 Good evening, I'm Harold Pacius. We're on the air with another edition of Pacius on the News. We're delighted tonight to have a very prominent Maine Republican on the show with us, Kevin Ray from Eastport, Maine, well-known political figure in Maine. He was for a long time chief of staff for Senator Olympia Snow. He was in the Maine Senate for many years, president of the Maine Senate, the Republican leader of the Maine Senate during the first two years of the Paul LePage administration. He's, as I say, a native of Eastport, lives there, lives in the town of Perry near Eastport now, graduate of Bates College and runs a business called Ray's Mustard. I call it Ray's Famous Mustard because it is. Kevin, thank you very much for joining us tonight. My pleasure to be with you. Thanks for having me, Harold. Let me ask you a question about Ray's Mustard. I actually had been to the Mustard Mill. Years ago, I was up there with a fellow that ran the Maine Times and we spent the night with a fellow named Harry Richardson. Did you know who Harry Richardson was? Oh, I sure did, very well, yes. And we stayed at his camp, but we went over and visited Ray's Mustard Mill and I'll never forget that. Now, you're the CEO of Ray's Mustard now, correct? Yeah, my wife Karen and I bought the mill from my cousin back in 2005. It's been in my family. We're the fourth generation of Ray's to own and operate the mill. It's been making Mustard in Eastport since 1900 and in this particular facility since 1903. Wow, that's great. How to hold on to a family business. I like that story. Yeah, it's great. It's a great story. We're very proud of it. We've got a great crew. My wife is at the business day-to-day as I'm selling real estate as well, but we have a wonderful crew and we're very proud of them and the product we put out. This isn't the main topic of this show, but it might be interesting for our listeners to hear you talk a little bit about real estate. You know, you're a well-known real estate person in Washington County and things have changed because of the pandemic and real estate and demand for real estate and who's living in the county. Is that correct? Yeah, vastly. We've seen really this year, 2020, as a result of the pandemic, we've seen a huge upswing in terms of real estate sales with people coming to Washington County, some to live full-time, some to have second homes, and they're coming from everywhere. They're coming from Southern Maine, they're coming from other New England states, and they're coming from other states. We're seeing new residents from California and Colorado and Oregon and Florida and Texas and just really everywhere. And I think it's something we're seeing repeated throughout rural parts of Maine as people are looking for, I think a place where they feel safe and a slower pace of life. We're also seeing as a result of people being able to work remotely in the face of the aftermath of the pandemic and upswing in terms of younger families who are moving to rural Maine, which is a very welcome development. And does that mean that in some towns in Washington County, the school populations is actually growing? Yeah, I've sold a number of properties to young families where one or both spouses are working remotely and some of those folks have kids. So I think it will and is resulting in an uptick in terms of the school-age population, which is very, very welcome in rural Maine. So one of the things that I want to talk about is the two parties, Republican and Democratic Party and the movements within these parties and how they're realigning. And I think it is true there is a realignment of the parties. And let's start with Washington County, where you are and where you have a good deal of expertise and I ought to mention to our audience that not only were you state senator and president of the Maine State Senate, but you have been a candidate two or three times for Congress. And so you're very familiar with the demographics and the dynamics, political dynamics of the second district. Now, I remember I was the Democratic State Chairman 50 years ago and I remember a time when the St. John Valley was solid Democrat that places like Millinocket, East Millinocket were Democratic towns and the Democrats did pretty well in the second district. That's all changed. They can't come close now. Why is that? Well, I think that it's certainly some of the towns that you mentioned, we've seen a sea change because of the changes in the paper industry. I think the, obviously the labor unions were a very powerful force when the paper companies dominated the economy across the second district. And particularly the mill towns, the votes from the mill towns would come in and Republicans would be hoping that they might get 25 or 30% in those towns to be able to try to cobble together a win district wide. But with the demise of so many of paper mills that has vastly changed. And I think you see now really some of the driving dynamics in the second district are the dynamics you see at play across rural districts all over the country. And in many respects, the parties have become sort of has been an urban-rural