Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed creator of the Huey Report and direct mail expert, Craig Huey, in-studio to outline the specific techniques used by the Democrats that will aid in their quest to turn red states blue.
Leahy: In studio is our good friend California refugee Craig Huey. He’s the founder and CEO of Creative Direct Marketing Group. He saw the light moved them from Southern California here to Nashville. Lives in Williamson County. Welcome, Craig.
Huey: Hey, Michael. It’s great to be here with you. And it’s great to be in Tennessee.
Leahy: Isn’t it great to be in Tennessee?
Huey: Awesome. (Chuckles)
Leahy: Now you are an expert on California and California politics. You lived there your whole life.
Huey: That’s right.
Leahy: You were a surfer kid. You ran for Congress here in 2011, and you saw something about how the Democrats were organizing. Now, I always want you to come in here because one of the main themes of this program is we want to prevent the Californication of Tennessee because a lot of Californians are fleeing that blue state.
That high tax heavy regulation blue state and moving to Tennessee because we have no state income tax. It’s a good environment. And we were talking about this off-air. What is it that we can do to prevent the Californication of Tennessee?
Huey: Well, you know what? There is no stopping Californians from fleeing. But the good news is, like in our neighborhood, the majority of the people moving in, and what I’m talking about not just a dozen, I’m talking about close to 40 to 50 people already and more coming all the time.
They are California refugees like me. They can’t stand the politics that has taken place and they’re fleeing. They’ve given up hope on being able to change anything. And so they have left. They have businesses like mine. I was forced to leave California just for one thing, that I couldn’t do business by hiring independent contractors.
Leahy: We were talking about that.
Huey: Regulations.
Leahy: But they won’t let you have independent contractors, which is stupid.
Huey: Absolutely. It hurts the workers. It hurts the businesses. It hurts the economy. They have an eight-point-five percent unemployment rate. Plus, you add in those others who are on welfare forever. You talk about the tax is 16.5 percent is what they’re going up to.
Right now it’s a 13.5 percent income tax. And when they hear Tennessee has no income tax, it’s so attractive. The Tax Foundation just came out with a report. Tennessee is the lowest taxed state in the nation for your lifetime of paying tax.
Leahy: I love it! That’s why you are living in Tennessee. I’m living in Tennessee.
Huey: But there is a problem other than California.
Leahy: I asked you to talk about how we prevent the Californication of Tennessee. But there’s another state, and that represents a bit of an issue in Tennessee.
Huey: The Georgia-fication of Tennessee.
Leahy: Elaborate on that if you would.
Huey: That is what the Democrats are talking about. That’s what the National Democrats are putting in nationwide $35 million. to transform, not their blue states but to go after a state like Tennessee. And Tennessee is one of the targets because they believe they can bring a mobilization of voters in Tennessee like they did in Georgia.
Leahy: The mobilization in Georgia and I don’t want to get off point of this. A lot of it was helped by, in essence, cheating and changing election rules unlawfully.
Huey: Yes.
Leahy: That is going to have less success in Tennessee. But the digital marketing efforts, the organizational efforts that they’ve used to basically turn Georgia purplish. Right. Tell us about that. And there’s actually a specific instance right now going on. And you told me about it. And I said, oh yeah that makes sense.
Huey: (Chuckles) So listen, here’s the thing. They have determined how to win an election even in a red state. They have determined how to be able to transform politics. They can take five to 10 percent higher voter turnout, which could flip a Republican seat nonetheless, protect the Democrats.
Leahy: If it’s like, typically 53 to 47 D, they can change.
Huey: They can change that.
Leahy: How do they do that?
Huey: So here’s how they do it. I got a letter from the head of the Democrats National Committee. He explained, exactly what he was going to do.
Leahy: I’m guessing you do what I do.
Huey: Yes.
Leahy: I get on their email list.
Huey: Absolutely.
Leahy: And they think I’m one of them. And they send me all their emails. So you’ve got that.
Huey: I got that. Let me just read the real quick part. This is from them to their Democrats, the top Democrat donors. This agreement we reached as a game-changer. And it’s the easiest commitment we’ve made to state parties and grassroots ever to fight the Republicans.
Leahy: What agreement?
Huey: The agreement is that they would spend $32 million to hire high school and college organizers here in Tennessee and other states.
