"Governor" Mike Newcome?

Is it possible to discuss politics without being divisive? Hats off to Mike Newcome who is trying his best to run a campaign for Governor dominated with kindness. The fact is, we tried...really hard. It might not be possible. Based on some listener feedback, we have edited out some regretful dialogue and hope that someone like Mike can be an example of the kind of politician the country seems to need. 

Transcript

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We are being rewarded for being division entrepreneurs. The better you are at innovating a new way to be divisive, we will pay you in more likes, followers, and reach. Welcome to the Kindness Chronicles. Woo. A apolitical political conversation heading your way. What do we do here? We're hoping to give the world a dose of the Minnesota kindness that it desperately needs, and we're gonna be talking about Minnesota politics without being political. Is that possible? But first, we're gonna find out if we can. Let's see. Yeah, let's see. We're gonna see if we can, We've got, Jeff Hoffman. Hi Jeff. Welcome. Thank you. The welcome to me, I guess. Welcome to you Steve Brown. Hi. Hi. Steve Kgs on assignment. He's working, or actually think he's at movie club tonight or something. Michael's in Austin. Our guest, Mike Newcomb, we're gonna call him in here in just a second. I have to tell you about my weekend because let's hear. It was extraordinary. So Friday night I got to go to the opening of the Lee and Penny Anderson, Arena at St. Thomas. The brand new hockey and basketball venue, absolutely incredible. I think it's a 5,000 seat, venue and my goodness, they did it right. Where is it? It's right on the St. Thomas campus. Oh, neat. Yep. South part of the campus. It's Spanky News, sparkly clean, beautiful, sparkly clean, stunning architecture's beautiful. I'm sure the architecture's amazing. The sound system is incredible. My favorite part of the whole event though, and I talked to a couple of their fundraising guys afterwards. The, uh, Lee and Penny came out and dropped the puck for the boys, uh, the men's game. And he's a guy that we should know. We should know Lee. Everybody should know Lee Anderson. He's a hockey. No. Lee Anderson is, no, he's the guy that he and his wife donated$75 million to get this done. Cool. Anyway. They're walking off after dropping the puck and the, the, the student section start chanting Lee and Penny. Ah, and I mean they had the, the crowd that's was just going wild. And it wasn't set up like that. Those students did it organic on their own. Organic. It was organic. And the guy who was like responsible for raising the majority of the money. Came up and talked. I was there with Kevin Gorg and, uh, my son Ben, and then Mark Macey, who's a good buddy of ours, and he said, I couldn't have scripted that any better. He said, we hadn't even thought of that. That's awesome. Of course. And they started chanting Lee and Penny. I mean, what, you know, what, how cool does that feel for that guy that's, and how cool does it feel? To be a St. Thomas alum. Yeah. Being able to see that those are the, that's what the fact that those students had the wherewithal in the sense, yeah. To cheer those people on gave me goosebumps. That's cool. Really cool. But what really gave me goosebumps Yeah. Was Saturday night I got to go to the hope for Helen Gala. Yeah. And when I tell you that one of our guests, Dan, recent guests, Dan and Stephanie My goodness, did they kill it? I go to a lot of these events and this was the first time that they did one of these events. It was stunning. It was incredible. They raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. Good. They had, two of the University of Minnesota, PhD scientists. Our friend Dr. Brandon Moriarty. Yeah, I saw the photos on LinkedIn. Oh. So yeah. Super cool. So Brandon. So Brandon listened to our podcast and he said, Hey, I heard you talking about my hair. I said, I was complimentary about your hair. You know, I said, I'm jealous of your hairline. But they gave a presentation and just talked about how they're taking some of the things that they have discovered while at the Masonic Cancer Center. They're applying them to these other rare diseases, these rare ailments, and it's all about genetic. Uh, I don't know. I can't even talk about it. There's, it's just they're making strides. They're making strides. That's fantastic. But I ran into Brandon after the event out in the parking lot and I said, you know what? I have decided that you are definitely smarter than me. And he goes. I think you're probably right. So I'm not sure. He seems very reminds me of your premed test that you had in biology. I struggled, uh, I struggled. You know, went, became a marketing major. That's right.'cause that's where people like me belong. That's right. Wow. What a people. Yeah. You you have a jam packed, uh, weekend often, like so many events you go to Sunday morning, I can't keep up. I know. Sunday morning I went up, uh, I got up and went up to our, our pillars brunch for. Our big donors up in Duluth. I'm tired. You're eating. You are. You're all over. Yeah. You're getting these fancy meals. Every, every, every meal. Rubber chicken. Rubber chicken. Oh. But actually the meal at Hazeltine was fantastic. I sure it was. And actually the, uh, the brunch that we had, uh, yesterday morning was lovely enough about food. Right. Speaking of guys, yeah. Do you guys have anything else that you need to add about your weekends? Didn't do a whole lot. Great. I watched my wife run a race That was really cool. In Wisconsin. Did you win sson? You know, she's a winner. She's a winner. Oh boy. You're good. She's a winner. How about you, Steve? Do you do anything? I did a lot of, still, I'm still unpacking in White Bear. I'm a recent White Bear resident. Uh, and yeah, and, uh, and I spent some time, we, we winterized my mom's house on Sunday, so it was nice of you, Steve. Very nice by the way. Your mother sent me the most lovely, uh, sympathy card. Oh, yep. That's Ronnie for the passing of my dad. What a woman. Oh my gosh. You're, she knows that your mom's going through. Talk about the Kindness Chronicles right there. She's living it. Yep. Yeah. We'll talk about that another day. Yeah. We have a very, very special guest in with us. Yeah, we do. This gentleman, we've, uh, had him on the podcast before. Briefly. He was, uh, overshadowed by a couple of young ladies from Ukraine who truly stole the show. Yeah. But, uh, this guy is a guy that, uh, graduated from, uh, high school a year between you and I, Steve. Mm-hmm. Um, didn't make it all the way to the end at Hill Murray. Something happened and he ended up at White Bear, and