Justin's Podcast
Dive into the captivating world of extraordinary individuals with "Interesting People," the podcast where host Justin Wallin sits down with some of the most intriguing personalities from all walks of life. Each episode unravels the unique stories, challenges, and triumphs of guests who have made remarkable impacts in their fields or led fascinating lives. From trailblazing innovators and inspiring artists to unsung heroes and enigmatic personalities, Justin brings you candid conversations that reveal the human spirit's endless capacity for wonder and achievement. Tune in for thought-provoking interviews, surprising revelations, and a celebration of the diverse tapestry of human experience.
Justin's Podcast
Politics and Strategy in California with Richard Temple
Get ready to explore the dynamic and ever-evolving political landscape of California with communications expert Richard Temple. As we navigate the complexities of this predominantly one-party state led by Democrats, you'll uncover how Republicans are strategizing to break through in areas like LA County, the Central Valley, and Orange County. We'll discuss the pivotal issues such as inflation, theft, and homelessness that weigh heavily on voters' minds, while also examining how unwavering party loyalty echoes the national trend towards a parliamentary allegiance.
Join us as we unpack the intricate world of political funding, where wealthy donors and foundations often wield more influence over policy than elected officials. Our conversation delves into Californians' unique approach to crime and policing, favoring rehabilitation for minor offenses but demanding tougher penalties for violent crimes. We also explore the potential rise of a moderate Democrat gubernatorial candidate and the challenging financial terrain of running a campaign in this vast state. Richard Temple shares insights from his career, offering a personal lens into the competitive nature of California's political and business arenas.
Welcome to Interesting People, the podcast where we delve into the lives and stories of fascinating individuals from all walks of life. I'm your host, justin Wallen. In each episode, we bring you inspiring, thought-provoking and sometimes surprising interviews with people who are making an impact in their fields and communities. There's only one common thread that the world is more interesting because of them. Get ready to be inspired, entertained and enlightened as we spotlight the extraordinary. Let's dive in. Today we're joined by my good friend, richard Temple. Richard Temple is one of I'm not going to say old guard, because he and I that hurts when people say that but he is one of the most experienced and well-regarded communications operatives throughout all of California and through the United States. He's known everywhere, he is deeply respected, he has an extraordinary track record of success and, on top of that, he is an extraordinary human being, which makes him special in the world, and I'm proud to call him my friend. It's great to have you here today, richard. Thanks for joining.
Speaker 2:You bet I'm blushing, but it's great to talk to you again. We talk a lot and I enjoy all our conversations and I always learn something, so that's always a good thing too.
Speaker 1:Well, I wanted to start off. There are a couple things we're going to talk about, but the first one is the political climate. A lot of attention, of course, is on the political climate nationally, because it's top of the ticket. President Torrey suddenly got interesting. We can talk about that if you like, but I'd love to have your thoughts on the political climate in California, since we're both California guys.
Speaker 2:Sure, well, first of all, california is so different than the nation as a whole, and certainly different than even some purple states, and very similar to a lot of the more liberal states in the country. But California is really a one-party state now, and so the politics here are really usually focused on issues more than the partisan stuff. So we have a US Senate race here that no one even talks about. It's not in the news, not anything and it has. He's not as famous as he used to be, but I mean Steve Garvey's a famous baseball player from years gone by in the Los Angeles Dodgers, the biggest media market, and yet he's getting no traction when you have 24% of the state Republican and the rest independent. So any hope for a Republican partisan-wise on a statewide level, you require a gigantic portion of the independent vote and even combined, you're scratching 50. And so it's a tough. It's a very tough politically for any Republican. So the partisan races that you may see all over the country is just invisible here. Now, on the lower level, when you get to congressional races in particular, there's some meaningful contests going on because in those districts in 2022, republicans did very well and it helped get the minimal majority that was in the US Congress, but it was the same as New York US Congress, but it was the same as New York. So, oddly, new York and the state of New York and the state of California provided enough seats in competitive races that put the Republicans in the House in control. Those are back again and the mood here in those seats are very favorable.
