 Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Barry Colfer and I'm the director of research at the IIA here in Dublin. I wish to wish you all the very best for 2024, this being our first webinar of our work program for the fourth coming year. I'm thrilled to welcome you to Known Unknowns, a preview of 2024 in US politics with Larry Donnelly. Larry will require little introduction to most of you, but I'm very very happy to hand over in a moment to our chair for today. He'll do the formal introduction to Larry. Our chair today is Dr. Katrina Dowd. Katrina is assistant professor and an Astra fellow in the School of Politics and International Relations in UCD, where she works mainly on global politics and international security. Katrina is also an active member and participant in the IIA security and defense group. Katrina, Larry, thanks so much for being with us. I'm going to hand over to Katrina now. Thank you so much, Barry, and thank you all for joining us. It's a pleasure to welcome you to this IIA webinar. We're delighted to be joined today by Larry Donnelly, lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Galway and director of clinical legal education, who's been generous enough to take time out of his schedule to speak to us. Larry's going to speak for about 20 to 25 minutes or so and then we'll go to Q&A with our audience. So please keep in mind you can join the discussion using Q&A, the Q&A function on Zoom, which you should see on the bottom of your screen. Please feel free to send in your questions as they occur to you over the course of the talk and we'll come to them once Larry has finished his address. I would ask, please, that guests identify yourselves and your affiliation when you're putting a question to our speaker and a reminder that both today's presentation and the Q&A are on the record. Please also feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIA, share your thoughts and reflections there. I'm now very pleased to be able to formally introduce Larry Donnelly in an overview of his remarks before handing over. Larry Donnelly is a Boston born and educated attorney who's lived in Ireland and worked in Ireland since 2001. He's a lecturer and director of clinical legal education in the School of Law at University of Galway. He's a regular media commentator, familiar to many of you, on politics, current affairs and law in Ireland and the United States and a regular political columnist with the journal and on RTE. In his address today, Larry will examine several of the key topics in the upcoming US elections, including the likely nominees and the potential impact of third-party candidates. He will also discuss the issues that will be crucial and the states that will be decisive in November and an early assessment as to what might flow from the outcome. So without any further ado, Larry, thank you so much for being with us and over to you. Thanks very much Katrina for the introduction and thanks to everybody at the IIEA for kindly inviting me to come on and speak to you today. I'm really looking forward to it. Look, I have 25 minutes in which to consider, as I say, the known unknowns of what is going to be an extraordinary year one way or the other in American politics. To that end, I'll try my best to stick to 25 minutes. I could probably go on for a lot longer. But to that end, as you'll see, I slightly amended the title to indicate that I'm going to focus in on the presidential race. Obviously, there's races for the control of Congress. I'm happy to take that on in the Q&A if people want to. And I know there's a lot of knowledgeable people who are watching this and have questions about those races. And also, I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time on President Trump's legal trouble, something that could consume a good long session in and of itself. Although, again, if participants want to raise that in the Q&A, I'm happy to discuss. So with those as caveats, let me kick into it. Where are we today? I suppose the reality is, as people will be aware, the Republicans and Democrats, this is all in the run up to their national conventions. And on the Republican side, there are 2,429 delegates that are available. Those are awarded by individual states. There are 1,215 delegates. That is a candidate needs to amass 1,215 delegates in order to win the nomination. Iowa has just voted, and there are only 40 delegates there. We're looking at New Hampshire, where 22 more delegates are available. So we really are only at the beginning of the process that will end, as you can see, in July at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So let's pause for a minute and spend a couple of minutes, anyway, discussing where we're at today, because I think that's what everyone is probably most interested in at this juncture. Iowa, in terms of its results, I don't think they can be seen as anything other, but an enormous victory for former President Donald Trump. A lot of people have said, look, this is a very small group of people. It's only half of the Republican party in a very small, unrepresentative state. Nonetheless, this was the first real test of strength after many, many months of speculation. And the reality is that Donald Trump came through with flying colors. He won more than half of the vote. He got more votes there than all of his other opponents combined, which is extraordinary. And if I may say that one potentially disturbing figure, in terms of those who were surveyed in the exit polling that was conducted, is that two out of every three caucus goers in Iowa, whether they