Great Campaign Stories Compilation: March-May 2021

Pro Politics with Zac McCrary

This week's episode is a compilation of some of my favorite campaign war stories and memorable moments from the first three months of episodes, covering March - May 2021.

IN THIS EPISODE

Paul Begala talks a key lesson he learned from the 1984 Texas Senate race…and the Democratic candidate the Clinton campaign believed posed the greatest threat to Clinton in the primaries.

Rebecca Pearcey, Political Director on the Warren 2020 presidential, recalls crossing paths with celebrities on the campaign trail and breaks down the value and mechanics of Elizabeth Warren’s selfie lines from the 2020 primaries…

Glen Bolger, Republican pollster, shares a memory from 1988 demonstrating showing how unprepared GOP institutions were when George HW Bush chose Dan Quayle to be his VP nominee…and – as the pollster for Senator Thom Tillis – weighs in on whether or not the Cal Cunningham affair made the difference in the 2020 NC Senate race…

Rose Kapolczynski, manager of Barbara Boxer’s four successful Senate campaigns, takes us deep inside Barbara Boxer’s underdog 1992 Senate race…and talks the role the Anita Hill / Clarence Thomas hearings had in the race and in creating that cycle’s “Year of the Woman”…

Two-term Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed shares fantastic stories about two of his mentors, Mayors Maynard Jackson and Willie Brown…

Saul Shorr, Democratic admaker, talks about his memories of Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan - including the historic winning 2000 Senate race that took place three weeks after Governor Carnahan died in a tragic plane crash…

Democratic media strategist Martha McKenna remembers her front row seat seeing the political origins of now Cabinet Secretaries Deb Haaland and Pete Buttigieg…

Mike Murphy, GOP media guru, talks two of the times he rubbed the brass of the Bush ’92 re-election team the wrong way…and shares a fantastic Pat Buchanan story…

Faiz Shakir, Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign manager, goes deep into the 2020 campaign, including the re-boot of the campaign after Senator Sanders’ heart scare, the campaign’s theory of the race, and a couple of things he’d want to handle differently in hindsight…

Founder of House Majority PAC Ali Lapp recounts one of her favorite examples of HMP utilizing creative tactics to help Democrats win a tough House seat in 2016…