Speaker 2:You're talking about races that were on the bubble in 2022 that we thought, well, we can't win. They seem very strong right now and that's because the issues that matter to voters in the middle or in places and California has many areas that are both Republican and competitive either one of those two. There's just so many people here I try and tell people. Trump won more votes in California than he got in several states combined, even though he lost by a huge margin, because in this state we have these pockets, so we have pockets of conservatism, and then we have pockets where they're competitive. So we have some districts in LA County where incumbent Republican is running and it looks pretty solid. I mean just the way it feels and what I'm hearing about it's not feeling like they're getting run over. He's getting run over. He won several times now in a very tough state to win or district to win, and he's doing that Same thing in the Central Valley. There's two I mean one by working, one by a little teeny margin, and so he's in a fight for his life.
Speaker 2:I don't know how that will go. That's so close I mean. But as incumbents in the Central Valley of California, when you get in there you're like a tick. It's hard to get them out of there, democrat or Republican. When they get in there, they like the guy, the people who win there know how to talk to the middle voters and the conservative voters that are in there. And so there's a couple there that I think the Republicans look good in, and so they get there.
Speaker 2:And then Orange County there's a couple seats that I think the Republicans are going to win. I don't think it's even in doubt. They'll fight and they'll do that. And then there's one with the open seat where Katie Porter used to be. Scott Ball's running there, and that's a dogfight. He could win or lose, and so I don't know that.
Speaker 2:So the mood there is just like we hear across the country they're mad about inflation, they're mad about theft, they're mad about homelessness. Those are all issues that matter to voters in California but, like we're seeing around the country, it doesn't seem to matter when it comes to voting for a Republican or Democrat in the state. But it does matter in those competitive seats. But we're seeing this nationally. You know it's. Why could a independent or Democrat in any state vote for the mess that we have in the country right now? Yet they're doing it because we're now more like a parliamentary system where you're voting for your party and Republicans are doing it too. 90% of the voters are voting Republican and 90% of the Democrats are voting Democrat. So that's who's deciding in that little, minimal part?
Speaker 2:So in California, I mean, there's a couple of ballot measures. There's a theft issue ballot that is only 70% in the polls and the Democrats seem to be split in that measure. So what that would do is that would put more teeth in there and undercut Prop 47, which, for those who aren't aware, it's basically reduced penalties from what they call misdemeanor theft, so you can steal under $950. And no matter how many times you do it, you just get a ticket. If they even bothered to do anything with you, you'll come back to court and nothing happens. So it's toothless. They're making changing that and the Democrats seem to be split.
Speaker 2:But we've seen this before where it starts out ahead because it sounds good, but they come in with so much money at the end and tell people what it isn't. Uh, but that's what they. They say it is, and so it loses, and so it's. Yet it's not clear to me yet if that will sustain itself. Um, and so that there's some rent control stuff that's on the ballot isn't better. That seems to fail, uh, in this state. We'll see how that plays out, but the the mood here is, you know, like I said, in the areas that matter it's really good for Republicans. In the area that doesn't Same, you know, it's weak support. You know, when you have the mayor of San Francisco endorsing the theft initiative because she's running for her life, you know, because of how crappy San Francisco is, you know things are kind of upside down, but they won't vote for a Republican, uh, in San Francisco, you know. So that's, that's the change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that, that um shift in, um in that ballot measure, the shift in California's appetite to actually impose uh, greater degrees of, of, of, uh punishment of accountability for, uh, for stealing stuff stealing stuff which turns out it was illegal. At one time you could steal a t-shirt at the local Target and get prosecuted for it. That's not the case anymore and I don't know too many people in California who haven't been affected by it. I've had things stolen. I think I had the back seats of my Yukon stolen out one year and, you know, no one does anything about it because there's nothing they can do.
