Challenging Ed Markey: Alex Rikleen on Ballot Access, Party Gatekeeping, and What It Costs to Run

Carl Able: 235. That is how many times our guest tonight stood up in front of the state of Massachusetts and asked them to make him their United States Senator. 235 appearances in about a year. Most voters in his own state never learned his name. That's not apathy. Apathy is a choice that someone makes. What happened to him is a machine working exactly the way that it was built to work. Tonight, we are going to take that machine apart. This is the Smoke Pit brought to you by 5051 Veterans. with me tonight is Brian Winter, Stephanie Money, and Britt Robinson. And here's the question on the table if you are an ordinary working person with a job and kids and a mortgage, and you decide that the people representing you are not doing it right, can you actually do anything about it? Is the door open or does it just look open from the outside? Our guest tonight walked through that door and spent a year inside. He came back with an answer. And before we bring him in, I want to take a pause real quick and ask you, the audience, to do me a favor, hit like, follow, subscribe, share it out to your friends. Let people know that we are here. Let people know that we are running our sucks every Wednesday and Saturday night at eight o'clock at night. get in the comments, let us know what you think.
Brit Robinson: So
Carl Able: Interact with us. We'll try to bring your questions and comments up to the forefront. But your interaction is what allows us to gain a traction with the algorithms. And yes, the evil algorithms are terrible, but we have to do it in order to get the word out there and the information out there that we are sharing. Alright, so if you have questions for the guest, send them to 5051vets.com/slash ask. Our guest tonight is Alex Rikleen He is a history teacher out of Acton, Massachusetts. he has written for The Globe, the Herald, and half a dozen other outlets. He runs the PTO at his kids' school. And in February of last year, he watched the Senate confirm Cash Patel to run the FBI. And he decided the opposition was playing it safe. So that May, he filed to run against Ed Markey, a sitting United States Senator in his own party's primary. No machine, no money, no name recognition, just a guy who figured somebody ought to make the man answer. And he spent the next year making those 235 appearances. This past May, he ended the campaign and endorsed Markey. He's not running for anything tonight. And he's here to tell us what he found out about the machinery and who it is built for. Alex, before I hand it over to you, one, welcome to the smoke pit. But two, start it, start us at the beginning. What did you see that made you think that you had to do this yourself?
Alex Rikleen: Well thank thank you for having me. Thanks for the opportunity to be here. Good good to see you guys. and thanks for giving me the opportunity to sort of share my story. What made me think to do this was, you know, you you you sort of touched on on on a lot of my story and the part of it I guess that was that the The since you covered the the key parts, you know, the the Kash Patel hearing feeling like this was the most extreme appointment yet, feeling like democratic response to that appointment was completely inadequate. I I felt that organizing was happening. You had leaders across the country calling for the Democratic Party to be doing more, and the Democratic Party wasn't responding. And so I felt that what we needed what to make a Democratic Party better was primary campaigns and especially primary campaigns in, you know, I thought that they would be more impactful in safer areas. you know, I I recognize that nothing is so theoretically safe, but but that the bluer the district, the more Open people might be to that kind of primary challenge as a way to try to move the party without theoretically risking a seat. And I felt that those challenges were most important at the Senate level because the Senate is where Democrats have the most power to push back. And so even though I was going against one of the best senators. I still felt like there was room for improvement and like the entire party as a whole was not meeting the moment. And I knew that we were in a place where you know, I I was in a state, I was in a a bluish you know according to 2024, the bluest state with a Senate seat up this cycle. And I was just sort of running through the numbers and I said, How many people? are going to be having this thought process early enough and realizing that what we need is primaries in safish blue Senate seats and be able and willing to make that challenge at a and and be will ab and be able to start because you gotta start early. And I realize that the list of people who that might apply to is small. and sort of once I felt like the list of people who had realized that this was something that we needed might be small, I said, well, I see a problem, I see something I can do, I I feel I felt compelled to to do it.
Carl Able: Brian.
Bryan Winter: Yeah, so Alex, thanks for coming on the show. so I wanted to talk a little bit about just your experience. so you did two hundred and thirty-five appearances, that's a lot in a year, but actually it's probably little less than a year, right? that's a lot. Must have been hard on the family, you still got a job, you got all these other obligations, and you managed to keep it together. and you've always been a cute a cool customer. We met a few times on the trail during the early days of the No Kings movie. So I want you to talk a little bit just kinda about your strategy and your thinking. 'cause an observation that I made is that you spent a lot of time with movement actors. So you were going to like all the rallies that kinda popped up after the Trump administration kind of came into power and so you recognize something there.