split with many rural areas becoming more Republican, many urban areas and suburban areas becoming more Democratic. And certainly a second district is a rural district so it would be reflective of that. I think the second amendment is a big driver, a huge issue in the second district that cuts the Republicans way generally. You see Jared Golden as the congressman in second district who has a profile as being pro-second amendment. I think that's not a coincidence that he's been able to put together a majority taking that attack. I think also within the Republican party you've seen the role of evangelical churches and social conservatism has become much more prevalent and you see that play in Republican primaries. That's you see it in Republican primaries and that leads me to another observation. You're a very brave man because you run in Republican congressional primaries in the second district as a pro-life, I mean, as a pro-choice politician. That's a very gutsy thing to do. Did you get a lot of pushback from Republicans about your position on abortion? Well, I think the position that I always took is certainly not pro-abortion but it's pro-choice, which, because I've always believed that too much government interference in one's personal life is not a good thing. And I've always thought of that as a very basic Republican principle. Barry Goldwater was a pro-gun and pro-choice and that's where I always found myself. Not that I'm in favor of abortion but that I'm very uncomfortable with government being intrusive enough and large enough to insert itself into that profoundly personal matter of health and faith, which made me uncomfortable. Now, when I was in the main Senate, the Republican caucus was roughly 50-50 in terms of pro-life Republicans and pro-choice Republicans. I think I haven't looked lately but I suspect it's much more pro-life now than it was when I was there. But it certainly was not out of the mainstream in my time in politics. Certainly Bill Cohen, Olympia Snow, Joachim McKernan, Susan Collins, all successful Republican figures in Maine have had that same profile. And that's a lot of libertarians pro-choice too. They don't want the government telling people what they're doing in their private lives. So that's a very good explanation but I'll bet that explanation isn't good enough for a lot of the evangelicals in the second district because this is a very important issue for them and how you come down on that issue is what counts. You're right. Certainly, you certainly saw that, I ran for Congress three times over the course of, I guess, 12 or 14 years. And twice won Republican primaries as a pro-choice program Republican. And in the last time lost a primary to Bruce Polligan, on which he focused primarily on those social hot button issues. So I think you saw over time the party shifting to the right as the base became more conservative. And that's certainly something that was reflected with the Trump era. So explain to me why in Washington County, Eastport, for instance, went for Biden very strongly, in fact, and hardly any other place in Washington County did. I mean, I looked at Cherryfield, down route one from Eastport and Cherryfield, two thirds of the voters voted for Trump, which is not surprising because in the county, Trump got nearly 60% of the vote. So what's the difference in the demographics between Cherryfield and Eastport? Well, Eastport has always been more democratic in terms of, if you look at the county, when a Democrat can win or get elected, Eastport and Lubeck are almost always part of the equation because they are more democratic. Also, the Passamaquoddy tribal reservations are heavily democratic. So, we do have, I think currently, our legislative delegation from Washington County has at least two Democrats in it. When I was there, Washington County has been over the years back and forth between the two parties actually. When I first ran for the legislature in 2004, ran for the Senate, Washington County had a Republican senator in five Democratic House members. And then we worked on that. And by the time I left office, we had an all Republican delegation, all House members plus the Senate seat. It's now kind of gone back and I think there are, I know there are at least two members of the delegation from Washington County who are Democratic. So there are differences from town to town and community to community. The people are all, I'm trying to, the differences in who the voters are for, for instance, I think the fishermen this time around, we're all for Trump, at least I got that impression. But they're all doing basically the same jobs. I mean, it isn't like the difference between Falmouth and Eastport. And so they basically have the same jobs, they're basically in the same socioeconomic range. And some say, okay, I want Trump to be president and these people in Eastport and Lubeck say, oh no, is it just habit? Well, I think there are several things at play. So Eastport's an interesting eclectic mix of people. We have, you know, we're a traditional fishing village. We have a large number of people who make their living on the water. And we also