What To Watch For On RI Primary Day

Rhode Island Primary Day Preview: McKee vs. Foulkes, Providence Mayor, and the Races to Watch

Bill Bartholomew previews Rhode Island’s Democratic primary with a focus on the long-running Helena Foulkes versus Governor Dan McKee race, the tight Providence mayoral contest, and the down-ballot primaries that could shape the night. He argues that turnout, low-information voters, and shrinking political engagement may matter more than the polling consensus suggests.The episode is a mix of election analysis, candidate-by-candidate observations, and a broader reflection on why this primary feels quieter than past cycles. Bill also outlines what to watch on election night and how the results could unfold, including the possibility of recounts.

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Bill Bartholomew 0:00

All right, can you believe it? We're finally here. Primary day in Rhode Island is tomorrow, Wednesday, September 9th. Welcome into Bartholomew Town. It's Bill Bartholomew. We've been talking about this for years. We've been talking about this election for years. I mean, even go back to 2022 in yes, a different race, a really a three-way race with Nellie Gorbea, the Secretary of State, in the mix, but Helena Badano, folks, has been challenging Governor Dan McKee on the Democratic side, and obviously ostensibly for the governorship now for what, five, six years? And this has been one of those stories that has seen a dramatic shift in so many different phases. And I want to give you a couple of things to watch for as we head in, not only in the governor's race, of course, Providence Mayor, some other stuff as well. But if nothing else, this is going to be a moment where, on a statewide basis, in this folks McKee saga, the story's going to come to an end in one way, shape, or form, to and probably we'll know by tomorrow night, right? But it's not over. And I think that's something that I want to start with here. I talked about this on the radio last week. Look, the sentiment in the governor's race has been from the start, right? Really from the start of campaign season. Helena Folk is going to win this thing, right? And we've seen over time the apparatus of the Democratic Party itself, not just in the lack of a governor's endorsement, but just operationally. You know, I get emails, members of the media, all kinds of people. I don't know. You could get this email as well, but the emails come out from the state Democratic Party sent by the chairwoman. And, you know, oftentimes I'd scan those. I think it's like a weekly email. And I just note, boy, McKee is buried in these emails if he's mentioned at all, right? This is I'm going back like a year and a half ago, two years ago. I just start to notice this. You know, oh, here's what Jack Reed did, here's what, you know, Terry Cortran did, here's what uh whatever it is. And then somewhere maybe a McKee mentioned, I just start to notice that the party was certainly not in line aesthetically or practically with what McKee and his operation were trying to do. It just, it just wasn't, there were two different messages, kind of, right? So that was the first thing. And we've seen it. We've seen the the uh town committees and the city committees, and we've seen the state party, obviously I just mentioned that, and the endorsements from, and obviously the Narona McKee battle. It's out there, right? So the ground has been set, but also this sentiment has been fueled by a couple of things, right? Polling has shown that Helena Bonano Folks has a dramatic lead. You know, you want to split it even down to the margin of error. 15, 10, she's got a dramatic lead at all points in this campaign. I mean, there was there was that University of New Hampshire poll, which I think is a major outlier, but that showed she had like, what, a 40-something point lead in the primary. So that is true. The pollable data does show that Helena Bonano Fox is dominant amongst likely Democratic primary voters in those polls, okay? And then with that in mind, the the sentiment in terms of just the political culture and the media has been that Dan McKee is on the way out, Helena Bonano Fox is on the way in. And look, I said it on the radio last week. Ted Nisi is, I love Ted Nesey, I think he's amazing. I think he's he's a national level reporter working in at a television station in East Providence, Rhode Island, and covering your community. Like he's gold in a rare gem. So this is not a criticism of Ted Nissy. I want to make that very clear. But the fact of the matter is they did this at kind of roundtable after the first WPRI Emerson poll. Tim White, Joel Fleming, the uh Polster Fleming Associates, and Ted, I think Eli Sherman was in there. I don't know if he was or not. But Ted made a comment, which was looking at the polling data that, quote, if Helena Bonano folks loses this primary, it will be political malpractice on the part of her campaign. So he that was out there in May that the read, not just on like a wonk basis, but on a broadcast basis. The analysis was that there's no way that she can lose this thing. Echoed in other media as well, right? So that's just the reality. So there is this flavor of inevitability. There is this flavor of there's really no scenario where McKee could build a coalition to win this thing. But I'm telling you right now, folks, I'm not sitting here and telling you that Dan McKee is going to win this primary tomorrow. I'm just telling you that the key to all of this is that the poll, obviously representing likely Democratic primary voters. The key word likely. Now, look, let's be honest about it.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