Alex Rikleen: Yeah. So you know, on the one hand, two hundred and thirty-five appoint appearances in definitely in in exactly a year, actually. I it it was a coincidence that it worked out that way, but I publicly announced my campaign on May twenty-seventh and I publicly announced my withdrawal and endorsement of Marquee on May twenty-seventh of the following year. So it was it ended up being exactly a year. And it was 235 events, but but also I would have there were periods where I would have been willing and interested in doing more. And it gets to one of the things that you sort of alluded to of how possible is it to do this? And one of the pushbacks that you get is just getting people to let you in the room and getting people to to let you come talk to them. and there y you know, I r reached out to five hundred leaders of democratic town committees or city committees across this state, either city chairs, town chairs or ward chairs. I'd have to it's been a while since I Check so I don't have the exact number off the top of my head, but I heard back from less than a hundred of those 500. I ended up I I asked to meet with every single Democratic town committee in the state, and I ended up being welcomed at closer to 70. there were a lot that didn't open the door to me, and there are some where City ward chairs saw me speak in one location, went to their their city leadership, and said, Hey, I think we should be giving this guy the chance to come talk. And I never heard back, even after a ward chair, you know, someone with authority had could speak to my legitimacy, and still I w I was iced out, frankly. so You know, there were definitely cities and towns that welcomed me and gave me that opportunity, but there were a lot that didn't, and and some of them I'm sure just didn't check the email, but there were some who actively did check the email and saw the email. you know, I I have the stats on how many got the email, opened it, and then didn't do anything with it. and and it's a lot. and for the first three or four months of the campaign, just getting in the door was really difficult. Just getting someone to give me an opportunity. I had very few public appearances for those first few months because getting people to give me a chance was was hard. and so I actually wish that two hundred and thirty five number was higher. that first summer it was really low. There was a a three-week period over the winter where it was where it was low. where just you know I I wasn't able to to fill gaps. And so you talk about my you know being a part of the movement and going to so many protests, you know, part of that is cause my campaign is so aligned with the movement and and so It's a natural place for me to go. the whole reason that my campaign existed in the first place is because I felt the Democratic Party wasn't responding to the protests, to the organizing that 5051 Indivisibles, etc., was doing. But also, going to protest was a great way to get opportunities to speak elsewhere. I would go to a protest and I'd talk to three indivisible leaders and I'd Come away with two more speaking engagements. so it was it was great and and I I love going to them. I'm still a frequent appearance at them. You can still see me at a lot of these protests around the state. you know, especially like you know, at the bearing witness, you can see me there somewhat frequently. but like There was a dual purpose there.
Bryan Winter: Yeah, so just a little context for the audience, Bearing Witness is a protest that's run by a church led group outside of the Burlington Ice facility. and Burlington is like a suburban area right behind a mall and we got some pictures of what's going on in that building and it's not pretty, to say the least. but they've been doing this for over a year. Every Wednesday they're out there.
Alex Rikleen: 75th, their 75th consecutive week was this week. so they've been doing this for 75 weeks in a row. every Wednesday from 11 to about one o'clock, they bear witness to what happens in that in that Burlington processing facility. the main one for New England for ice cat.
Brit Robinson: So I, hi, Britt, another candidate. And yes, and so
Alex Rikleen: Yeah, I recognize your name from the chats.
Brit Robinson: like I've had a lot of the same experiences that you had with gatekeeping. And I think it, we talk a lot about the establishment or people like non-candidates talk about the establishment. And we have the discussions about Like does the establishment have control over who our candidates are or don't they? And I think a lot of people think that that is like a top down situation where it's like the big names in our parties, like either state or national party that are like, name people. And that definitely does happen, but I was just listening to what you were saying about reaching out to your committee people, I think you said is how it works for you guys, and not getting responses back. That is also the establishment as a candidate. so that's, yeah, I ran into the same stuff. It's incredibly frustrating.
Alex Rikleen: Yeah, so you know, I think that there are definitely instances of literally Chuck Schumer going
Brit Robinson: Hmm.
Alex Rikleen: to people's houses and trying to convince Mary Pelotta, I believe, is is one where he physically went to Alaska and tried to recruit her to run. I believe he was involved in recruiting Osborne, the independent running in Nebraska. I there are I believe he was involved in recruiting two of the failed candidates. I'm pleased that they failed, but failed candidates in Mi Minnesota and Michigan. there are instances of establishment literally recruiting candidates. But a lot of the time, exactly what you're saying is the establishment isn't necessarily Picking candidates, but there is subtle pressures from establishment figures in the party or in the media, sort of saying this person is legitimate and should be treated seriously, and this person isn't. you know, I'm gonna try to tell this story so I don't 100% make it obvious to people. Who know the details who it is I'm talking about, but early on in my campaign there was something before it was public, there was something that I needed to do internally. and I it it was a very standard procedure, it wasn't anything that should anyone should bat an eye at. and I got someone who was willing to do it, but that Person also works with the state party. And he told me, yeah, I'm fine, I'll I'll do it with for you, no problem. Let me just confirm with the state party that it that they don't have an issue with it. And the state party never said no. But this thing that should have been a quick, yeah, no problem, who cares? Why are you even asking? The State Party delayed answering him through repeated outreach. I think it would I think he attempted to reach out to this person who it's usually a text relationship. It's usually a text and get a response a day later. But instead it took five times reaching out over the course of 14 days. That's the kind of soft pressure where the no one said no. No one told this guy he couldn't work with me. But the message is delivered. The message is delivered that we don't really want this guy running. You don't really want us work with this guy, do you? and so there is that kind of subtle pressure. And and that's what I'm getting here in Massachusetts. And I mean, Britt, you're in some of these chats. You're seeing some of the stories. It's much worse in a lot of other states. there there in in in North Carolina, there are primary winners who are being actively shunned by the North Carolina State Party. you know, the worst I ever got is a little bit of subtle, subtle pressure, a little bit of of hey, are you sure you want to do this? And a little bit of subtle pressure to some other people, are you sure you want to support him? There is basically overt pressure from the N North Carolina Democratic State Party towards primary winners. Stay away from her. that is that is pretty bad because they want all the attention on the senator who they think they can win it can win, and they don't want any attention on these Congress people who have a harder race, who might lose and you know need a big wave to win, probably will lose, but who knows?
