695 - How to Run For President (2.0) from the Campaign Manager's POV with Phillip Stutts

Transcript

This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Today on The James Altucher Show. So when I first posted and did a podcast on how I am running for president, yes, it's true that it was sort of half as a joke, half as an experiment, half, I know that's 3 halves, half to make a point about how I I think the 2 party political system is out of date and it would be nice if everybody had a voice and had their diverse unique opinions and a place to express it rather than everybody believing in one menu or another menu and that's it. But But then I had Phil Stutz on the podcast. Phil Stutz, as you remember, is a campaign manager at the presidential level. He has helped congressmen, governors, even presidents get elected. I asked him, what do I need to do if I really wanted to run for president, if I really wanted to take it seriously? And he started asking me questions like, well, you'll hear on the podcast. It's very interesting, but this is how a presidential campaign manager thinks about presidential campaigns. And he almost is making me take it seriously, so I might. You know? Hey. If Andrew Yang and a a young independent like Donald Trump could do it, why not me is what I always say. Here we go, and, please enjoy. It's Phil Stutz. Welcome back, Phil Stutz. Now as listeners, that was a quick intro, but I'll do a little more. As as listeners remember, I'm doing a little ex a bunch of experiments related to my recent book, skip the line, and one of them is that I am running for president of the United States, which and then I gave a bunch of reasons why I'm doing it in a recent podcast. I won't go over that again. But I basically wanted to say it's easy to do. You just go to FEC.gov, fill out some forms, and within 5 minutes, you're running for president of the United States in 2024. Jay set up a Facebook group, where people could post their platform or their receipt from FEC.gov or whatever it is. And, Jay, what's the URL for the Facebook? What's the name of the Facebook group? It's Facebook.com/groups/president2.0. Very good name. What do you need to join the group? You need to you need to show that you're running for president. Yeah. That's all. Oh, you just need to just be a member on Facebook for more than 3 months and you can join ultimately join a good group. And, usually, I would just approve them anyway. Oh, okay. Yep. But, you know, it's actually not as simple as it looks to run for president. I make it look easy, but we have Phil Stutz, who's a professional presidential campaign manager, to tell us what type of people run for president, who they are, how do they get started if you wanna take it really seriously. Why do people run? What are the reasons why people run? They're not always what they seem, and we're gonna find out other things about running for office that I bet I didn't know and nobody else knew. So in any case, Phil, welcome to the show once again. Thanks, man. Excited to record of no most appearances on the show. I think I'm I'm beating the person that introduced us, which is Tucker Max. So, I'm I'm excited to do anything to beat Tucker. Just tell us your background a little bit. I know you've told us it before, but you've basically helped a bunch of people, random losers, become president of the United States. Yeah. So I've, for 25 years, worked on, political campaigns. I've worked on 8 presidential campaigns, 3 winning presidential events, and been a part of 1,407 election wins in my career. And Wow. Yeah. And then I decided to, skip the line. Sorry for the bad pun, but it's true. And, take all that knowledge on electing, politicians and apply it to businesses, which is a total skip the line idea, right, which we can all get into. But, yeah. And so that's what I do now. I run 2 companies, an ad agency in the political sphere and a marketing agency in the corporate sphere. You know, that is true, what you've done of using your the 10000 hours that you spent studying, you know, how to get presidents elected. And you guys use really we've talked about this on a bunch of podcasts before how you use, like, the absolute state of the art in big data Yeah. And analytics and so on and targeting to, use the Internet to basically redefine how presidents run, win elections. And and you've described how it's changed from 2,000 to 2,004, 2008. Every election, there's, like, new things that candidates do. So we that's on prior podcasts. And, Jay, do you remember what episode was the first one where we talked about that? Because I I think the first and second you you, I have to I have to I have to look it up. There's a lot of them, so I would say it's like, it's like me and Steve the guest Steve Ronnell and Joe Rogan. I don't know if you know who Steven Rinell is. He's like this hunting guy, and I'm fascinated with him. And, he's been on, like, Rogan, like, 6 times, and I just go back and I just listen to all those episodes. So What what do you learn from