we won't talk about it. Was his per, it was his personality. It was too overwhelming for the, uh, the nuns or something. But, uh, some stars shine a little brighter, John. Absolutely. Well, this guy, our friend, Mike Newcomb. Welcome back, Mike. Thank you. And Mike has decided, you know what, I'm looking for something to do. Why don't I just fix the problems of the state of Minnesota and run for governor? Yeah. Easy. It seems like a, you know, what, what are you doing next week, governor? I'm running for Governor. Governor. Governor, you know. Wow. Don't wanna run for school board or city council. Let's just go straight for the governor. That's right's. What we think, aim high, big thinker. But what I love about this, and we have tried really hard to stay away from politics. You know, we each have our, political, uh, well, it's, we're inundated all the time. That's not what we're trying to do here. We're not trying to do that, and we are inundated with it. But I think that this conversation is truly a kindness chronicles level. Political campaign that is gonna be run by our friend Mike. Well, let's, yeah, let's hear that. And I met with him a couple of weeks ago and we talked about this, and I find him to be probably the most apolitical, aspiring politician that I've ever connected with. just looking forward to hearing a little bit about your campaign and what your objective is and, uh, why, why now, and why, why did you decide to do this? Like, give us the scoop and tell us, and welcome. I welcome, uh, first of all, thank you. And thank you for the introduction and thanks for having me on again. Uh, I've been asked that question probably a hundred times, Uhhuh, and it's a two part question. So why run for governor and why now? The why now really came about. For, for two reasons. A handful of weeks ago we had our young Ukrainian women. Mm-hmm. On your podcast? Yep. Probably the most inspiring, uh, people I've ever met in my life, really. And we'd sit around the kitchen table every single night and we'd have conversations and we'd talk about the war in Ukraine, and we'd talk about America and they'd talk about what they'd see on the news, and they would talk about politics in Ukraine. And I talk about politics. In America and we would talk and I'd be very forthright with them about, you know, every system has their pros and every system has their cons. And, and they just, they kept saying to me, oh, well, we're going to be positive agents for change in Ukraine when this war's over. We're gonna be a positive agent for change. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah. And I kept thinking, oh, that's so inspiring. Yeah. These 16-year-old girls Yeah. Who are living through a war have already decided that they're gonna be a positive agent for change. And I was just, I was, I'm watching the news, I'm seeing everything that's out there. And I said, Hey, wait a minute. Why can't I be a positive agent for change? These girls are inspiring you. A a hundred percent 16-year-old girls are telling you, showing you the way. That's cool. They, they, they actually, they actually showed me a, a humility. I was embarrassed of myself to not be so aware that we could make, be these positive agents a change. Yeah. So wait a second. Four weeks ago or whenever they were in here, you weren't thinking about running for governor at that point I had. So like all of us, we always think we can see and be like, I can do better than that. Mm-hmm. I can do better than that. But the short answer is no. Wow. I wasn't, I was living a great life. You've gotten a lot accomplished in four weeks. Well, uh, I wanna tell you. I I can. That's, so you said it was a two part answer. So one of them is you're inspired by the, so I was inspired, I mean, it's really a three part answer and I was also inspired, and it's what made me reach out to John months and months and months and months ago because of the Kindness Chronicles. And I said, what a great show. You're, you're here focusing on. Thank you. Good people agree. No. And I said, I'm not gonna patronize you. But again, I, I'm patronize away, patronize, patronize. I'm as sincere as possible. I love the fact that there's other Minnesotans that say All this noise is just noise. We need to focus on what real Minnesotans are doing. And usually we're all doing great things, kind things. And you know, when. Anytime I would see the negative stuff, I'd kind of turn it off because it just poisons our, our brains. Yeah. And then, so that was the other, you know, kind of inspiration, the Kindness Chronicles. I've categorized my campaigns. It's gonna be the Kindness Chronicle campaign. We're not gonna, we're not gonna, uh. Call people names and we're not gonna do the blame game. We're gonna talk about facts and we're gonna have a campaign of substance. I'm afraid the Kindness Chronicles has been trade trademarked, taken. I'm sorry. And, uh, we'll have to negotiate. There's some royalties probably. But Mike, I do remember when you were here the last time specifically, and I can't remember if we were recording. I think we were, but you, uh, you said there's a lot of people moving out of Minnesota because of the politics, and the only way we're gonna take our state back or change it for the better is staying in. Dealing with the problems, and I thought, wow, he's actually putting his money where his mouth is Now. When John had told us about you coming today, a a lot of my friends said we're, we're moving outta the state. And it's not as though they were Democrats or Republicans. They were just felt that the temperature in the state, not the air temperature right, but the tone in the temperature in the state changed from what it used to be in Minnesota without question. And the, so the third part is real simple. I'm a firm believer that we no longer have a government that is by the people and for the people. It's now by the parties and their special interest and for the parties and their special interests. And once I recognize that, it kind of freed my mind to say. This is broken, and when I talk to more and more Minnesotans, so I made this announcement that I'm seeking the endorsement for the Forward Independence party. And I, uh, on the video, how does that process work real quick? So, you know, they're a, they're a minor party, so you have your Republicans and you have your Democrats, and this was the outcropping of when Jesse Ventura was governor. This actually is the party that came out of Ross Perot, 1992. If any, if you old folks are out, out there like me, and remember that. But it's a third party movement that's kind of morphed itself from an independence party to a reform party, and now they've kind of standardized on