THE GREAT BATTLEFIELDHOSTED BYNATHANIEL G. PEARLMAN
THE GREAT BATTLEFIELD PODCAST - A PODCAST ABOUT THE PROGRESSIVE RESISTANCE A great political battle is being fought right now for the soul of our country.
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The Great Battlefield
Polling for Progressives at a Data Firm with Ben Lazarus of TargetSmart
Mon Apr 22 2024
Think equipped me to to kinda understand things and not have the not have the, like, the kind of degrees of separation that that frequently occur in larger firms. Right? So, like, it it was principal, then me staffing calls rather than the principal, and then, like, a vice president, and then a senior analyst and then and then me. There there just wasn't that level of organization or size of team to enable that. And so I was, like, on all the calls and staffing all the work and writing tons of surveys and writing tons of memos and doing lots of background research and learning about the data side and the sampling side, the survey science side, the telephony side, the communication side. I talk about how polling is just this tremendously interdisciplinary work. It's like all of these different things piled on top of each other, And you don't have to necessarily be a super expert in any one of them. But it's important that you're kind of good at all of them in terms of psychology and statistics and communication and some data analysis. Having some sense of all those things is is, like, really important, I think, to being a good pollster. And so I got a great kinda 360 view on that in my work at Meijer's and got to be really close to client work really early in my career, and that set me up for a lot of success. 7 years, three and a half cycles, I guess. And we did a fair amount of Virginia work in the off year, and so every year was was pretty busy. And Andrew and, his partner, Lauren Spangler, who's has her own pulling firm now. It's called Searchlight. She's great. You should talk to her. They were really my mentors, and I learned everything. I really know about the business and the the work from them and got a lot of opportunities to kinda cut my teeth in state legislative polling in particular. Andrew and Lauren had been at the DLCC. They'd been at Greenberg Quinlan Rausner Research and then kind of spun off this interesting practice call. So it was Myers Research, and then it was Myers Research Strategic Services.
The Great Battlefield
Building a Multiracial Democracy and Economy with Taifa Butler of Demos
Fri Apr 19 2024
Using your own real data and information. They are 21st century visual communicators who create interactive graphics, motion graphics, and data visualizations. You can find graphicacy@graficacy.com. That is graphicacy.com. With Graphicacies help, you can visualize a better world. So Tayfa, Would you mind introducing yourself and giving me a quick biography? Sure. My name is Tayifa Butler, and I am the president of demos, and I've been in this role for a little over two and a half years. July of this year will be my 3rd anniversary. That's a pretty big job, is my sense. Important think tank and substantial budget. And, must be a nice place to have taken yourself with your career. It it well, I will just say this. It's been a daunting moment, you know, at the pandemic in 2020 and I had spent more than 2 decades of my career in Georgia doing policy work So when this opportunity came to become the president of demos, it at the time when our democracy, and our economy were both on fire one might say was a daunting moment to really think about moving to a national role and position to do incredible work with an organization that I deeply admired. I was on the board of demos for about 4 years before I stepped into the president's role. And as a state policy leader, leading a think tank in Georgia prior to this role to talk a little bit about that, I was the president and CEO of the Georgia Budget And Policy Institute. So a good bit of my policy background and experience had been in fiscal policy and economic policy, really working to build better economic opportunity for all georgians
The Great Battlefield
Large Scale Voter Registration with Tom Lopach of the Voter Participation Center
Wed Apr 17 2024
Doing accounting, leading accounting firms. My mother worked in government She left college when we were kids because she was having kids. And then about the time all of us were In grade school full time, she went back to college, got her degree in communications. When she went back to college, She became friendly with some of the players on the Carol College Basketball team, and they would come to our house of Kinchimp for dinner. With their classmate who had treatment kits. But then mom worked in government as a career employee and that later, she was appointed by Republican attorney general Mark Roscoe. And later, he went on to become governor, and he appointed her 1st term to do education policy in his office. And second term, she was commissioner of labor for the state of Montana. A job that I held on an acting basis 20 some years later. That's crazy. And then my younger sister is in Missoula Montana. She, as a school secretary, has 2 boys. My older sister and her husband are in Spokane, Washington. They both work at Conxaga University where I went and have 3 girls, and they have 2 grandchildren. But you asked about growing up in Montana. I very much remember growing up at summers where spent on your bicycles, like, from the moment folks left for work, you were on your bike until lunchtime, came home, made a sandwich, ate it, and then you are on your bike again for the rest of the afternoon till this dinner. Everything was safe. Who's a great community. People were not overly involved in politics, but they were certain supportive of one another
We firmly believe that everyone, every elected official, every citizen, every every American should be doing what they can to help our elections be as participatory and accessible as possible, and that we should have a voting public that looks like all of us. That's how you get towards a representative democracy, and that's not partisan. I refuse to buy into the idea that it is. Hello. This is the Great Battlefield Podcast. I'm Nathaniel g Perlman. A great political battle is being fought right now between progressives and the forces of reaction on the other side. This show is about the political entrepreneurs and other progressive leaders who are finding new or improved ways to fight. My guest today, Lauren Kunis, is the CEO and executive director of Vote Riders, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to ensure that all citizens are able to exercise their freedom to vote. Vote writers help citizens with voter ID and voter ID education, and their team works alongside numerous partner organizations and volunteers to make this happen. Lauren's history includes working around the world for democracy at NDI, the National Democratic Institute, and in the US with nonprofit Vote. I enjoyed getting to know Lauren. You should listen too. So after a quick word from my sponsor, my interview with Lauren Kunis of VoteRiders. This episode is brought to you by GraphiCacy. GraphiCacy is an analytic design firm that can help you advance the mission of your organization using your own real data and information. They are 21st century visual communicators who create interact
The Great Battlefield
Technology Support for Progressive Tech and Movement Groups with Xena Ni of Trestle Collaborative
Fri Apr 12 2024
And achieve in society that so many people have? Intrinsically, yes. Because I'm a nerd, and I've always been a nerd. I've always loved to read and to learn. Outside, like, from family influences, yes. I remember my grandfather. I was a little older at this point. I must have been in high school just asking my grandfather about his life growing up, and he told me an incredibly poignant story about so my grandparents were for the most part illiterate. My grandfather had maybe elementary level schooling. And as part of the great leap forward in China during that part of the communist era, he was set to work in some kind of metal refining factory. Factory. And even though he was very poorly educated, he had a good intuitive understanding about how to make processes in the factory much more efficient. And he was kind of celebrated as a model worker and asked to give a speech to the other workers. And he felt the weight of his lack of an education, and he told me that he just felt, like, a deep sense of shame that he was on this stage and didn't feel like he had anything to say or he didn't know how to put into public speaking words what he wanted to express and really carried that with him. He was a young man at that point and that's the story that he told to his kids like my dad about the importance of being educated and being comfortable in those moments. So I would say yes, like education is very important, and I I think about my grandfather's story a lot. I've had a very good education, but I've had moments like that on stage anyway. So I think it's easy. There's a lot of ways in which one could have that feeling. I know that you did your undergraduate work at Stanford, and it seemed to me in a very interesting area and