voted for Donald Trump or someone else, two out of three do not believe in the 2020 election result. That is, they do not believe that Donald Trump actually lost the election in 2020, which I think in terms of some of the talk about American democracy is quite disturbing. Now, in terms of the others, Nicky Haley and Ron DeSantis. I'll take Ron DeSantis first. The reality is Ron DeSantis moved for all intents and purposes to Iowa. He spent more than $100 million there. For all of that, and for all the time and energy he dedicated to that state, he came second by a whisker. He is going to do very badly in New Hampshire. He has pulled his resources from the state of New Hampshire. Where he goes is anyone's guess. I cannot imagine that he is going to stay in this race very much longer. I just see no path to victory. Hence, I do believe he is finished. Nicky Haley much was made of the weather in Iowa. And in my view, the weather, I think, blunted Nicky Haley and probably the weather will play a biggest factor in her demise as anything else in the sense that had she finished second in Iowa, a place where she hadn't really dedicated a huge amount of time or resources to until the very end, she would have been the story of Iowa and she would have emerged very prominently with a lot of momentum going into New Hampshire. That has been blunted, I think. Nonetheless, she is competitive with Donald Trump in New Hampshire. But, again, she's still trailing by a decent margin there. And she really has to, in my view, win New Hampshire in order to, I suppose, maintain a credible threat. Now, what does she have going for in the state of New Hampshire? The reality is in New Hampshire, there is no democratic primary for all intents and purposes. The Democratic National Committee has effectively canceled the contest there. There will be a lot of independence who will gravitate towards the Republican primary and cast ballots there. And they are likely to vote for Nicky Haley. So that is what she has going for in the Granite State. That having been said, Donald Trump is camped out there. He's doing multiple events in the state. It's going to be very difficult for her to win. Even if she does, the race then moves to South Carolina, which is her home state and where she was governor and does have a strong appeal. But even there, Donald Trump maintains a very big lead. And on foot of that, the Republican race will move to the state of Michigan and then on to Super Tuesday early in March. And Donald Trump simply put has commanding leads in the polls across all of those states. It's very, very difficult for me to conceive as of how she is going to be able to overtake him. I think Donald Trump is in poll position to be frank with you at this stage. Of course, things can change, but it's going to be very difficult for Nicky Haley. On the flip side, in terms of Democrats, look, you can see the numbers there of pledge delegates. We haven't even begun, however, in terms of on the Democratic side because Iowa and New Hampshire have been relegated. Both of them have been effectively taken off the Democratic primary and caucus schedule. Now, there's a variety of reasons for that. The first contest that is going to count on the Democratic side is the South Carolina primary, which is taking place on the first of February. Iowa and New Hampshire, look, they have long held a very big role in determining who the party nominees for president are going to be. That having been said, the fact is that they are very heavily white states. They are small in population. They are arguably unrepresentative of the United States. That theme has, in particular, on the Democratic side of things, has been there for some time. Now, and hence, the Democratic National Committee moved to bypass both of them and, again, start the contest in South Carolina. Now, cynics can be forgiven, however, for noting that in 2020, Joe Biden was all but done after Iowa and New Hampshire. He performed abysmally in both states, and his campaign was on the ropes. An awful lot of people thought he was done. Again, for a third time, he had sought the Democratic nomination for president, and he was going to fall short. However, where did he come alive with the help of Congressman James Clyburn and support of the African American community was in South Carolina. He won South Carolina, and the rest is history. So, cynics can be forgiven for wondering why, all of a sudden, in 2024, a president who was vulnerable to a primary challenge and has lots of allies on the Democratic National Committee, all of a sudden, South Carolina is the first contest that's going to count. So, there's a couple of countervailing considerations there. But the reality is, at this stage, Biden doesn't have any real opposition within his party. Now, again, we can talk more about this, but there is worth a note about process there and how, to me, it's still extraordinary that Joe Biden was effectively able to box off the field of potential challenges to him in a context in which, look, there are manifest concerns out there about his capacity, yet the fact that a credible challenger from his party didn't come forward is extraordinary. Again, this will all result in the Democratic National Convention being held in August in Chicago. So, that having been said, I think Biden versus Trump part two is, at this stage, a probability. I think it's borrowing something we can't foresee right now. It is the probable general election that the United States and the rest of the world will face into next November. And I say that because, as I've indicated, I