Alexandra Hunt: Congressional Candidate (PA-03) (Part 2)

Join host Jesse White of the Keystone Reckoning Project and Alexandra Hunt, candidate for PA's Third Congressional District, for Part 2 of their discussion.

Part 2 includes Alexandra talking about the pushback she's received from sitting members of Congress and how she plans to defeat an entrenched incumbent in Dwight Evans. She also discusses how her past working as a stripper has impacted her life and her campaign, but also how she hopes her experiences can help sex workers personally and politically.

For more about the Keystone Reckoning Project, visit www.keystonereckoning.com.

For more about Alexandra Hunt's campaign, visit
https://www.alexandramhunt.com
https://www.facebook.com/AlexandraHuntForCongress
Donate at https://secure.actblue.com/donate/alexandra-hunt-for-congress-website

Learn more about the Keystone Reckoning Project at www.keystonereckoning.com

Visit www.truebluegear.com for all of your progressive political t-shirts and gear. Use the code "KEYSTONE" at checkout for a 20% discount for Keystone Reckoning Podcast listeners!

Transcript

[Unknown17]: 0:31

hi welcome to the keystone recording podcast i'm your host jesse white back for part two with alexander hunt kind candidate for congress in pa three which is philly currently represented by dwight evans so we were talking in the previous conversation about the kind of backlash you were getting from other democrats in congress about your your campaign and i have to think they're just like oh jesus we do not want another ac is that basically what this is

[Unknown18]: 1:02

oh yes oh yeah i i yes

[Unknown17]: 1:07

have you spoken with her

[Unknown18]: 1:10

i not spoken with her i have been weighing the pros and cons of potentially because she's she's also a very polarizing figure and while i agree with her on i think all of her platform um she she's polarizing and and so i i need to be think about if she would be helpful or not in in helping us win this district

[Unknown17]: 1:36

do you have any other progressive groups organizations that have endorsed you or backing you putting people in the streets for you

[Unknown18]: 1:44

uh we are in conversation with a couple we've been endorsed by blue america marion williamson catch fire and pen justice stems

[Unknown17]: 1:55

it's got to be hard you know in a prime area when you're challenging an entrenched incumbent and dw evid is as entrenched as it gets you know in terms of his long history in pa politics it seems as though you know a lot of challengers get hung up on this idea of endorsement and we've got to get this person and that person and they don't understand i think that your job is a challenge is to go out and kind of prove yourself right and and kind of i've felt instead of trying to grab somebody else's following if you build your own following it's much more powerful and then it serves as a kind of a magnet to bring more people to the table

[Unknown18]: 2:39

i i don't i hate talking about endorsements um i i think that uh it's it's a little bit on the superficial level um and i just come from a much deeper place in my going about my life so i don't i don't enjoy it and um i can be a little bit neglectful in pursuing endorsements because of that but there have been different voices advising on our race and saying that you know we do need to be building a coalition and demonstrating that wit through endorsement so we've been for them more

[Unknown17]: 3:19

yeah it so what you're saying is you have a lot of questionnaires that you still need to fill out yes

[Unknown18]: 3:24

yes

[Unknown17]: 3:25

i i hear ya i and i always looked at it like this if an endorsement is one thing but what does it bring to the table right is it going to

[Unknown18]: 3:33

eight

[Unknown17]: 3:33

bring money to the table more importantly is it going to bring bodies to the table like i always used to love se u because if you got their endorsement you had you know purple and yellow tshirts out in the street for you you know and in an urban district in a big congressional district of seven hundred some thousand people i mean you

[Unknown18]: 3:50

oh

[Unknown17]: 3:51

just need as much manpower or man and woman power as you could possibly get so

[Unknown18]: 3:58

oh

[Unknown17]: 3:58

are you feeling as though you're getting a lot of grassroots volunteers and folks on the ground

[Unknown18]: 4:04

yeah and actually those those are the endorsements that i'm more likely to go after that