Speaker 1:And these things are frustrating for everybody. Right, they touch everybody. They don't touch Democrats any different than they touch Republicans or independents. But that's a unique shift to have that much support. Now what people may be wondering is not everyone's going to think viscerally that makes sense to have some sort of accountability if someone's stealing $1,000 or so from you. But the question may come up who is actually going to fight? So you mentioned how much money comes at the end. If we're at 70%-ish support for this ballot measure, what are the interests that typically go against this sort of thing and pour money against it?
Speaker 2:In the past it's been a picture of basically the governor in this case Newsom. Before that it was Jerry Brown, the governor going out and getting money or stopping money from coming in on the yes side. So the governor goes out and raises money that has happened in the past and he raised a bunch of money and he gets on the stump and tells everybody to get going here and tries to stifle any dissent. That isn't happening this time. I mean, believe it or not, I've never seen a governor do that. He said well, I have so much bandwidth and I don't know if I can get out and do much. I mean, it's like I don't know what that's all about, but there is a split and I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2:The second way it is and this is the most dangerous to me it's money that's coming from very wealthy people like the wife of Gates, those kind of these rich, rich, uber-rich people who have foundations and they dump a bunch of money. They dump more than the governor raises. They dump just a ton foundations and they dump a bunch of money. They dump more than the governor raises. Um, they dump just a ton, and they do that every time and uh, and they just you know they're, they're very liberal and they are I don't know how to describe, but they're easily persuaded. I don't even think they would believe. Like on the second thing, if you really got to explain to them what it was, I don't even think they would think that's a good idea. I think so much of this is just they're being told by people that they trust, like the ACLU or you know, union leadership, things like that, where they're getting their information and they don't trust anybody else. So here's what it really is. Let me give you an example and you know firsthand if you've done polling on this stuff in the state with me AND YOU KNOW FIRSTHAND BECAUSE YOU'VE DONE POLLING ON THIS STUFF IN THE STATE WITH ME. So THE THEFT ISSUE AND THIS IS WHAT CRAFTED.
Speaker 2:Help THE ONE THAT'S ON THE BALLOT DID KIND OF GUIDE, that A BIT BUT WE FOUND OUT THAT VOTERS DON'T WANT TO PUT SOMEONE IN PRISON FOR STEALING A LOAF OF BREAD RIGHT, and THAT'S PROBABLY TRUE ANYWHERE. What they didn't like in that case was when you do this repeatedly, and their thought process was if you do it that many times, we're not helping you by just letting you go. We need to get you in and figure out what the deal here is. If you don't have any money, why don't you? You know those kind of things and so that's where they came up with. I mean, we didn't, but they came up with. If you do it three times, then by then you know we need to step in and do it and do something about it. So the public was at that point saying, look, three times doing that's too much. So that was number one.
Speaker 2:Second thing is they do not like violent crime and even in California we in your own survey we got two-thirds of Californians did not support, or they supported, tougher sentences for people who commit violent crime. They don't want little misdemeanors to go to prison, but they want that violent person or that repeat offender. So if you're robbing someone but you don't beat them up, you can do it multiple times. They want you in prison too, because they don't want to get held up. Even in California we saw that. And then, interestingly enough and again you saw this firsthand with us even in California, right after the Floyd incidents in Minneapolis, where it all blew up about. You know, police are racist and everything.
Speaker 2:We polled in California and two-thirds of the voters in California said the police do a tough job, they do it well and they're trying their best to be fair. That was pretty striking, and you tell people, and they don't believe it, but it's true, even in California, and not that long ago, california passed a bill, an initiative, to speed up the death penalty. So there's a post-public safety margin in the state of over 50%, if they just get the word. So this, though, is again, we'll see if it lasts, but at that money age, we were just, you know, started off the conversation with it. It comes in, and in this case, the retail association, retail industry, and there was another initiative on the ballot ballot, and they bailed on it. They didn't give it any money. They qualified this initiative and put some money in there, but they have not yet started any advertising, and they have not moved enough money to be substantial. I bet they're thinking they can win it on the cheap because they got a poll that says 70%. Michael right, that's not true.