have a fairly large population of people who have bought homes and moved in, who are retirees or near retirement. And we have a large arts community in Eastport. So I think this has been generally the case over the years that Eastport has been among the more democratic leaning towns or Eastport is actually a city, main smaller city, but one of the more democratic leaning communities. And the same is true of Lubeck. And it had been true in the past of Baileyville where the Woodland Mill is located, but much like other towns, including East Melanocket and Lincoln and other mill towns, the influence of the labor unions has diminished there. And Baileyville now often is in the Republican column. So you also were obviously a big supporter of Susan Collins, is that right? Yeah, absolutely. And so did you get involved in this past campaign? Yes, I was one of her county co-chairs for Washington County. I appeared in, I guess, two or three of her television ads. And I penned op-eds on Senator Collins. And I felt from the outset that she was being unfairly maligned and that her long proven record of centrism and bipartisan leadership was being really ignored at a time when I felt it's really more important than ever because there are so few voices left in Washington who are willing to engage in constructive, respectful, civil, bipartisan work. And frankly, that's where all the issues get resolved. And I felt very, very strongly that we needed to keep her at work and keep her constructive presence in Washington. And I was very worried about how she would fare because I could see what was happening statewide in terms of the Biden-Trump campaign. But I was in the unique position that I was a Republican who publicly endorsed Joe Biden because of my discomfort with President Trump and how he has conducted himself in office. But I was strongly in Susan's camp. So on election day, I was probably one of those rare prognosticators who was very happy because they both won. I don't think it was so rare actually, Kevin, because Susan Collins won Hanley and Joe Biden won Hanley. I guess you could deduce that, yes, they both succeeded because they had Kevin Ray in their camp. I don't think that was it. One of the dynamics in that Collins campaign was there have always been a lot of Democrats who voted for Susan Collins. They're also worried many Democrats thought Trump was gonna win. I mean, they just think, how does he do it? He does it, there's a movement in America and he's gonna win. And the idea of Mitch McConnell and Trump together running the show, I think was an issue. In the end, it wasn't an issue for Susan Collins. I mean, she still got a lot of Democratic votes, had to. She did well in the first district. Yes. So it's an interesting course of events during the fall and she had people who were so strong, people were upset about the Supreme Court appointment and so forth and they were so upset mad at her that I thought she could win. And the polls, which we know are wrong, showed her with a very high unfavorability. She used to have the lowest unfavorability, or put it another way, the highest favorability rating of any United States senator. And then it reversed, it reversed and so on. How is she gonna overcome that? But she did, I think Bill Green's ads did a lot too. I agree, I agree. I think in the end, I was watching the, in that race, I was watching the undecideds. And my observation had been in those final weeks, given the unprecedented level of attacks against Susan, literally, my wife counted a couple of different times we were watching the evening news, during one commercial break, there were five ads, just in one commercial break, five ads attacking Susan, from all different, all different. Just a second, during that same break, were there any ads attacking Gideon? No, no, and this particular, twice watching the news in the, I don't know, final few weeks, Karen said, when the ads start, I'm gonna see, I'm gonna count. One night, when she did, there were five ads attacking Susan. There were no ads in favor of Susan in that particular segment. But it was unprecedented, granted, lots of ads on both sides, but the attack ads against Susan just seemed to be outnumber anything, and I think they did. And I kept watching the undecideds, because my observation was, okay, we've been watching attack ads against Susan for a year. If voters, if there are voters who remain undecided, it means they are having trouble buying the attacks against Susan. They are troubled by it, they are confused by it, but they haven't bought it. And when we got to the end, and I said to Karen, I said, I believe the undecideds are gonna break for Susan, because I think they've been pummeled with this message for a year, and they haven't bought it yet, it means they're not gonna buy it. And I think that is what happened. I think the polling show that the undecideds did break for Susan at the end, because they decided that they really didn't believe these attacks against her, they thought they knew her, they felt they knew her from watching her all these years. And the other thing that really I think helped save her is