Your Vote Will Count with Secretary of State Michael Adams
TOPICS DISCUSSED
Midterm Elections Conversations in Our Homes and Communities
Election Integrity with KY Secretary of State Michael Adams
Outside Politics: What Season are We Celebrating?
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EPISODE RESOURCES
Celeb Ad from McCain Campaign in 2008 (YouTube)
SNL Cold Open November 5, 2022 (YouTube)
Seasonal Soap: Bath and Body Works Leaves, Sweater Weather, Mahogany Apple
TRANSCRIPT
Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.
Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.
Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.
Beth [00:00:26] Thank you so much for joining us today. It's a special day here on Pantsuit Politics because it is election day. And it is also a weird day because so many people have done so much work to allow our elections to happen and now there is nothing left for us to do. If you have voted, we just have to sit and wait together. And sometimes we sit and wait and a lot of anxious space. After the 2020 election, we released an episode called Patience is a Political Act, and so we're trying to embrace that sentiment again today. Sarah and I are talking a little bit about how we're trying to do that physically and emotionally and spiritually, and we hope our processing invites you into your own journey. We also are sharing a conversation with our Secretary of State from Kentucky, Michael Adams. He has been out there doing the work, talking to people about being confident in the voting process. And we know many of you are serving as poll workers or election monitors today. We want to celebrate you. We hope this conversation with Secretary Adams reinforces the good work that all of our election officials across the country are doing. And then Outside of Politics, we're going to share our approach to the very controversial issue this year of holding on to Thanksgiving and Fall and the coming December holidays all together.
Sarah [00:01:43] Before we get into the show, we just wanted to say thank you, in the spirit of gratitude around the Thanksgiving season, for all the birthday wishes and support the way you guys shared our show in celebration of our birthday and continue to share our show and recommend it to people is such an incredible gift. It is why we are here. It is why we continue to do this work with all of you. We could not love you more for your incredibly beautiful messages about what this show has meant to you. I felt like I was floating on a cloud for these last few weeks reading these birthday messages. It was so much fun. Thank you so much for helping us celebrate.
Beth [00:02:21] Next up, we're going to hear about Sarah's ballot club. And we're just going to kind of work through all of the feelings that accompany the waiting that we have to do after an election.
Sarah [00:02:31] So many feelings.
Beth [00:02:41] Sarah, As people are listening to this episode, they will be voting and waiting for results. And we both spent the weekend kind of marinating, I think, in our feelings about this election and about all of the election coverage. And I think we both had some insights about that, that we want to kind of workshop with each other today. So I want to start with you. What is bubbling up for you as you wait?
Sarah [00:03:06] It's just weird out there, man. It's weird because we are taking in all this very stressful election coverage about how high the stakes are. But we're also like moving through our lives, which are kind of intense right now. I don't know how it is where you live, but my kids are off from school today because there's so much flu circulating around in our community. And so it's like this pull of everyday life that keeps pushing us forward and pushing us forward in this sort of background, very intense energy surrounding the election. And I got in this space partly because I held my ballot club and I was gathered with people who do not consume politics the same way I do. And I sort of started thinking about that. And how many people in America are like that.That politics is this background noise, this circus happening in the background. And what I thought is, oh, okay, so that is why they don't feel the intensity I feel around the Republican Party, because they don't see things through a prism of partisanship. They see things through a prism of politics. Everything is politics. So if things get extreme in one party and I'm in the other party, and I'm thinking, how can you not see this? Well, that's because they don't see through that prism. They see everything as politics. It's the same reason the worst Donald Trump got, the worst Hillary Clinton got. And it's like everything's is bad. It's all corrupt. Everything's messed up. And I can hear that from people. And I can hear this sense of politics. That's how they see things. And politics is messed up and the politicians are all bad. And that's why it can feel like you're screaming into the void if you are more absorbed in that space and you see things through differing levels-- particularly the layer of partisanship-- that you're, like, what are you talking about? I think the Ballot Club and just being in this community and thinking about this helped me realize that. That's why it feels like I'm banging my head against a wall because I just have a very different lens through which I'm looking at everything, including this election cycle.
Beth [00:05:20] I have had a similar experience just living in my community. We also have a lot of sickness here. Our good friends have a son who they know has strep and all weekend they could not get him in anywhere to treat it. They know what it is and they could not get anywhere to get it treated. And it's so frustrating. And I feel that way even when we're talking about prices. It feels like at this exact moment when we really need governance tuned in on those issues affecting our lives, that it is off on this other planet of much higher minded issues in some ways and much lower minded issues in some ways. Chad and I have had this ongoing conversation over the past week. He is very upset about the White House's Instagram presence. He does not appreciate how much Partisanship is coming through on the official White House Instagram account. And I do not disagree with him at all about it, and I still find myself pushing back on him. I'm being really annoying. I'm annoying myself in these conversations because I keep saying, "Right, but here's what's going on with national Republicans and here's why I think that's worse." And I have to stop myself because I hate it when people talk to me like this. And I am doing it. Here I am doing it. But I finally said to him, "I'm so sorry. You are right about this. I agree with you about this." I just also feel like the only thing I really want right now is to know that we are going to elect people who, if they lose their next race, will concede. It's all I want. And that is so depressing to me that it's all I want. And it's so depressing to me that that feels really tenuous and really called into question right now, that I'm losing my sense of how to behave. And so on the one hand, Chad is one of those people for whom a lot of it is noise. He is not as interested in this as I am, and there are so many benefits to that perspective. And so I'm trying to both be in the advantages of his perspective and the advantages of mine. And it does feel like being slowly roasted or something, you know what mean? I can feel myself getting hotter and hotter and more intense. And I don't want to be there.