the forward party, meaning we need to move stuff forward. And their platform is simple. You can go to their website, but it's very simple. We're there to do stuff for the people and we're gonna work together to accomplish that. And as long as government is working for the people, that's our goals and those are objectives. Other than that, what they're looking for are good candidates that can articulate a message, deliver that message, and then have passion for that message. And I actually found them, they didn't find me. I approached them and said, I'm thinking about this. What do you think? And I met'em and they said. Throw your hat in the ring. We think you're a great potential candidate. Um, they're going to have, so unlike the big parties who go through the endorsement process, they have a convention. The the forward party. What they do are gonna do this year is they have an executive committee at the state level. They're meeting, and then they're going to make an endorsement choice in November. Allowing their candidates across all the platforms. So they might run a Secretary of State. Yep. Uh, you know, attorney General, a governor, they're gonna make that endorsement early, allowing their candidates to get their feet on Great idea because I mean, the real campaign, the real nuts and bolts of a campaign really start in the summer going into the thing. So they're gonna do this endorsement, and I'll hopefully be endorsed on the 17th of November. And then we'll have an announcement at the Capitol that says, here's our endorsed candidates. And then I kind of launch a campaign. But really going into the first part of the year is when you boom and then you start, and it's gonna be a retail Kindness Chronicles kitchen table, local cafe effort on my part. And so I need to earn everybody's support because I don't expect it. And I don't expect people to fall in line. They have to resonate with the message. Mm-hmm. And there's gonna be a lot of meat on the bones. I mean, there's gonna be some policy stuff, and I know it's gonna resonate with 95% of people, but from a 10,000 foot, if you look at, you know, if you spend the time and kind of look at what I'll be about, I think you'll say, hmm. All seems pretty reasonable. It's, it's very reasonable. Yeah. It's, sorry, I, I don't wanna go on, but No, no, but that to me, I think is what differentiates you from what we're experiencing right now. It's being reasonable, and I just have to mention, in National Pol politics right now, we are, uh, in day 26 or 27 of a government shutdown. Now, if the government is for the people. If the government is for the people, the people that are running government should understand that if they are necessary, they need to have the government open. And the fact that with their both sides are digging their heels in, and as a result of that. The military's not getting paid. The TSA agents are getting paid. Nobody's getting paid. They people working without paid. They're still working. Yeah. The air traffic controllers aren't getting paid. Guess who's getting paid? The senators are still getting paid. The congressmen are still getting paid. Yep. It's complete is what it is. That's right. Ding. Ding b ass. One of the, you know, on that point, and again, being kind of apolitical, I've tried to explain to people how the parties work and what their real, or what the objectives and goals are. And I'll use the shutdown as an example. You pick which side I'm talking about. You have one side that,, is glad that the government shut down. They're glad the government shut down and you have the other side that couldn't be happier, that the other side is glad the government shut down. Right? Yeah. And that's our politics. Yuck. It's just that, and I use the analogy, well, I've used one other analogy where we have, and I use the, uh, the tent encampments in Minneapolis and I say, let me give you an example of where our, our political parties are at. You have one party that doesn't want to address the issue. Because of certain agendas they have and you have the other party that couldn't be happier that they're not addressing the issue because then they get to use it. Yeah. And then stuck in the middle are disadvantaged people who clearly need help, but they're there and this side gets to focus on'em in this side, and that's where it is now, myself, I would be an honest broker between the parties I have no agendas here. Let's bring you guys together. Well, and that's, go ahead. One of the, one of the lines that you've used is, this idea of being an honest broker of the facts. Is that how we Yeah, yeah, that's right. An honest broker of the facts. And I think what's happened is on both sides and people that are on, you know, the extremes of both sides are lying to themselves If they don't think that there is some bs going on as it relates to the facts, it's a stalemate and I've thought a lot about this. And, and so you're thinking if I come in as an independent, I don't have that political baggage that could break this stalemate. Yeah, and if you look, the, the governor HA is probably the most unique office in the state. That that has the ability to be a good broker, because let's just use some hypotheticals. Let's say we come to, uh, November 11th and the Republicans win the House and the Senate and I win the governorship. Well, there I am. There you are. Let's just say that the Republicans win the Senate and the Democrats win the house, and I win the governorship. Now we need to have a broker. That's actually gonna bring the parties together and get work done. Wouldn't that be something that's where, where somebody such as myself, as an independent with my only agenda is to work on behalf of the citizenry, and my goal would be to make Minnesota good for everybody. And I always said, everyone needs access to the good life and, and then it works the other way. The Democrats get this and then I'm there. So here's the reality. The reality is, is you're going to be asked to. Address certain situations that are just by, by their nature, our political situations. And I'm gonna give you one bicep. Yeah. And I wanna see how you will answer this question. The issue of, gender identity and transgender athletes would it be transgender females being in female locker rooms? Go At which level? Just at the high school. Okay. High school. So I'll start off by saying this, first of all, we need to show some compassion for these young people that are going through this. Good, good start. Nope. Everybody knows that adolescents. Is the most difficult part of our lives now, compound that with somebody that's having these identity crisis. So I wanna start from that point, but straightforward. I don't