers and millions of dollars and everything. It just requires organization and structure. Occasionally surrogates and occasionally Tim can go out he can suck these people very easily these are his people so”

   2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Well, and President, if you look at President Clinton's remarks. He made reference. Last night, President Obama made a reference to farmers. It's not over the top. It's not. But it's there.”

   2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “so that over time you begin to create the opportunity for reapportionment that's fairer and more balanced and instead of four and eight years of progressive leadership, we're now talking about the potential of decades.”

   2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “Her campaign to revitalize and rebuild the rural economy is directly related and very specific in terms of details related to her listening to people in rural areas. So there's evidence that she's listening, right? There's evidence. And then there are people like myself who can validate and her husband who can validate that, yeah, this is the real deal. She's going to listen to you. She's going to care about you. So it's not just her election. To me, what's even as important, equally important, is the impact on Senate races in some of these key states. If you speak to rural voters, you can squeeze those margins in Wisconsin and Illinois and Ohio and Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, and you can have more success in the Congress, in the Senate races. You can also have success on the margins in some of these house races, and you can also maybe elect a few more state reps and a few more state centers.”

   2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Even though the deep resistance to Hillary, because now we're in a position to basically say she listens. This guy doesn't listen, he listens to himself. He talks to himself, he listens to himself. She at least is willing to listen to you. Now you say, well, how do you know that? Well, I'll tell you, the addiction and mental illness discussion that she's had in this campaign is a direct result of her listening to people in small towns.”

   2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “People just don't think he represents really their approach. His notion of this country is not what I hear in rural areas. His notion of division is not what I hear from a lot of good people in these small towns. So I think there's an opening here to have that conversation where it may have been more difficult with a Romney. It may have been more difficult with a McCain. It may have been even more difficult with a George Bush, both. But with this guy? Then people are saying, well, you know, I really am uncomfortable with him. So what's my option? Well, if we don't speak to him, there is no option. Some of these people go, you know what, I'm going to give these folks a try. I'm going to give them a shot. I'm going to see what happens. I'm going to be open to this relationship.”

   2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Gun ownership for They don't think of government in terms of the home loan that's provided through government that otherwise would never have been available but for government. They don't think of the clean government. So if you go out to rural areas as a Democrat and you basically say I'm here to listen, I'm here to say thank you I'm here to kind of educate you on what we're doing for you and with you. You're not going to win those rural areas? But you're not gonna get killed in those rural areas. And here's the importance of that in this election I think there's a unique opportunity for Democrats today in this election to have that conversation because of the very high level of dissatisfaction concerned. About Trump”

   2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Third, we have to basically remind them of what government means and what government does. I think they think that government is only one or two agencies. They think it's a regulator. They think it's someone who is proposing and suggesting to limit and restrict certain rights that they find important. But they don't think of God”