You want to talk about just even, you know, energy and observation. The the eye test, the the feeling test. Okay, sure.

Bill Bartholomew 5:10

You you could sit back and say, if you're a folks supporter, it's pretty much, okay, yeah, it's pretty much a guarantee that you're gonna wake up on Thursday morning and you're gonna be looking at your candidate as the winner of the uh Democratic primary going up against Ken Block and and who knows what out of that Republican primary. I'm I might get to that later. I don't even know if we should.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

But it's not over.

Bill Bartholomew 5:38

I saw a statistic this morning when I woke up that I think it was Calci or Polymarket has a Helena Badano folks at 99% likely to win the race. And I thought that interesting because as I recall waking up on the, of course, it was November 2016. I was living in Newport at the time, and I woke up to go vote in the presidential race. And I remember opening up the New York Times and seeing that they had some kind of prediction meter of likely victor in the presidential contest, Hillary Clinton was likely to win that race, 99% likely, according to the New York Times metric. Now, where you say, well, where do these votes come from? Where's this McKee hidden coalition? And it's true that if you're being honest about it, yeah, the governor's got some some rally at Crescent Park today. He's got James Montgomery, the harmonica guy who sat in with Aerosmith and all that, and and Kara McKee, his daughter, who's an amazing uh artist and person, also performing at this event. Okay, the get out the vote thing, they're gonna have the uh, you know, the Secretary of State come out, Bob da Silva. I don't know what it is. I hope that it's attended. Uh I really do, just for the sake of humanity. You know, like I hope it's not a flop. That's my my only just just just if you look around at some of the events, some of the honking, you know, the car honking and so on and so forth that the governor has been involved in. You know, you go wave and people honk, yay, woo, I don't know, is that governor McKee? Yeah, honk honk. That thing, if you look at some of those, yeah, the governor's been out doing that, but it's been a lot of the people who are with him are his campaign, or his office, people in his office, okay? Again, that shows loyalty, that shows also people want to keep their job. But what I'm suggesting is that I don't think that there's this like hidden sea of people who are like pro-Make, that they're like waiting in, you know, there's like all these McKee supporters and like U-Haul trucks driving around right now, or like in like a inside the uh Providence Convention Center, it's filled, it's like an army of McKee supporters, they're gonna open the door, click, opens up like tens of thousands of new voters. Or so I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm telling you that most people don't pay attention to this stuff. And they're gonna walk into the poll if they vote. They're not even necessarily gonna know much. They might have a flavor. And those people are amongst the undecided, right? And those people were not necessarily even polled to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

So the fact that the governor is the incumbent.

Bill Bartholomew 8:13

And the fact that there are so many people who I'm not telling you people are gonna walk in and vote blind, left, right, and center. I'm telling you there's going to be people who are gonna vote for Dan McKee because they have very little information. Low information voters are gonna make a difference here. Now, that feeds into the next thing. Overall, this impacts the entire thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Governor's race, primary for the uh Providence Mayor, whatever. Turnout. Of course, turnout matters.