Brit Robinson: Yeah, I mean, it's undemocratic is how I see it and that's Yeah, seeing it from from people in the party. I know some of them some of the people like our fellow candidates who have mentioned, like talked in the chats that we're in, like they've had issues with basically investors, like campaign, big campaign donors stepping in and saying, well, but it's this person's gonna be bad for my business. And then them putting pressure on like a local party or committee person. And then that being like the... the reason why there is resistance. And yeah, I don't, I have, maybe you can agree with this, is I knew that there was I don't like using the word corruption quite, but like it feels like that. It's when our own party is working against us, working against hardworking, dedicated candidates who are just trying to do the right thing and represent the needs of our people. And then they come like, they make it an undemocratic process is how I see it.
Alex Rikleen: It's, you know, there there's the line about sort of ne never ascribe to malice that can that which can be explained through incompetence. And and some of this there there are there are elements of corruption in some of this. There's there are elements of there are elements of of sort of malice in some of this. but I think some of this is is can be ascribed, depending on which disc you're looking at. I think some of it is bad leadership. I think some of it is people who don't understand sort of the moment that we're in or the fight that we're in. And I think some of it is just a a lack of belief in democratic values. People who don't believe in the values that they're supposed to be fighting for. They kind of misunderstand what their job is. If, you know, going back to the North Carolina Democratic State Party, in theory the job of the state party is to elect Democrats up and down the ballot and achieve the policy goals of the state party platform. But if you lose sight of that a little bit, then you can fall into this sort of mindset of, well, we just wanna look like we're spending resources well. We wanna, you know, get the next promotion, we wanna position ourselves well so that we are, you know, hirable by this super PAC or that super PAC, or by this congressman or that congressman, or whatever. And you just sort of lose sight of what it is that you're supposed to be doing here. and I think that that is a really common problem as well, is especially amongst people who have been doing this as a career. it's easy to lose sight of the why. that's not everyone who's been doing this as a career, but but some people who have have been doing politics as a career, they kind of get their eye off the ball a little bit.
Carl Able: I am an aspiring candidate here in the state of North Carolina, and I have seen exactly what you're talking about happening. and it's it's absolutely appalling that that that process occurs. but what I want to do is I want to bring a guest question up. and they asked, did you feel that your experience was a positive one?
Alex Rikleen: Yeah. Yes. I am so glad that I did it. And I feel like I helped. You know. If I feel like I helped in in some specific ways. you know, I I feel like I always knew that my candidacy was a long shot. and from the outset I said, look, I'd love to win. I I did in you know the spring of 2025, I saw a path. It didn't end up working out. But I I always said, I saw a path, but if my only success criteria is Alex Raclean's senator in 2029. then I'm that's not a that's not a mentally healthy healthy outlook here. I need other success criteria. And the biggest one was can I make can my actions make sitting members of Congress better? And I had the benefit of I got to run against two sitting members of Congress because a member of the House of Representatives also got into my race. So I was running against a congressman and a senator. And I think that there are a couple of specific things where you can pretty directly trace my campaign to things that they did. and so if for no other reason, I think that that's pretty awesome. that that that that Feels like time well spent. and On top of that, you know, for me, one of the biggest, my categorically, my big issue is is democracy reform. Is look, if we don't address the structures that allowed us to get into a place that is this bad, then we are going to end up right back in a place similarly bad or worse pretty soon, and with and it'll be even harder to get out next time. When Democrats take back power, we've got to be prepared to fix all of this. And at the top of that list for me was the Supreme Court. I had other things, you know, voting rights and election reform to make sure that people's votes were counted, getting money out of politics, overturned, you know, I I had the whole laundry list. But the very top of that list was fixing the Supreme Court. Including Supreme Court expansion. And that is something that I think that through my campaign I was really able to elevate the salience of that issue in Massachusetts politics. I heard popular politicians who don't usually talk about the Supreme Court. Mentioned the Supreme Court in some pretty prominent speeches. Over the spring and summer. and I don't know. Feels like I at least had a hand in that. I don't know how much, but it feels like I definitely got the ball rolling there. and you know, in the the Democratic State Convention was a couple days after I dropped out. That was part of the timing there. Senator Markey d devoted a big portion of his speech at the convention to fixing the court. would he have mentioned the Supreme Court anyways? Yeah, probably. He's actually been a leader on that for a bit of a while. But would it have been as prominent? I don't know. I feel like I kind of elevated that a bit. so there are a number of ways in which I feel like this campaign had a really massive impact. And also I enjoyed it. It was fun to meet people. It was fun to get out there and and just I I there was so much about it that I absolutely loved. it was exhausting and eye-opening and at times maddening and frustrating. and as much as I would encourage people who are seriously considering it to like, you know, lean in, I like I'm not gonna consider someone who isn't considering it to do it. It is a lot. you've gotta already be have one foot over the threshold for me to give you that nudge. But no, I it was great.
Steph Money: And speaking of that, Alex, so can you mention how you got started? 'Cause I know for Massachusetts it requires a certain amount of signatures, you know, those type of things. Can you explain and talk about your experience with that for getting started with it?