something that helped save Olympia Snow in 1990, when she had a really close call, and Olympia said it to me many times over the years, the fact that her office, her staff has been there, same with Susan, has helped so many people over the years. The casework that Susan Collins's office does has just touched thousands and thousands of lives across the state. And I think that that made a difference for her too. I would agree with you, and I would add one other thing. But both sides, look, this was a national campaign for the Senate seat made. And both sides used negative advertising. Both sides used negative advertising. But the difference is that negative advertising is supposed to be, the purpose of negative advertising is to define your opponent, to define them, to draw a picture of your opponent. So the National Democratic Party came into Maine and all this negative ad to define Susan Collins, who knew no defined, people knew her, you mentioned it. People know Senator Collins. So the negative advertising wasn't very effective. On the other hand, people knew nothing about Gideon. So any negative advertising about her, people said, well, I didn't know that. So there is a difference. And I think the National Democratic Party did a terrible, terrible job in that campaign. On the other hand, as a Democrat, I will observe that I thought Trump was gonna win. And that's, that did worry me because I don't like this circling the wagons around Trump and essentially giving him the signal, do whatever you wanna do. Do whatever you wanna do. You're not gonna have a problem with us. So, but now with a Democratic president, I think Susan Collins can be perhaps the most influential United States Senator in Washington. And the fact- Particularly given the fact that the, particularly given the fact that the Senate's gonna be so closely divided, whichever way it falls after the Georgia elections, Susan's gonna be pivotal. No question about it. And she and Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski and maybe Mitt Romney from really decide what direction this country is gonna go. So I'm very happy that Susan Collins is part of that group. And she's also gonna be powerful because she may be chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Isn't that true? Yeah, I think before this term is over, she won't be in the upcoming Senate, but I believe that by the next Senate, she is in line to chair the Appropriations Committee and that her position on that committee has already been enormously important to Maine. But clearly if she chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, that puts her in just a whole new position of influence and power nationally. And that can only accrue to the benefit of Maine. So you made reference a few minutes ago to an op-ed piece that you wrote. You and another Republican former Republican Senator Roger Cates of Augusta wrote a joint piece endorsing Biden. And what you said leads me to ask some questions about demographics and about voters. So we talked a bit about Trump's popularity in the second district. And you and your fellow Republican Roger Cates said, Trump lacks honesty. You think that all those that 60% of the people in Washington County who voted for Trump think he's honest? Well, it's interesting. I have, won't surprise you that I have many close friends. I have many family members who voted for Donald Trump. And what I hear many of them say is an acknowledgement of his flaws, of his personal flaws, almost to a person they don't like his tweets. They find some of the things that he says, things that they sort of roll their eyes at and there he goes again. But they like his policies. And they believe that I think because he is so blunt and abrasive, I think for many people they interpret that as being honest and straightforward. I find it blunt and abrasive, but I certainly don't find it honest and straightforward because I've seen too many times that the president will make a statement and he no sooner comes out of his mouth when somebody astonished says, well, you just said and repeat what he says and he'll say, I didn't say that. It's just, it's astonishing to me. I mean, to me his lack of honesty is evident and is proven virtually every time he speaks. But many people who have been so cynical about politics and politicians, they say, well, you know what, they're all dishonest. But at least he's blunt about it. There are a lot of excuses made as to why it's okay that he acts the way he does and says the things he does. One of the things that's repeated most often to me is, well, he's not a politician. As if it's somehow a matter of pride that someone can be rude and abrasive and dishonest as long as they're not a politician. And, you know, I think there's also an element that I see and hear in people's explanations. They like the idea that Donald Trump, you know, sticks it to the man, but I often try to remind them he is the man. So I don't really understand how that can be attractive to people, but I respect the fact that it is. And I just, I know so many people who I care about, who I like and respect, who do like him. That I can't... Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. Just say, like him. And there's something else that I'm not sure what you've told us is that they like him. True, yeah, true. I guess you could say that. Likeable character. Yeah, yeah. I think often people will acknowledge that he's not entirely likable on a personal level, but they like his presidency. They like his policy positions. They like his brashness sometimes. It's a hard thing for me to explain honestly, because I don't thoroughly understand it, because I just find him so objectionable in terms of how he treats people. He sort of is the opposite of everything I believe about how politics should work. And what I practiced when I was in political office, I always believed that my democratic counterparts who were elected to come to Augusta to work with me had just as much love for the state of Maine and love for its people as I did. They just had a different way of approaching it and different views. And I always found that we could work respectfully. We could find areas of common ground. We'd find some areas where we agreed to disagree. But even when that was the case, we could do it without being disagreeable. And to me, Donald Trump has epitomized the opposite of that. He casts everything in terms of a battle and he refers to people who disagree with him as being enemies of the people. And I just find all of that dangerous and appalling and unnecessarily divisive and playing in exactly into the hands of Vladimir Putin and other adversaries of this country who want America weakened by division. It's interesting, I run into people all the time who say, I find him to be an objectionable person, human being, the way he acts, his lack of integrity, empathy, all of that, but I like what he does. And so we hear that constantly and I hear it all the time from people who supported Trump. And it reminds me of a dinner party I went to two years ago of some fairly well-known out-of-state Republicans, one has a homie here in Cape Elizabeth and a Fox News, very prominent Fox News reporter was there, was just eight of us or 10 of us at dinner at this guy's house. And they said, this was two years ago. Well, I don't like that, I find him to be an objectionable personality, but I like what he's doing. And they all said the same thing, every one of them. There I was, I didn't want to get in an argument with anybody, so I kind of stayed out of it. But then I ended it and I said, what you mean is he delivers, you like what he delivers? Every one of them said yes. And I said, well, so did Hitler. I mean, he delivered. Look, Hitler's popularity was enormous, not in the beginning when he became chancellor, but five years later, when they'd taken the Sudetenland, we're getting ready to invade Poland, greater Germany, making Germany great again, made Adolf Hitler a very popular man. But nobody could say, oh, I love the guy, he's a lovable fellow, or I, you know, but they liked him. So it's true. And the other thing I'll ask you about this, they like what he's done. Now, many places in rural Maine, lowering taxes is not a big thing for the people. I mean, to lower the taxes of somebody who's lost their job at a mill, doesn't have a mill to go to, who lived pretty well before, but doesn't. What does lowering taxes and capital gains do for them? Nothing. One of the things that I've often heard about Trump, he talked a lot about bringing jobs back to America. That was one of his mantras, that he was gonna bring back manufacturing and restore the American dream. And so those are the kinds of things that I think have played to people in the second district where we had such a negative impact from NAFTA. But one of the things I wanted to point out, listening to what you were just talking about is what I think the 2020 election showed is that in the same way that you said so many people like what Trump delivered, look what happened. The Republican Party, which is really reflective of some of those issues, fared very well in 2020. The Republican Party gained seats in the US Congress, kept losses which had been predicted to be huge, kept losses I think to one seat so far in the US Senate. But at the same time that Republicans were doing quite well, Donald Trump was rejected with a significant margin nationally. And I think that that is reflective of the fact that the nation has become more conservative, more leaning Republican, but there were enough people who otherwise voted Republican, who found Donald Trump's leadership to be repugnant and rejected him. And there's one of the reasons that he's crying foul running around the country saying the election had to have been rigged because how could it be that Republicans were successful, Republicans were winning here, there and everywhere, yet I lost? Well, I would submit it was a very personal rejection of Donald Trump that resulted in not Republican losses, but Donald Trump's loss. And I think that there are a lot of people like me, I'm in a lifelong Republican. I was a Republican when I was less than 10 years old on the playground, running around. I can remember wearing a Jim Irwin button when I was an