[Unknown17]: 4:08

six

[Unknown18]: 4:09

there's a couple of different groups that i know brings bring volunteers to the table and so i've been i've been saying those are the ones that i want rather than you know so and so who's a big lefty name uh giving giving their theirs i i get that it helps in some ways but i really want the volunteers so yes

[Unknown17]: 4:30

so it's it's got to be difficult for you because you're you're you're kind of going through this process where you know anybody that's a political outsider and i'm not talking about like the you know the hedge fund person who's like i'm not a politician you know which is just the most annoying phrase ever but like don't dis what we do to try to get yourself cd right that just drives me crazy but you're you know you're someone that's not part of the establishment you've kind of come up on this on your own honestly and now you're in this world you know you've got like one foot in this world where there's a very kind of accepted standard way of doing things and you have to balance out how much of it of that do i have to do to be taken seriously while still maintaining being the person that got me to this place to begin with can you talk about that process a little bit am i accurate or are you nodding for those or are listening i mean what's the what's that like

[Unknown18]: 5:29

you so accurate it um there there's a line that that sticks with me from when i was nineteen i think and i at the time i wanted to become a doctor and so i was a premed in college and um i was shadowing an er physician and there was another doctor who came in and he saw this this case that we were looking at and he was just like oh she y you know she's just here in anxiety kick her out throw throw her out and i at at nineteen i i i was like wow you're really known for your compassion aren't you and i said that to a doctor um and the doctor that i was shadowing grabbed me and he like pulled me to the side and he said don't ever let them break you and that really stuck with me is that like that i i gotta stay true to who i am and that is telling people off when they're doing something shitty um and if that means that i am unprofessional or not take it seriously i that's fine i can work with that i like being an underdog so it i i have i have no problem with it

[Unknown17]: 6:56

well and the other thing that's funny is you know we're talking about about being professional right this is the chamber of matt gates marjorie taylor green you know i think there's this idea that when you become like an elected official especially in a legislative body that you've some you know that we'd like to think that those folks are kind of like next level in their you know in their intellect and their morals and the right but we've you know it's not hard to see that that is just not the case i mean the idea that the best people get into office is by far one of the biggest fallacies in politics

[Unknown18]: 7:33

hm i agree

[Unknown17]: 7:35

so right well let let's talk about i want to talk about your your the differences between you and your opponent for me because i have a story about your opponent that i want to tell you about an experience that i had but what is

[Unknown18]: 7:51

hey did he show up for at at the end of a protest for a photo off because i've been hearing all of those

[Unknown17]: 7:57

oh no this is this is better this is the he

[Unknown18]: 7:59

okay

[Unknown17]: 8:00

didn't have to go anywhere i was the one that had to go somewhere but before we get to it my question is tell me the moment you decide to run for congress what because you've clearly done a lot and you know you you've had for someone who's twenty eight years old you've had a pretty wide range of life experiences where what was your tipping point

[Unknown18]: 8:22

my tipping point was the pandemic and there there was for me there

[Unknown17]: 8:27

wow

[Unknown18]: 8:28

was a moment of just like well i'm i'm gonna do this now um and that moment was so at the when the pandemic first struck i was working at a cancer center and my background's in public health so i knew i knew the virus was coming and i knew that we weren't responding to it and because i was working at a cancer center with a very vulnerable population i was already starting to isolate myself and not go in person um and then our the it it was here and everything shut down and and so i was like i need to my my city is in need i need to get out and and be there um and so i i was at testing sites and helping get out menstrual items and with the the homeless encampment that formed and i was at a food distribution site and as i was driving there i saw this huge line and it was like down the it w rapped down the around the building down the street and i was like i wonder what that's for and when i got there it was four people in philadelphia a large city in the united states the oldest c in the united states who were food insecure we didn't have enough food at home it was an enormous line and i just i had this this thought of they're not they're not coming to help us there's there's there's

[Unknown17]: 10:02

yeah

[Unknown18]: 10:03

nobody has their boots on the ground and so i i said you know what are you what are you waiting for that this is this is this is now and that's when i decided to run and i start to look into who was holding the seat who was my who was missing who who's not on the ground and it was dwight evans and as i started to peel back what he's done what he hasn't done i was like oh i'm i'm running against him