Alex Rikleen: So as someone pointed out, especially in Massachusetts, but I but I think this is true in a lot of states, the process of getting on the ballot actually starts much later than you have to announce your campaign. And so to like begin a campaign, you kind of just need A website and a press release. I would strongly re recommend that you have filled out the necessary paperwork with the FEC to be able to accept donations when you publish that website and that press release. but getting officially launching your campaign is actually A very low bar, which as it should be. if I recall correctly, launching your campaign, you have to open a P.O. box so that your campaign has an address. You have to file with the FE for a federal candidate. It's every if you're doing a state candidate, there'll be different state roles. But for federal candidates, open a PO box, file this one form with an FEC. You need someone to sign as a treasurer. If you're running as a federal candidate, I strongly recommend that you have a treasurer with some experience, but technically that's not required. You could have your brother be the treasurer. again, don't recommend that, but you could. just you need another human adult to sign the form saying I will be your treasurer. and you need a third piece of paper, maybe Brick can remind me what it is. maybe it's just the bank account.
Brit Robinson: Yeah, so I mean for federal candidates, it's $5,000 spent or received. So with the FEC, that's when you have to file with the FEC. Up until that point, you actually don't need to do anything with the FEC. But it's also like chicken or the egg because usually you like, I shouldn't say usually, because it super depends like state to state. But yeah, when you want to go open a bank account to accept campaign donations, then you need that FEC form. So if anybody is thinking about running or has any questions, you can always call the FEC contact number. They're very friendly people. They will walk you through
Alex Rikleen: They actually are.
Brit Robinson: everything. Yeah, they're great.
Alex Rikleen: Yeah, and find a qualified treasurer and they'll help you out. so getting started is easy. Getting people to pay attention to the fact that you've started is where it gets a lot harder. and so there are sort of two main avenues that a person kind of goes down. They find a campaign manager and and sort of do that route, or you can kind of go with a consulting firm instead of a campaign manager. you either way you don't want to be doing a solo for a while. but you you know you develop you pull together a list of the media organizations in your district or in your state you send out that press release you film that launch video If you're not an influencer, if you're not used to it, that launch video is going to take a lot longer to record than you might expect. my three-minute launch video, I don't know that I've ever said this publicly before. My three-liter-minute launch video, I spent I believe the final tally was 21 hours total on filming, just in terms of like cut after cut after cut. Trying to get it right where I was looking in the right place, I was saying the right words, I wasn't messing up the words. it turns out the sound was muffled on those four takes. my eyes were focused in the wrong place. you know, you you did the first five hours and you think it's okay, and then you realize the sound is wrong, and then you do the next three hours and you realize the lighting is wrong, and then you do the next two hours and you realize your eyes are in the wrong place. my god. And and I mean if you're like already an influencer or not a millennial, you might be able to shorten that to one or two hours. But I had no Instagram presence, I had no TikTok presence, I had never filmed a face-to-camera video before. so I believe the final tally was 21 hours of just it was wild. A three minute video. I I I had written the script myself, like I knew exactly what I wanted to say, but yeah. so you've you've and you did and then you get it out there and you try to get as many people to share it as you can. DM to anyone who you think might be aligned and say, Hey, maybe, maybe share. it's it's a wild process. And look, the I can tell you the steps that I did. But one of the things that I think is important is politics is not a solved game. And There are there are the things that we know sort of work, but like there's so much we don't know about persuasion and politics. We run these like these multivariable experiments once every two years or once every four years, and then we'd run the next experiment with. Whole new people and whole new sets of variables, and we try to look at all of it and say, well, mm, and we're kind of just guessing it it's it's it's so far from a science. And so I can tell you the things I think worked well for me, and someone else will tell you the things they think worked well for them. But there's just so much unknown and so much. left to be improved upon that that we still don't know. You know, I look at for example, I look at Kat Abogazelli's campaign in Illinois. She did so much different. And most of the time I was looking at that and saying, that's one, great and brilliant and why has no one done that before? And and two, you know Why like why aren't more people copying this? But but but three, like it did only get her to second place. It did only get her to what twenty-eight percent of the vote? like
Steph Money: Well wait wait Alex, explain explain what did she do different 'cause there's a lot of people that may not know if they're not in the area
Alex Rikleen: Sure.
Steph Money: or they're not following politics completely. Can you explain
Alex Rikleen: Yeah.
Steph Money: what she did different first?