Bill Bartholomew 8:40

Now, people are throwing out numbers. You know, I heard Joe Fleming, again, Fleming and Associates, state's top holster on an individual private sector basis for sure. He said, you know, look, 120,000 total might be a that might be a number to look at. Who knows, right? And so we've been talking about turnout in the context of like, okay, well, well, we see, for example, David Morales, uh, a lot of his campaign is going to be on obviously all campaigns are based on turnout, but activating new voters and maybe discourage voters, so on and so forth, and getting them to turnout versus Smiley, who's activating people who regularly vote, maybe. Right? It's a different type of engagement, different type of turnout. Now, the early return suggests that in Providence with early voting, just on a pure hearsay anecdotal level, that it may favor morales, right? But we got a long way to go. And that's in terms of trends of who these people are that voted. Are they first-time voters? What's their age, et cetera? That's how that's how that analysis can be assessed. But here's what I was thinking about this morning, because I I want to take this even just a couple of steps back. All right. Because I've been saying this all election season. And a lot of people have agreed with me. I know maybe you have as well. I don't know if you've if you've if you agree with me on this or not, or maybe it's a modified thought or totally disagree. You can send me a message wherever you're listening right now. I think it's Spotify, Apple. Um, there's a way to just text the show. I'm interested for sure in what you think about this. But, you know, I've been going on and on about, oh, this election stinks, it's boring, it's this, it's that, it's not, it doesn't have the energy of previous elections. And I've been wondering why, right? And of course, you look at the obvious, which is six in ten Americans have turned off news related to Trump. I think elections by design are connected to Trump. And so I think there's some overlap there. Um and that kind of feeds into where I'm going. But there's also been sort of like, well, maybe it's just, you know, it's just a late election. It's not really new characters. I've I've made the argument, well, back in 2018, you had, you know, Patricia Morgan challenging Alan Fung in the Republican primary. That made daily news. She'd have somebody in a chicken suit dancing outside of uh Cranston City Hall. Meanwhile, Joe Trillo is crashing boats and playing piano on the Mad Allen show. He wasn't crashing the boat. One of his campaign boats crashed off Charlestown Breachway, but or got stuck on rocks. But look, so the entertainment value hasn't been there, and that's actually like really important because that's what brings people, I think, in to a certain level. Obviously, you think the dike gets exploited, becomes misinformation, becomes junk. But that's for sure part of it. But I was I was thinking about this on a basic level. And I was like, well, of course.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

You know, I was out this weekend and some people uh that are like plugged into the news um you know, were asking me basic questions about about the governor's race, and were surprised by some some basic answers, you know. For example, and as they prepared to vote.

Bill Bartholomew 11:53

And I think that I did not account for I was looking at it more, you know, like sometimes you're like, well, uh back in the day, you know, back on back in the good days when like politics was fun and like cool and stuff, like back when Nick Matt Yellow, like I was like looking, I think was looking at it through that lens, which you go, who cares? The real reality is that, yeah, of course it's changed. We've been punished. We've been this is a punishing moment, right? And you when you factor it, not just COVID and the shifting dynamics of everything, work and life and school, but of course, with that, the subtraction of third spaces, the subtraction of, you know, places where people are together and and and and engaged in life. That is less than it was in 2018. Not exclusively. There are certainly plenty of things you can do. We've become socially atomized. And that's impacting people's participation and engagement in the material related to elections. Now, there's enthusiasm because yeah, sometimes elections campaigns can become third spaces. Look at the Barales campaign. It's the ultimate third space. People want to be a part of it. They want to be there, they want to feel it.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

And that's where the vast major the vast majority of our politics are not.

Bill Bartholomew 13:35

So they just become something that are just almost more in the I gotta go renew my driver's license, you know, I gotta do my taxes, than the, hey, I'm part of something. And that's obviously unfortunate because we're in a moment where, of course, we're we're witnessing fascism, we're witnessing there's no words. And even on a basic level here, where between private equity and a variety of other major factors, people in this state are hurting on a major level on major issues.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Health care, housing, obviously education.

Bill Bartholomew 14:22

And yet you don't even have in this governance race, you have those issues, but you don't have major engagement from any kind. Think about the issues and and and the reaction you get, or you've gotten in the past, or even in this community. Specific issues, the fan collective in Boroughville, the Columbus statue stuff, even it doesn't feel like people are fighting for their lives, and and I don't blame anybody who just said to hell with it. I wonder how that reflects in turnout, and I wonder how it reflects in the informed nature of the voters that do turn out.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

And I can tell you this, another thing to watch for Providence Mayor's race is gonna be close.