Leahy: In Tennessee.
Huey: Just in the Republican states like Tennessee. They feel they can switch. So there are about 10 Republican states they’re dividing this money up with.
Leahy: And so they’re hiring high school and College organizers.
Huey: And they’re targeting churches and the black community.
Leahy: Churches, churches, churches.
Huey: They have organizers. Paid staff organizers. Here’s what they’re going to do. Number one, register to vote. Number two, do a digital campaign of petitions and polls to identify what issues. If issues of education, then somebody concerned about retirement and inflation.
What is it? And they do a profile of these people. And then from that, they go to that door and find out how to develop a relationship with them. It’s supported by a digital campaign. So if somebody’s really concerned about education, they’re going to get digital ads on Facebook and Google that are all about how bad the Republicans are about education and how good the Democrats are.
Then they’re going to take that data and have people knocking on the door. And they’re going to be saying, you’re for good education. So is our candidate. We got to stop this abuse of the kids. Can I count on you for support? And they say either they’re persuadable or in agreement.
And if they’re not, they won’t get any more contact. And if they are, can I give you a babysitter to get you to the poll? Can I give you a voter guide? They’re putting money into a voter guide that tells them how to vote from the school board all the way up to the top of the ticket.
And so it’s a complete mobilization and organization, of paid staff. The Republicans act like it was 30 years ago. They don’t understand these techniques. The Democrats think they can wipe out marginal districts in red states.
And that’s what they plan to do. If you remember Michael in California in 2018 and then this last election, there was all this, wait a minute. I won on election day.
Leahy: But what happened!
Huey: And a week later…
Leahy: I lost!
Huey: But that’s not just voter fraud. And some of the areas where that change took place. It’s because they got in the vote by mail ballots. And they did an amazing job.
Leahy: The vote by mail is the key. The Zuckerberg money went there. And, of course, it is a lot easier to commit fraud with vote by mail.
Huey: Totally.
Leahy: And we’ve documented it. In Georgia, they did that. The fraud took place because we’ve done stories at The Georgia Star News. 600,000 of the vote by mail ballots were deposited in drop boxes. 700,000 went by regular mail.
The ones in dropboxes six months later still, the Secretary of State down there has not yet produced a chain of custody documents for 333,000 of them.
Huey: It’s corrupt. It’s wrong. And it happens. And that’s why voter integrity is so important. And part of this money is going to lawsuits in Tennessee. You are going to see lawsuits to weaken the voter laws.
Leahy: That’s what they did in Georgia. That’s exactly the plan. The Secretary of State caved there. The Republican Raffensberger caved and basically, they let the Democrats set the rules illegally. But with the approval of the Secretary of State under rulemaking authority that they usurped the legislative authority down there.
Now, what’s interesting about this and I’m going to tell you, the plan is diabolically evil and effective. And the reason I know that is because it’s like they’re working hand in hand with the teachers’ unions and with the left-wing administrators of school districts. Because, as you know, they’re all pushing critical race theory.
Huey: That’s right.
Leahy: And so the kids are going to be overwhelmed with this I hate America idea. And then the Democrats come in and they go and they hire some of these kids who are being taught I hate America. And so they’re going out and they’re promoting well, we have to fix that.
And so we’re going to go with a Fix America because I hate the America program. And it’s easy for them to recruit people and talk to them. But they’re paying high school kids to do this.
Huey: They are paying high school kids and college kids and College kids that’s exactly what they did in California. It was the training ground. And so much of what goes on in California spread nationwide and they’re just exporting that.
Leahy: And it’s in the churches here too. One of the difficulties that you have is if you’re a Christian who believes in Orthodox Christianity, it is increasingly difficult to find a church in Tennessee that is not imbued with left-wing social justice warriors at the minister level. And it’s a consequence, I think, of decades of this kind of activism among Democrats recruiting church leaders.
Huey: It’s a great divide in the church community. It’s a great divide in America. And people have to stand up. They can’t go to a church that is teaching racism and bigotry.
Leahy: And the problem is finding a church right now like that. And there are some.
Huey: There are some.
Leahy: But it’s a diminishing number because the Democrats are very aggressively promoting social justice and equity and all those critical race theory-type things at schools and in churches.