Alex Rikleen: I so she did a ton differently. This kind of gets to my point about like multivariable equations. Everything is different, and so you don't know what to s where to start. She you start with the fact that she does start with a massive audience, which is different than most candidates. She starts with hundreds of thousands of followers. You know, I was lucky that I got to start with 10,000 followers on Blue Sky, which is better than some follower people who are starting with like a hundred or so. but she's starting with hundreds of thousands. she's starting with skill at direct to camera video. but she it immediately does a lot with her campaign around using a campaign as a social good. you know a campaign is getting like-minded people to work together to make their community better better. Why wait until election day? she devoted a lot of that towards mutual aid. so there's questions as to whether that actually f is okay within FEC guidelines. but it's definitely cool. It's definitely interesting, it definitely attracted attention. She also did a lot of community cleanups, which is definitely okay with the FEC. She definitely did a lot of. community building and you know let's get together and quilting and do knitting circles and clean up the beach clean up the woods you know get our get our campaign to be active visibly helping your community and she was able to do a bunch of things like that she had a much more active campaign discord Which this cycle, a lot of campaigns have their own Discord, but before this cycle, that's not really a thing that anyone had ever done before. so that is sort of new. there were just a you know, day after day, week after week, she would be kind of rolling out something that was either a tweak or a massive change from how politics had been. Typically done. And most of the time I was like, that's awesome. You sh why aren't people doing that? And about one in ten, I'd be like, I don't know if that's allowed. but I I but like, I don't mind finding out, especially if the thing we're finding out about is can we use campaigns to provide mutual aid? I don't mind finding out if that's allowed. Like, there are worse things we could be finding out about. But there just there's so many new things we can be trying. she had a whole bunch of ideas. People around the country have a whole bunch of ideas. You know, in Kentucky, a candidate. I haven't had a chance to to to talk to her because she won. so I look forward to talking to her after November, whether she wins or loses. But Winfield, I forget her first name.
Brit Robinson: Wingfield. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Alex Rikleen: Winfield. she she won a contested primary with I believe four thousand dollars. one of her opponents had
Brit Robinson: Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Rikleen: multiple endorsements and raised over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. and he was a good guy. yeah.
Brit Robinson: Yeah, she's one of my friends. She's fantastic. If anybody doesn't is in like Kentucky, you should look her up. Everybody should volunteer. She's fantastic. But yeah, less than $4,000 and
Alex Rikleen: Yeah. Yeah.
Brit Robinson: she beat being like all the other candidates. There are three other people in the center. Yes.
Alex Rikleen: She beat multiple candidates, including like a good similar politically candidate with $150,000. it what she did is really impressive. I don't know how she did that, but there are new
Brit Robinson: Also,
Alex Rikleen: things we can do.
Brit Robinson: she ran as an openly gay candidate.
Alex Rikleen: Yeah.
Brit Robinson: Like, she's an openly gay candidate running in Kentucky against three white men who, at least one of them, like you said, had money behind him. And she didn't even have to file an FEC report because she didn't raise enough
Alex Rikleen: Yeah. And and and she won. Yeah,
Brit Robinson: Talk about an underdog.
Alex Rikleen: yeah, she won and she won by a lot, like
Bryan Winter: That's that's that's impressive.
Alex Rikleen: forty percent forty percent in the primary. It was a it was multiple people, but she won convincingly. there we don't know how to win. So I can I can give you what I did, but I didn't win.
Bryan Winter: Yeah, that's that's really, really interesting. I'll just notice too that like especially with fifty fifty ones, like like most of us because we came into this thing really a lot of us came into it because of the Trump administration coming into power in the first place and we're like, my god, we're fucked, we gotta do something and so we're just kinda throwing shit at the wall to see what works. but that also means encouraging the experiments and celebrating them when they win and even when they fail, because you'll learn something from that. You know? and so I really appreciate you putting your hat in the ring on that. So we're gonna switch tacks a little bit because we're running up on time and I actually wanted to talk about policy because you had a few couple of interesting policy ideas that really kinda piqued my interest when we started hanging out earlier in the campaign season. so I'd like you to tell me a bit about multi member districts and why you think that actually might be an effect of reform because that really kinda turned me on to what you were
Alex Rikleen: Yeah. So so th this this doesn't make my normal top three, but this I love this one. when so people gerrymandering has been in the news this year more than I ever thought it would be. because to your point, Donald Trump is a menace who is so much worse than we even thought he was, and we thought he was gonna be bad. Gerrymandering when you redraw maps to specifically just cr you know ha the the the sort of catchy way to think of it is have the politicians choose their voters instead of the voters choose their politicians. Gerrymandering is a problem, it is bad. The and so a lot of the time you'll hear politicians say we need to end gerrymandering, we need to fix gerrymandering. And they're right. But the problem is you always have to draw maps. There's no way around drawing maps. And so if you stop at independent redistri i independent redistricting commissions or things like you know that's independent redistricting commissions is sort of the go-to idea usually for how to solve gerrymandering. But even that you still have to draw maps, you are still susceptible to a future takeover or pushback against that in where you get Partisan takeover of those independent of those districting commissions. You are susceptible to, you know, California right now has independent redistricting commissions, but they voted to overturn those maps. They did it as a response to Texas, like there's a lot of extraneous circumstances there, but they did. And it speaks to the fact that that's possible. We need to come up with a system. That is more resilient. So we I support independent redistricting commissions, but I think that that is something that should be added to the pile and not where we stop. The way to be truly resilient against gerrymandering is to make the maps matter less. And the way you do that is with the combination of rank choice voting. and multi member districts. So multi member districts, if think about if your current congressional district instead of appointing one member of Congress, they appointed three or four or five. Obviously we would have different congressional districts so you so you while you do this. As a nice round number as a way of thinking about this, if you increase the size of the house to 999, You could have every single state could have at least five members of Congress. So the smallest states have one district with five members of Congress. Then you get a little bit bigger states where you have two districts with three each, a little bit bigger where you get three and four, etc. What this does when you combine ranked choice voting with multi-member districts, it makes it gerrymander proof. What happens is you no matter how you draw the map, you are going to end up with an elected body that is more representative of the population that it serves. If you've got sixty percent White and 40% minority, you're gonna end up with a pretty close to 60% white, 40% minority representative body. If you're 50-50 male-female, you're gonna get close to 50-50 male-female. And this isn't speculation, we've seen this. You have some cities and towns across the country that already have this. Here in Massachusetts, Cambridge elects their school committees and their city council this way. And what you find is that you get more representative school committees in city councils in terms of gender balance, in terms of racial balance, in terms of geographic balance. The current city council maps really clearly, kind of not really clearly, maps relatively clearly. So sort of the population hubs. It works really, really effectively. And when you redraw maps, because of the ways in which the rank choice voting proportional representation works, it it's just it's so much more resilient. So you still want an independent redistricting commission so that the maps are drawn as fairly as possible, but that just matters less in a system where that is. Built to be more resilient.
