So right before lockdown, I pitched to Anna doing the politics podcast, you know, obviously from the studio where we just have like 10 puppies in the room.

I mean, I would like to hang out with 10 puppies, but I would ideally like to do that while not doing my job.

Hello and welcome to the 530 Politics podcast. I'm Galen Druke. In the wake of Donald Trump's presidency, the idea of the celebrity politician isn't going away.

Caitlin Jenner says she's in the process of deciding whether to run against Gavin Newsom in California's gubernatorial recall election this fall, Matthew McConaughey has teased entering politics and in a recent poll leads incumbent great abbot in a hypothetical matchup for Texas governor.

And you can debate whether Andrew Yang is a celebrity, but there's little question his high level of name recognition has helped propel him to the head of the pack in the race for New York City mayor.

Today, we're going to talk about the appeal of celebrity candidates and what it tells us about our politics.

We're also going to discuss the politics of reparations last week, a democratic proposal in the house to study reparations for slavery and the disenfranchisement of African Americans was voted out of committee for the first time since it was first introduced in 1989.

That sets up the possibility of a full vote of all the members of the house. Democrats are increasingly talking about the subject, which they once largely avoided. So we'll take a look at why and here we need to do that are senior politics writer Perry bacon junior.

Hey, Perry.

The CEO.

Also here with us politics reporter Alex Samuels, Alex.

Hey, everyone.

And managing editor, Michael Cohen, hey, Michael.

Hey, Caitlin.

So let's begin with celebrity politicians and we're going to have a broader discussion here, but we'll kick things off with one of our favorite questions, which is good use of polling or bad use of polling.

So people say a company that conducts on and again, I should say the name of the company is people say that was not the beginning of the sentence.

So the company PIPLSAY, a company that conducts online polls, gauging consumer opinion for brands, asked Americans if they wanted to see Matthew McConaughey and Dwayne Johnson, the rock run for governor of Texas and president of the United States respectively.

So McConaughey, governor of Texas, the rock president of the United States, they found that 58% of Americans wanted at least one of those two things to happen and that 29% of respondents wanted both.

Like I said, we're going to unpack this a whole lot more, but just to kick things off, is this a good use or bad use of polling?

I don't think it was the best use of polling.

They essentially lump the answers to three different questions together, which is how we got that 58% figure.

So I think according to the poll, 21% of respondents said they wanted the rock to run for president, 12% wanted McConaughey to run for Texas governor.

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