   2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “Democrats need to talk to rural voters. That's the first thing that has to happen. They can't write them off Can't ignore them. They actually have to spend a little time talking to them. They have to basically start the conversation with thanks. Thank you for what you do for us. Recognition that in rural America the food we eat, the water we drink, the energy we use, and a significant percentage of the military we rely on comes from rural America. And those folks in those rural communities do not believe that there is a recognition or appreciation on the part of Democrats for that contribution to the country. We got to talk to them first. We have to appreciate him.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Yeah, and to President Bush's credit. He was open to that relationship and to President Clinton's credit. He created the opportunity or took advantage of the opportunity to create that relationship.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “They did. And of course, the amazing thing about Bill Clinton is that, you know, He is convinced he can make everyone in the world like him. And I think the classic example is this relationship with George H.W. Bush. I mean, there's a relationship that could easily be strained, but it's not there's a mutual...”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “I leaned over to President Clinton. I was sitting next to President Clinton. I said, you know, you're the only guy in this auditorium that really understands what that video shows. None of us really appreciate how hard this job is. You know, we kind of think we know.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Yeah, no, not an easy thing to do, right? The right thing to do, but not an easy thing to do. Here's what I love about President. I love his patience. He is an incredibly patient man. He knows where the country is headed, and he knows that a lot of times sooner than the rest of us. He is patient enough to allow us, the rest of us to catch up with He knows the trend. He knows where this country is headed. And we saw this in his convention speech. He knows that our best days are ahead of us. He is absolutely confident of that. He knows that he has done an incredible job, but there's just so much more to do. You know, as I watch the video that shows all of the tough decisions that he, well, not all, some of the tough decisions he had to confront.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “Well, first of all President Obama is an extraordinarily leader because he had the confidence Us and in himself and in his team to allow People who had been fiercely working against him during the primary to be part of his administration. And when that happens, what is created, at least from my perspective, is an equally fierce loyalty back. And you say, my gosh, this guy gave me this, he didn't have to do this. Nobody in the normal.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “Those people in New York State, upstate New York, they loved her. Why? Because she went there, she worked hard, she'd listened to farmers, she'd listened to the people in upstate New York. And they thought she was doing a great job. They liked what she was doing.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Well, you know what? She doesn't necessarily always, look, you can't have a perfect everything, all right? Here's what I know about her. You give her an opportunity to be president of the United States, there will be no one. I mean no one who's ever had that job that will work harder. Bar none. I am convinced of that. No one will try harder to solve problems that land on that desk than she will. I believe what's going to happen is that people are going to elect her and then they'll see her work and they'll see her govern and they'll think, you know, It's the same thing that happened in New York. She ran for the Senate, was like, she's running for the Senate, you know, she's trying to move in here.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “You go into a room and everybody thinks you're the greatest thing in the world. But you're an introvert, you're going to create serious conversations with people, and that makes it a little bit harder. That's my thought.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “All the energy from the rest of us he absorbs, and he can be there forever. And I think it's just the difference between someone who's a bit more introverted and someone who's extroverted. And I think, you know, if you're an extrovert,”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “You know, I'm not an expert on any of this. I have this theory and all it is is a theory, but there's an amazing book that's been out for a while called Quiet. And it's basically a book that talks about introverts and how introverts essentially have to adapt and adjust and how oftentimes they become leaders because of the adaptation adjustment that they have to make. My sense is that when Hillary Clinton walks in a room, All of her energy is expended in that room as she listens, as she kind of tries to understand whatever it is we're imparting to her, whether it's a story of addiction or whether it's somebody lost their job. All of her pours out The intimate setting allows her to feel comfortable in that circumstance, to listen, to react, and to see the human side. Contrast that to her husband. When he walks into a room?”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “She did a fundraiser for me in Washington, DC. She helped raise resources at the end of it when we were getting close, and she came out the weekend before the election to rally the troops. Those were three separate things that she didn't have any reason to do given the nature of the race or given the significance of Iowa. None of that, right? There's no reason. She did it out of loyalty. And then she got to know me, and she did it because she thought, you know, this guy's got something on the ball. So to me, that's an important consideration for her, for any voter who's, you know, she says she's going to raise the minimum wage, she says she's going to do child care, going to help with college expense. Can I really trust that? Well, yeah, you can because she is extremely loyal to the people that she talks to and that she has a relationship with.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “This is an important consideration because she didn't have to do what she did in 1998 because Tom passed away in 96. So it wasn't like he was still around and she did it out of loyalty to him. And that's an important thing to know about Tomb.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “Yeah, he was on the Senate staff, or she was on the Senate staff, he was on the House staff, and their job was to sort of communicate with one another, to make sure that everybody knew what everybody knew. And he just went on and on about this wonderful, amazing, incredible young woman he had met, Hillary Rodham, and we sort of kind of rolled, frankly, I kind of rolled my eyes. And then in 1992, when President Clinton was running for office, I remember being in a rope line, and she was coming down the rope line. I thought, well, I'm going to test how, really, how much she knows about my brother-in-law, because I think he's just playing this up a little bit. And I said, hi, I'm Tom Bell's brother in law. I didn't say hi, I'm Tom Bill, so I said hi, I'm Tom Bell's brother. Big smile, huge smile, laugh. Oh my, what a great guy. How's he doing? How's Greta? How's the kids? And it's like, whoa, he actually did know her.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Dating back, right? Right, because Christie's brother, Tom, the one who passed away He shared office space with Hillary during the Nixon impeachment process.