Sarah [00:07:44] I feel myself clinging to perspectives that lengthen my timeline because election cycles compress them. Election cycles tell you right now is the worst and tomorrow is all that matters. And I'm just going to tell you right now, that is never true. It is never true. And I have had the universe serving that up to me several times. So you and I both had the same conclusion from our ballot club that it is depressing that so many of our partisan races are unopposed. And you know what my 82-year-old grandmother said? That's what it was like for decades with Democrats. There are only Democrats running unopposed on our ballots for decades here in Paducah, Kentucky. And I thought, you're right, this is not new. This has been this way for lots and lots of American history. And I had this other moment. When I was listening to the C-Word, my new favorite podcasts, and they were talking about Mary Shelley. And did you know that in the summer of 1816, a volcano erupted? I think it was somewhere in Europe and there was so much ash, it disrupted the weather patterns for an entire summer. They call it the year without a summer. It was winter in summer. They had electrical storms. It was dark all the time. It had to feel like the end of the world. And we don't even know about it. We don't even talk about it. Think about what that must have felt like to the humans on the ground at that moment in time. And even it's not a thing we teach, not a thing we talk about.
[00:09:17] I just have to remember that constantly. The things that happened hundreds of years ago, 50 years ago, they're not a page in a book. There are humans on the ground living them. And they had a shrunken timeline, just like I did, and just like I do. And I just have to connect to that constantly and remember, like, the sun will rise on Tuesday and Wednesday-- or maybe it won't. Maybe we'll have a solar flare. I don't know. But I just have to ground myself and remember that there are much bigger forces at play, good and bad. We have survived so many things as a human race and as Americans. And in a certain way seeing politics as noise, being able to look at the parts of politics that are noise is beneficial. It's beneficial. It's helpful. It's a helpful perspective. Not always. And it's not all noise. And some of it matters. But I really do wish we could drop this like it's the most important election ever. Stop, because you're going to tell me that 2024 too. I know you are. So just don't do that to us. Acknowledge where some of this is the paradox of reality, that both noise relevant it's all true. And I think that's hard to hold. It's hard to hold when you're being bombarded with message after message and Ron DeSantis is calling himself blessed by God in an ad. And you just kind of want to scream.
Beth [00:10:45] I was obnoxious about that too with my husband. I made him watch it. It's obnoxious. is.
Sarah [00:10:49] It's an obnoxious ad.
Beth [00:10:50] I showed it to him and he was like, I mean, Democrats run crazy ads too. And I said, "Do they? Have you heard one where someone claimed to be anointed by God? I haven't."
Sarah [00:11:01] I mean, I think people felt that around the Obama election. I don't think they said that, but I think people felt it.
Beth [00:11:06] I was thinking about that over the weekend too because as much as everyone loved that moment where the woman yelled at him and he's still fine, and then the Internet did its thing with that, right? I feel like such a buzzkill because that took me back to the 2008 election. And do you remember the ad about him that Republicans maybe he's the biggest celebrity in the world.
Sarah [00:11:35] I do remember. Yes.
Beth [00:11:37] So let me kind of work out my thought process with you. I loved that ad at the time. I remember Chad and I seeing that ad together and looking at each other and being like, yeah, this disturbs us. We don't like what's happening here. Now, I think we believed that the Republican spirit behind that ad was, we don't do this [Inaudible] personality. Not, oh, let's go get someone who is like a living antonym to him and do this to 10x. I think that that continual processing of what has been happening over the past few years is what is sinking through my body right now. And it helps me to realize I am doing that and so is everybody else, that this election- as much as I want to put it in the context of just this moment- cannot be just about this moment. It is about all of us working out whatever our window of time is. We're all working out different windows. And I don't know how to bracket any of them. I was just listening to Ezra Klein, he and an economist on talking about inflation. And at one point, the economist said, "Well, we're coming out of a plague." And I thought, one, I kind of appreciate the use of the word plague, because that puts it in greater historic context for me. And two, when you study events like that, they are bracketed with years long periods. And I think somewhere in my mind I have decided that COVID 19 ran from March 2020 until, I don't know, six months ago or something. And now we're like finding our way out. But that is probably not how it will be studied, right? It's a much bigger chunk of history than that.