Carl Able: So I I got one for you. Alex, last the our last show, our last episode, I believe it was last Wednesday actually, before we did the news review. So last week, we sat down and we we all the panelists we talked about three of the changes that we thought as panelists were our top three priorities. We actually voted on twelve, but we don't have time within a two hour window to talk about all twelve. and because we are a panel of varying political orientations. My me specifically, I was a Republican up until about a year ago. And I left the Republican Party because I felt that the Republican Party had abandoned its values. Our president is a conservative, though she leans more towards the DSA nowadays than she would like to let everyone know. So my my question for you is, you know, we actually did, we looked at something similar to what you're talking about, which is the multi-member districts. And we expect. Examined proportional representation and expanding the size of the house, right? And I understand that you ran for the Senate. but we looked at expanding the size of the house because of the fact that it doesn't represent the population the way that it should. and we talked about George Washington and the way that he thought it should be 30,000 per rep, which would give us about Over a little over a thousand today, about eighteen hundred members of Congress, which is would would be fun if you were looking at it from the political perspective. but w what are your thoughts on on actually increasing the size of the house in order to try to reduce that that level of power that gerrymandered districts have?
Alex Rikleen: Yeah, yeah, I think that you should absolutely we should increase the size of the house. But if you increase this if you increase the size of the house without some of these protections, you become more susceptible to gerrymandering, not less. so it it to to make an analogy that Makes perfect sense to me and might not actually be helpful to anybody. I strongly support getting rid of the Electoral College, but I think that you have to pass voting rights protections first. I think that if we get rid of the Electoral College before passing the John Lewis Vote Rights Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, or or or or even something stronger, then you are inviting. More vote manipulation, more vote suppression by states where currently the incentive to engage in that is much lower. and so you have to do things in the right order. First you have to pass the Voting Rights Act, then we get rid of the Electoral College. Similarly, yes, absolutely we should expand the House, but we have to do that as part of a slate of reforms. At a minimum, pairing it with independent redistricting, preferably pairing it with multi member districts so that you are making gerrymandering less possible, making gerrymandering less. I I do think you have to com combine them. If we just expanded the house right now, I think that we would see gerrymandering get worse. If we did it without anything else.
Carl Able: So Well, a number of our audience members have have spoken out and on multiple occasions I've spoken out on the show about how I despise the two party system. and I view the the a proportional base system and the expansion of the house as a means of destroying that power that the two parties have, which would in essence kind of take away from that that power that that the gerrymandering has as well. do you do you th do you agree with That or do you not like from your per point of view as a history teacher now, and and you look back at United States history, how do you think that that would play out?
Alex Rikleen: Yeah, I I think when you have proportional represent when you have when you have multimember districts with the you know single transferable vote svt it's ranked choice voting except for multimember districts. when when you have that combination, that is an environment in which it is much more possible for independent candidates or third party candidates. to win compared to our current system. So I think if your goal is to undermine the two-party system, then you should be supporting multi-member districts because it it is a a a way to make that possible in a way that it currently isn't. You know, there is currently an independent candidate running for US Senate Here in Massachusetts. Ideologically, him and I aren't that far apart, on most things at least. But, and I had this conversation with him, you know. I I said, I said, as as I said to him, I think the biggest difference between us is on theory of power and theory of change. I don't think in today's America. There is a viable path for an independent candidate to win an election if they are not already independently wealthy, independently famous, or both. I just don't I we don't have a a precedent for it. When you go back since 1990, all of the independent candidates who have won statewide races were famous at least on the state level. independently wealthy or Bernie Sanders in his twenty first race. Bernie Sanders, having already represented half the state for multiple decades and having a full campaign infrastructure, he is and he wasn't poor. he is the only one who wasn't independently wealthy to win a statewide race as an independent. And all the other ones were both at famous, at least on a state level, and independently wealthy. It's just, it's not. Viable, we have to make we have to make structural changes to make it possible. Because even though I am a Democrat, I'm on the left side of the Democratic Party, but I I do think I am a Democrat. I do want to see a fair system where an independent can be at least given a chance. I I do think that there is something fundamentally unfair about a system where Joe Tashe, this independent candidate, you know, he was the first candidate to get his 10,000 signatures to be on the ballot. He raised more money than I did over the course of by the time I dropped out, let alone over the course of his campaign. He had raised more money than I had. But I got way more mentions in the media than he ever did. I think that there is something fundamentally unfair there. I think I had better ideas, but But I think we have to fix the structures to make to make something like that even something that someone will consider.