think it's impossible to identify, or very difficult at least, to identify a path to victory at present for Nikki Haley. I think DeSantis has reached the end of the line. And I think, again, it's going to be really hard for Haley. If she loses New Hampshire, in my view, that's the end. She has to win New Hampshire. And even if she does, I still think it's a straight up hill climb. On the Democratic side, we know Marianne Williamson, the self-help guru who's kind of ran last time. She's pulling in the very low single digits. She's not going to do anything. Dean Phillips is a congressman from Minnesota who jumped in at the last minute, way too late in the game, really, and has struggled to make much of a dent. In fact, Joe Biden, because the Democratic National Committee is not counting New Hampshire, Joe Biden's allies have made him a right-hidden candidate in New Hampshire. And it seems to me, based on the polling, that Biden is likely to win New Hampshire, even though it doesn't count, and even though he's not on the ballot as a right-hidden candidate. So I think that's the end. Trump's legal troubles. And it is weird, given the amount of legal trouble that Donald Trump faces, to be relegating him to all of that, to one line in this presentation. But at least politically speaking, all of these legal troubles haven't meant to dam, at least in the context of the Republican primary process. They've only strengthened his standing with voters and in the polls. And the timeframe here is key. A lot of Republicans even say that they'd be uncomfortable voting for somebody who's a convicted felon. Time frame is key. How long can he push these trial dates, which I've always regarded as notional. How long can he delay all of that? And again, this collision course between the legal and political systems is to use the U-word unprecedented. It remains out there. It remains one of the known unknowns. But at least at this stage, I don't see it hampering his chances, at least on the Republican side. In terms of Joe Biden, the reality is the delts about his age and capacity persist. Polling shows continually that the overwhelming majority of Americans have delts about those issues. Also, behind closed doors, Democrats are deeply worried. David Axelrod, Barack Obama's former chief advisor, he's voicing out loud what a lot of Democrats are saying privately. That is, that we potentially, as Democrats, the Democrats have a problem here. All in all, and this is the question that people raise around the world, we seem to be heading for something that will be distinctly uninspiring, a country of 350 million people, diverse and talented in every way. And we're looking at a rematch of two candidates that, again, the opinion polling suggests that most Americans don't want. A lot of the speculation then is focused on running mates. Will Joe Biden dump Kamala Harris for somebody who's more popular? Harris has even lower in the polling than Joe Biden has. My own view is that, and it happens back to something I said a minute ago, my own view that would be that Biden dumping Harris, I don't think it's going to happen. I think, first of all, I think it would be suggestive of a little bit of panic, which he doesn't need. I think also it risks offending voters of color and women in particular. Again, Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to be vice president, I think it would send all the wrong signals. And it would be a risky because Biden is going to be so dependent on turnout, particularly among African Americans. So I don't see that happening on the Republican side. There's lots of speculation as to who Donald Trump will pick. Most people say that it will be a woman. Some people say Nikki Haley could be the one. For me, it's hard to conceive of someone who he calls bird brain, ultimately being his vice presidential nominee and running mate. But look, stranger things have happened. Others in the ether include Christie Noem, the governor of South Dakota, Masha Blackburn, United States Senator from Tennessee, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas. There are others like Harry Lake from Arizona, Matri Taylor Green. Look, he could pick either of the latter two, but I think that that would be a very big mistake. But again, the speculation and conjecture will continue. In terms of the issues, what are they likely to be? There's lots of them, but I've highlighted five here and I'll run through them as quickly as I can. I think immigration is going to be a big, big issue in the election. And by immigration, I mean opposition to immigration. To me, it was stuck that the number one issue for the majority of voters in the Iowa caucus, again, Iowa is up in the north of the United States, very white, very seldom affected by immigration. Yet the majority of caucus goers cited immigration as the number one issue. It is a challenge for the Democrats. The Southern border is whatever perspective you come from. It is a mess. Republicans are convinced that the immigration issue is something that they can play to their advantage. Trump is going to keep beating that drum, whether it's about the wall or other things. And Democrats have yet to devise a good response, a good defense, a good answer as to where they're coming from. So that one would definitely favor Republicans. The economy and inflation. It is remarkable when you look at all the leading economic indicators, which suggests that the American economy is doing well. However, side by side with that, you have the inflation problem and the inflation crisis that afflicts vast swathes of