Sarah [00:13:27] Do you not remember when the scientists came on and said, "We're still studying the 1980s pandemic." I remember that in my cells when she said that and I thought, oh, my God, we're going to try to wrap our brains around this in two months, and they're still going to be studying it in 100 years.
Beth [00:13:43] So it's helping me to be less spun up because I do feel myself getting spun up. I feel myself getting spun up about the races that feel obvious to me. Is it not obvious that Kerry Lake cannot be the governor of Arizona? Is it not obvious that Herschel Walker cannot be the senator from Georgia? So I feel myself getting spun up about those races. And then I just have to remember, it is just not about whatever window you have drafted Beth the present. It's about everything always and different versions of everything for everybody.
Sarah [00:14:17] Yeah. And it's this weird paradox when you think about Obama or when you think about Kerry Lake. That the people who can push through, break through that noise. That's an incredibly powerful gift. And, listen, we've all watched enough Marvel movies; not everybody uses their power for good. And it's an emotional power. It's not a policy power. Now, my personal politics say we got lucky with Obama because he could do both. He could do the emotion and he was like a technocrat. He loved the policy. But it's like you're paying for that, right? The sort of messed up paradox of democracy is the people who can push through emotionally. But the promise of democracy is policy. And so when all the dreams don't come true, people are like, But wait. But they don't want to pay attention to the policy. The only way you can reach them is emotion, but they can feel the impact. Like, it's just such a weird system we're stuck in. That's the word I use on our newsletter over and over again. Because you pass these big laws, it takes decades for people to see the impact in their life. And then how are they going to connect that with the emotional message of a politician in the moment? But, unfortunately, I don't know a better system. I can see more profoundly the inherent weaknesses and risks in our system, but I don't know a better one. And so I'm just going to have to keep plugging along with this one through every election of a lifetime that comes every two years.
Beth [00:15:56] I thought SNL was pretty good this week. I think it's pretty good right now in general because so many of their long time stars left at once that they have to try some new things. And it's funny. It's funny to watch them try new things. But they did this sort of thought experiment in the cold open of like, what if Democrats decided to replace their candidates with Republican like candidates in this cycle? And so instead of Raphael Warnock, what if it was Guy Fieri? Or what if Stormy Daniels was running as a Democrat in Michigan instead of Gretchen Whitmer? And and it was funny. And when it ended, Chad looked at me and he was like, I liked that. That was funny.
Audio Playback [00:16:37] But listen, folks, that's the problem. We don't have any stars anymore. Too many Raphael Warnocks and not enough Herschel Walkers, which is why we're going to make some last minute changes before Tuesday with the Democrats who are exciting. Got that sizzle. For example, he was a mayor of Flavortown for over 20 years, Guy Fieri.
[00:16:59] Wooh! Listen man, America's hungry for change. But y'all want Dr. Oz's cour d'ete or a full plate of paid family leave, dripping in donkey sauce. Full throttle. Wooh!
[00:17:14] Dream job. Dream job. Tired of Gretchen Whitmer. Meet your next governor of Michigan, adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Beth [00:17:22] And it hit him as a nonpolitical person because I think it in a different way said things are kind of ridiculous right now, aren't they? But it wasn't like in your face, sanctimonious, we have all the answers on the Democratic side. It was just kind of like, I mean, aren't we at least trying to put up people who want to do this job instead of people who just want to be famous? And so that's the sort of strategy that you need somehow. But it cannot come from the parties. I don't know. It's just a mess.
Sarah [00:17:54] Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I do not want to hear Tuesday, Wednesday, what Democrats did wrong. I'm happy. I don't want to be a party that never does that. I do want a postmortem and I want to think about what we could do better. But when you are talking to a portion of the populace that only sees it through a political lens, then you have to think about how that influences people, how people see you. It can't just be this sort of party focused analysis because there's so much more acting on people than just what the Democrats have decided to do electorally and what kind of candidates they've run on. It's all connected. And so you have to acknowledge that. And, again, I'm not saying we shouldn't do a postmortem. I'm not saying that Democrats can't do things better. What I am saying is where we are at, where a small portion of the population can swing control so dramatically, and that small portion of the population does not have a hyper partizan lens, then we have to give ourselves a break and realize that there are forces acting on voters that are way beyond the control of people buying ads or even the candidates themselves.
Beth [00:18:58] I also find myself frustrated in conversations with Chad or anyone else because I don't want to just peg all Republicans on all ballots for all offices across this nation as one thing. We have in Boone County some very good Republican candidates for local office. We are about to talk with a state official from Kentucky who is a Republican who I think has done a very admirable job in his position. It is not all one thing. Just like Democrats are not even close to being all one thing at this moment in time. And so I think part of this just irritation that I feel around elections comes from that inability to spool it out and be as fair to everyone as you can possibly be, while also being clear about what the stakes are. It's a mess. It's just a mess.