[Unknown17]: 10:30

that yeah was my next question your congress' a big jump for someone this never held office before and you know i i' sure you probably have had people say well you need to pay your dues and run for the state house or do this or do that

[Unknown18]: 10:44

board of education

[Unknown17]: 10:46

yikes

[Unknown18]: 10:47

yeah

[Unknown17]: 10:48

yeah has there been any approach made to uh like to not quote buy you off but to kind of you know incentivize you to not run right now

[Unknown18]: 11:00

um so the philadelphia democratic party often does that with candidates that they don't want running they have not approached me i i have heard from other candidates that they've been approached with different seats offered or run against this person not that person we'll make sure you get in which of course is baloney but still they're trying they they don't wanna talk to me so

[Unknown17]: 11:25

i think there's a pretty clear reason for that i mean i think they probably realize that you're you you put them on blast pretty quickly i mean a lot of times you look at you're like y there's no you know that person's we they're not transactional you know at

[Unknown18]: 11:38

right i i think that's what i thought too is that they they they either can't figure out what it is that i want or see that what i want is policy changes and they can't give that to me through money

[Unknown17]: 11:48

right right yeah you're not gonna get us yeah you're not you're not gonna going take a seat on the parking authority right like that was always the

[Unknown18]: 11:54

i c tea

[Unknown17]: 11:54

right that was always the place where they said people to die so okay this this lets me segway into my thoughts on white so i serve white for all eight or almost all eight of my years i think he went i forget what erie went to congress but it' towards the end of of my tenure and so while he was there he was for the majority of the time he was the house of dam's appropriations chair and

[Unknown18]: 12:20

what

[Unknown17]: 12:21

you have to understand what it was like at first it changed over the course and i think honestly it's why he was like i'm ready to get out because he lost his power for the most part but he was the most powerful person in the caucus more than the leader more than anybody because he controlled the purse strings right if you needed anything you had to go to dwi and everything was transactional you know if i needed you know when they did wham you know the walking around money which i get why it had a bad reputation but you know it was like okay we're giving small grants to fire departments and organizations that can use like senior centers the money was going to a good place for good things you know but the problem was you know there'd be people that towed the party line that were getting you know half a million dollars in williams and then there were people like me they're like okay you have thirty five thousand dollars and i'm like but i have twenty one municipalities we're like yeah but we don't care because i wasn't on you know on the team and it wasn't even that i was invited to be on the team and turned it down i just kind of never got you know i just never went there so im running for reelection in i think it was twenty ten tea party year lot of republic democrats in southwestern p a are in trouble and i was because of a lot of my positions you know it was a little too progressive for my district so i faced some fundraising challenges and also my predecessor had like no fund raising experience so there wasn't a donor base cultivated in the district so and i was having hard time getting support from my own caucus you know from the house stems so the head of the hd cc says look you gotta go talk to dwight and i was like okay and this is a during the summer he's like here's what i need you to do i need you to go see him in philly in his office i'm like really can't it just wait till we get back in session he's like no you gotta go i'm like okay so i actually flew from on my own time from pittsburgh to philly for a day i don't think i've ever told the story to anybody i flew to pittsburgh to philly for a day

[Unknown18]: 14:27

it was bad

[Unknown17]: 14:28

like got a car roll up on ogun avenue and like go and meet with white at his office and it was like i didn't know what i was supposed to do like i go in there i'm like am i supposed to genu fleck am i supposed to beg i don't you know i'm like i'm grown up i don't know what the hell this is and like i said i'm assuming in retrospect i was supposed to make some sort of an ask that i just never made like explicitly and it was so i like went we like hung out for a couple of hours and talked about we did talk some policy stuff i'm not going to say it was totally superficial but we did talk some policy stuff and things and he came and he did come later to a tour my district you know to get a little attention to some things whatever but like the the money never showed like the the not even the movie the support never showed i it was like a fight the whole way through i i always say you know a lot of times running for office you fight more with your own party than you do the republicans you know when you're in a swing district and it was and i got on a plane and flew back home and my wife was like how did it go and i was like i have no fucking idea i have no clue what just happened it was one of the most bizarre days of my life and its just always stuck with like now when i think it's white that's just what sticks with me and you know and the word i always had to to associate with him was just transactional you know he was a transactional guy and and when he went to congress i was like oh yeah that tracks like this he'll he'll he'll do well there but yeah it's and i'm sure you've heard lots of kind of weird stories like that along the way