America, but in particular, working class and poor people. Now, that has been a late slightly, but it persists. The cost of goods and services is a lot higher, has gotten a lot higher in recent years. Hence, again, an issue that probably favors Donald Trump and the Republicans. And again, messaging wise, Democrats have struggled on this one, in particular, the President himself. Abortion. Now, abortion was always kind of a tricky one to assess its role. I think right now, post the overturning of Roe versus Wade, it very definitely favors the Democratic Party and favors Joe Biden. And it's certainly something that is going to be stressed. It's certainly something that will be a pull factor for big constituencies in the Democratic Party. There's no doubt about that. Against that, and we've seen signs of this already, watch how Donald Trump pivots on abortion once he is ordained the Republican nominee, when and if that happens. He's already alluded to this before, that in fact, he may have been the President responsible for the overturning of Roe versus Wade via his Supreme Court appointments, but that he did so to remove the issue from the judicial realm and to put it back into the political realm and let the people decide. And that's how he's going to try to portray himself as he's somebody who doesn't really know. And he's already said, I'm not sure what the best idea here is, but I wanted to get it away from the judges and let people decide. I expect him to frame the issue that way in one around the time in the general election. So yes, it is an advantage for Democrats. Yes, in terms of places where, you know, at congressional level, etc., it's a winner for Democrats. We've seen already in red states. It's also a winner for Democrats. But watch how President Trump, former President Trump, pivots on that one. The culture was more broadly. And this is where Republicans and Donald Trump are going to move. They're not going to move. The abortion is not something that's going to be to the fore. Instead, it's going to be issues around gender identity and parental control over public school curriculum, issues on which they believe they have an advantage and Democrats haven't been able to respond adequately. So watch that space. Watch as abortion or Republicans try to move away from abortion and instead to new frontiers of the culture war. Foreign policy, again, which animates, obviously, an awful lot of discussion here, won't be as big an issue in the American presidential election. It's just the nature of the beast. But what I will say is that you will see Trump continue to beat the drum that he is the person who kept America out of conflicts, someone who he will say with no foundation, that these things in Gaza and in the Russia incursion against Ukraine never would have happened if he was there and that he will solve them quickly, etc., etc. He will also point to Afghanistan and the catastrophic nature of the American withdrawal from there. Biden, of course, will cite the danger of Donald Trump and, you know, again, how he's regarded around the world. So it'll be interesting to see how that will play. Politically speaking, wrinkles. I think the biggest story in American politics in recent decades has been the drift of Hispanic or Latino Americans to the Republican Party. Despite all of Donald Trump's nasty rhetoric in 2016 and 2020, the reality is that between one third and 40%, depending on how you measure it, between one third and 40% of Latino Americans voted for Donald Trump and or the Republican Party. The Democrats have spectacularly underestimated or misapprehended how Latino Americans would vote. They thought they would be very similar to how African Americans have traditionally voted and arguably they took them for granted. Messaging-wise, issues-wise, there is still a gap there that I think the Democrats have a lot of work to do. We've also seen some signs in this with Asian Americans as well. African Americans, again, very reliably democratic, you know, generally speaking, between 85% and 90% of African Americans tend to vote for Democrats. There are two issues here, however. One is that the polling data shows that there's a distinct lack of enthusiasm this time around for Joe Biden. So turnout is going to be a huge issue here in terms of getting them out to vote in battleground states. That's going to be the second thing is that there is, in particular, among African American males, there is some growth in support, in particular, not necessarily for the Republican Party, but for Donald Trump, the individual, which is something that Democrats need to address very quickly. Early voting, again, in America, you can vote very early, you can vote by post, you can vote all sorts of different ways. Democrats are way out ahead strategically on that. They've mastered the out of early voting. Republicans still were clinging to, you know, you vote on one day and that's that. And that's hurt them, I think, very badly in the last couple of election cycles. They're working to catch up, will they? I just don't know. Suburban white women. These, you know, it could be the dispositive constituency this time around. You know, again, they were very off put by Donald Trump in 2020. Many of them who had voted for Donald Trump in 2016 went to Joe Biden in 2020. Given all the other factors that are out there in the ether, how many of them will go back to Donald Trump? I don't know. It's an open question, but they are a key demographic. There are two points there about the men themselves. Biden's manifest weakness. I don't think anyone could dispute