Sarah [00:19:51] But it's our mess. I wouldn't pick another mess. I have so much increasing sympathy and understanding for that. Like the Federalist Papers and how they were just like, but we can see what's going to happen here, what are we going to do, guys? And I just kind of feel like you guys, we can see what's happening here. And so much of this is because we have decided to form a democracy with 330 million people and they were worried and could see the problems with a lot smaller number. And so just give us a break. Like just give each other and other voters and other parties and this democracy a break. What we're doing is a heavy lift and there's not another system that's doing it better. I don't look around the world and go, they figured it out. And so I just think each election day I become a little more sort of sympathetic and just like, man, what a mess. I've left that behind where I felt like politics was the solution to fix the problems of humanity. I have released that. The work we have done on this podcast has allowed me to just stop using the verb fix around anything involving our politics and just to sort of see it as it's just a big experiment in human history. And every election reminds me of that even more profoundly.
Beth [00:21:19] Well, speaking of the work that it takes to manage this imperfect but best idea we have system, we are going to talk now with Kentucky Secretary of State Republican Michael Adams about all of the people across our state and across this nation who are very, very, busy facilitating the democratic process. Secretary Adams, we so appreciate your time today. I wanted to ask you, given all the experience that you have over the past couple of years, how have you prepared differently, if at all, for this election than the previous?
Michael Adams [00:22:08] It's truly been night and day. And let me put this into a little bit of perspective. In 2020, we had clearly the most difficult election we've ever had with COVID striking, and other states, unfortunately, had a lot of problems and were unfortunate to not have those. But even in all of that, we only had two candidates that quit. Two of them said, I can't do this anymore. I can't take the stress. I'm resigning. This year we had nine. And that's in the year where their terms was expiring anyway. They're all up for re-election this year. And so they could have just retired, but they still quit. They went out of their way to just walk off the job because of the stress. And so coming out of 2020, I thought, man, every election from now on is going to be a breeze if we could do 2020. And actually, this year has been harder. It's kind of disappointing and I hope it don't stay this way. But right now, in this current political environment, I think it's going to be really hard on all of us to keep running elections because we're all under unfounded suspicion all the time and everything we do. Look, I welcome scrutiny, I think that's appropriate. But it gets out of hand, unfortunately, sometimes when people feel very uncomfortable and undervalued.
Sarah [00:23:17] So when you're talking about that suspicion, which I think is a really, really, good word for that. That unfounded suspicion and how that can weigh on you. I've been an elected official, and that's what I always say. When people are just doubting your motives all the time, it just wears you down. You're doing such a good job talking about that, talking about how our elections are secure and breaking through those myths, breaking through those suspicions. How do you do that? What are the most common ones you feel like you're tackling?
Michael Adams [00:23:44] There's two things I do tactically to respond to this. One, is I offer technical explanations for why we do things the way we do and create misunderstandings about what we do and don't do. We don't use the Internet to count votes. We use the old fashioned methods. We use calculators. We use bipartisan groups at every level from the top, all the way down to the ground level. Every precinct, every county, the board of elections at the state level, all bipartisan checks and balances. So, number one, I discuss the substance. But number two, I try to humanize it. I try to say, look, you're not just shooting at me some disembodied voice on TV in Frankfort. You're attacking your local poll worker, you're attacking your county clerk. You know these people. You see them at the grocery. You go to church with them. Their kids know your kids. And so when you're accusing us of some mass conspiracy to rig elections, you're not just attacking people you don't know. You're undermining people that you do know that are your neighbors. And unfortunately, it's had its impact on our recruiting. But I think that's the best way to really bring home to people that this is your own hometown that you're accusing of this stuff. And they won't buy that as easily.
Beth [00:24:54] So you mentioned those officials who went this year. And I think that is a really compelling statistic that you had more people quit in this cycle than the COVID cycle. I would love to know what you're hearing from those local officials and particularly what they need from citizens who want to be supportive.
Michael Adams [00:25:11] Well, I don't want to oversimplify. There's two primary reasons that these folks are quitting. To be clear, one of them is the abuse that they're getting. And it really raises their blood pressure in a couple of ways. One is the open records requests that come in. People demand election records going back seven years. But the other is these frivolous lawsuits that we've had demanding recounts. It's an enormous strain on a county clerk to run an election. That's the problem we have too here. When we have to rerun the last election over and over again, you just don't have the budget for that or the time for that. It ends up impacting your ability to run the next election. And then if you make a mistake in that one, they'll say, "See, you can't trust the system." So part of this challenge is unfortunately the election denial community. But the other part of it is partly on me and those of us that have tried to make voting easier, which is we work the courts harder. So it used to be you only had one day to vote and that was it. And now there's four. And then we added six more days for people to have an excuse to come in and vote. So that's now 10 days. They've got to have personnel, locations for voting, and it raises their stress level. They are working harder than they've ever had to work and they're getting this abuse. So those two things together unfortunately run off some really good people. Here's the upside, though. In pretty much every case where we've had a county clerk either quit outright or just not run this year for re-election, it's about 23 clerks total. In almost every instance, it's the deputy clerk that's running or is appointed to that seat or the elections director for that clerk. In other words, we've got continuity. Not just getting a bunch of random people in these offices. And you've seen that in other states where election deniers are running for these positions and taking them over and God help us. We didn't have that in Kentucky. We only had one candidate like that run in the primary and he got beat pretty soundly. That's a real vote of confidence in our system, I think, and in our clerks.
