Welcome back to the Lincoln Project.

I'm your host, Rian Galen.

Today I'm joined by a political pundit and strategist Matthew Dowd.

Over the course of his career he's been uniquely identified as a Democrat, a Republican and

now an independent.

And just a little background here, Matthew and I have known each other a long, long time

I think, maybe going on 20 years.

And before we started working together, you worked for Dick Ephart, Lloyd Benson and

obviously the legend, Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock down in Texas.

You and I worked together, I believe, on the 2000 and 2004 George W Bush for President

campaigns and then more closely probably in the 2006 reelect campaign for Arnold Schwarzenegger

and California.

But as you know, we got through Arnold in 2008, you left the GOP, probably just at the

right time became an independent.

And since then you've just recently left in an ABC news political contributor, taught

at the LBJ school there in Austin and is of course also a New York Times bestselling author.

So Matthew, welcome to the show.

Great to be here.

Thanks for having me, Reed.

So you know, Matthew, it's hard to believe that you and I go back 20 years to the George

W Bush campaign in 2000, compassionate conservatism and all of that.

At least at the time it felt like a domestic policy campaign between Bush and Al Gore

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