elementary school student. And I dragged my friends on their 18th birthday. Any number of my high school friends can tell you I dragged them to city hall to register to vote and become Republicans. I have each slept and breathed Republican politics my entire life, but I could not countenance Donald Trump and what I felt he was doing to the soul of the country and the divisiveness and the bitterness, which I find so dangerous for the future of the union. And I truly mean that. And I think that there were enough people like me across the country who did not reject Republican policies or the Republican stands on many issues, but who just could not support Donald Trump given the type of leadership he's shown, particularly in the pandemic. The way he has been dismissive and to sleep at the switch with regard to the pandemic, causing America to suffer worse than virtually any other country on the planet was a complete abdication of leadership. And I think that also had a lot to do with why he was rejected. I listened to a guy on Zoom who I've met before who was a very prominent national political analyst and poster and so forth. And he said after the election, now he was listening to him and he said that he was on a Zoom call with the four or five others, including a Republican congressman from Louisiana who's a friend of his. And he said the Republican congressman put it the best as to what happened in rejection of Donald Trump, not of the Republican party. And he said that there are two takeaways from these election results. One is don't be a jerk. And the other is don't be a socialist. Those are the two takeaways. Exactly, exactly. And I do think that, you know, I do think that some of the harsh left-wing rhetoric from the left of the Democratic party was like an albatross around the necks of many candidates. I think the term socialism, I think one of the things that just was an absolute disaster for Democrats this year was defund the police. What anybody was thinking, even in the far left of the Democratic party to coin such a phrase, that was a gift, that was a gift to Republicans because it was so completely tone deaf in terms of allowing the fears of many people across the country to be realized. It was, that was just not, socialism, socialism and defunding the police were the two probably biggest albatrosses around the necks of Democrats. As a former Democratic state chairman, I wanna tell you, I agree with you, not 99%, 100%, you are right on. I was talking to my friend, George Mitchell three or four days ago, and he said, Harold, you remember in the days when if somebody accused a Democrat of being a socialist, they deny it. They said, no, no, no, no, please, I'm not a socialist. Now he says, we got Democratic politicians who brag about it and say, yes, I'm a socialist. He says, look at Bernie, he's not even a Democrat. He says, he's a socialist, he's not a Democrat. He has a huge following. So you're absolutely right. That made a big difference in the, in the selection, I think. It did. And one of the other things I'll say is that I observing the Democratic presidential primary process, it looked to me like it was a fight between, you know, Bernie, who wanted to literally remake the Democratic Party into a socialist party versus Biden, who reflected to me a more traditional, much more centrist version of the Democratic Party. And I think it was, I told people, my Democratic friends, I said, if Biden wins the primary and becomes a Democratic nominee, I will support him. Many of them were incredulous that you won't. I said, yes, I will. But literally, I mean, if it had been Bernie, I couldn't have done that. I just, I would have had to have just, you know, walked away and see what happened because I couldn't have been involved in supporting Bernie. But Joe Biden is no socialist. Joe Biden, there's nothing to be afraid of with Joe Biden. He has shown himself, and I know from my experience as Olympia's chief of staff in Washington, Joe Biden is a middle-of-the-road reasonable person who can work well with Republicans and I think help heal the divisions that have been so inflamed by Donald Trump over the years. Donald Trump did not invent the divisions that are so prevalent in America, but he played to them and he encouraged them, he found them to be helpful to his political whims. And that's not Joe Biden. Joe Biden, while I will not agree with him on every policy, I'm certain of it, I know that he does not view Republicans as the enemy of the people. We need to move past this whole enemy of the people thing because we're all Americans, we have different points of view but I grew up in a house with a Democratic father who was the Democratic town chairman when I was a little boy and a Republican mother. So I knew the Democrats and Republicans can coexist peacefully and I've always believed it and I hope we get back to it. Kevin, that reminds me of a story. I had the great honor to work in the White House and I accompanied, well, I actually went to, in July 65, to the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri to meet with President Truman in retirement there the day before my