Speaker 1:That goes fast.
Speaker 2:That's right. It's a big state. You're talking about needing 30, $35 million to compete here on a ballot measure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and you know, in terms of policy, you're absolutely right. You know that that sort of reflexive Californian desire and it's true, it's very much a part of Californians and it's funny because, you know, californians aren't necessarily born and bred Californians People adopt California right, and yet this is kind of it's not universal but it's a common thread the desire to help your fellow man. That is a very Californian thing. I think it's an American thing, but it is very much seen in California and it often results in a lot of policies that other states will look at. And sometimes those of us in California will look at it and say you know, I get it, I get the reason behind it, but it's not going to have the right results, it's going to have unintended consequences. Or if you're a talking head on the news, you're going to say it's liberal progressivism and blah, blah, blah. It's horrible but it comes from a good place. The desire to help your fellow man.
Speaker 2:It does. If I could just interject in here, what we're seeing in California, that you know I've been doing this a long time it would never have come up. The policies that are the people in the legislature now, because we're so one party and the primary is how you win. Therefore, you win by being more liberal, but the people who are getting there truly believe just what you said. They think this is the right thing to do. They don't try anything first and therefore they're rushing supporting policies that never would have been done in California five years ago, because they would have been afraid of the blowback that would have hurt them. The voters would be mad at them, and so that isn't happening, and so kind of like why the national picture does matter.
Speaker 2:If Harris wins, these policies will come and do this. They'll keep doing this because they think that's what the public wants. They're voting for this, right, they're not really, but that's what they think it is. So they're going to keep doing it until they get pain, meaning a loss, and then they have to reevaluate those positions that they have in there, and so that's what's going to happen. To ultimately make a difference here is you have to get the politicians in California to start saying we can't do this anymore and these policies are. The voters don't agree with them, but they keep doing it because they can and nothing happens.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest things and there's five huge topics that fall within that, but one of the biggest ones that gets a lot of attention nationally in California is the poster child for the crisis of homelessness in America, and I think that fits within the context of our conversation pretty neatly. There's a lot of well-intentioned efforts and we have some interesting policy changes around camping and this sort of thing that allow certain levers to be pulled, but California has spent, by any measure, an extraordinary sum of funds and a lot of manpower in trying to resolve this, both from a state perspective and from a regional perspective, county level, city level and so forth, and yet the problem continues to get worse by any reasonable measure. It seems intractable. What do you think the future is for California in that space?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know. I mean the state is, I mean, literally changing right in front of my eyes because of all the push from the far left that makes it. It seems like there's no end to it, the policies I mean. I have a brother that lives in Texas and we were having a conversation of some of the stuff that was going on in schools down here and said, well, that's not right. He couldn't believe that's happening. I said you just don't know. This is happening right here. Here's an article. And he's shocked. He doesn't understand that.
Speaker 2:That's what's going on and I think that the country as a whole would be mortified when they hear about some of the stuff that is happening here, the attitudes and approaches that are going on here on some of this stuff. It is truly scary and that's why we're losing businesses who are leaving the state because of the policies that make no sense to them, and no one seems to be doing anything different. So my fear is it's getting worse and it's not going to get better. There's two ways to get better. Some Democrats figure there's a political advantage to be taking on the left, the hard left, because they can win that way Enough of them. But like I said really, it's just that they have to see a rejection. Really is, it's just that they have to see a rejection. You know, nationally there was that Gallup poll that came out that showed plus three and how voters are. You know how they identify themselves, and apparently that has been accurate on every single election, on what was going to finally come out on the poll, not on just asking them what they identify, as it's right now plus three, which hasn't been apparently for decades, and if that holds true, that's going to be a monumental rejection. Now I question it. That doesn't seem right to me. We'll see, I mean, but you know, some of the stuff does happen. So I think the only way to stop in that here in California is if nationally because it can't happen to state we can't win a statewide here. So therefore there's no ever rejection.
