Guess Who's Back?

We're back with a new format and a fresh approach for the 2024 election cycle. Learn more about what we have planned and become part of the conversation!

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

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Transcript

0:31

Hi, and welcome to the Keystone Recording Podcast for Tuesday, March 12th, 2024. My name is Jesse White. I'm your host. And for those of you who are just starting with the podcast, we are thrilled to have you. For those of you who were listening previously, I certainly hope you haven't been sitting on pins and needles since our last episode because it was a long time ago. And we are relaunching the podcast with a lot of new and interesting approaches, which I'll get to in just a minute. But for those of you who are new or those of you who need a refresher, I wanted to introduce myself, give a little background, so that when I start ranting and raving like a madman on things, you'll know that I at least am coming from a little bit of a place of experience and knowledge. Not a lot, just a little. As I said, my name is Jesse White. My background is I was a state legislator for the 46th Legislative District. which is Washington and Allegheny counties from 2006 to 2014 in the state house. That district, by the way, is located again in Washington, Allegheny. I'm no longer there. I got out after I was out of the legislature in 2014, a couple of years later, I relocated to Central PA and I now live just outside of Harrisburg. I run a political consulting firm called Perpetual Fortitude. and I'm also the executive director of the Keystone Reckoning Project, ergo, the Keystone Reckoning Podcast. That is the Keystone Reckoning Project, is a statewide political action committee that is dedicated to working to help candidates, democratic candidates at all levels of government get elected and help to combat and defeat the messaging machine that we are being forced to deal with. So I wear a lot of hats, I actually do some other things. that I'm sure we'll be talking about as this goes on, but those are the main hats that I wear. In addition, I also wear the hat of husband and father. I am happily married and my two sons are ages eight and nine, almost nine and 10, Atticus and Augustus, and I'm sure I'll be talking about them as we go through and are talking about different issues because... I really do think that one of the most important lenses to look at things through when you're talking about policy and politics is how it impacts the next generation. And becoming a parent certainly put that into stark focus for me. That's now how I look at things is, you know, I no longer have the luxury of just seeing how what happens in government will impact me. I'm now looking to how it will impact my kids and their future. which is obviously something that everybody that has kids can certainly relate to, and everybody that does not have kids will be able to relate to someday. So, that's who I am. That's what the Keystone Recording Project is all about. So let's talk a little bit about the podcast itself, and kind of what I want to accomplish with it. And I'll be honest, one of the main reasons that I hadn't been recording for a while is because I kind of had this like, paralysis by analysis where I looked at so many different ways to do podcasts and I listened to a lot of podcasts and I just could never quite figure out the right approach, the right mix of what I thought would make the most sense from both the ability to record on a regular basis and something that people wanted to listen to and also the best way to deliver it. So... What I'd been doing previously was kind of a long form where we would usually do some interviews and things like that. And that just wasn't coming out with enough regularity because it was a lot of content. Then, you know, the other issue was, well, how do I get that out there? Is it audio? Is it video? I could tell you as someone who's watching the monitor right now as I'm recording this, you don't want to look at me as you're going through your day. Right? Like that's not optimal for anybody. That's not what you want. That's not what you want. That's just no. No, it's no good. So I've decided to go with an audio format and it's going to be on all the podcast platforms, which obviously, you know, if you're listening to this, I'm also going to put it on YouTube because that is obviously such a huge, a huge platform that I don't want to miss out on. But it will be just primarily audio with. a graphic or something behind it. So the cool thing about that is I don't have to get, make myself camera ready. And when we're having guests or interviews, they don't have to worry about that either. So we're going to be audio only. And I think that makes the most sense. So that's that part of it. Let's talk about length and format. So the plan is to do a daily. and keep it short and sweet. Keep it 10 to 12 minutes. Probably have some sponsors at some point that's still being worked out for right now. You're just kind of getting me unfiltered and without any ads or anything like that. But the plan is to keep it short and sweet. And what I wanna do is obviously this is a Pennsylvania -centric podcast. I don't think there really is another... Podcast active that deals with Pennsylvania politics at least on the Democratic side And I feel like that's an area that really needs to be filled we are a massively important state heading into a massively important election cycle and I feel as though There are so much to talk about that. It needs to be talked about On as many platforms as we possibly can so I'm excited to be one of those voices to be part of that conversation So the plan is to make this a daily to kind of go and talk about not just Pennsylvania, but also how it relates to national politics because they're really unavoidably intertwined. And in, you know, I think having a perspective of both can be really valuable. And we're going to look at kind of all aspects of it with kind of no rhyme or reason. It's gonna be kind of what is the story or the topic of the day. or something that's just driving me crazy and I want to talk about. So that could be, to give you an idea, we could be talking about Trump and his criminal trials that are seemingly never going to end. We could talk about Pennsylvania government and everything that goes on there. Obviously, that's kind of right in my wheelhouse. And the thing about that is I think I'm able to provide some insights into kind of the inner workings of how things