them? Well, I'm start I I'm, beginning to hunt. Through the COVID thing, I've decided I want to to start hunting, and so I'm trying to study to understand how I can do it effectively. And, I am set to go elk hunting in Colorado next, this fall. But I never feel like never done it. Big change for you. Well, yeah. Yeah. I'm excited. I mean, I like being outside. I realized during COVID, like, how how close to nature and important that is for me. So Okay. Good for you. Hunting and fishing is sort of like u for chess, that would be me in hunting and fishing, and I need to recapture that part of my life, which I used to do up until I was about 20 years old. Well, yeah, it's all these things that we loved as a child that gave us that kind of private dopamine hit when nothing else would, when we were, you know, either lonely as a child or Mhmm. Being anxious or whatever it was that, you know, we didn't have an adult brain to kinda figure out. And even having an adult brain often doesn't work. And we return to these things, like, let's say, being outdoors or chess or whatever. And I think during COVID, for better or worse, a lot of people return to those for that that say like, in a world that was so confusing just like it was when we were kids that we turn to these miniature sources of pleasure to and and reawaken them. I think that's the the I believe there's silver linings in everything. Right? Like, my brother was in a horrific car accident 21 years ago, had a massive brain injury. Somehow, there's a huge silver lining out of that. He had another child. He ended up recovering, going to business school. Like, there's and, like, he's a miracle to me. Right? So there's silver linings in everything. And I feel like with COVID, the silver lining is you had to sit in your s**t for a long time, and you had to figure yourself out. Or at least that's how I thought about it because I had to I'm one of these guys who's on the road 2 weeks of the month, and I I almost went a full year without traveling. And I had to Yeah. Figure stuff out. And I had to sit in my my s**t for a long time and figure it out. It was not easy, and it really sucked. No. And I remember even before then, you were going through a big period of intense figuring things out. Let's put it that way. Yeah. And, I'm glad COVID helped for that and and and that you're continuing that journey. But let's talk about running for president because I think what do you think of this idea? Like, most people probably don't know that lots of people every 4 years run for president. It's not just 3 Democrats and 5 Republicans. No. I mean, the most peep the most people that ever ran for president, up until 2016 was the 2016 Republican primary. I think there were, like, 17 candidates until 2020 when 24 people ran the democratic primary. So what you this is you getting on the ground floor of a trend that's starting to go. You know? But you know what? It's not even like it's not even like I expect to be on the stage with any of these people. All you have to do really is go to FEC.gov True. And and file this is my campaign committee. Yep. This is my campaign organization. What's the name of your campaign committee? I think it's just James Aldershire for president 2024. Let me see. As a marketer, we can we work on, can we do something more fun with that? Well, I wanna I wanna come up with a fun name. You don't have to put your political party That's good. At this point. So, I wanna maybe we can maybe we can do that. Let me see. I'm gonna search for my my filing. By the way So I have a lot of opinions on this, and I think I can, I can help not only you, but this community, which I think is kind of fun if you think about it because this is a chance in a in a weird way to kinda strike back against the system, which I'm always a big fan of? Like, I'm I'm anti establishment in everything I do, or everywhere I think about it. And so yeah. So, I'm I'm ready. What what questions do you have? How how can I serve here? Yeah. So I just wanna know, like and I'll say just my reason why I think everybody should run is that everyone always says, oh, if you don't vote, you don't have a voice. But I feel like people have been kind of brainwashed into this mythological concept of voting. You're one vote out of a 150,000,000 people. Yes. In local elections, it's voting is extremely important. Presidential elections, very few votes are really important. Like, out of a 150,000,000 votes cast, I think in 2016, it boiled down to about half a 1000000 votes that were actually relevant in in going in in helping the election turn one way or the other. And, certainly, if you're from a big state, that is unlikely to help. Except in the year 2000, which started in my journey, 537 votes, decided the presidency. Yeah. 537 votes. George w Bush beat Al Gore in the state of Florida by 537 votes, and that put him in the electoral college lead, and he won the presidency. So So so in terms of the election, you're right. Like, if you're if you're in Florida or Ohio or any of the