This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on IHartRadio.

My guest today is Stafford Palmieri-Cever.

Stafford is founder and managing partner of Fidenen Strategy on the board of Thomas and Hutton,

a privately held engineering firm, and the secretary of the Utah Republican Party. Hi, Stafford. So

nice to have you on. Thanks, Carol. I'm happy to be here. So I also know that you have a one-year-old.

That right? I do. And so my question, my question has to be how, how, how do you do all of that with a one-year-old?

I have a really good support network at home named Zachary, my husband, who is wonderful. But you know what they say? You, when you want to get something done,

you give it to somebody who's busy. That's right. So how did you get into being the secretary

of the Utah Republican Party? So it actually started right around when I moved to Utah about four

years ago. I wanted to get back involved in politics. I'd been in New York where

Republicans are just irrelevant at this point. And I was looking for opportunities to just get

involved, thought maybe I could do some phone banks. I could, you know, help some local candidates.

I'm the kind of person where when I decide I'm all in, I'm all in. And so when I decided to move to Utah, I was all in. And so first I ran for a county party level role. I met my county party chair and she got all excited. She liked my former boss, Bobby Jindal. And then I wound up when I got married

moving out of that county. And so I couldn't run for something else in that county. And I got approached

about challenging the incumbent party secretary, which I did. And then I ran for re-election this spring. And so I'm in my second

term. Nice. So how does it feel running the Republican Party in a red state, a really red state?

I mean, even in Florida where I live, I've become a very red state in the last few years. But I live

in a purple district. I think in general,

people think, you know, it could someday swing blue again. But Utah feels reliable. Does it feel like

that to you or do you feel like you have to fight every day? I wouldn't say we have to fight every

...