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “No, no, no. First and foremost, because I thought she was prepared from her experiences having been in a White House and having been in the Senate, she was prepared to lead this country. And she had the right values. Secondly, there is the issue of loyalty. Again, I would not have been governor but for the work and help that she provided in critical times during my race in 1998 in terms of fundraisers in Washington, D.C. in the summer.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “He doesn't. We actually brought a guy by the name of Richard Florida to Iowa. He had written a book called The Rise of the Creative Class, and what he had done is he had surveyed all of the successful cities in America in terms of economic activity. And what he noticed about the most successful cities is they happened to be the most diverse. And that diversity is what creates a climate of creativity and imagination, and you can do it this way, or you can do it that way, and it just fosters all of these new ideas and new opportunities. And I think, Governor, then Governor Bush, President Bush understood that. Frankly, he would have been so much better off instead of pushing the notion of privatizing Social Security as he did and failing to do so. If he had focused his attention at that point in time on immigration, we might have been able to get it done.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “To communicate more effectively and how to appreciate what they're saying to you. To me, that's why it's important to have workplaces that are diverse. To me, that's why it's important to have universities and colleges and schools that are diverse. And why I'm troubled by the fact that we've slowly become more segregated Less integrated than we were. 10, 15 years ago”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “But there's like oil and water. They're separated, physically separated. I said, you got a problem here. And I said, well, Governor, I said, we have a problem because that's not just Iowa. That's the country. And what I have learned since then in my various experiences is we don't know how to communicate with each other. You and I can talk the same language. We can talk English. Whatever the language is, we can talk that. But if we don't know where you come from, if I don't know your experiences, if I don't know your background, if I don't know the struggles that you've gone through, I'm going to interpret things differently. I'm going to put them through my sieve, through my screen. And I think the more you have experience with people from different races, different cultures, different parts of the world, the more sensitive to understanding how to”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “I knew him as a governor. Knew him as a governor. He was doing, it was the Sunday before the caucus. He was doing an ABC Sunday show downstairs in the first floor of the governor's mansion, and I invited him up afterwards for coffee And when he came up, he said, you know, Gavi said, You got a problem here. And I said, what is that? He said, well, when I do a lot of functions here, he said, a lot of Latinos, Hispanics come to my gatherings because they know my record in Texas.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “Folks in Iowa didn't fully appreciate is that the new wave of immigrants is the energy and the passion and the folks who are willing to sacrifice and working incredibly hard at doing a lot of the work that none of us want to do to be able to ensure that their kids have a better future. And that's what keeps the uniqueness about America, I think, alive, is that opportunity for people to constantly come into the U.S., sacrifice work hard, do the difficult physical labor of work, and in doing so create this second generation and third generation of just really committed people.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “Legally or not. So, what we did in an effort to try to recreate that type of atmosphere is we created a thing called New Island Centers. And the theory behind the New Iowan Center was this was going to be a physical location where somebody new to Iowa could come in and we were getting people from Bosnia, we were getting people from Somalia, we were getting people from Latin America, that they could come in and then their language they could learn enough to basically find out where do I live, where do my kids go to school, how do I get access to healthcare, who's going to take care of me if I'm sick, etc., etc. And these new Iowan centers were very, very successful. But there was a political backlash because people characterized what we were doing. They characterized it as this huge influx of people who were going to take people's jobs. And it's the same concept that Trump is articulating now. What Trump doesn't recognize and what”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “We also had the experience in Mount Pleasant in the 70s when the boat people from Southeast Asia were invited to Iowa by then-Governor Ray, the theory being that these were people who were suffering, these were people who needed help, and Iowa is going to embrace them. There is an incredibly important lesson in what we did with the boat people compared to what this immigration debate is today. With the boat people, basically what we did is we invited them. We said we want you, and we not only invited them, but we created a community that accepted them. We had communities accept the responsibility of welcoming these people into their community, finding a place for them to worship, finding a place for them to live, finding a place for them to have a job, making sure their kids learned the language, all of those things that created a sense of community and comfort, we did, which we have not done for a lot of the folks who have immigrated to the United States either.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “It is, it is, it is. In fact, the statistic I will often quote is that in 1900, Iowa had more people living in it than California and Florida combined. From nineteen hundred to two thousand it was the only state in the country that didn't at least double its population, only one that didn't double its population. So there was a worker shortage.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “I put together a strategic planning group to take a look at what Iowa should be and needed to be ten years hence. It was a 20 year two thousand or twenty ten visioning program. And they came back and said, look, we've got a problem with workforce. We need people. We need younger people. We're losing our young people.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “So it has revolutionized our energy mix, and it was part of an overall strategy to sort of rebuild and restructure the economy in Iowa. And it was successful because for the first time in 70 years we reversed the out-migration of people from Iowa because there was activity. There was interest. There was something new and exciting going on.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “So, as governor worked very closely with Greg Abel and the folks at Mid American Energy and basically challenged them. First of all, sort of threatened him by saying I was going to deregulate the utility industry in Iowa, which got their attention. And then they said, well, what do you really want, Governor? And I said, what I want is I want you folks to commit yourself to clean energy. I want you to make a significant commitment. So what they did is they committed to a thousand megawatts of wind energy. They committed to a cleaner coal burning operation than they had before, and they committed not to raise rates for 10 years. It was a great deal for consumers, and as it turned out, it was a great deal for the company because they have gone way beyond that $1,000 megawatts. There are now, I think, on the fourth or fifth thousandth megawatts. And just today I read of a companion utility in Iowa that's going to build a $1 billion wind farm.