think biological boys belong in girls' locker rooms. Or on the sports field, because this is really a two part issue. We have these, these children who are struggling with this and going through this, but we also have young girls on the other side of the equation that we need to take into it. So I think you can have both answers and be in the middle on this issue. We need to show compassion. How do we show compassion? Well, I think understanding. I think understanding that if it was my child. That was struggling with that type of an identity crisis at an early age. My first, my first call would be to seek help, meaning who can we go to to talk this through before we even, but they don't need help. That's what they are. They well. I mean, again, but they do need help. Yes. There's so, yes. I mean, if you wanna have the argument, I think what happens is, is people get so entrenched that they just, they take that position, but they don't really believe that they really know. Correct. They really know that it's, it's a, it's a, a situation where they need some, and I'll, I'll use counseling as the term, so my first call would be to get my child some counseling and understanding of what they're feeling, why they're feeling, what they're feeling. And that it's not a bad thing because again, we don't wanna put these children through, you know, the last thing we want'em to do is to think that there's no hope. Right? And so that's not my game, but the reality of it is I would not have them do any, gender affirming care, before, they're fully. Out of adolescence, prefrontal cortex is fully developed. Well, that's right. That's 25 years old. But at, you know, 18, if my son or my daughter felt at 18 years old after going through all the counseling and things, dad, I'm in the wrong body. I was born in the wrong body. I'd say, you need to make those decisions now, and you, you go on your life and we, I will support you in any way, shape, or form, and it's gonna be a tough journey. I like, I like all your idea about being a broker. Why hasn't it happened yet? Because it doesn't pay. Okay, tell me more. It doesn't pay this. These, and, and, and again, I wanna go back. This is a less than a, a, a half a percent issue we're talking about. Oh yeah. Young people below the age of 18 who want to participate in sports is under a percentage issue. I just, it's, it's one of those cultural flags that they carry. Yeah. It's ridiculous. And it's under a percentage issue. Yeah. And, and why can't we have an honest discussion on it that says these, we have to show compassion and we have to be sensitive. And I, I sympathize with the parents. Because if it's, if I would do anything, some of the parents though, ha have bought into it and are, are supporting them pre-frontal cortex and saying, yeah, they were assigned to the wrong gender. I, I don't disagree with, with that thing. I've watched a lot of the shows, I've watched a lot of, you know, documentaries and I've seen that, but there's other parents that just say, God forbid, I just want to. I wanna help my child. They're in pain. Yep. They're in pain and Exactly. And the doctor says I should do this. So again, it's, it's really taking a sensitive approach, but how do you, there's a way to be compassionate without treading on the rights of the majority. Yeah, no, a large, large majority, and again, this is an under a half a percent. The point of this question, Mike, is those are the kind of questions that you're gonna have to address. And I think that you address that very well. Yeah. I, and I don't wanna belabor the point on, on that issue. Those are extremely sensitive social issues. What I will tell everybody is that's a very sensitive social issue. My campaign, and I don't, and I use this term loosely, there's bigger fish to fry in Minnesota right now without absolutely. When it comes to taxation, spending, taxes, public safety, um. I, you know, the transgender issue when it's brought up to me, I think I've explained my positioning on it. Yeah. But I'm, I'm not a, I'm not a brute and I'm not an insensitive human being. And I, I, let me just tell you about a little interaction I had, if it's okay. Yes. So I just was at Best Buy and there's uh, uh, a transgender woman working there. Fabulous pink hair. Yep. Fabulous fingernails and her name takes at Allison and I'm thinking, I'm sitting there, I'm a 56-year-old guy and I tell you she couldn't be the, a better associate from Best Buy and everything that's going on in my mind was, I just wanna make sure that I sh am showing her the respect because all she's showing me is respect. Yep. This is a young adult. Absolutely. This is a 25-year-old and this is the path in life. That she chose, and I'm okay with that. Totally. It's different there than we're talking about 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 year olds, so I wanna make it clear. Yeah. I live and just live my friends. Live and let live adults. Yeah, it's, it's the biological females maybe though, have worked really hard in their given sport. Yeah. They're working their tails off and then they get, you know, moved down because maybe. A school prefers a per certain person. Shouldn't I know shouldn't happen. And, when I was looking at all of this and I'm, I said, oh geez, I'm gonna have to, you know, come up with positions. I always had a position and it's been just this position. Yep. We need to have, we need to have an understanding, but. This doesn't belong or fit here, so we can go on. What are some other ones that you anticipate having to deal with in terms of issues? Well, can I, can I ask one other one because asks the easy ones this, ask me the ones about taxes or something. So I'm, I'm gonna ask couple about public safety. So I'm gonna ask about, uh, specifically the, uh, the financial situation that the state of Minnesota is in. Okay? The fact is we had an$18 billion surplus that in about four years has turned into a$6 billion deficit.