Speaker 2:And there's a moderate Democrat woman running for governor when Governor Luton vacates, who's currently the lieutenant governor, who's a pretty centrist Democrat. She just sure doesn't sound like it now because she has to start competing to win the primary and that's all that matters. But so until nationally we have a rejection of these policies and that's what's going to take it. It can't just be, we win by 2,000 votes again. That's not a victory, it's just more of the same. We're just throwing down another glove and we're fighting again. So you know, to me it's going to take a rejection, or a rejection of the Republicans in a big way, finally to debate. So the Democrats are in control and do things that way. But you know, until that happens, you know we're going nowhere in California.
Speaker 1:And there's no real reason to shift right Policies. That yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean you have Governor Newsom, who's always, I mean, does the proverbial canoeing on both sides of the pad? Paddling on both sides of the canoe is that you know he's on one side, so he doesn't sign a bill that they want and they go mad at him. Then he signs one. That sounds ridiculous and I can't figure out a pattern at all. You know why is he not opposed or supporting Prop 36, which is a theft initiative? I don't understand him just being neutral, I mean, you know so, stuff like that. So he's odd that way. I don't know what he's doing. But for the most part I don't think there's going to be any change, because the new governor coming in will have won by being the most liberal one they can be, and that means that that's what they think they have to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the interchange of ideas is important for a healthy society. We have a little bit of time left and I wanted to spend it. You've built one of California's most respected communications firms and I wanted to get a little bit of insight into what drives you and what's changed for you in the time when you first got started into what you're doing now.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, things have changed because the world around me has changed. But what drives me personally? When I started, I didn't grow up being political. I was well-informed on issues, predominantly national stuff, you know, international stuff. It was fascinating to me and so I went to school to study political science because that's kind of like maybe I was going to be a lawyer. I didn't know what I wanted to do and had no idea.
Speaker 2:Anybody got paid to do what I'm doing now and I was also a baseball player. Got paid to do what I'm doing now and I was also a baseball player. So I played baseball in college and so I was happy to get my stuff and play ball. And so when I was doing that, I had to intern as part of my degree and I interned at the State Capital because I could do that and still practice and play and do all the stuff. And I got six units and yay. And so I did it twice. Well, I turned out and said, hey, this is interesting, I like kind of this. And so I fell in it in a number of ways where I met people who helped me get hired and I never would have had an intern. And so all of a sudden I was dumped into being a political guy and they would send me out.
Speaker 2:I worked for the legislature, send me out, so I cut my teeth on just hey, this, this is fun. It was competitive for me. I like to fight the election go over, you have a winner, loser and you start to get next, the next game, and that's what my approach was in life and this is great. And so I would go out and do that. And so what drove me was the competition, more than the ideology, but was a competition. Now I'm a Republican and I believe in this stuff. But you know, especially in my business I'm doing communications for people who hire me, and so that you know, when you get into business it's different.
Speaker 2:I worked in the legislature for about 11 years, but it was always about the competition. What drove me was competing and trying to win, win for our side. And you know I wanted our ideas. I mean, I still was. You know, I believed in that too. It wasn't just that, but I mean. So my drive then was I was ambitious, I wanted to succeed, I wanted to do well. I didn't, like I said, I didn't have some plan to do what I did, so I kind of fell into it and so what drove me in the beginning was competition and trying to grow and be better at what I do grow into, and I loved the campaign side of it the most and so that's where I really want to go. I love being in the campaigns, it just fit my, my style and, uh, I hate to lose more than I would like to win, and so whenever I lose I really feel it, I'm mad and I and I want to go out and say what did I do wrong? So I try and grow and and always stay on top of it. So over time you know that that the hard part now is the shifting of California, uh, and so that's made it more, more difficult on a partisan, you know political side.