[Unknown18]: 16:10

well that that i mean it doesn't surprise me but uh i i know that he was king of the state house

[Unknown17]: 16:19

he was

[Unknown18]: 16:21

but in and i when people tell me about you know what are you doing running against him and like feel sorry for him i'm like you on you

[Unknown17]: 16:32

seven

[Unknown18]: 16:32

know this guy's so powerful what are you talking about but i i i'm surprised he was in his office it and that you were able to spend the day with him

[Unknown17]: 16:47

it was it was definitely an interesting experience and i guess if i had it all do over again i'd still do it because it was just such a good weird out of body kind of a thing but and i will say that you know the the caucus did you know depose him basically of his position uh we had f

[Unknown18]: 17:05

you know what happens

[Unknown17]: 17:07

with the leadership elections

[Unknown18]: 17:12

why why he lost his power

[Unknown17]: 17:15

i'll be curious to hear your take on it

[Unknown18]: 17:18

my take

[Unknown17]: 17:19

yeah

[Unknown18]: 17:21

he so he had a a neighborhood organization

[Unknown17]: 17:24

oh yeah yeah yeah the jazz festival and all of that

[Unknown18]: 17:27

and the nightclub that he was funneling state dollars into investigated by the f b i had

[Unknown17]: 17:28

yeah

[Unknown18]: 17:34

to give the money back and then he was no longer a chair of what

[Unknown17]: 17:37

well and what and he still almost was a chair you know because leadership elections are a big deal and really what it boiled down to was it was a combination of factors but it was a leadership election where it swung wildly towards allegheny county we put in joe marcos from allegheny county is the chair and a lot of it had to do with ending the kind of desperate kind of you know heavy handed approach you know and

[Unknown18]: 18:00

three

[Unknown17]: 18:00

only that there was a and i guess this was maybe he viewed this as part of his job but there was a disproportionate amount of dollars going to philly for those kind of projects and it was like hey we've got people you know we could politically help democrats in a lot of areas if we could do some things but you're putting money into these kind you know i would see what other colleagues from philly were getting money for and i'd be like this is insane this isn't even good politics this is just someone's something like you someone's getting rich off of this and it's it's not good so okay well

[Unknown18]: 18:33

right

[Unknown17]: 18:33

we live about five minutes and i do wanna get to the stripper thing if you don't mind and i feel even kind of skie talking about it because i'm a guy but like i the thing that i like about it the way you've handled it not that i liked that you were a stripper that's your yeah that's not my issue the thing that i like about the way you handled it was you're doing this thing and i saw in some other interviews that a lot of candidates are doing now which is you're taking what would be thing they would attack you on you're owning it and you're doing it on your terms and i think that's awesome you know my my my favorite example of that is bethany hall alleg county councilwoman you know when she ran she ran as a recovering addict and it was like well now you can't hurt me with it you know

[Unknown18]: 19:22

nine

[Unknown17]: 19:22

um but when you how long and if any this is something you don't want to talk about please you know i i understand but how long were you you a stripper for

[Unknown18]: 19:34

uh just during college i i thought about when i came to to philly for grad school i thought about stripping again uh but at that time i was still on my track to pursue medicine and i was worried that i would see some of the doctors or medical school administration at the club and then

[Unknown17]: 19:57

awkward

[Unknown18]: 19:57

have them interview me for medical school and i just didn't think that that would end up working in my favor so i did not i i worked in restaurants instead