$24 billion. At the same time, there's, you've had that swing, but at the same time there have been all of these stories of fraud Yeah. That have taken place. How would you address, and I saw that you already did it, uh, you know, how would you address, uh, as the governor if somebody asks you about, Hey, under your leadership. We have had millions, if not billions of dollars of fraud. Governor Newcomb, what do you say about that? You know, first and foremost, on behalf of myself and my administration, I wanna say I'm sorry to the hardworking taxpayers of Minnesota. Excellent. They start plain and simple that we can do better as a state, we should do better, and we will do better. But the bottom line is it's an egregious assault on the taxpayers of Minnesota that we have had this much fraud. But I wanna let you know. We've had this much fraud the whole time. This isn't just the last two years, three years, four years, five years. Go back and look at when we rolled out the, the new driver's license and tab website? Oh, yeah. You remember that debacle? Yes. Yes. So you can call this what we have now, fraud, but, or is it just waste or incompetence? Or incompetence When that program Min Lars, excuse me. Min Lars. Yeah. When that program got rolled out, it was gonna be a$35 million program. Well, they rolled it out and then it ended up costing 65 million and then it didn't work and it ended up costing 138 million and then it didn't work. So they got rid of the entire program, brought in a third party outside government group and doubled the$138 million. So was that fraud or was that waste, or was that incompetence incompetent? Yeah. Look at Southwest. Look light rail. Oh boy. It had a$1.5 billion price tag. It now has a$3 billion price tag. Is that fraud? Is that waste or is that incompetence? And what I would tell you is it's all of it. Yep. And so we've had this for years and years, but for some reason Minnesotans woke up and they said, wait a minute. This is crazy that we're losing this much money and nobody's. Doing anything about it and nobody's taking responsibility for it. Zero. So I, I, you know what, it was fun. It was interesting to me because I wanted to see our sitting governor give a good explanation or a good description of what happened with this fraud. He was asked this question and his basic answer was, you know, during COVID there was a lot of money getting tossed around out there, and there's organized crime in this state, and they took advantage of it, but we're gonna get'em and we're gonna solve this problem. What I mean. Right. Took no responsibility for it. No. In, but it, and nor would the Republicans if they were in charge. No. No, exactly. No, I'm not arguing. No. And it's funny, and I'm not, that's why I don't go after, listen, I am, uh, governor Walls, uh, you, we don't call names. You, you mentioned that earlier. I wouldn't call'em names or, or, or say names about him. I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed how he's managing. Hardworking Minnesotans monies. I'm disappointed in his administration for all of his appointments, commissioner appointments, and all of our state agencies, they've done us a disservice. And that says to me, you don't deserve an unprecedented third term. Correct. Now, do I wanna hand the keys over to the red team? Not necessarily. And uh, I, I'll tell you why I always use this analogy. Everybody has, anyone who has a pickup truck will appreciate this. Uh, you have a buddy that wants to move a couch and use your pickup truck, right? Right. Uhhuh. And you're reluctantly go. Well, alright. You're a buddy of mine. I'm kind of familiar with you and I'll let you take the keys. He takes the keys, but instead of moving the truck, he goes out, gets hammered, runs down 300 mailboxes two days later, brings your truck back, parks it in your driveway, and you say, oh. Well, what happened to the truck? And he says, well, his mailboxes got in the way. Mm-hmm. That, that's, it doesn't matter who you give the keys to in our state, it the, it's the same story over and over. It's just from a different perspective. Well, that's, that's my question is, so,, what period of time do you look at in history? That shows us things were run properly. I, I don't even know. I feel like that's kind of the nature of government. That's kind of the nature of absolute power. Corrupts absolutely. Things get ridiculous when you get going. But don't you feel like it's bigger now than ever? I have no idea. Well, you know what? I don't either. You wanna know something, John? I just messy It's not, it's not. So the numbers are bigger because everything's bigger. Yeah. But it's always been this way, but nobody reported on it. It's always my, well, that is part of it. I think social media and the fact that. You've got all kinds of voices that are being heard that had never been heard before. Correct. Only that's why I played that clip. Well, and we're going into a, an election year. Yeah. Mid. So, and again, what I will tell you is there's one, one side of this equation that doesn't want to take responsibility for what happened. And you have the other side that couldn't be happier. They couldn't be happier that all this money went away. Yeah. That's, that's just not how our politics should be. We should be able to come together and, I mean, I have a, a, a, I'll call it a simple solution for stopping fraud before it actually happens.'cause here's the problem. We are not catching this fraud before it happens. They're doing an audit after the fact, and then they say, I think we lost a hundred million, but it could be a billion, but we're gonna try to claw some of it back. How about we stop it before it actually happens? And if we could use one of my policies and proposals would be to leverage technology. And we'll just use the Medicare medicaid program that's administered at the state level. You know, there's both federal funds and state funds that go into that, but I just wanna use that as the example. You could leverage technology, and I'll use the the dirty word, ai, and you could create a program, a closed program, lay it over the Medicare, payment system, create rules and norms. When you don't see the rules and norms it automatically, right. Almost in real time. Real time would say, Hey, wait, check this out. And then it would, it doesn't replace humans because then it gets escalated humans and sent to an investigator. Is that kind of like a Minnesota version of Doge? No. So no, that's not a, that's not a Doge. In principle of government efficiency. No, I know exactly what it was. It was a wonderful thought program and a horribly executed program. Horribly. You don't go in and with, you know, we're gonna fire people and it, it's not what you have to do, and we don't have to do that in Minnesota. But to finish on this point, we could leverage technology. We could stop the bad fraudulent payments going out and ensure that the good payments go out faster. And it's over. It's done. We don't pay out billions of dollars in fraudulent claims. Yeah. Right now the insurance industry is, is is using this for their claims. Yep. They're using it right now. It's being, yeah. Why, why don't, why doesn't the say but why don't we? That's a good question. Maybe because they don't want, want find it. Don't, they don't. Not only do they not wanna find it, but where's the money going? Who's it going to? I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but. We could easily