boss, Lyndon Johnson, was coming to Independence to sign the Medicare Act at the Truman Library. And so when I was, I got there in the afternoon, the day before and Truman's secretary said to me, well, the president has gone home to take a nap but when he comes back at four o'clock, he'd like to meet you. So I showed up at four o'clock and it was just the two of us for about an hour where Harry Truman and me and Harry Truman was his office window faced into a courtyard and he had his chair turned a lot of the time just gazing into the courtyard and chatting with me. And toward the end of our meeting, I said, Mr. President, he was gazing out the window so his side was to me. I was sitting on the side of his desk, chair on the side of his desk and he's gazing out the window and I said, Mr. President, my mother is a lifelong Republican and she believes you're the greatest president of her lifetime. And with that, he slowly turned his chair to face me on the side. And he said, your mother said that? And I said, yes, sir. And she'd like to have an autographed picture from you. He said, young man, let me tell you something. Mothers are always right. That's a great story. What a great opportunity to meet Henry Truman. That's great. Oh yeah, it was Republican. Incidentally, I'll just add, that was for the signing of the Medicare Act which was signed in his presence because he first proposed it in 1947. It was defeated. Now, of course, and everybody said, it's socialism's this and that, but most people like it. I'm on it. I like it. But anyway, let me turn running out of time. Let me turn to the Republican Party. The Democratic Party is gonna have this battle between middle of the rotors like me, moderates like me, and the left, the cutting edge left. And I believe in certain things. I believe in, maybe this is the leftist view, but I believe that everybody who will do the work can do the work in college, should get a college education. Everyone, and financial obstacles should not be the difference. I believe that everybody who needs a way to pay for healthcare should have a way to pay for healthcare. I don't regard those as radical positions but I understand some people say, well, that's what the left wing Democrats say. However, I am a middle of the rotor and I am a moderate. And I think the Democrats are in for a big battle. Having said that, I'm gonna ask you about this. I think the Republicans have their own battle because I think, and I'll give Donald Trump credit for this. He's done something remarkable. He has taken over himself, the Republican Party. He's absolutely taken it over. He has, it's a movement and he has these fervent, fervent followers devoted followers. And I use the word follower advisedly. They are followers, it's a movement. And I don't know what the Republicans are gonna do about this. If you wanna run for president, if you're a Republican and you wanna run for president next time, he's your opponent. He's gonna make sure you don't get very far. So what do you think about that? What's gonna happen to the Republicans? How are they going to avoid being the Trumpist Party and become again the Republican Party? Well, I think it's gonna take a period of recovery. I think that clearly right now, the Republican Party is the Trumpist Party. And I think that's been something that's made a great deal of us very uncomfortable because that is not the Republican Party that I have believed in and worked for over the years. I think in the long run, the party who is best able to appeal to the middle will win. In the presidential race, Joe Biden was better able to appeal to the middle. And he won and he won a significant victory. I believe it's now over a 7 million vote margin. In the congressional races, the down ballot races, I believe in many respects, the Republican Party was better able to appeal to the moderates, to the middle because of the socialism, because of the defund the police. Those kinds of things just absolutely made it very difficult for a lot of Democrats to cut through to reach the moderate voters in the middle. So you saw the moderates split their tickets. You saw here in Maine, for example, you saw Biden winning convincingly while Susan Collins won convincingly because they were able to reach the middle. And in the long run, that's who's going to win. And so I think both parties need to be mindful of where they stand in terms of that ability to connect with the vast majority of people who are in the middle. And people in the middle can accept center left and they can accept center right, but they cannot accept the extremes of either one. Well said. I couldn't agree, I keep saying this to you, I couldn't agree more, you're absolutely right, but I don't know how the center is gonna hold in both these parties because we had a Republican primary in presidential primaries in 2016 and there was the most radical guy, the guy that was, that shocked everybody, who won easily. And the same thing was happening in the Democratic party, I mean, with Bernie, the same thing that it was the extreme part of these parties, both sides, that have the leverage in primaries. I always