work. I still work with a lot of folks that are in and involved with the legislature, and I think it gives me a decent insight there. But I'm also no longer in public office, so I could be a little more blunt than I think someone could be who's in office. And then also I want to talk about the politics of politics. And by that I mean the election process. I'm a political consultant. I've worked on... between as being a candidate, an elected official, a campaign manager, a political consultant, a vendor. I've been involved in just about every cycle possible since 2004. So in watching how democratic politics has evolved from the perspective of how we get people elected to office, the tactics we use, the approach that we take. the way we spend our resources, the way we choose our candidates, the way we promote our candidates, all of these different things. And frankly, I think they don't get talked about enough. And I think that's to our detriment as a party and as an electorate. I think there are a lot of things the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates and consultants and staffers do great. I think there are also a lot of things that we need to be willing to have a frank and honest conversation about. Especially, I think there's been some things that have happened over the last couple of cycles, some trends, and those are things that we need to be able to talk about. And I guarantee I will always be honest and give my actual opinion, and it will be based in fact whenever possible. and I will do my very best to try to provide a factual background and experience and allow, I don't like hot takes, let me put it that way. You're not gonna get a lot of hot takes from me. I think that is a, I'm a sports fan and one of the reasons, things that drive me crazy about sports at this point is the, aside from all the gambling app. ads that permeate all of it is the hot take culture that we see on ESPN, the Stephen A Smiths and people like that. You get on, you give your 30 second hot take, no one gives a damn whether it's accurate or not. But hey, it's a hot take. And now we go on Twitter and we argue about it on there. And it's just noise, right? It's just noise. And I think that there's room and a need for a deeper conversation. about a lot of these things because it matters. It really, really matters. And these are the kind of things that most people that, you know, on the voter side don't see. I think these are a lot of things that a lot of people on the political side don't want to talk about in that there seems to be, what's the best way to put this? There are... What is the best way to put this? I'm not very often left without words. And it probably doesn't bode well that 10 minutes and 46 seconds into the first episode where I'm already struggling for words, but. I think we need to have a talk about the things that, quite frankly, don't get talked about enough in how we elect or try to elect Democrats to office. And those can be some hard conversations, and I'm not gonna get into all the details now. There'll certainly be enough to talk about as we go forward. But those are conversations that need to be had. And I will welcome dissent. I will welcome civil debate. I love the idea of debate. I don't know how you couldn't and be in this line of work. I will always admit what I'm wrong. One of the things I work very hard on is having the self -awareness to know what I don't know. And I think that's something that we all need to work on. And I think I've evolved with it and it's something I work on every day. But I wanna hear from everybody. Be that in emails, be it in comments on socials, whatever. If you think I'm an idiot, tell me I'm an idiot. And I'll let you come on and tell me, try to tell everybody else why I'm an idiot. I love it. That's what we want. Not that we want everybody to think I'm an idiot. We want people to have those conversations and be able to have them freely. And then afterwards, we all realize we're on the same team and we go about our business. That's what it should be. So as far as format goes, I have some ideas as to where this is gonna progress in terms of some regular, you know, kind of bits and things I wanna highlight, whether I'm gonna do those as dailies or do them maybe once a week or something like that. I haven't really decided. I'm gonna start just kind of free form. Starting tomorrow, we'll get into actual issues and whatnot. Today is just kind of a little intro. But we'll start that tomorrow and we'll be talking about some specific things. And then one of the things that I wanna do is I really do enjoy the interviews and kind of the long form where you could talk to candidates and people that are policy makers and decision makers or not, just people that are interesting, quite frankly, in a way that isn't gonna fit into 12 minutes a day. I think the plan there might be to do kind of like a weekend, kind of a think piece type. So maybe do the short forms every weekday. and then do something longer form for the weekend to kind of put a little structure to that. But again, I'm open to ideas, I'm open to suggestions. I'm just excited to be back in front of a microphone talking about the things I love, hopefully to and with people that are also equally passionate. We are heading into a massively important election cycle. We're already in it. We are eight months away from... when you'll hear this, I'm sure the most important election of our lifetime, which is what we say about every election. But obviously we know what the stakes are and we know it's not gonna be easy. And I'm not just talking about the presidency. One of the things I really wanna talk about with this podcast is the control of state legislatures and Congress and state row offices. These are offices that matter. And in a presidential year like 2024, that's gonna suck a lot of the oxygen out of the room, and I think it's gonna be our job to kind of pump a little oxygen back into those, and I think we could be a voice for that. So, with that, I wanna say for those of you that are new, welcome. For those of you that have patiently been waiting by your phone, whatever your device is, welcome back. I am going to endeavor to inject this with some real personality, and keep it also professional, informative, I want informed debate. That's the goal. So thank you for being here. I invite you to come and be a part of it. And I think we're gonna have some fun and who knows, maybe we'll just get some people elected here over the next few months. So again, this is Jesse. I will talk to everybody tomorrow.