Brit Robinson: I ran into similar issues. Being a working class candidate, just a regular person, not coming from millions of dollars behind us. One of my opponents self-funded and put like a hundred grand cash into his campaign as seed money before, so that he would be taken seriously. that's just not feasible for the majority of us that want to make change. I'm curious what, how far did your campaign funds go? know, like what did you find you were spending the most money on? I know for me it was like paying the fee to get on the ballot in Florida's almost $11,000. And then, And then like sending out mailers was super expensive. So be curious to hear what your experience was there.
Alex Rikleen: Yeah. I really wish that I had enough money to have hired more of a staff. I I never really felt like the campaign was on enough of a financial footing that I could do that. and that is is sort of like my big Regret, I guess. I we spent a lot of money on just sort of the the nuts and bolts of flyers and paying to be at the convention or to have a booth here or there or signs. you know, those
Brit Robinson: Sorry to jump in. Can you explain the convention? Because
Alex Rikleen: Sure.
Brit Robinson: that's just so like people know it getting on the ballot, like we say it varies state to state, but like it really does. We don't have any sort of convention at all
Alex Rikleen: Yeah.
Brit Robinson: in Florida. Like you either get signatures, petition signatures, or you pay the fee. That's
Alex Rikleen: Yeah.
Brit Robinson: it. But you guys have a much more complicated process.
Alex Rikleen: Yeah, so Massachusetts, the for a statewide candidate in Massachusetts, you have to get 10,000 signatures and get fifteen percent of delegates to vote for you at the statewide convention. You you have to get both in order to be on the ballot. so As a result, the delegate population is a critical one for a statewide candidate. That only applies to the delegate section of that only applies to statewide candidates. So congressional candidates, there or House candidates, they need 2,000 signatures and they can skip the convention part. but as a result, so we have annual conventions. So I had two conventions during the course of my campaign. I had The fall 25 convention, which technically was irrelevant to my campaign, except most of the people there were the people who I was gonna need voting for me the next time around. And we ran the numbers after, and the cost of my presence at that fall convention was four thousand dollars if I recall correctly. Just the cost of The booth, the pay, you know, paying to make sure that I had the list of all of the delegates from the state party so that I could reach out to at all of them, paying for all the flyers, paying for making sure that people like knew I was there and were able to come to me, like getting my name printed in the program, paying for the hotel room because It was an hour and 45 minutes away from my house and it was a two-day affair. So I needed to be there the morning of. when you added everything up, I remember taking a picture of the booth with the flyers and everything. And and I used that as a fundraiser. And I think the number in that email was over $3,000, maybe over $3,500. And that was the cost of the first convention. just trying to build up support so that I would be able to do better in the second convention. and I ended up dropping out a week before the second convention. But the second convention was gonna be even more, you know, the second convention I needed even more flyers. and I didn't know that I was going to drop out yet so I had to place that order. I placed that I had to place that merch order before it, you know, I I got a big stack of you know 500 I think it is little versions of this that are designed for someone to like hold in the stands while I'm giving my speech. and we pl we've got all these in my basement. I don't know what I'm gonna do with them. we
Bryan Winter: No, I want one. Give me one.
Alex Rikleen: it's yours. so
Bryan Winter: Right. I'm I'm collecting mementos from our our journey saving America together. So I w I I want I want the swag.
Alex Rikleen: it's yours. so you know, we spent over a thousand I I think it was close to two thousand dollars just on merch in preparation for this convention that I ended up dropping out a week before. That's the the costs just of supplies, especially for a statewide race, can add up really fast. And running as a Democrat, you know, it's strongly recommended that everything be union printed. Even if even if you morally don't care, you are risking votes if you don't go the union route. Like, I want to support unions anyways. But even if I didn't care, I, you know, I I literally as a as a college kid, I was interning at a Democratic convention back at you know 20 years ago now. and I was just an intern at the booth, and I remember a couple of union guys come up to the booth of the campaign that I was at, and and they look at the box and they say, Where's the union buck? Kerfuffle ensued. It was an ordeal that this campaign got merch that wasn't union union made. So you know, it was a good lesson to learn early in my early in my life. But yeah, you there's a lot of things to spend your money on. and and some of it doesn't work out. You haven't subscription services and contractors that you wish. Turned out better. all kinds of things.
Steph Money: you talked about having to end with the convention or just before the second convention and everything. What led to the big decision and why you endorsed and all of that wonderful stuff that happens at the end.
Alex Rikleen: Yeah. you know, I you have a a sort of theory of the case. when I before I got in, I laid out a series of assumptions, you know. Here are the things that need to be true for me to have a path to victory. And You know, you can qua s you can argue over the percent, but I thought that when I started back in back in the spring of twenty twenty five, that there was a percentage chance larger th larger than the number one that this ended in success. But there were some things that had to happen for that to be true. And especially through late April and May. Some of those things stopped appearing to be fair assumptions. a lot of my for me personally, a lot of it was based on some hopes around not just what might happen at the convention, but if I did get if I did get to 15%, what would happen after? and I stopped having the belief that some of those things would. Be possible or or we're likely. And once you see that those assumptions stop making sense, once you see that probability go from low to zero, it becomes real hard to keep going. It's really easy to wake up every day and work from the moment you wake up until 2 a.m. and then get back at it the next day for a tiny percent chance. It is really hard to do that when that number falls to zero. And On top of that I had two opponents, and I had a strong opinion as to which of those two was better. And I thought that endorsing when I did was the way that I could have the most impact and harness that momentum to make the most impact. in terms of making my voice felt because of the convention system in Massachusetts, I had spent a lot of my time and energy trying to win over delegates. That was an audience that I had particularly high favorability and credibility with. And dropping out before the convention and saying to that audience in particular, hi, I'm not gonna win, so support Markey. Don't support Representative Mould. felt like the best way to use the political capital I had to say there is a big difference here. and and if you believe in the things that I was saying, I don't care about Moulton's age. Marky is the one who is closest to carrying on this fight and these ideals.