Sarah [00:27:06] Well, and that's why it's so hard to sort out how-- as you're out there talking to people, it's hard to sort out the signal through the noise where you have a lot of commentary from people on how they feel about the election. But on the ground, you see that continuity. You have to acknowledge the feelings people have, but like you said, but also speak to what's actually happening. How do you navigate those two? Seemingly, it's almost like two different realities, like how people are talking about the election and what's actually happening.
Michael Adams [00:27:37] I think you have to know your audience. I've seen polling to this effect in my state, other states, where roughly a third, a third, a third, people have different beliefs. A third think you have a great system. It works well. We have a third that no matter what you say or do, they will gainsay it. And they get up every morning to attack the government. That's their entire mentality. They don't believe the government is putting out COVID vaccines. They don't have microchips. I mean, they are paranoid about everything. So if I'm the government and I say something, they're going to conclude the contrary must be true. And then there's a third in the middle and they just don't know what to believe. They hear it on one side from me in the media and election officials, and they hear it on the other side from YouTube provocateurs and people with Facebook memes, and they're like I don't know what's true. Those are the people I'm focused on reaching. They lean conservative, but they're not all conservative, but they all tend to have some level of suspicion against the government. But it's not one that's totally unreasonable that can't be combated if you give them facts. And some of these people file open records requests, but they're not far out. They're pretty legitimate ones. And [Inaudible] to come in. We'll just give them a tour and say, here, we'll show you around, show you how this works. And they usually leave pretty satisfied and pretty trusting of our system. And others are volunteering to be poll workers. And these aren't people that are plants that are trying to disrupt anything. They're reasonable people that just want to learn more, and we welcome that. So there's actually been a narrow advantage to some of this and that it actually, to some extent, helped us find new poll workers, in the beginning of the process. Now, obviously, we're monitoring the people that are coming in here, but it is good to get some new blood. That's one of the biggest structural problems I've got in this job, is civic volunteering is in decline and that means it's harder to get poll workers. That's part of why we've tried to push the vote center model where we have fewer locations, but they're bigger, better locations with more parking, they're more [Inaudible] accessible. It's partly to expand access, but also because we need fewer poll workers to run one of those than we do to have 4000 county precincts.
Beth [00:29:43] When you talk about reaching people who are somewhat disaffected are in the noise, it's not the exact group that I'm thinking of. But I saw where you told a media outlet here in Kentucky that of the new registrations that we're seeing in this cycle-- and I know you're very proud to see how many new registrants we have this time-- that the majority of young voters are registering as independents. And I wanted to ask you, not from a political perspective, but as our chief elections officer in Kentucky, how are you thinking about that, especially when we have so many races here that are really decided in their closed primaries?
Michael Adams [00:30:18] I like to warn both sides that you're not the majority. We don't have much work in Kentucky. We've got two 45% parties. We've got Republicans at 45, we've got Democrats at 45, we've got 10% other. And you've got a few libertarians or greens in that mix, but it's almost exclusively independents. The independents are the ones who are going to decide who wins these races, not every one of them. You've got obviously some red and blue jurisdictions, but at a statewide level, you can't win unless you get your base turnout. Plus, you pick up some voters who aren't like you. You got to be willing to reach across the divide, pick up some Democrats or some independents, or if you're a Democrat, pick up some Republicans or independents. Otherwise you're going to lose by 10 points. So I try to make sure that people realize that you can't just talk to your own team. And especially if you do that and you lose, it's not because the vote was rigged just because you didn't run a good campaign and you reach out to people who aren't like you and move beyond your base. But of course, registering is only part of the equation. We've seen a big surge in independent registration, but at least what we've seen so far has not been independents at the polls. What we've seen in the first several days of early voting and with a lot of the absentee ballots in, is that independents are really unrepresented. They're registering, but they're not actually voting. It's premature to say if they're not going to vote or not. They've got till Tuesday to do it, so there's still time. But what I hope doesn't happen is that independents just see the field and say, forget it and don't vote. And then you're going to have basically disproportionate control by the fringe because the middle doesn't matter.
Sarah [00:31:57] Yeah. How do you think about voting reforms? We talk a lot on this show about ranked choice voting. But I was so struck by what you said about if we're constantly rerunning past elections, not only are we stressing our poll workers and sort of intensifying the process of the current elections, but we sure as heck can't think to future elections. We sure as heck can't think, okay, well, if we have a problem, what are some reforms that would work? Because that's not a way to build trust and and sort of the momentum for reform is just to keep re-litigating past elections. How do we get out of that? If we think that there are improvements to be made, how do we start focusing on trust, building and reforms?
