Welcome to the Wasta Beta Show for Politically Ecclectics. I'm Robbie Gupta. And in a little bit, we're going to welcome back Kim Whaley, who is a writer, professor of law, etc., who's going to talk about everything from the questions of ballot access in this election, post-election potential for shenanigans, everything in between going all the way back to

January 6th. So stick around for that. But before we get there, as I do on Mondays these days,

let me empty my notebook. First of all, in a very trivial manner. It's an amazing time to be a New York

sports fan. We've had everything from the potential for a subway series, both the Mets and the Yankees in the final four. We had the Knicks versus the Timberwolves yesterday, which was riveting even for a preseason game. We've got the Jets versus my bills tonight. You have the Liberty tied up in the finals. I can keep going, but it has been an amazing time to be a New York sports fan.

It's electric out here. But of course, my notebook is filled with items related to the 2024

election. And one thing above all else, I think, stood out for me in terms of just

interesting content as it released to the election over the past week.

And that was this interview that senior advisor to the Kamala Harris campaign, David Pluff, gave to Pod Save America.

And I normally don't play a lot of Pod Save America type stuff here because those guys are explicit.

They are Democratic operatives and strategists and their content largely exists to

help one candidate over another. And that's not a knock on them. That's their explicit goal.

So I try to spare you that kind of stuff. But this Pluff interview I thought was really interesting

because Pluff was fairly candid about what I think the strengths and weaknesses of

their campaign, but also said some things that give you a window in how the Harris campaign thinks.

There are a couple of moments that sit out, but I really recommend you listening to the whole thing.

But I'll start with just a quick point that Pluff made when he was kind of pushed to talk about, well, how much does

all of this stuff around campaigns matter, which is a question that we've been grappling with

for a while on this podcast? And here's what Pluff had to say about that. I think it has intensified

with the way people get information. But I still think at the end of the day, listen, you know

this. It's always humbling when you're a campaign professional, when you tell people how little the campaign matters, meaning a good campaign is not going to turn a 54 or 46 loss into a win. It's impossible. But if you have the best campaign on the ground and you think you execute best against your goals, it can give you a half a point or a point, which of course

this race very well could come down to. So that's what you're doing all this for, basically.

So this gets to the question and we've been talking about this for a while going, I think,

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