others there's, like, maybe a handful of states that have the potential to be swing states. New York City and California are not I mean, New York State and California are not Yeah. 2 of those states, then your vote counts. But this idea that you should have no voice in the political system if you don't vote is ridiculous. So that's why I went to FEC.gov to file for president because now I could say, hey. I do have a voice. I'm, in fact, running for president to express it. And it's another it's just it's like you were referring to just now. It's a statement against I don't believe in the political system. I don't believe you should have to vote for the lesser of 2 evils. Why do we have to have a 2 party system? Well, you know, let's say let's take an extreme. Why can't we just have a big social network like Facebook or a Facebook group where everybody who's running, let's say, a 1000000 people can post their platform, and by likes, we can express the candidates that we like more and and we their their platforms. I mean, you could get into real substance and real issues as opposed to the the the joke debates that we have, now. But what I'm curious about is, what is the psychological makeup of someone who runs for president? Like, are they who what kind of what kind of ego empathic. Yeah. And, no. I mean, narcissist for sure. Like, a a thou I mean, I don't care if it's Barack Obama or George w Bush or Joe Biden or Donald Trump. They're all narcissists. Now we're all we all have elements of narcissism in us. But I think if you're gonna run for the most powerful office in the world, there's a lot of narcissism to think that you're the guy that they're gonna choose. Yeah. And, also, why would you think that you know that you have the capabilities over everyone else to run the world, essentially? Yeah. I I mean, absolutely. Yeah. And and I'm not criticizing them. Like, you know, maybe not. I'm not either. Yeah. I'm I'm a 100%. Like, somebody's gonna do it. Right. So why not me? You know? You know, you see that throughout. Now when you have 24 candidates running in the Democratic primary, that's a lot of narcissists. And a lot of people knew they weren't gonna win, but a few factors probably kicked in. And, by the way, I'd say the same thing about the 2016 Republican primary. It has nothing to do with party. If you run for president and lose, it gives you a huge platform to do other things. Some people wanna get a TV contract and make write books and make money. Look at Newt Gingrich. Right? Or Michael Kennedy. Or well, Andrew Yang's now using it as leverage to run for mayor. Right? And so, there are all these factors. Look. I guarantee you give truth serum to Andrew Yang. He knew he was not going to win in 2020. He Right. 100% knew he wasn't gonna win. But he also, to compliment him, he caught lightning in a bottle for someone that shouldn't have gone anywhere, which is why I tell you maybe you got a little hope here. Because what I loved about Yang was that he chose an issue early on, and he stuck with it, and it ended up going viral. And he got it to go viral, which was, the universal basic income. Right? Yeah. You know, that's that's a fascinating way to look at it. Like and I would say Bernie Sanders, who was relatively unknown, among the general public until he started running for president in 2016. Yep. You know, I I remember him vaguely from 2,000, actually, when he switched parties from Democrat to independent. Yes. Because I remember the stock market that day went up a lot for some reason, and and I remember why is it going up. And then a cab driver told me, oh, this senator from Vermont left the Democratic Party. I thought he went from Democrat to Republican and thought, oh, okay. The stock market likes Republicans. Yeah. But, he actually became went from Democrat to socialist. But, but, yeah, if you have, like, a strong basically, if you have a strong idea and you you I was about to say that that gives people money, like universal basic income or Bernie Sanders with wealth redistribution, but that's not true because, Trump's issue was immigration, and that proved to be a viral issue from someone who was relatively unknown on the presidential level. And trade. Whoo. And the world runs on trade issues. That's one he ran on immigration and trade issues. That was his outlier idea. I mean, and and you're really good at identifying those ideas and putting them out there and getting viral. I mean, obviously, you did it last summer. But the question is, like, what is your hard stance that you wanna stand for something? So if you ask me if I were to file, and I won't file because I don't wanna deal with the federal election commission, but, I choose to vote, not file. So, As is your right, men Right. Exactly. And women died for your right to vote. Not your obligation to vote, but your right to vote. So if it was me, it would be I wanna be a contrarian. I wanna I wanna be the person that allows conversations on everything and be a complete contrarian in anti woke culture. Right? Like, that's