Bill Bartholomew 18:25

It's gonna be very, very close.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Do not be surprised if you don't have a result on Wednesday, if you don't have a result on Thursday. Alright. Do not be surprised if you're looking at recounts. This vote, this is a close race.

Bill Bartholomew 18:44

It's you know, some people thought, well, this is gonna be interesting. You know, David Morals will, you know, he'll build some kind of brand and rate name recognition, and we'll see what happens. You know, maybe, maybe he'll give, he'll push Brett, the mayor, too, to the left on some issues or something. I mean, no, this is like a legitimate kid. This is absolutely legitimate. I heard someone saying, oh, that you know, that the Smiley's got this guaranteed. No, it doesn't matter. It's Smiley has Eddie Catunio, the male bail at King of Rhode Island, doesn't matter. That's how impressive an operation Morales has run. And the question about Morales in terms of who he is able to pull into the coalition, there is no doubt the Morales core coalition is probably has already turned out, is going to continue to be engaged, exactly what I was telling you before. Most people aren't in any political campaign or political movement on a local level, other than very, very specific issues, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Passion, maybe is the word. That passion is going to continue through the election, through, through the the Providence water board, whatever, water supply, whatever's, they're gonna be out there within the required distance from the facility, I'm sure.

Bill Bartholomew 20:06

And ever and there's gonna be momentum even on an on a micro, micro level here. But the Providence voter that looks at this thing through a lens akin to that which the Brown Daily Herald editorial board did when they just published their endorsement of Mayor Smiley, that may identify on a flavor level, on a concept level, on a soulfulness level, etc., with much of, all of, which, whatever Morales is bringing to the table, but steps back and says, I don't view this purely as a working-class populist reprioritization of aspects of city government. I view this as a step further than that into the forget the municipal laboratory for socialism stuff. I mean, come on. Yeah, people say, you know, phrases and things like that. You know, is it a good phrase? Is it a good thing? No, it's not. It's unfortunate that was caught on tape. Absolutely. Because that right there, if there is a straw that pulled a piece of the moralis necessary coalition out from under itself, it would be the municipal laboratory for socialism, et cetera. That would show a level of disconnect from the broader political game. Or I'm sorry, that shows the disconnect from the broader political game that would be required to win the race for Mayor Providence, right? And whether you like it or not, there's a ground game. It's not the same. We all know Buddy Siense lost to Jorge Lorza in 2014. We understand it's not the same thing that it was. Just here we go. Nothing's the same as it was. We get it. But it's not completely different than it was in that Siense era, that Cicellini era, Tovaris era. There are a lot of patterns and characteristics that will continue to carry over. And some of those families, some of those people may not, as much as they may not have, they may be milk, they may look at smiling and say, no, not my guy, whatever. It doesn't make any difference. Are they going to go that next step and go from reality? It's not the age. I saw someone talking about his facial hair. I mean, please. And that shows you the superficiality and nonsense that we are swimming in. I think this race is going to be super close.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

I'm telling you, don't be surprised if you get a recount. Don't be surprised if you get a recount.

Bill Bartholomew 22:44

You will not like, I do not think you will have a clear and and I do not think either candidate concedes on Wednesday night. I do not think either candidate concedes on Thursday morning. I don't know that you have an elect an uh a decision in that race until a minimum of Friday.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

And then that'll be contested. Okay.

Bill Bartholomew 23:21

In Newport, Angela Lima taking on Senator Don Oyer.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Okay.

Bill Bartholomew 23:27

There are other races to watch for, but we all know what the big ticket ones are.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Now Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General. Who knows? Who knows? If you told me right now you're gonna get an Andrebois Solomon slate out of that, I wouldn't be shocked. Lieutenant Governor I don't know. I saw her last week at the Rhode Island Folk Festival, and we spoke for a couple of minutes or whatever.