the fact that he has lost some speed off his fastball to put it bluntly. There are concerns out there about his capacity to campaign and then to govern. That's why I say surrogates on his behalf. He will be dependent upon popular Democrats in various areas around the United States to a degree we have never seen before in an American presidential campaign. That will be interesting to watch. He won't have the benefit, as he did in 2020, of COVID and being able to campaign remotely. So watch that space. On the flip side, Biden and the Democrats have a very, very powerful argument when it comes to Donald Trump and the various things he said and all that we know about the man and what I think quite rightly has been called an existential threat to American democracy. That's where Biden's comment, don't compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative. I think there's a very strong resonance to that comment. I think we can expect to hear that explicitly and implicitly as the campaign unfolds. Much has been made of third party candidates and the potential impact of them. I would say to you, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. obviously is the one we've heard the most about. The reality is, Robert F. Kennedy has a fight on his hands, first of all. Now he's declared as an independent to get on ballots. It's no easy feat. You need to collect a lot of signatures. The rules vary state by state. As of last week, Robert F. Kennedy had qualified for exactly one ballot, one out of 50. Now he's got a lot of work to do to get on those ballots. Where he does, however, he can be a factor because even if he gets two, three percent of the vote, that could be enough in close run states to tip the balance one way or the other. With respect to Kennedy, there had been some consideration that all Kennedy is going to take equally, or it could even take more from Trump than Biden. The polling seems to suggest now that Kennedy will hurt Biden more than he will hurt Trump. That boils down to, in my estimation, two issues. One of which is that Kennedy's very strong pro-choice position will not help him get win over many conservatives. Number two, and even more damning, Kennedy's environmental activism will not help him with conservatives either. Again, I don't mean to discount him, but he could be a factor, but we're talking on the fringes. Again, we're talking with somebody who will probably hurt Biden more than he hurts Trump. Similar to the African American professor, Cornel West, who's running on a left hot left platform as an alternative to Joe Biden, as is Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again, all three of these arguably hurt Joe Biden in the context, and again, could swing it in a close election. On the flip side, this no labels movement, which people have heard about, Joe Manchin, the now retiring Democratic conservative Democratic senator from West Virginia, often touted as somebody who will be on the no labels ticket, this grouping who says that they want to unite America. They are floating the potential of a third party candidate, whether it's Manchin or somebody else. Again, who they take from, they could take from both sides. Then we will have a libertarian candidate, a conservative party candidate who won't make much of a splash, but could in that event probably hurt Donald Trump more than Joe Biden. Look, I don't mean to be dismissive of third party candidates, especially because you have two major party candidates who are so, don't inspire much enthusiasm, I should say, but it is very, very difficult, especially when you get close to election day. A lot of people would say, oh, my heart might be with Kennedy, but I'd rather have Joe Biden as president than Donald Trump, or whatever it might be. People tend to gravitate towards those who they think have a chance of winning the election rather than simply casting a protest vote. States to watch, and I'll go quickly here because I know I'm up against it, but these are the states to watch really in my view. There might be one or two others, but Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Nevada, come November 5th, these are the places we're going to be watching very carefully. Pennsylvania, I think, you know, obviously Joe Biden has very strong roots there. Trump won it in 2016, Biden won it last time around, often described as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between. So again, that'll be fascinating to watch. Georgia traditionally a red state has been affected deeply by transplants from the Northeast of the United States particularly, and we see that that state has moved into toss-up territory. So again, be interesting to watch. Arizona, similar effect, you know, traditionally Republican stronghold, but an awful lot of people have moved there, demographics have shifted, now much more of a battleground. Michigan, just one quick note on Michigan, you know, again, traditionally, at least in recent years, Democrats have wanted Biden, sorry, Trump won in 2016, but what's to watch for there is the key constituency of Arab Americans who Joe Biden potentially has alienated in terms of American policy on Israel in the context of what's going on in Gaza. If they were to stay home and things were to be close, that could give Trump an advantage there. Wisconsin has a couple of liberal cities, but a conservative hotland as well, a place Donald Trump won in 2016. North Carolina used to be a deep red southern state, but also affected by demographic shifts, in particular the movement of people from the Northeast to North Carolina and