say, and I'll get a lot of mail or maybe on this, that in the old days, the party leaders would get together in a smoke filled room and say, who can win? Who can appeal to the middle? Who's our best candidate? But that doesn't happen anymore. So I don't know what's gonna happen. There's a very conservative, well-known professor at Princeton University, Maya Almamada, who I listen to, I watch, I read his stuff. His name is Robert George, Bobby George. And he's one of the best known conservative thinkers in America. And Robert George says, there is a realignment. It may not be a permanent realignment, but as the result of Trump. And he said, it's the professional class, which is suburbanites, the professional class who are kind of gravitated toward Biden and the blue collar people who were the original Roosevelt Democrats, who elected Roosevelt and Harry Truman in 48 and Kennedy, those blue collar people have joined in the same party with, he says, the corporate class and there's an alliance. One is cultural. The working class people who are Republicans are Republicans for cultural reasons, not economic reasons. And the traditional corporate class Republicans, they're interested in economics. And he says, that's the realignment. Now, I don't know if it is or not, but it's a thought. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, I think it may be true. I think, I was thinking about the Roosevelt Democrats and many of them in the 80s became Reagan Democrats. Yes, they did. And I think that the difference between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, there are many, frankly, Ronald Reagan could not win a Republican primary today because of his views on immigrants, for example. But Ronald Reagan was a true, believe it or true conservative, but Ronald Reagan was all about optimism and lifting up the country. And Donald, and so Ronald Reagan was able to win a second term winning 49 states. And Donald Trump could not replicate that and was defeated because Donald Trump was never about optimism and lifting up the country. He was about division, about personal grievance, about a victim mentality that did not generate the same broad and lasting appeal that Ronald Reagan did. So I think Reagan showed that the country is willing to accept a conservative leader who makes them feel good, who understands psychology and the importance of projecting optimism and feeling good about the country and the future of the country, as opposed to a president who has, and even since the election, it's all about his own personal grievances. And there's a vast difference there. So I don't know about the staying power of the realignment that's underway in terms of whether or not the, the people who've been brought into the fold by Donald Trump, which has never been a majority. It's always been, I mean, he's, you know, generally in the approval ratings and the, you know, does well to break into the low to mid 40s. I don't know about the staying power of that. And particularly once Trump is gone, we don't know when Trump will be gone because he's gonna continue to be an influence in the party that he has remade. But I just don't know that it has staying power over the long term because I don't know that you can just build a lasting party with a future based on anger and division. You have, you invoked Ronald Reagan, who whether you were forum or against him, whether I didn't vote for him, but I acknowledge Ronald Reagan was a great president. He was a great president, one of the greatest presidents we've had because he believed in certain things. They were beliefs, they were core beliefs he is. And he articulated them. And he was a great communicator and he liked the American people. And he did what another great Republican president told us to do, to make an appeal to our better angels, said Lincoln in his second inaugural address. Appeal to our better angels. And Donald Trump was just the opposite. Absolute polar opposite. He said, it's a dump and I'm gonna save you from this dump that's in America. And people with grievances loved it and they still love it and they still believe what he says. Even when you pointed out he says things one minute and two minutes later says something opposite and said I didn't say it the first time. The difference is in America today, everybody has a video camera. And so we got him recorded. We can watch him saying these things and then watch him five minutes later saying I didn't say it. Anyway. The other thing that Abraham Lincoln said in addition to the better angels is he talked about binding up America's wounds. Yes. And I think the big difference is that Donald Trump opened America's wounds. I think he saw it to his personal political benefit to exacerbate and remind people of the wounds and to keep them bleeding. And that is I think in the final analysis, why he does not have the lasting appeal of obviously an Abraham Lincoln or a Ronald Reagan. Kevin Ray, you are a very thoughtful guest and you made a great contribution to our show by coming on and I'm grateful to you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Take care. ["Pomp and Circumstance"]