[Unknown17]: 20:07

are you in favor of legalizing sex work

[Unknown18]: 20:11

legalizing is different than de crime

[Unknown17]: 20:13

okay de crime that's where you're at

[Unknown18]: 20:15

yeah

[Unknown17]: 20:15

okay

[Unknown18]: 20:16

and that's just because it's hard to it from from a legalized definition it's hard to put

[Unknown17]: 20:23

no

[Unknown18]: 20:24

laws that would govern someone's body and not violate bodily autonomy

[Unknown17]: 20:27

fair

[Unknown18]: 20:28

is it you you're able to use it like if you want to use your body to to have sex and make money from it than any sort of law that could restrict or regulate that it's a little it's tough

[Unknown17]: 20:41

right right i get it that makes total sense do you do you running for office now do you regret that that is something that you have to address or this something that you could be defined by or kind of you know having people that have a different opinions kind of demean you based on that

[Unknown18]: 21:02

um do i regret it no does it hurt yeah i mean i've i my my skin's gotten pretty thick but it's still there's is still so much stigma i i was pushed out of a job because of it um and and now i'm full time on the campaign and whatever happens next i don't i don't know i don't know if i'm gonna be a viable candidate for going back into my field which is public health and so we'll see it it i i really just threw myself into this and um we'll we'll see what happens but i do know i do know that that this is opening a door for other candidates who might have a spicy past um to be forward and upfront about it and if anyone criticizes them they can point at at our campaign and say were you as hard on her or or you know whatever and we can absorb all try to absorb all of that stigma as much as possible

[Unknown17]: 22:10

one of the lines that always stuck with me when i was fighting for environmental advocacy in a place that was clearly just not interested in it was you know the first one over the fence always gets bloody and you know and it sounds like you're experiencing some of that is it is it more for men more from women what's the kind of vibe that you get

[Unknown18]: 22:33

definitely definitely more from from white men uh i i i know that you

[Unknown17]: 22:40

oh we suck now it's okay we suck

[Unknown18]: 22:42

um so when from from men of color it's it's just been like oh wow you are being very vulnerable and and it also it helps it helps people to understand that i can relate to hardship and struggle and policy that is dehumanizing so i think that that is is helpful in many cases but i think with white menn sometimes it's often hard to relate to that and so um there's a lot of that patriarchal just oppress you know something that is unfamiliar and stomp it out

[Unknown17]: 23:23

well you know i spoke with christie nibs who ran up in erie for congress and she told me and she's you know an attractive younger woman and she told me that you know when she was making fundraising calls and stuff i mean she was basically directly proposition for sex you know as part of the the fundraising process i mean have you run into that were there are guys that are just like well i could probably get her because you know they have this you know really messed up warped image in their mind

[Unknown18]: 23:50

mm hm yeah i have i've had to listen to um you know comments made as they like look up our website on the internet and see my picture and and things like that

[Unknown17]: 24:03

and they're like oh you're hot or whatever

[Unknown18]: 24:06

they owe you your you're you're too attractive to be in politics since

[Unknown17]: 24:10

oh that's such a skis thing to say

[Unknown18]: 24:13

yeah um so usually i i just am like you know i i think i'm gonna make my next phone call just say keep her money

[Unknown17]: 24:23

what about from women do you get kind of like they'll look down their nose from you like i could see i guess if you were right in the suburbs it would be a very different kind of a thing but

[Unknown18]: 24:33

so the suburbs was where i got the i was coaching soccer out in the suburbs and so those mothers were the ones who pushed me out of my jot while they they pushed the club to push me out of my job and so yeah i i would expect that uh in the suburbs it would be much much harder for the people the women who have been drawn into our campaign it's been more

[Unknown17]: 24:58

yeah

[Unknown18]: 24:58

shock just and then like wow you're really brave um there was one woman who was disgusted by it over the phone but usually face face to fi i mean people i come in contact with uh are usually pretty progressive

[Unknown17]: 25:16

right

[Unknown18]: 25:16

um the the women at least and i i think more what what draws in hate is my openness about having an abortion and so the the proli is kind of call me a murderer and stuff like that

