Welcome to Politico's 2016 Nurdcast, where we bring you the story behind the stories and geek out on the race for the White House.

There's a lot of blah blah punditry going on out there in the podcast world about

this presidential race a lot of people who want to talk to you at a macro level

that's not what this is going to be. What makes this thing awesome is we actually

have some campaign nerds. Some of them are really good at numbers, but some of them just really

understand how campaigns are run and how these campaign people think.

I'm Kristen Roberts, I'm national editor, and I'm sitting with Charlie Mathesian, our senior politics

editor.

I'm sitting with Eli Stocles, who is our senior political correspondent and the man on the Donald Trump

beat, and Ken Vogel, who literally wrote the book on big money in politics.

Charlie Mathesian, how'd you get drafted for a nerd cast?

Well, I think there's a lot in my background that would suggest I have a sort of geeky bent when it comes to politics.

When I first got in journalism, my first job was, I guess, the equivalent of the buggy whip industry.

It's an industry that no longer exists anymore.

It was called the cliproom.

And I was part of a team that clipped 125 daily newspapers every single day for the political stories.

You mean like paper?

Paper?

Yes.

You're really old.

At the end of the day, my hands would be covered in ink.

But one thing I learned was how politics worked in every single state capital in the country.

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