Bill Bartholomew 24:04

And she just seemed very calm and confident about the race, even though the most recent polling had showed a just 2% spread between her and Cycom Savorabong, former mayor of Newport, who has received a huge amount of institutional support.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

She seemed very confident.

Bill Bartholomew 24:25

And sure enough, the next day or the day after, like $100,000 in outside expenditures came in her favor to flood the airwaves and mailboxes. So there's it's it's a valid race. She doesn't she doesn't have much money. Um Sabina Matos, Lieutenant Cup, she's she it's an odd race. I wouldn't be surprised if she won. I wouldn't be surprised if Sai won. And I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, if Sue, if Sue Adaball won, it would be like, in a way, weird and shocking, but it also would make total sense because you'd be like, well, the two quote unquote front runners canceled themselves out. There are a bunch of undecided people because who's really if you're barely paying attention to governor, are you digging into a lieutenant governor? I mean, so they're Is that? Who knows? Now, if you ask me to pick a winner right now, I know who I think will win.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

I'm not here to do predictions for you. And I'm not in that business. I got out of the prediction business after uh like 2016. When I saw that New York Times poll. 99% likely in the morning, Hillary Rodham Clinton to defeat Donald Trump. Look, Attorney General, same thing.

Bill Bartholomew 25:44

I think Hoffman has found an unusually or let me rephrase that. I think Hoffman, first of all, I think some of the uh mudslinging that they attempted was was nonsense on a lot of areas. Um not that the issues themselves didn't matter or don't matter. I'm not suggesting that. I just think that the framing of of issues about, you know, per either the landlord stuff or whatever it is, you know, going that all the endorsement stuff. And if you're paying attention, I don't want to go into the details in this race, but I just don't think it really advanced the separation in a way that was really helpful for the voter to make a decision about character or policy, right? It was just kind of random. You had to do some detective work. I didn't I just didn't think it advanced the start. I thought we were just going to get into a chipping match back and forth on like personal stuff. So from that standpoint, I really think what Hoffman has done, interestingly, in the last, I don't know, a couple of days, I've noticed, is more and more people I see on social media or organizational endorsements or recommendations, right? Voter guide type stuff. You know, I saw someone post on social media, hey, someone who I think someone has been on this show before, and uh I I think you may know and respect. Um there's, you know, this this hey, who should I vote for? I'm progressive, who should I vote for? Sentiment, right? I have seen Hoffman mentioned in re in then this person, they posted their response on social media. And I was very interested. I was gonna like actually respond. I was like, actually, let me stay out of this. I want to see what happens. And their response was hey, the person who was advertised or was told to me by recomm by people who recommend made recommendations to be the most progressive, Sue Andrew Bois in the lieutenant governor's race, Keith Hoffman in the attorney general race. I've seen that in other places too. So, in a way, Hoffman's been able to go, uh, you know, let me go into Jason Knight, representative Jason Knight's lane a little bit, who has been out there saying, hey, I'm the progressive guy. Look at his photos. He's got like a blue and white checkered shirt by the ocean. Uh, he looks progress. I've always thought of Jason Knight as looking the part in a way that is from the first time I ever saw him, I was like, who's that guy? He looks, he looks the part. I don't know. I'd want to, I don't remember what I was when I first saw Jason Knight somewhere. I was like, that guy, that guy looks the part. And he is. He's like the real deal. That's how when you look the part, you are the part. That guy's the real deal. And if you look at his work in the General Assembly, you go, okay, well, that's he's the real deal. But is he a is he gonna win this thing? Is he gonna be a factor in at the end of the day in this particular race? I don't know. Uh who knows? Polling suggests he isn't. But sentiment that I'm anecdotally observing is showing that there's more and more institutional um, I'm sorry, more and more progressive support for Hoffman, I'm noticing. But Kim Oran has also been touting a number of very specific endorsements from people who are survivors or have worked closely on horrible, horrible cases that she prosecuted when she was a prosecutor in the attorney general's office. And those stories resonate with a very large segment of people as well, and are, again, legit. I want to say this as well. I just want to say this before we even go into the election that, you know, in both the attorney general and and the lieutenant governor's race is, you know, like, look, you should be glad that you got in that in it combined nine quality candidates. Now you can pick them apart. You can say, I don't like this one, they're institutional, they have this, you know, national or international position that completely contradicts mine, they have this or that other vote or experience, whatever that I don't like. The end of the day, you got quality candidates in that in these races. And I'll reflect on that more when it's over, because I really want to.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Because to be completely honest with you, I'm very inspired by all nine people, including Ross McCurdy running for lieutenant governor.