[Unknown17]: 25:34

yeah

[Unknown18]: 25:35

and that comes from women

[Unknown17]: 25:36

yeah and that uh you have to just kind of wear that as a badge of honor i mean i always say when the you know when some of the people that are just not good people in terms of what they you know the hypocrisy of how they want to you know dictate how we handle our bodies and make choices you know when they're shooting at you you kind of know you're doing something right so at least that's more of a traditional kind of a thing where like you can have people out there that can relate to you and you you're not the first person to go down that road whereas with some of the other stuff you know it's got to be challenging because you're you know you're there's really very little that you can draw you know experience from or or relate to you know so

[Unknown18]: 26:20

it's lonely for sure

[Unknown17]: 26:22

yeah

[Unknown18]: 26:22

and i think running running outside of the party um as an insurgent campaign as an insurgent challenger you you got to prepare for the loneliness of it and and even getting into office i anticipate it's still being a lonely venture

[Unknown17]: 26:38

you know and i know we have to go in a second but i i i agree with you there were times when towards the end where i'd kind of stuck my flag in the ground and said this is how things are gonna be and i you know i it was very lonely it was a great word to describe it even among my own colleagues among people that i had worked with and trusted and and you know done things with for years and then all of a sudden you see that it's those relationships are very superficial they're not you know i mean they it's it's hard to find a more selfish profession than elected politics

[Unknown18]: 27:13

me ft

[Unknown17]: 27:14

you know and it is so because you know i came in with this naivete i was about the same age you are now and i was like you know we're a team we're gonna work together we're gonna get things done and then you get there and you're like this is just everybody doing their own thing and making deal like people would make deals behind close doors and you're like how could you do that you screwed the team and then you realize it's really not the team is but there's is only a team when they need you to do something right you know they're like we have to do this you're like well what's this west like where's this coming from so yeah you know it's it really it sounds silly to someone that's never been through it but i mean really it's to do what you're doing is brave you know because you've taken especially someone like you who has you elements of your past like you said you're not ashamed of but there's a difference between that and not necessarily having it put on blast all over the country right you know the you know i always say i'm an interesting google right because some of the things have happened in my past i mean that's going to be you like if people when people google you for the rest of your life there are going to be things out there that maybe you don't want to be the things you're defined by you know so and the fact that you're choosing to to put yourself out there because of the things you believe in it is brave there's really no other way to put it so if if nobody else is thanks you for running today i'm good thank you for running because win or lose it's so important to bring those conversations up into it like you said pave the way for other candidates in the future

[Unknown18]: 28:46

thank you i appreciate that

[Unknown17]: 28:47

so i know we need to go um any last thoughts any wave and give everybody their ways to get in touch with you

[Unknown18]: 28:57

um thank you thank you for having me i was excited to come on this i i love a pennsylvania based podcast so thank you for having this podcast um and uh to get in touch there's hunt for congress is our website spell everything out and our social media is alexandra hunt for congress again spell everything out for facebook instagram and tick tock and for twitter it's a hunt the number four congress

[Unknown17]: 29:28

awesome and if you haven't uh for the listeners if you didn't listen to part one where you talked about her tick talk please follow her take talk it's great it's it's

[Unknown18]: 29:36

but

[Unknown17]: 29:36

exactly what you would it's gonna be hilarious because in five years there will be candidates doing that kind of stuff all over the place you know and that's just how it's going to work so alexander thank you so much for making the time i really appreciate it i would love to get you back on before the primary i know it's going to get busier and busier even if it's for like a half an hour just to get an update to see how things are going because this is a really fascinating campaign and uh you know if you things swing the way you're you're towards i think you're in a position to make history and that's something to be really proud of all right thank you very much again everybody alexander hunt look her up check

[Unknown18]: 30:08

thank you i really appreciate

[Unknown17]: 30:11

her out it's definitely a fascinating campaign so thank you very much for listening to the keys reckoning podcast i'm jesse white' a great day