probably my most passionate thing that I'm thinking about right now. And I've got ideas on it that I wanna implement by the end of the year. Like what? Because I agree with you on this. I'm I'm gonna start a, a a podcast on this and only have people on that wanna have contrarian conversations. I don't care if it's a civil rights leader or if it's a white supremacist. I I want all conversate I'm a I'm a first amendment absolutionist, and I'm I'm not gonna have a white supremacist. What what I'm saying is I wanna bring people on that think differently and bring different ideas to the table because I think that's what lack we lack so much of the culture right now. That's me. Like Right. What would you think for you? Well, first off, I love that idea, but let let me give you a format idea that I think could really work that I haven't seen in the podcast world. Like, the idea of 2 people debating an issue, that's happened. And and I think It's not a debate. Let me give you let me give you clarity, if that's okay. Can I do that? Yeah. Of course. So it's a conversation. It's not an interview. It's just 2 people having a conversation, asking questions of each other and understanding their standpoint or their point of view. Yeah. Okay. That's good. I I like that a lot, and and I'll I'll just throw this out. It might be a bad idea or a good idea. I think people should only come on if they're willing to take the other person's view and debate it strongly. Even better than so for instance, if you have a pro life person and a pro choice person on, the pro life person should argue the pro choice side, and then the pro choice person should argue the pro life side. And the reason is is because I think love that. Yeah. It's and and not it's important for two reasons. One is it'll provide an interesting perspective on the issues, which is what your goal. The other is it's a it's a self development thing. In general, before people have a discussion where they express their opinions where 50% believe one thing, 50% of people other. It's very useful to invert your argument or steel man your argument, and which means argue this at least as well, if not better than the other side, and that helps you with arguing. And and this really works. This technique is amazing how well it works. So, like, I wanna have, you know who Van Jones is? He's a, African American and very liberal, but the guy at least takes different opinions. Like, he he'll call out when he when other people are wrong, whether it's his side or not. I kinda like that. Like, that's the kinda guy I want on. I also want on Candace Owens who calls out a lot of different things as well. But what would be really interesting is to ask them questions that say, Candice, Van, take this side of the issue. I'd like to hear you take you know, like, go with it. And if they give me some stock answer, then then they failed the test. Right? But I'd love to know how they would take the other side of the issues they they argue for. Yeah. I mean, it's helpful because I'll I'll tell you. There's so many reasons why it's helpful. Other first, if you're the person doing this, taking the other person's side, like steel manning your argument, a, it helps to understand, again, their, you know, another perspective because you have this different cognitive you're not just arguing against them. You're arguing for them, so it helps you to have a different cognitive bias on how you think of the issues. 2nd, it helps you win the argument on your side because you'll once you have practice arguing their point of view, then if they have a bad argument, you could say, listen. You know, I'm willing to debate you, but the way you just debated this probably is not the most effective way. More effective would be x, y, and z. And you could say that because you've studied how to argue their side, and that actually is a useful technique for winning a debate or argument or whatever. I love it. I'm I'm absolutely gonna totally use this. Yeah. And I wish presidential candidates would use it. It'd probably help them in these debates. As you know, I implement sometimes, I implement James Altucher ideas. So Yes. Every now good one. This is a good one. Alright. But what would your I'm I'm curious on you. Like, what would your what was something that you think would again, you're right. Yang ran on universal basic income, but Trump ran on the wall, make America great again, and trade. I mean, people run for president on those issues, Yang or Trump. And they got a ton of momentum out of it. Right? So how would you think of those? Right. And so just on on those guys and and all the other people who run for president, it seems like there's 2 ways to have, like, a theme for your campaign. 