Bill Bartholomew 30:00

Because while, like I said, a lot of people are so disconnected and so disassociated, understandably, because of the traumatic times we're living in. Some people are willing to step up. Even when it's for you know, something that in the case of Lieutenant Governor is I think a lot of people would would realize it's you know, it's a statewide campaign for an office that is vague.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

So it's a ton of work and money. You know, obviously it's positioning. Obviously, some people want that power, but it could also just fall into the hands of complete junk.

Bill Bartholomew 30:44

And we're lucky we don't have that. And that's something to think about as well. All right, coverage Wednesday night, eight o'clock. I'm on WPRO. I'll be hosting the radio. You gotta tune into the AM though, 6 30 a.m. or on the app or the website, 997wpr0.com. All right. We're only gonna be on the AM. The Patriots are playing on Wednesday night. Can you believe that?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Football on a Wednesday night, same night as the election night. Gotta call uh Roger Goodell, have him reschedule that game.

Bill Bartholomew 31:16

But I got a panel you'll hear from I'll be hosting, I'll have a bunch of people on the field, you know, everybody from Hummel and McGowan and Mike Rea and the usual suspects and uh Barbara Ann Fettenfung will join. Because I was like, well, let's let's I wanna I want to hear her perspective as somebody who unseated. She, I was thinking about this. Barbara Ann Fettenfung is like the last political figure in Rhode Island to unseat a major institutional player, right? When she unseated Speaker Nick Mattyello in the House District 15 general election. She was a Republican, she's no longer Republican.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

She left the party earlier this year with her husband, Alan Fung, who's running for that seat, HD 15, as an independent, by the way. More on that after the primary.

Bill Bartholomew 31:59

But she's like the last person to unseat. She unseated Maddie Yellow. That was like a transformation of a major figure, right? Am I missing something? Is there anybody sense then of a major, major political figure who fell? And I understand it's not a direct. I took out the speaker and now I'm the speaker. I understand that. It's but in terms of the levers of power, I think that's an important thing because if Helena Folkes does it, she'll be the next. And we'll be watching together at 8 o'clock on the radio. And then I'll have more for you also on Ocean State Media throughout the course of the week on the radio and on television. And of course, here on Bartholomew Town. Follow along at Bill Bartholomew on Instagram and X. I'll have coverage, running around, getting interviews, whatever it may be. And if you see anything out there, just send me a message, Bill at ripodcast.com. Very interested in your perspectives as well. And thanks for thanks for being in this together. Hey, it's been a it's been a journey. We did the debates. If you had, if you, if you, if you're out there and somebody is in your life has not voted yet and is trying to make a decision, I would encourage you to send them the debates. Um, wherever you're listening right now, just go to the search bar and type debate. You'll, it'll bring you the four debates. Um Democratic primary for governor, Morales Smiley, Providence Mayor, AG, L G, all Democrats.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

And we'll see who wins the Republican primary, huh?