Michael Adams [00:32:39] I think the starting point there's two things. Number one, you want election officials at the table. You don't want outside groups coming in with their own little agenda. You want election officials to know how this stuff works at the table. And number two, you want both parties at the table. And what Kentucky has done that's unique that no one else in America is doing, federally or at the state level, is we're bipartisan about it. That we put these in every meeting we have, we get both sides and we come up with a solution that both sides like. And I think that has an impact on how the public receives what we do. So, for example, in the early voting, there's only about maybe a point and a half difference between Republicans using early voting and Democrats using early voting. That's a real bipartisan seal of approval, as I see it, that you don't have one side accusing the other side. So Republicans used to be resistant [Inaudible] helps Democrats vote. And Democrats have been against this. They say, well, Republicans want to vote in person. This gives them more days to vote in person. You can't look at it that way. You have to put the voters first and then bring everyone to the table and say, can you live with this and would you do anything to make it any better? And so we did that in Frankfurt. We got almost unanimous support. I think we lost one Democrat. I think we lost maybe three Republicans when we passed election reform last year of 138 legislators. That's pretty good. And now we're seeing both sides embrace the reform. So I think you can't start with one party or the other party saying we should change the law to do this or that, because it begins to look like there's an attempt to rig it. And even if it's coming from an honest, sincere place, it's just not a good look when one party proposes their own version of what the election would look like because the other party doesn't trust them.
Beth [00:34:21] How do you think that happened in Kentucky? Why are we the only state that's been able to do that?
Michael Adams [00:34:26] Well, it's not an accident. It's something I did very intentionally. When COVID first hit, I went to the legislature and I asked Republicans and Democrats to pass a law to let me and the Democratic governor-- I'm a Republican-- to allow us to solve the problem together. And by a bipartisan margin, they did that. And then I worked with the governor in good faith through 2020. And I think that's part of why Kentucky had a record turnout, is voters on both sides trusted the system. And even when the election was over and one side clearly did better than the other side, the side that lost didn't question the results and didn't refuse to accept the legitimacy of the election. And I'm really proud that our candidates in 2022 haven't been doing that either. You've seen in some other states the candidates are prejudging the election and saying it was rigged before the votes are even counted. We don't have any of that in Kentucky. We don't have Democrats saying that there was suppression that's why they lost. We don't have Republicans saying there was fraud that's why they lost. Everyone's being really adult. I really appreciate that.
Sarah [00:35:25] How encouraging.
Beth [00:35:26] May that continue.
Michael Adams [00:35:28] Hope so.
Sarah [00:35:30] I think that that's incredible work you're doing. And I think focusing on thatperson to person groundwork is so important. But part of the reason we had you on our show is because we watch how you go at this work on Twitter, which is a very different space. And I wonder how you think about why it's important to be in that sort of social media space on Twitter, combating this misinformation. And also, I got to ask you how you're feeling about Twitter now with new leadership and if you're going to continue that work there.
Michael Adams [00:35:59] The Washington Post asked me if I had fear about the new Twitter in terms of misinformation being out there. And I said they can't get any worse.
Beth [00:36:10] That's a good answer.
Michael Adams [00:36:11] They've been horrible. They've been really awful. They've been very unresponsive in cleaning up misinforming comments that we flagged to their attention. Facebook has too. It's just been really frustrating that they haven't taken it more seriously. I don't know that it'll be any worse going forward than it's been in the past. It's been bad enough as it is. We use Twitter and we don't expect to persuade people that are putting out falsehoods about the election. But we want to make sure that we're out there on record and we're challenging it. And there's a lot of people that follow our Twitter that retweet it, people in our state, out of our state. I don't mean to suggest that the average Kentuckian is active on Twitter. They're clearly not. But. We do have disproportionate sway over the media and influencers, legislators, local community leaders, interest groups, nonprofits. They follow us and they put out things that we're saying. And, again, not everyone's going to listen to me necessarily what I say, but if they see someone they know, they're saying, "You know what, this is right. The elections are fair. Then I've got one more witness testifying to that effect. [Inaudible] God to help sell our message.
Sarah [00:37:19] It's so true. It's such a good way to think about social media because we get in this one on one. Are you trying to convince who you're talking to and you just forget the whole point is that everybody is reading. Everybody is watching. That's why it's social.
Michael Adams [00:37:31] Yeah. One thing I fall into is we get lots of nasty replies and your temptation is to reply and correct it or retweet it and incorrect it. But on the other hand, then you're getting this [Inaudibles] bunch of new followers. So we deal with these things on a case by case basis. If we see something go crazy viral on its own, then we definitely want to be in the mix correcting it. But sometimes we just can't hit every single one of them because all you do is just raise their platform. You've got someone who's challenged the government and you're responding and then you've elevated them. So these things sometimes are a little hard to determine as to whether that should be our action or not.