1 is, like most candidates, you use intense polling data to understand what issues people care about. And then based on that, you're able to, you know, focus on those issues. And the other way, of course, is if you have a real natural belief in some issue and you're willing to to argue it. So, you know, I think I think Yang's is a mixture of both. Like, he he probably used some data. And as he told me on my podcast on this podcast is that he felt there was a a lack of supply in the market of ideas, and he felt he could bring something to the table with new creative ideas. So I I think the the original impetus is that I don't think there should be a 2 party system. I think democracy is has changed because of, faster I mean, in 17/80, we didn't have a phone. We didn't even have telegraph then. Internet, of course, or social media. So we didn't have electron any kind of electronic voting. So the technology is here now to really ask, like, well, how can the political system we've improved every other area of society. How can our political system be improved so that, a, people feel they have more choices and more and more opportunity to express the choice, and more people could simply run and have a voice in the ideas that are often shared and spread during a presidential election. Man, you're you're already really good at politics because you didn't answer the question. So, I I I thought it was a big compliment for a second. I I know. So I have an idea, though. Like, so if you let's just take Yang again. He was running on universal basic income, but no one was listening to him. And he didn't give up. He was consistent. He stayed with it. Finally, he got a little momentum, and then it snowballed, and then it turned into, hey, this guy may have a shot. And he didn't, but look at what he's running for New York City mayor now. Right? And he actually finished in at least the top 10 out of 24 candidates when everybody said he was gonna finish 24th. Right? His followers were so passionate about him. They were passionate, and good for them. Yeah. You're gonna hate what I would advise you on as your issue, but let me try. Is that okay? But but what why so the issue I really do believe that a 2 party system is kinda ruining I agree. America, and then it's just too well, that's yeah. I would make that the issue because that's a big issue. People don't have a voice in this country and how it's run. Yeah. And that would give people a voice. Now people are people would think that's crazy. You know? At least you don't have to be have to have something very specific. It has to be something very specific. So it it And then here here here's another thing that I've been an advocate for, but haven't really had an opportunity to express it that much. This is related to my article that went viral. The New York City is dead article. Oh, I'm unaware of that. Did you write something on that? Yeah. And but let's let's focus this like, after this pandemic, I think what might have been a good candidate for many large cities before the pandemic is different afterwards because there's enormous, enormous economic difficulties that no one doubts that every major city, San Francisco, LA, Chicago, London, New York, on and on. Every major city is gonna have enormous financial problems for reasons, you know, that we've discussed a million times. And they're unlike any problems that have ever existed before in the history of America. Like, very different from a fine a normal financial crisis. And so I think, like Andrew said, I think there is no supply right now in the market of ideas to help cities, and innovation in the cities is one of the most important things that keeps America going. Like, if you wanna make America great again, like, truly like, it's not a slogan, you need the cities to function. That's where ideas happen. That's where innovation happens. That's where scenes and communities and artistic movements and innovation develops. So you've gotta figure out the bullet that solves that problem. So, yeah, I'm gonna can I can I give you can I give you one suggestion, or do you wanna go? Do you wanna I wanna just tell you my bullet. Negative sales taxes. So and which is basically, like, the equivalent of universal basic income, but for sales taxes, not income taxes. A universal basic income, like Andrew describes, is essentially a negative income tax. Like, if you make below a certain amount, instead of paying positive income taxes, you pay negative income taxes, meaning the government gives you money, which is the another way of saying universal basic income. So the problem cities have is that the velocity of money in a city now, you get paid and then it instantly goes to Amazon. Everybody just shops at Amazon. So there's no money doesn't circulate anymore in cities. And if money did if there were incentives for money to circulate in cities, you would solve a lot of problems. This is why, for instance, someone like Yang who who tries to think of creative ideas is proposing casinos in New York City, which is not necessarily a good idea, but it's at least creative. My idea is you make up a local currency. Call it, like, New York City bucks or whatever. There's lots of ways to implement it, like crypto or whatever. You don't need crypto, but that would be a way to implement it. And New York