Bill Bartholomew 33:18

I'm telling you right now, man, you want to talk about a sad state of affairs. Let's hope also that that doc that uh Dr. Skoly wins the Republican congressional district to get this Congressional District 2 race. It's Dr. Stephen Skoly. Remember him? You might. He was the oral surgeon who challenged the state because he had already been immune to COVID. He wanted to not have the vaccine mandate. Remember him? He's one of the candidates, Steve Skoly. And then he's got that Victor Meller. You see those signs everywhere? Victor Meller, who's he? I have no idea. He just kind of poof, came out of thin air. He's an Astroturf candidate. You know, Rudy Giuliani, all that stuff, right? And I'm sick of seeing his signs. I'm sick of seeing his face everywhere. Uh, he says he's a proud G6er, he's got a DV background. And, you know, if you're voting in that Congressional District 2 Republican primary, let's say, right? Whether you're a Republican or you're an unaffiliated and you walk into that polling place, let me ask you something. For the love of whatever you believe in, please vote Skoly. You know, I you gotta vote Skoly to go lose 65-35 the magazine, or maybe 6733. You know, because honestly, because it leave what Skoly is a surgeon. It's amazing to me that the Republican Party is this. Again, I disagree in real time. I continue to prospect, have questions, serious questions about Dr. Skoly's perspective there. Uh at the same time, he's a respected surgeon. He does uh oral surgery at the ACI on very difficult patients. He's a serious person, even if I disagree with him on a major issue. That doesn't mean that I look at him and go, geez. You know, and again, this is to win the primary, to go, you know, get like 18,000 people to turn off something like that. This is to go and then, you know, run a campaign that'll ultimately you'll lose to Seth Magazine or dramatically, predictably in November. That's what's going to happen. But um this Meller man, this is their, I guess this is, I'm thinking this is the play. You go, like if you're the whatever's left of Roger Stone and what you know that it's like they they all use this new like grok AI, all the all the um visual identity looks the same. It's all very creepy. It just feels like you see that. It's like it's like when you're in another country and you look at like inf infographics or even street signs, it's like slightly different, but you know what it means. That's how their materials look over there, this Vic Meller thing. It's just like ooh, bizarro and just gross. So if you're voting in that primary, please for just just vote Skolie. I just can't, I just don't want to hear. I the guy, this Vic Meller, he rents that truck type thing where he drives down with an electronic sign, goes down my street, I look out the window sometimes, I see a giant Vic Meller face looking back at me. Vote Skolie to go lose 6535 to Magazine. Okay. Got no thoughts on the governor's race. Aaron Goukean's nice guy. He's a talented guy in a lot of ways. Uh he's the idea that he is in this primary to begin with is surprising to me when I'm surprised he didn't just take on John Laughlin and have her why not have a real primary for lieutenant governor? And that like actually generate interest in your party. And Elaine Polino never got back to me. I wanted to interview her or do a debate or something. I never heard from her. Oh well. She's the retired actress slash hedge fund chief of staff, so so so she says. It's weird times, man. Look, whoever wins the governor's race, uh, or whoever wins the governor primary on the Democratic side, is, you know, their next challenge will be trying to figure out what to do with Ken Block. I think Block, obviously, polling shows. If McKee does win, Block obviously is very, very much in play. Block will be challenged by a number of things against folks because he won't be able to easily play the working class. He won't actually at all be able to really play the working class thing. Which may not be effective anyway. It'll be interesting to see how quickly the winner of the Democratic primary begins to pivot against whatever's out there. Block and that J.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Gautra, you know, he'll get his 0.1, 0.02%.

Bill Bartholomew 37:59

But if nothing else, what we will know is I believe by Wednesday night, we will certainly know the conclusion of this story that we've all been engaged in, following and some of us participating in now for over half a decade. And that is the ballad of Helena Banano folks at Governor Dameke. All right, we'll talk to you tomorrow on election day, social media. If something comes up, I'll pop it on the pod as well. 8 o'clock, 6 30 a.m. Make sure you get out that clock radio if you got it. Put the batteries in it. Gotta love that crackle live on the radio. There's something special about that, man. Those airwaves, over a hundred years old, man. A lot of elections have come through, a lot of election decisions, a lot of big things come through those airwaves. So every time I step behind that microphone, I get the spook in a good way. It's gonna be an interesting night on Wednesday. I look forward to spending it with you. 997 WPRO.com AM six thirty.