Checks and Balance: The covid campaign
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.4 • 4.9K Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2020
⏱️ 37 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
How do you hold a vote in the middle of a pandemic? Statewide elections in Wisconsin this week showed how hard it is to manage the logistics of democracy during a lockdown. A partisan fight over changes to the way votes are cast went all the way to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile the most expensive campaigns in history have had to rip up their plans and start again online.
In this episode we talk to election officials in Wisconsin, hear how electoral campaigns unfolded during the 1918 flu, and figure out what the current pandemic means for this year’s presidential race.
John Prideaux, The Economist’s US editor, hosts with Charlotte Howard, New York bureau chief, and Washington correspondent Jon Fasman.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This isn't the first time a national crisis has hit during an election year. |
| 0:04.4 | Weeks before voting began in 1812, President James Madison fled Washington as British troops |
| 0:10.2 | advanced on the capital. Madison's wife Dolly, a French doorkeeper and pulled Jennings, |
| 0:15.8 | his 15-year-old personal slave, were left behind to salvage the silver and a portrait of George |
| 0:20.8 | Washington. Then they abandoned the presidential mansion. The Brits helped themselves to dinner and |
| 0:26.7 | whine from cut glass decantars before torching the White House. But a heavy thunderstorm saved |
| 0:32.7 | the building from destruction and Madison was re-elected. With 206 days to go, this is Chex and Balance. |
| 0:45.6 | I'm John Prado, the economist's US editor and this is a podcast about the 2020 elections. |
| 0:51.4 | Each week we take one big theme shaping American politics and explore it in death. Today, |
| 1:00.0 | how do you hold an election in the middle of a pandemic? |
| 1:06.4 | Statewide elections in Wisconsin this week showed just how hard it is to manage the logistics |
| 1:11.4 | of democracy during an epidemic and sparked bitter partisan fighting over changes to the way |
| 1:17.2 | votes are cast. Meanwhile, the most expensive campaigns in political history have had to rip up their |
| 1:23.8 | plans and start again as they move entirely online. In this episode, we'll talk to election |
| 1:31.6 | officials in Wisconsin and hear how campaigns unfolded during the Spanish flu pandemic. We'll also |
| 1:37.6 | try to figure out how Bernie Sanders dropping out changes the presidential race. |
| 1:47.2 | As ever, I'm joined by Charlotte Howard, the economist's New York bureau chief and by John |
| 1:56.4 | Fasman, the Washington correspondent. Both of them locked down in separate places. Charlotte, |
| 2:01.6 | how are things with you? I'm doing well. My husband and I decided to move to the suburbs last |
| 2:06.7 | week. It's about 10 miles from the border of New York City, so not too far. But the world is my |
| 2:12.9 | sons trampoline and it was increasingly difficult to keep him and my daughter in our apartment all day |
| 2:19.0 | long. Every time I took them out for a walk, my two-year-old would caress the nearest door handle |
... |
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