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “I realized in my law practice I represented farmers during the farm crisis of the 80s and realized how troublesome it was that they only had one option. They could grow crops and that's all they could do or they could feed the crops to livestock. That was it. And there needed to be a much more diverse economy in rural areas to give these guys a shot of being able to keep their farm. And one way to do that is to create new ways to use the land and one way to do that is to put a windmill on top of that acre. You get rent for the windmill. Somebody's got to make those windmills. Somebody's got to fix them. Somebody's got to put them together. All that creates jobs and that helps to support.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “No, that's a good thing A combination of those people allowed me to do something that a lot of people didn't expect would happen.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “He was one of the greatest people I've ever met in my life. He was the kind of guy that made you feel as if you could do anything. And even to this day, I don't know that I've ever met anybody who could celebrate the Christmas holiday in the way that Tom Bell celebrated. So I miss him, and I know we all miss him, but because he had that conversation with me, I thought, well, there's a reason for this. And I'm going to dedicate myself to giving it a shot. And were it not for Teresa, Villaine and David Axelrod and Christievil Sec and Sally Peterson and a whole bunch of other folks. And a person by the name of Hillary Clinton I wouldn't be sitting here doing this podcast. I don't know where I'd be, but I wouldn't be sitting here. But that combination is a good idea.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “Yeah, it was a long time. I'm from the corner of the state. I mean what are you crazy? And that would have been it, except that the next day Tom went out and because of an arithmetic in his heart, his heart stopped and he died suddenly and tragically. I mean, it was just an incredible shocking thing. He was one of the most...”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “During that process, I had announced prior to that, I had announced I was leaving the Senate. My brother-in-law got me in the corner of our dining room, and he started just as only Don Bell could. He said, you cannot leave politics. He said, in fact, what you should do is you should run for governor. And I looked at him like I said, run for governor, what are you crazy? I just told people I'm leaving. He said, well, you can't leave. You've got to run for governor. I said, Tom, we haven't elected a Democrat in a long time in this state. Nobody knows me.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “Executive guy likes to make decisions, likes to get things done, a legislature likes to compromise, likes to work through the process. And they're both very important, but I just didn't have the patience, in a sense, to be a legislative guy. I looked at all of the work that I was doing and all the credit others were getting, and I'm going, this is not fair. It's not right. So I decided to leave politics. And I probably would have left politics were it not for yet another tragedy. Our son, Jess, was graduating from high school. We were going to have a family get-together, Tom Bell, Christie's brother came down from Wisconsin, brought his family. It was a wonderful thing. We had a dinner in honor of Christie's dad, and we gave a small scholarship at the local college in his name. It was a celebration of family and of our sons reaching at important threshold.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “Oh, yeah, it's very embarrassing. Very embarrassing. And midway through that second term, I had just, you know, I realized I wasn't a legislator. And I have this belief that you're either an executive type guy or you're in a legislative type person.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “That I won, and I won pretty handily. And I was actually at that point in time the 26th Democrat elected to the Iowa Senate, which meant that the Democrats would maintain control of the Senate. So it was exciting. And I served two years, and because of reapportionment, I had to run again, but I ran unopposed, which I think was indicative.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “Republican discs. Well, the northern part of it was very Republican. The southern part was really Democrat. And in the middle was where the battle was going to be won. And the Republicans did a very smart thing. They got a very strong, well-known restaurant owner, Dave Heaton, to run. And he was very strong. He was from the northern part of the district and well known in the middle part of the district. And then they convinced a union guy who had run as a Democrat two years before to run as an independent. So the theory, I think, was that the Union guy would siphon off a few Democratic votes from Lee County, and Dave would do well in Henry and Washington. Well, we worked incredibly hard, and the folks that asked me were instrumental along with Christie and a small group of volunteers, and we did the parades and we knocked on doors and we raised enough money to be able to do some advertising. And it turned out on election.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “It was great. And it's the kind of place that you like being from because people care about you. So I decided to run for the state senate and it was in a tough three-way race.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “I didn't. I didn't think people were really excited about Mort being married. He would always be, I mean, literally, Mort would always be late to everything, whether it was a party or whether it was an appointment. The one thing you could count on from Mort Whitney is he'd be five to ten minutes late.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “And no one was particularly interested in running except for Mort Whitney, and Mort was always late, and he was late getting his petition in. And so there was nobody on the ballot. So people could write in whoever they wanted to write in. And it turned out, I think there were like 1,200 votes, and I got over 90% of the 1,200 write-in votes, so I was elected to a third term. And I thought, well, this is a problem. This is a lifetime job I now have. Potentially, and so I have to think of plan B.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “Right, I serve two terms. Yeah, I served two terms. And then at the end of the second term, I said, you know, look, it's time for somebody to come in and new ideas.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “So it was great, but I was really unprepared for this. The night I was elected mayor for the first time, I was being interviewed by Greg Spinner, who was a local radio guy, and he said to me, are you ready for this? And I gave what you would have been very proud of me. I was a very thoughtful answer. It was something along the lines, well, I want to get to know the council members. I want to reach out to them. I want to study the budget. I want to make sure that I'm ready. And by January, I'll be ready to take the oath of office, at which point Greg paused, looked at me, and he said, January, you're mayor tomorrow. Indeed, I was mayor tomorrow.”

    2016-08-15 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 73 - Sec. Tom Vilsack · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source