have figured this stuff. It's the same. We, we've had this everywhere and, you know, sorry. One of the things, Mike, that, I would love to see a political season and I think that you have an answer to this, that, uh, politician focuses on what's right about them as opposed to what's wrong about their opponent. And you mentioned something about the fact that there's a way to do this. Attacking the parties without attacking the people. Yep. And I think that that's a fair distinction, that it's truly the parties that are at fault. It's not necessarily the people. They're propped up by the parties. There are so many well-intentioned people that are in both sides. Government. Yep. In government and both sides. But, and I, I think I said this before we started the podcast. I call it the political matrix. We've all thought we've been in control of these parties in this system, but the reality is we're just there to provide power to the machines. And I said, I don't blame people who are still in it. It's comfortable, it's familiar, and you're most likely sitting next to your friends and family. However, there is an alternative. There actually is an alternative where we don't serve the government, the government actually serves us. We don't serve the parties. The parties should have been serving us, but that's, I mean, we deserve better. No, we, Mike Newcomb 2026. No, we do deserve better. And yeah. And I don't want this to become a campaign commercial for you. No, I know. Go ahead, Steve. In, in. Your question was how do we, I wanna specifically, yeah. How do we do this without attacking individuals? Yeah. So I'm not going after individuals. Like I said, I'm disappointed in our, our governor right now. I'm disappointed in how our state's going and that's it. But to call'em names, that's just a child. Yeah. And, and I wanna use one example, who's ever done that? When, no, because who's ever called people names? When you call people names. And you, you dehumanize them. And it happens on both sides. It's true. People do hear that. I kept hearing the term in the uh, 2016 election. A dog whistle. It's a dog whistle. It's a dog whistle. Well, guess what? When you call people names and you dehumanize them, it's a dog whistle to people that aren't necessarily stable. And those people take action. And I will tell you when. This just, this absolutely crushed me When, Melissa Hortman and her husband Oh yeah, yeah. Were shot on the, on her doorstep. I never posted anything on Facebook remotely. And that, not political, but even remotely opinionated. And my, my one post said, our leaders need to turn down the temperature now. Yeah. We need to turn the temperature down now. Because that is a horrible thing and it's only gotten turned up. No, and that's what's so funny because we had, oh, I'm sorry, Steve, uh, let me, and let me get this one point, because we, that question was asked to somebody, Hey, we need to turn it down and I'll use a politician, and they said, oh yeah, we need to turn it down. We need to turn it down. We'll turn it down. Then two weeks later it's like. They're full blast. Oh yeah. And I thought, well, there we go. Mm-hmm. So, sorry. Go ahead, Steve. No, no. This is all super interesting. I think you, you have, you're onto something great and I think this is, fits perfectly what we talk about. But if I wanna point it back to kindness for a second, I have a question about kindness. Um, kindness as strength, not weakness. So some people think kindness in politics means being soft or passive, especially Minnesota people, you're a nice Minnesota guy. How do we. How do you see kindness in a form of strength and in leadership? How, how can you utilize kindness, uh, without looking like passive? Like we we're just a, you know, oh geez, what are we gonna do? How are you using kindness as a strength? Well, I think my personality says I'm not passive. What? So, oh, no, I mean, I just want, I mean, I, fully understand your, question. it's messaging I'll just tell you, it was funny. I, somebody sent me a, a clip and they said, Mike, you gotta get on this. You gotta, you gotta let'em know. And, and I said, I'm not going to because I think your approach is not civil. And he says, civil doesn't go viral. Good luck on your camp. And that's, and that's kind of my point. And he said, good luck on your camp Hot that you know you, how are you gonna do this in a way that comes through what you're still keeping with your basis of why can't civil go viral? No. And here's it. Absolutely. Can Jeff look at him over there? He wants to tell Jeff I had this one thought and if I don't spit it out on have a say it. I already lost it. There we go. I'm sorry. Can let me play a sound clip by a guy named Jonathan Height? And it might spur what you were about to say, but it's what Steve, I think is getting at. Yeah. And this is an issue and I don't know how to solve it. Play a clip. The moderate majority height says is either exhausted or intimidated. It's what I called structural stupidity. That is you have very smart people, highly educated, highly intelligent, but you put them in a situation in which dissent is punished severely, and what happens, they go silent. And when? When the moderates or when anyone is afraid to question the dominant view. The organization, the institution gets stupid. Hmm. So we were talking a little earlier before we hit record just about there's extremes on both ends. Mm-hmm. That are, that seem to be getting the megaphone. And so then the smarter people, the more moderates I think where they'd have the intelligent dialogue like you're proposing with the brokering of the ideas, they get shut down or they don't wanna speak up. They're afraid. And what I'm gonna tell you is I was afraid for 56 years, I was in that camp and I, I laid in the weeds and I sat back and I said, I'm afraid, I'm not afraid anymore. We have a broken system. We have leaders that don't represent the people, and I'm gonna stand up and I'm gonna say there's a better way of doing it. Minnesota deserves better. And, and how can you do it by being kind and civil without showing weakness? You know, during a crisis is when you always see people, they say, oh boy, that person stood up. During that crisis, I'll use, president Bush standing on that pile of rubble. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And he took that megaphone and he grabbed it and he says, I, you know, I, can you hear? I can't hear you. And you know, the guy yells out in the thing and he yells, uh, you can't hear me, but the people who did this, they will hear me. And George Bush was never a macho man or an orator at, at all. He stumbled over his words quite a lot. But my, my thing is, if, if, if I can stand up and I can actually look like an adult. And don't throw childish names at people and don't act like a fool. Mm-hmm. I, I, I think being kind. Is going to show that I am a real human being in that I have credibility versus yelling and screaming and calling names. I think what we discovered too with all of our, uh, nice versus kind and all that kindness actually is about being honest. Yep. That's how you make effective moves and make things happen smartly and, uh, credibly and respectfully to people because it might hurt when you hear it when it's truth. But it's truth. It's truth. You start, that's Steve. There's a whole episode you guys did on courage, and kindness is courageous. Yeah. Yeah. And that is your, your podcast is courageous in and of itself if you think about it, because there's a million other probably podcasts you could do that might be a bit more popular. I don't know about that. How crappy the Vikings are. Yeah. You know, that is true. Or you know, everything that's bad with Minnesota podcast, you'd probably have more listeners, but so no, I'm, you know. No, you're right. But you're doing something and you're being courageous in what you're doing. It's just better standing up for everybody. There's course, there's, there's better things out there to talk about and to, to celebrate and lift up because we have children, we have people, we have responsibilities, and we have thoughts about this great state and this great place that we all live in. We gotta try to. We gotta try to say that when we have team meetings, I always like to say there's clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle with you clowns. But we all mature. And if I could Well, well, no, I mean, you knew. I mean, if you go back to my, well, you've matured and No, and I have, and my, I've matured and I've, my, my positions have shifted over time. But that comes through the maturation process. My friends will sit here and go, oh boy, nukes. Boy, he was a, he's a firebrand. That guy will go off and, you know, chewy to pieces. Yeah, I did. And then I grew up. Yeah. And then I realized there's a different way and then I realized I get more done. And I got married and I realized I knew nothing. And then I realized, how to actually compromise and work and the best line my dad ever had we would talk about my mother. He says, Michael, I'm gonna give you one piece of advice. And he was a real calm man. He says, with your mother. You could be right. You could be happy. I chose to be happy. And, and that was, that's a little true to it. Yeah. That's, I think that that's why we're all still married. Yeah. Well, and I've, uh, in former, my former professional life, I had a, a boss, uh, his name was Greg Orman. He actually ran for senate in Kansas as an independent and governor in Kansas. As an independent, he's the same age as me, but was. Years ahead of me at 25 years old. And at that time in my life, I was a, a great salesperson. I mean, I was number, I was the million dollar guy that could every year. Mm-hmm. And he says, Mike, I gotta tell you something. He says, you're like a Ferrari on the auto bond when you're on the road, baby. But you're in the shop a lot and you had to, I had to mature and I had to, you know, and that just came through time. So, sorry. You were, you were like a high maintenance P player. He recognized your raw ability, you just raw ability as a sales guy. But I was an immature person and now I'm, you're making a, I think I've grown. So I wanna address a couple of intangibles that I think makes Mike Newcomb. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna stay in touch with you, Mike, but a couple of intangibles I, we're gonna follow this path. This is as it relates to Mike Newcomb for starters. Fantastic head of hair. Thank you. Still a beautiful head of hair. Here's the other thing, I want you to go on to the, uh, the Mike Newcomb Facebook page. Chiseled jawline. He clearly has not been. He's made for, made for a, when I, when I had, when I had lunch with him, you know, he ordered the hamburger without the bun. Oh. So, you know, he is antis carbs. He's, yeah. You know, he took his shirt, he, he posts pictures of himself on the, uh, Facebook without a shirt on and gets away with it. No, I don't. I've seen it. Yes, you did. Oh, there was. Oh yeah, 4th of July, but it was more the guys behind me. But the guys behind you look pretty good too. So apparently my boys, there are no carbs being delivered at the Newcomb household. One list. No. Um, but you know, in addition to that, you do have an energy about you that I think is infectious. I think that you have an ability to tell a story or to make a point in a fairly concise way. That is well thought out. I will agree with you that you have matured incredibly from the clown that we knew in high school and college. And college and college. Yeah. You know, you've made some choices. I was the first guy and last guy to leave a party. You were, you. You know what, you had fun, a good time. Um, you were a Ferrari at those parties as well. I was a Ferrari baby. Well, and you're a citizen too, and it's inspiring for me to see that. There are citizens getting courageous enough, you said that, you know, I was sitting back in the weeds and now I'm gonna decide and do something about, and I think we need more of that. Yes, I agree. And I'll add to that, I actually don't trust someone who hasn't lived. I want know about someone who's lived a little bit. Absolutely. I mean, here's what's very, I'm not the perfect people. You gotta enjoy your life. Well, you're gonna trust what those decides are. Yeah. I mean, you have to. Exactly. No, but to to, to your point. I mean, you're a person that's, you know, you've had success in business. Frankly, I, I think the, you know, the fact that you're pledging some of your own money in a significant amount Yes. Is probably a differentiator from some of the people that are, uh, that are running against you. I will just say that,, the current governor, other than when he was working as a, uh, teacher mm-hmm. He hasn't really had, he's never really run a business. He's never really run anything true. I think that the time is right for a third party person in the state of Minnesota. What the left has done has been financially a disaster. And that is a fact. Yeah. You know, some of the social programs that they've come up with might be great, but there's all the fraud. And a Republican I just don't think is ever going to win in the state of Minnesota. Uh, just because of the nature of the way that people vote, however, it's like Jesse Ventura, when Jesse Ventura run for g ran for governor, I don't think in a million years he ever thought that