Beth [00:38:08] Well, we're so grateful for those efforts and for the way that you conduct yourself in this position. It's a real asset to our state. And I'm just wondering, as we wrap up, if there are people who have thought about running for secretary of state throughout the country, what would you say to them, knowing how difficult of a job it is?
Michael Adams [00:38:29] Be prepared for everything you do to be highly scrutinized and challenged. It's kind of a good thing overall. I'm not upset about it. When I ran four years ago, the first question I always got was, "What's your office do?" That's kind of depressing, really. I want people to know what this office does. I want to be held accountable. I want the public to know what we're doing and to offer feedback and question. That's legit. I want that. So this overall, it's a good thing. But I certainly would caution anybody running for this that the job's a lot harder than it used to be. I thought I was just going to cut ribbons and sign stuff and go to events. But it's a real job. And I guess the other advice would be make sure you hire several communications staff because at least half of your job is communicating. Making decisions is actually the easy part of the job. The hardest part of the job is communicating why you did those things and explaining yourself and correcting the record about them and informing the voters about how to take advantage of the things that you've changed. Yeah, that's by itself a full time job for several people.
Sarah [00:39:32] That is one of the best explanations I've heard for public office, that the decision making is kind of the easy part, but communicating the decisions is the hard part. And I have to say, I am legally obligated to tell everybody that Secretary Adams is from Paducah and he is out there making western Kentucky so proud. Thank you so much for coming on our show.
Michael Adams [00:39:49] Thanks. My pleasure. Great to be with you all.
Beth [00:39:52] Thank you so much to Secretary Adams for joining us at what we know is an incredibly busy time. Next up, we will end, as we always do, by talking about what's on our minds Outside of Politics. Sarah, in your heart of hearts are you living in the fall, you living in the Christmas season, are you living in the winter? What is your heart telling you right now? And then how does that translate to your physical spaces?
Sarah [00:40:30] Let me tell you something. My heart tells me I don't have to choose. My heart is big. It can hold Thanksgiving and fall and the approaching holiday season because let me tell you something, that's what they do in other countries where they don't have Thanksgiving guys. They just get like two months of holiday and they're just-- holiday is big enough to follow us through the weather patterns, you know what I mean? Like you and I took very different approaches this weekend. You leaned into Thanksgiving decorating. Over here in Paducah, my husband put up my 12 foot Christmas tree, but I also have my little Thanksgiving placemats out. You know what I mean? Who's telling me I have to pick? Who is telling me I have to pick. I'm in charge here. That's all I'm saying. This is my favorite time of the year. I love Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas, and so I follow my heart. And that is my advice to everyone else. Do what you want to do. If you want to put up 12 Christmas trees and also a turkey on your front porch, do it. If you want to stretch Halloween out and let it sprawl through weeks and weeks of celebration, which I do-- do. Ann Helen wrote a piece this weekend about holiday sprawl. And halfway through, I stopped because I thought, man, the fundamental assumption here is that that's a bad thing for some, and for some people it is. And please abandon it. I don't set leprechaun traps because that doesn't mean anything to me. But I freakin love Halloween, so let it stretch out for weeks. I'm happy to participate. But everybody is not going to be the same. Like, why can't we just-- I love Erin Moon. Don't yuk other people's yum, man! I like that Halloween's kind of expanded because I don't want it to just be one night because I have too much fun and I want it to be bigger. I dressed up three different times this year and I freaking loved it.
Beth [00:42:07] Look, the things that we learned from the pandemic that I am taking with me are that you do not have to do the holiday the same way every single year. And that is a freedom I needed. That you can hold on to traditions that are really meaningful to you, but there is a lot of flexibility in how you observe from year to year, depending on your mood and how much time you have and how much money you have to spend on it this year. And how excited everyone around you is.
Sarah [00:42:36] What you're going through.
Beth [00:42:37] Exactly. Just to be a little freer. I decided this year that I'm really going to observe fall and celebrate it through soaps. Seasonal soaps is my way.
Sarah [00:42:48] I did like all the seasonal soaps at your house. I noticed I took note and I would like some more in my home.
Beth [00:42:54] Thank you. So let me give you a couple of reviews because my girls are really leaning into their bath and body works phase. I'm powerless to stop it, so I'm just leaning in with them. And so I have acquired some seasonal soaps. And I will tell you my favorites for fall is the leaves scent. It is fall in a bottle. It has a little cinnamon going, but it's not too strong. It's lovely. I also like Sweater Weather.
Sarah [00:43:17] Oh, I love sweaters.
Beth [00:43:19] Doesn't the name just-- somebody did a good job. Someone in marketing should get a raise for Sweater Weather, but it's a really nice scent too. Now I also have Mahogany Apple and here's what I've decided about it. It kind of smells like you're on a date with a cute boy at an orchard in high school. You know how, like, the cute boys would wear a little too much? It was like it's a little too much, the Mahogany Apple. I'm going to use it all. I'm really enjoying my seasonal soap situation.