Carl Able: Alex, I I just want to say thank you for bringing for for you coming on and talking to us. I think it was extremely insightful, especially given the fact that you are one of us, right? You are you're in an average Joe that
Alex Rikleen: Thanks.
Carl Able: that just you you decided, you know what, it enough is enough, and I'm tired of the the the machine working against me and I'm gonna do something about it. And you did. and I I truly enjoy the fact that you didn't get up there with the in state of I'm going to take this all the way to the the end, no matter what, at the end of the day, that's where I'm taking it. You you saw that you had made the difference, you had made the change, and you were ready to to call it when you were ready to call it. And I I respect that too. so thank you again for for coming on the show. And I'm gonna let you close us out on this segment by talking to us about one thing that you wish you would have known going in that you want other people to know before they start the process themselves.
Alex Rikleen: Okay. I wish Mean I I I wish I had spent money I wish I jumped right to hiring a staff member right away instead of spending money on other things. I I wish that I hadn't wasted time on self-doubt. And on some level I recognize that that's an inherent part of the process, especially for a first time candidate, especially for, as you said, kind of just a ordinary person who's just hopping into this. But Every single time I started a new thing. Every single time I started, all right. Well, I guess I've gotta just start showing up to this kind of meeting on my own, even if I'm not invited. I just I guess I just gotta start showing up to these things uninvited. I guess I gotta start doing this. I just whatever it is. Every time I started that, the first several times, I would. come home and tell my wife how much I don't like it and it's uncomfortable and I don't know what to do with my hands and I sort of walk home like this. that's a tall day good nights reference for anyone. and And after about a month of it, I would be like, man, I messed up. I should have been doing this since July. And that cycle repeated multiple times. And I I wish I I don't it's har it's hard to say I like regret it because I don't know that there's a world in which I do it any differently. But I do wish that I could have had the insight to start some of those things earlier. And relatedly, you know, before I got started, before I jumped into this, one of the things I was really nervous about was like. I was worried that for the rest of my life people were gonna say, that's I was gonna that it was gonna be a a source of embarrassment. That people were gonna say, that's the that's that's like the idiot who thought he was gonna challenge a senator, ha ha. And the person who that was directed toward was just me. That was just my own internal feelings. I got that reaction zero times in the in the real world. Compared to ninety percent of the time it would be thanks for putting yourself out there. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for running. No one that I cared about. Treated this as though this was something that I should be embarrassed about. And so, whatever your version of that self doubt is. That's just you, man. Whoever, poor woman, whoever it is. That's not real. The overwhelming reaction that you are going to get from people is either apathy or hey, thanks for putting yourself out there. I'm glad, I'm glad you're doing it. and it would have saved me some strife if I had known that.
Carl Able: And there you go, folks, straight from the the average Joe's mouth who did it, who did the thing, and put himself out there and and actually made an effort. And we have Brit here that can say roughly the same thing, which is go try. If that is something you want to do, go try. Don't allow yourself to think, no, I'm not good enough, or I don't have the time, do it. If you feel that you have the ability to make the change, make the change because no one else is going to do it for you. and with that. I'm gonna go ahead and hand it over to Steph to run the safety brief.
Steph Money: So safety brief for the military. it's often something that we do typically at the end of the week or before a big thing or before everybody goes for a big break. we usually have a safety brief, mostly to warn people what not to do and not to do stupid shit because somebody's already done it. I had I already sent an image to Carl that probably it should be great for him to use in the future next time because there's a great meme out there that pictures it perfectly. But I will go into the regular safety brief. I found one on Reddit that I am going to read. and I'll add a few other things, but I just wanted to do something original and add that in there for you. So Number one, if it's warm, wet, and not yours, don't touch it. If the thought of doing something makes you giggle for more than five seconds, you're to assume that you're not allowed to do it. If you can't wash it off, show it off, or share it with your friends, don't bring it home. Don't add or subtract to the population. Drinking, driving, sex, and swimming. Don't do any two at the same time. Please try not to do even more than one. Remember, the four-hit rule: don't hit your pets, don't hit your kids, don't hit your spouse. If your neighbor's spouse asks you to hit it, don't. That's a trap. If you're going to play adult hide and seek, take yourself down to the CVS and get some hide and seek equipment. If you don't get your hide and seek equipment, you'll be back in the same aisle at CVS buying a pregnancy test. If you're going to engage in sexual relations, go mop two. If they look questionable, go mop four. Don't drink and drive. After all, you might hit a bump and spill your drink, but seriously don't drink and drive. It's funny how red, white, and blue stand for freedom unless they're flashing behind you. Few things I'll add to it. Try not to get arrested. But if you do, establish dominance quickly.