he was gonna win. I bet you he went to bed the night of the election and when he woke up the next morning, he was like, what I, what? I have to put a cabinet together. Yeah. And, and you know, I have to get rid of my crazy hair and. But again, there is an opportunity to shock the world. And, the list of people that I know that have the capacity to do it is very small. And for whatever reason, Mike, I think you're the right guy right now. Thank you. Now, well, and I'll, I'll end my, the political talk on this is, I am well aware of the uphill battle that I'm gonna have. Oh, it's so unlikely you would win. Right now I'm at less than a half a percent, and I'm okay with that because, you know, they'll never see me coming, and that's okay because I, I'm good with that. But what I would ask people is, follow me. Give me the opportunity to earn your support. Look at what I'm running on. Look at what my priorities will be. I call a mission statement.'cause in business we always had a mission statement. Mm-hmm. Just a simple declaration of who we are and what we stood for. I'll go to my website, it's not quite ready for prime time, but it's getting better and it's just nuku for governor.com. Check it out, give me time. Over the next 12 months, I might grow on you. I'm gonna stay true to this cause I am putting my own money in there. But I also want people to know I'm not. The rich butthead that's just throwing his money in and doing it right. I owned a cleaning company. We cleaned 17,000 homes a year. For the first three years, I did every single cleaning. Yeah. I, I'll guarantee you, some of my customers will listen to you. You 17,000 homes a year? You did? No, the business did. Oh. But for the first three years, the, the math doesn't make sense. No, no. Okay. You're, you're fast. Uh, not that fast. Well, we had 80, 80 full-time team members at that time, but for the first three years I started with one van. One mop bucket in one vacuum, and it was Mike Newcomb. Yeah. And my motto was, I went from the boardroom to the bathroom and it smells a lot better in here. But it, uh, yes. I'm, I'm putting my money into this campaign because I want other Minnesotans to say, Hey, if he's putting in his own money, maybe we can help him out. Yeah. I'm not asking for that help yet, but that, that time will come. But I, what my point was, is, uh, you know, I'm not the billionaire who's throwing his money around for a vanity deal. This money's gonna hurt. I'm gonna have to figure out somewhere down the line how to hopefully re replace it. Yeah. This is part of, and my wife says, you know, this is our retirement money, Mike. And I said, I know, but this is a good cause, Marie. And she says, I'm with you. There are things about running a campaign. And if it's a campaign that really emphasizes truly kindness and compassion, but thoughtful, smart compassion, it's hard to, to, to argue with that. Mm-hmm. And I do think that that could be a differentiator, because there's just not enough of that in politics right now. I, I hope so. Now. Yeah. There's none there. There's. There's attempts. It, it's so strange. My, my dad served in the legislature from 1964 to 1973, and when he ran. There was no party designation. He ran as Tom Newcomb from White Bear Lake. Wow. That was his party designation. Yeah. Then when he would get to the, to the, uh, house floor, you'd have to caucus with the liberal or the conservatives, and Wendy Anderson, Wendell Anderson, the governor at the time, wanted the DFL party to have more prominence and that's when he said, now we're gonna have party designators while running. My dad retired. He said, I'm isn't, isn't. Isn't that the guy that when a Senate seat opened, he appointed himself as the senator? The greatest political travesty in the history of Minnesota, Minnesota was when Governor Wendell Anderson appointed himself into Walter Mondale's seat when he became vice president and he destroyed what was the most promising. Political career, political career, ever. This was the ex Olympian. He was the most, I have the Time magazine at my house with him on the cover of it, Minnesota Fishing, and he, he did that to himself and my dad said, poor Wendy, what a shame, because back then my, you know, they'd get off the floor and, and they'd all go to Kelly's, which was over in the Holiday Inn. And my dad said, well, we'd all talk, we'd all have a beer. No one. There was no fighting like this. It was the, the Democrats and Republicans, they all said, eh, good, good time on the floor. Glad you got your bill through. Hey, good job, Tom. Yeah, my dad, bless him, is rolling over in his grave to see right now that they can't even sit in the same room together. Yeah. Well, I asked my my dad that too, if, if there was any kind of division like there was, and he said, not at all. No way. Well, back to what you were saying, maybe before we started talking on the, on the podcast, Mike. Yeah. Is that, that, that they were able to do that? And have a beer together and talk.'cause ultimately they're both, they're all working towards the better, exactly. The better thing, which is working government and people getting what they need. No, yeah. And I use the example of, so I've spent time in boardrooms and in going into a boardroom, there's the CEOC, F-O-C-I-O. Everybody, yo, yo, yo and the managers, and they all have different agendas. They want headcount, they need money for their programs, but they have one objective to make the company better. And when they go in and they don't get exactly what they wanted, it didn't matter because they all came in with the same goals and objectives, make the company better. So they'd leave and be like, oh yeah, well good job. You got your, you know, six people in your department and I got none, but we're gonna make the company better. That's not how it is. At our capital, they don't have the same goals and objectives. And then therefore, when you don't come in to say, we have to do what's right for the citizenry, we have to spend their money wisely. We have to be good stewards of our taxpayers dollars when they don't have those same objectives and goals. That's why we have a, a war ground there because it's one side lost. In the other side won. Right? Where, what it should be is I didn't get exactly what I wanted, but we all won because the goals and objectives were met. Really appreciate you coming in. Uh, this has been terrific. Yeah, it's exciting. It's exciting to, to know you and know you're jumping into this. It'd be fun to see what happens. And, uh, all the best of luck to you, Mike. Yeah, I appreciate it. And thank you. And thanks for coming in, Mike. It's been great. And with that, off we go, play the tune. Bye-bye.