Speaker 2:But in our firm we're in a niche, we're in communications and we have this niche. So we do campaigns and we do what we call independent expenditures or super PACs. The nationwide they get more of those where you get hired and hired. And then you go in there and you don't work with a candidate but you try and help them for some group. But we develop a niche on our communication side of helping people who have business before the legislature or local government or nationally, and we help them with messaging and the politics of it. You know we're not lobbyists but we go help them with that. So we take these. Usually we're fighting uphill all the time with bad actors to the liberals, oil, law enforcement, those kind of things and so we go in there and we try and help them communicate their message to legislators.
Speaker 2:And because we covered TWerker for a decade and we know these politicians because they run for office, I mean there really is a personality, style and a psyche that we understand fully, because we've been in the room and they come in there and close the lights and cry when something bad happens, you know. So we know what moves them, what motivates them, and we understand them in a way so that we can advise them. This is what you need for them to feel the pressure. And so we have this niche of working for groups who want that. And, boy, especially when you want to know, it's really easy to derail legislation because they get scared and they stop Because they don't want to feel pain, legislators. And so that part is what I'm going to do in there and I love that process. And so what drives me there is just the again. It is kind of competition the same thing that drives me, but it's the idea that we want to. How do we stop them from doing something?
Speaker 2:Pg&e was a big actor here in California, still is, but they were doing some awful things with their rape money. They were having these fires, they were trying to blame it on global warming and we had a whole bunch of victims from the big fires in the Napa area, right. And so the lawyers for the people who wanted money. They were getting it from PG&E. They hired us and we went in and used these victims and just beat the heck out of PG&E. I mean, in a way, they had never been touched before. We were slapping them around big time and they end up capitulating and created a victim fund because they couldn't get away with this anymore.
Speaker 2:Because our usual thing is, if it's controversial, turn the light on. They don't like to make decisions in the light. If you do in the darkness, where no one's paying attention, hope they don't know, all you do is turn the light on and you'd be surprised how much they react when eight constituents call them. I mean it's scary. So competition is still there Now.
Speaker 2:What's changed over time is, as I'm getting older, you start to have more of a sense of not the finality I'm not dying, but I mean you know you want to have a greater impact. It's driven more than you know. I'm not going to be doing this for 30 more years, so I'm really interested in trying to help in a more meaningful way. I know that we've had an impact in meaningful ways all the way through. But there's something you know that I'm more driven by what can I do in a meaningful way? That's why the public safety stuff has been a big part. More than you know, we work for the cheese industry, but you know I'd rather be doing something like for victims and public safety, those kind of things. And so now my partner and I, we are trying to have a greater impact on things that we like. So that's kind of changed. You know, as I've gotten in this longer and that's kind of changed. You know, as I've gotten in this longer and that's kind of changed in that.
Speaker 2:But you know I love campaigns. I love the niche that we have, that there's not many people that do it and one supports the other because the people that were helping with communications in the legislature will hire us, and then they also hire us to do independent expenditures, and that's so. It's a great niche. We do less candidates because then we can't help our clients, and so that's where it goes on, and so we try and do a year-round communication business as well. As you know, the five months or so of political where you just go nuts, like where we are right now, you know we're moving a mile a minute and it's fun. This is my fun time. I love fun. This is my fun time.
Speaker 1:I love it. Richard, my friend, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on. Thanks for joining us. You are one of the most interesting guys I know, one of the best people I know. Thank you Truly appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks a lot Likewise, and I love talking to you, so I mean you can just talk to me and I still will say I enjoy talking with you anytime about this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Thanks, my friend. Thank you for tuning in to Interesting People. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast on your favorite platform, and don't forget to follow us on social media for updates and behind the scenes content. I'm Justin Wallen, and until next time, remember that the world is more interesting with
