"He so overrated." With Larry Sabato of Crystal Ball Fame
The Bill Press Pod
BP Pods
4.7 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 5 September 2023
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bill talks with one of the most astute political scientists and commentators in the business, Larry Sabato, the founder and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. He’s the author of the Crystal Ball newsletter which is free and you can sign up here. In the podcast, Sabato discussed the upcoming political season, suggesting that if the election were held today, it would likely be a rematch between Trump and Biden. However, he noted that the legal system and Biden's health could impact this. Sabato also discussed the potential impact of Trump's legal issues on his campaign, suggesting that while they could conflict with his campaign schedule, they could also help him raise more money. He also discussed the potential impact of the Dobbs decision on abortion rights on the election, suggesting it could be a powerful issue for Democrats. Sabato also criticized the current state of politics, noting that there is no longer a governing interim between elections and that politicians are constantly campaigning.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, good friends. Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend, and now welcome back to the |
| 0:11.9 | real world and the Bill Press pod. Well, you know, if you ask anybody who follows or reports on |
| 0:18.2 | politics, ask them who are the best political prognosticators in the nation, |
| 0:23.7 | and Larry Sabato will always come out at or near the top of the list. |
| 0:28.6 | A longtime political professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, |
| 0:33.6 | he's founder and still leader of the university's Center for Politics, |
| 0:38.4 | author of the center's Crystal Ball, |
| 0:41.1 | which tracks every House, Senate, and presidential election in the country, |
| 0:45.2 | and author or editor of over two dozen books on American politics. |
| 0:51.5 | Larry's famous for calling them as he sees them, regardless of political party, |
| 0:56.4 | which hasn't made Virginia Republicans very happy. Two years ago, after Sabato dared criticize |
| 1:02.8 | Donald Trump for not releasing his tax returns, the Virginia Republican Party demanded that |
| 1:08.4 | the university conduct an ethics investigation of Sabato, which UVA and |
| 1:14.3 | Sabato promptly ignored. Well, we were lucky to catch up with Larry Sabato over the Labor Day weekend |
| 1:20.5 | to get his take on this political season, which is, you must admit, for many reasons, unlike anything we've ever seen. |
| 1:29.5 | Larry Sabato, wow, what a great treat to join up with you again. |
| 1:34.3 | Thanks for joining us on the Bill Press pod. |
| 1:37.0 | It is a treat for me, too, Bill. |
| 1:39.0 | Thank you. |
| 1:40.2 | Well, Larry, I got to say, you know, this is hardly your first rodeo or my first rodeo, |
| 1:46.5 | but we've been around this political game a long time. |
| 1:49.4 | Is it safe to say that we've never seen a political season like this one and probably never will? |
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