Listen to the second hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer in studio to weigh in on the growth spurt that continues in Tennessee due to a re-locating caravan of blue state refugees.
Leahy: We are joined in studio by our very good friend all-star panelist, Clint Brewer, recovering journalist, who gives me advice on pitfalls to avoid. And I follow that advice very very often. Thank you for that. But I wanted to talk about for a minute, Clint, what’s happening here in Nashville, despite all of the bad policies of Mayor John Cooper Nashville, for a number of reasons outside of Nashville and some inside of Nashville, it’s growing like crazy. California is going nuts. Illinois is going nuts. New York’s gone nuts. These bad blue states are basically creating refugees who want to run a business where they’re not going to be interfered with.
Brewer: And it’s been that way for a while. I spent five years in Governor Haslam’s administration doing economics.
Leahy: That’s right. You did. You’ve seen this.
Brewer: I’ve witnessed this up close and personal. I mean, New York, Illinois, California have fed more businesses to the state of Tennessee in last 10 years, probably than any other state ever has.
Leahy: We should send a thank you note to Governor Newsom in California.
Brewer: It’s the low tax rate. It’s the low corporate tax rates, the general affordability of land. It’s a willingness of governments to be partners with businesses rather than be in opposition to them. And it’s a lifestyle choice for a lot of people’s families and a lot of employers’ families. You can find really great schools here. And it’s just a more laid-back way to live.
Leahy: You can find houses here in Middle Tennessee that are less expensive than the houses being sold in California. But what a hot market this is?
Brewer: Yeah, it is a hot market. All the people moving here have certainly heated up the real estate market. I mean, it’s hot for this area. The appreciation rate is high, but it’s still cheaper to live in than the vast majority of other places in the country.
Leahy: And by the way, that no state income tax, you can’t beat it.
Brewer: I mean, it’s the best recruiting tool we’ve got.
Leahy: It absolutely is a great recruiting tool. Apparently, Oracle likes it. Now they have a few hurdles to overcome. But I guess on Tuesday night, the Metro Nashville Council unanimously approved the things they had to do to get Oracle in here for the first step.
Brewer: Oracle has been in the economic development pipeline for a while, and it’s a big win for the state. Kudos to Nashville for showing so well and winning the deal. It’s good to see the Cooper administration sort of getting back into the ring on economic development. That’s encouraging. And when a company can do business anywhere and they decide to do business in Tennessee, it says a lot about our business environment.
It says a lot about our workforce, and it says a lot about the potential for the state. We’re becoming a hub for tech, which are high-paying jobs, which is what you need now. There are some challenges policy-wise with it. And I think some of the residents of the East Bank are right to be worried that they’re going to be crowded out.
Leahy: I think it’s inevitable.
Brewer: Well, it may be, but, I mean, we can’t just drive people willy nilly out of the county. We’ve got to figure out a way to do both. To allow people to stay in the county and to recruit economically.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmakers line to discuss where the irresponsible Democratic spending stands on both infrastructure and tax bills and the upcoming red wave of 2022.
Leahy: We are joined now on our newsmaker line by our Washington Correspondent for the Star News Network, Neil McCabe. Good morning, Neil.
McCabe: Michael, very good to be with you, sir.
Leahy: Is there anything in the Democratic dictionary when you go look up infrastructure, is there anything that’s not included in that definition?
McCabe: Yes. Highways, roads, and bridges. (Laughter)
Carmichael: Now that’s funny.
Leahy: That is very good.
Carmichael: Very quick. (Laughter)
Leahy: You just made our day here, Neil. (Laughs) So, Neil, let me ask you this.
McCabe: This is why you bring me on board here. I’m good at my job. This is my function. I deliver the mail.
Leahy: So where is that boondoggle? How many trillion dollars is this infrastructure bill that’s basically a bunch of Democratic slush fund monies for liberal groups. Where does that stand now?
McCabe: I think it’s in really big trouble right now because three big reasons. Number one, the Republican moderates, especially those 10 moderate senators who are going to the White House and meeting with the President they have now come forward and say we’re sick of being used. The president uses us as props, and we were embarrassed and we’ve had no input. And we’re tired of being props. And that took two months.