Sarah [00:43:47] Well, listen, about probably three or four years ago when we moved to our new house, I used to kill myself trying to put up all of Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. It was a lot. I worked from the moment I woke up till the moment I went to sleep to get it all up. And I thought, why am I doing this? First of all, I love Christmas. I would like more than 25 days of it. So I don't pressure myself to get it all up at once. It's just is a slow trickle. The only thing up right now is our 12 foot tree. There are not lights on it. There are not decorations on it. Also, hot tip,this tree is is a real pain to put up and I told my husband, I said, "I want to get a new tree that's easier to put up." And he was like, "It's not that hard." I said, "You want to do it?" "Yeah." Okay. So two years in a row, he's put it up because I said I don't want to put it up Imma buy a new tree. So he doesn't want to buy a new tree, so he puts it up. So there's a little hot tip for anybody who's like, man, I hate this tree and I want to buy a new one. But that's what I do. I put out the sort of loosely holiday. I don't put the santas up to later. I don't put obviously my real tree up till later. And also, you know I'm an epiphany person. So we celebrate the 12 days after Christmas until epiphany. So I get like almost two months of Christmas. And you know what? It's a delight. It's too much work to do all that for 25 days. So I love putting it up and letting it be around and giving myself time to put it up and take it down. And I leave Thanksgiving up with it. They're not some sort of forces that can't meet, like they can be up around the same time. It's okay. I used to put so much pressure on myself to just put up all the Thanksgiving, let it be by itself, strip it down. But you know what? I love Thanksgiving just as much as my 12 foot tree. I had my family over for Thanksgiving in the 12 foot tree. My mother and grandmother were scandalized and I told them I don't care. This is how it works in my house. You know what? Nobody cared. Everybody had a great Thanksgiving.
Beth [00:45:36] Well, what you said is the whole thing for me. I'm not going to have any more days where I spend in the Christmas season just working on the season. I'm not going to do that. So I have adopted the practice for several months of just putting Christmas on my calendar once a week and I do some kind of Christmas related task. So order a few gifts, wrap a few gifts, [Crosstalk] Address the holiday cards. Exactly. Yeah. Just a little bit of work every week because I am going to get to December and be done working. That is my goal. I want to reap the fruits of my labor in December.
Sarah [00:46:09] Exactly.
Beth [00:46:11] And I am enjoying it and I feel like I've gotten more thoughtful gifts because I've spread it out like this. I've definitely gotten in the mode of if I hear someone say something that sparks a gift idea for me, I order it immediately.
Sarah [00:46:23] You brought me my Christmas present to Nashville.
Beth [00:46:25] I did, because it was the best time that I could deliver it to you. I don't know why it took me until I was 40 to get that as soon as the child brings the birthday invitation home, you order the gift. Otherwise, you're scrambling for the gift 5 minutes before the party. I don't want to do that anymore.
Sarah [00:46:42] Well, and it makes me sad because I think people then attach that feeling to the holiday and they think they hate the holiday. I'm, like, you don't hate the holiday. You hate this position you're in. So just eliminate that. Eliminate the stress. Like there can be some really beautiful parts. The same with Halloween. Well, yeah, it's stressful if you put off everything to the last minute, but like if you stretch it out, then you can enjoy it. And it just makes me sad because I do think they get linked. They get put together when they don't have to be together. The stress and the work and the prep does not have to be with the holiday itself.
Beth [00:47:14] Well, the other thing is, if you've been working on the holiday in these little bits for three months and something doesn't get done, it clearly wasn't important to you, and that's fine. You can just let it go.
Sarah [00:47:24] Exactly. I think it's fun because it sort of builds anticipation. That's why I plan my travel so far in advance. One, it helps. I booked our summer places for Scotland and Ireland. They are booked and I like love it because now I'm, like, I got those done. Listen, there is nothing I love more than a full future trips tab in the Airbnb app. It just brings me joy when I open it and I'm, like, look at those trips coming up, guys. And they're eight months away. It's far, but I just love it. It just spreads the work, it spreads the prep out, it spreads the stress out and you just like do a little bit. You find a moment, you're like, look at that. I got that done. You feel that like zing of accomplishment. It's not bottled up with all the stress of the time. I'm telling you it's the best. It's the best. I totally agree.
Beth [00:48:08] I agree. It's fun to check it off on my planner too. And speaking of checking things off, we've hope that you have checked off voting from your list tonight. If you haven't and you're listening in, there's still time. Please go do it. These races are going to be close and we do need you to participate. And at the same time, we will all get through it together, no matter what the results are. Sarah and I will be here with you on Friday to process what we have of those results, and until then, have the best week available to you.
[00:48:49] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.
Sarah [00:48:54] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.
Beth [00:49:00] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.
Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:49:04] Martha Bronitsky. Linda Daniel. Allie Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sara Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holliday. Katie Johnson. Katina Zugenalis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. The Pentons. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stiggers. Karen True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Katherine Vollmer. Amy Whited.
Beth [00:49:38] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McCue. Nicole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.