Nevada, a similar dynamic to Arizona. These are places where the election is going to be won or lost and where we need to watch very carefully. And this is where all the alarm bells went off in late last year, when opinion polls showed Donald Trump actually dead even or ahead in all of these states. And indeed, we've seen recent polling suggesting him to be well ahead in Georgia and also ahead in well ahead in North Carolina and in Arizona. And just to look at the map, what that would mean, let's say Donald Trump did win all of those states. We'd be looking at an electoral college landslide in favor of Donald Trump. Now, I don't think this is a probable outcome, but it's not an impossible outcome in the event that this were to happen. So, look, however you see it, this is why Democrats at this juncture are so concerned about the state of play. Couple last things, I'll finish up as quickly as I can. A lot of what I've been talking about so far is the cut and thrust of American politics. There are institutional issues here as well. And one of the things that is sure to come up, in particular, if the sense is that that Joe Biden is going to lose this election is the electoral college. And a lot of its critics say that it is an anti-democratic, anti-majoritarian relic with sorry roots and like so much else of American democracy well past its sell-by day. I have a very different perspective on that. I'd be interested to hear what people think. But in my view, the electoral college reflects the constitutional balance between the power of state and national government. The United States is a vast country, which again is diverse in every conceivable way. The electoral college in its own way strikes a balance between those issues, strikes a balance between population centers and geography, states and national government, et cetera. And the point I would make is that critics of the electoral college system, they often say this is American democracy is broken. In my view, it is the political system that is broken, not the electoral system. I make a distinction between the two. The political system in my view is broken in the sense that you used to have two tents, two big tents. So if you have a two-party system and a country as big as the US, a crazy design one would say, but if you are going to have a two-party system, those two parties should be big tents. The reality is the two parties have moved to the polls and increasing a hard right and hard left, and they're not welcoming a moderates and people face a binary choice, even though most Americans are somewhere in the middle. So when people say that the electoral college system is broken, I actually don't think so. I think it's a failure of politics. The reality is that both parties should be able to compete in all 50 states. And when they do, I mean, we have examples of just retiring Democratic Governor Louisiana, for instance, or the most popular governor in the United States is the Republican governor of Deep Blue Vermont. So when they are big tents, they can compete everywhere, but when they get pulled to the polls primarily by money, then that to me is a failure of the political system, not the electoral system. And the last point I say that I often make this point to critics here of the electoral college system who question why somebody who gets the most votes isn't the president. Look, the American democracy was never meant to operate at a raw majoritarian level. And I would say I don't think many people in Ireland would like it if the European Union operated at such a raw majoritarian level. And I suppose the counter to that is America is a country, but the reality is in terms of America, it is a place that is vast and comprised of many different states, many different cultures, etc. It is much more analogous to the European Union at many levels than it is to any individual member state of the European Union. So what are we going to face into, and no, I'm not going to make a prediction, but what are we going to face into on Wednesday, the 6th of November 2024 at this time? Will the world be breathing a collective sigh of relief, or will there need to be a call to action? And I think that that is a very, very real question in the event that we do have a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. In my own estimation, will we see a continuation of the imperfect status quo, which you might call, and I think the question would be, and I think it's a legitimate question, will Biden serve out his full four years in the White House? I think that would be a question that would be immediately upon lots of observers. Or will we have a return of Trump? And I think what that means is that he would seek retribution against his opponents, that we would have an awful lot of people in positions of significant responsibility who do not belong there. I think we would see the organs of American democracy tested to their limits. And I think we would see very much a drastic withdrawal of the United States from the rest of the world. And, you know, again, I don't think that that's just a factor of Trump. I think it's a factor of mainstream American thinking and where the American people are. For me personally, and I'll close at this and sorry for going on too long. In the event that that happens, I retain this sort of abiding faith in the institutions and the authority in the United States. But I'm also aware of what Donald Trump is capable of and the malaise that exists in the United States. So with apologies for ending on a negative note and running on too long. I hope you enjoyed that.