So that didn’t take long for these guys to figure that out. The second problem is that they’re running out of runway on their calendar. Remember, the Biden administration went with the soft opening. They haven’t had a joint address to Congress yet. Now comes word that Nancy Pelosi the Speaker has invited Biden to speak to a joint session of Congress on April 28. We talked a while ago when I said the earliest it was going to be like this week.
So I wasn’t that far off. The problem is after July 4 nothing gets done until people get back from Labor Day. And then you’ve got the budget crisis because it’s the end of the fiscal year. They don’t have the runway to get done what they needed to do. And one of your clues about that is that at the press conference, Biden said that he was going to put forward his gun legislation after he got infrastructure done because he wanted to do everything at the right time.
And he wanted to schedule everything. He said that the part of presidential leadership is doing everything step by step. And then they panicked and then released their gun agenda and infrastructure isn’t in the bank yet. The third thing that’s going to really hurt that infrastructure bill is the fact that people in Washington are now very much aware that there is severe inflation on the horizon. We’re seeing it in home prices.
We’re seeing it in commodity prices. We’re seeing it in gas prices. There is price inflation. A lot of this rise in the stock market is not attributed to increases in productivity, innovation or future earnings it’s just sheer inflation. And one of the problems that you’re going to run into is that the more you spend like crazy, you’re going to continue to feed that inflation with that big COVID bill that they pushed through.
There was an argument that Trump’s government spending was responsible for that inflation. When Biden pushed through that COVID bill and then now talking about this infrastructure bill and his other spending bill, he is going to own the inflation that is going to come from all of this spending.
Carmichael: Neil, add to that their proposed tax bill, which essentially when you get to the fundamental understanding of the way the Democrats are thinking is they want to spend trillions of dollars from Washington, and they want to suck trillions of dollars from the private sector. So they’re essentially becoming for lack of a better term a kind of a fascist of government where Washington is in league with certain industries in the private sector. And I think the tax bill is also in tremendous trouble. And it should be. What do you think about that?
McCabe: What’s going to kill the tax bill is that everyone knows that there’s a red wave coming. Everyone knows that the polls severely undercounted or underrepresented the strength of Trump, especially with the irregular voters. And they’re sort of the unlikely voters who all showed up. So people are very scared of what Trump is going to be able to do.
Leahy: You mean Biden.
McCabe: I mean, Trump is going to be able to deliver.
Leahy: In the 2022 midterm. Thanks.
McCabe: Everyone everyone knows that Trump is out there. He’s not being treated like an ex-President. Believe me, I’m old enough to remember. Nobody was afraid of ex-President Jimmy Carter. No one was afraid of ex-President George H.W. Bush. Nobody was impeaching George H.W. Bush because they were afraid he was going to run again. Okay, that was clear very quickly. He was never running again. But Trump is active and he is there.
And the Democrats know they have one shot at smash and grab. The problem is if they do a smash and grab tax bill, the thing they have to fix is the limit on the deductibility of property taxes in these states, especially in the Northeast, where the property in California, where the property taxes are so high and that’s capped, I think the cap is what $10,000 from the 2017 tax bill? And that is really hurting the Democratic machines in New Jersey and New York and Massachusetts and Connecticut.
And people, can’t deduct their property taxes anymore. So what you have is what was happening before is the rest of the country was subsidizing the high taxes in the Northeast and these blue states, and they’re desperate to fix that. No Democrat in Colorado or Arizona or New Mexico or Missouri is going to defend cutting the taxes of rich people in New York.
Leahy: Last question for you, Neil from Crom.
Carmichael: I think Neil hit it right on the head on that because that’s called the salt. The state and local taxes. And they’re only about six states that get pounded by state and local taxes. But that’s because the Democrats in those states tax their citizens at such high rates, and especially the rich. And so I’m with you.
They’re not going to be the Democrat senators from the states with relatively low taxes. If they do vote to repeal taxes, give billionaires in high tax states tax breaks then they’ll be facing a rough midterm. Do you know how the Republicans are doing in recruiting candidates for the House and Senate?
McCabe: This is going to be a great recruiting year for Senate races and House races for the Republicans going into these midterms. And remember that with Trump, he wasn’t personally popular, but his policies were. Biden is personally popular, but his program and agenda are not. And if the Republicans focus on the agenda, they will crush the Democrats.
Listen to the third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