City bucks can only be spent in New York City, and you get if you use New York City bucks to buy something in a physical store in New York City for instance, then you get money back. You don't pay extra money like a sales tax. You get money back, a negative sales tax paid in New York City bucks, and it's only convertible to US dollars 1 to 1, let's say, 10 years from now. So, so for 10 years, there's huge incentive to bring the velocity money back in order in cities, bring tourists back to cities, bring people buying in Don't you think this could also sell in rural areas under income Absolutely. Or or or or cities that are aggressive with it. Like, let's say Kansas City decides they wanna be a major hub of technology and innovation. Kansas City can do it and and, you know, have a different formula for it and and focus it on technology or or whatever. So you you it gives you another tool to implement policy in your city and also helps your city's, economic problems. And, you know, people are we're going to need this. No one's gonna do it, because nobody even knows about an idea like this. That's why someone like Yang, who's very smart, is coming up with casinos rather than something really innovative. And, you know, because it's a hard concept, really. No one's ever I've never seen this proposed anywhere. Whereas universal basic income, by the way, the first person who proposed it was Nixon. So, it's not it's not a new idea, but it's new right now, which is why he didn't use it. But that's that would be that would be another issue that I care about. First of all, I think that's really smart in the sense of you found something very specific that people go, yeah. I work really hard, and I could get money back on sales, and it could go into or you're looking at, like, a 10 year treasury bond or something like that that it would go into. Is that what you're Basically, like, if you just shot like, right now, again, like, you shop at Amazon for books. But let's say you went to a local mom and pop bookstore in, you know, New York City where let's say you lived in New York City and and that's what you did. Then you would again, instead of paying the 6% or 7% sales tax that New York City currently charges Right. You would pay your money, but then you would get back in New York City bucks 7 or 8% of your purchase price. So now you're incentivized to shop locally instead of shopping at Amazon. And and then in 10 years, you simply can take all your New York City bucks that you've accumulated by shopping locally, and you can convert it to dollars on a one to one basis. Why would you ever not shop in your local town then at all the places that offer New York City bucks? This is the big problem is how do you get people shopping locally again, and how do you keep the money circulating in the city? It's our concept, though. That's the problem. Yeah. I think you'd have to make it a little more here's my suggestion. Like, I don't know how you would be able to implement specific city on the federal level. But if you could say, you know I I know how to do it. You do? Yeah. Tell me. Well, I I would use crypto because then you could easily trade. So this was my idea. You should be the one that says, I know you don't, like, wanna go into, like, the crypto world, but, like, we're I wanna change the monetary policy from from the US dollar to Bitcoin or crypto within 10 years. The exchange completely changes and switches over. There's a lot of momentum right now. It's, you know, secure. You could rail against all the things about the dollar that are un insecure and how the government's on the take on it. And, you know, you like, Jan the treasury secretary Yellen came out the other day and, like, bagged on, you know, Bitcoin. You could there's so many holes you could poke in that kind of argument. And then you could say as here are some sub ideas on how you could utilize that. Love it because what you're saying is very specific. Right? It's still a specific idea. We're gonna make crypto the official some form of crypto is the official currency. You feel like it will be one day? Yeah. I mean, if not US, it'll certainly be for some other countries. And at the very least too, it'll it'll replace an asset class like gold as a safety currency. Correct. And and just a a a a few comments on that. People always say gold's a real thing. I can hold it. Yeah. I can hold a rock also, and it has this exact same functionality as gold. Like, gold is just a rock, and we've decided, oh, it's precious, though. It's a precious metal. It's real. Well, goal there's no reason gold should be a currency any more than there's reason like a paper a little piece of paper with a pyramid and an eye on it should be an official currency. So so whereas Bitcoin, the innovation in Bitcoin is this actual functionality. It's not just invisible ones and zeros. You there's things you can do with crypto. And to your point, Phil, I could say And you can't print endless amounts of Bitcoin. You can't print endless amounts of crypt, of of Bitcoin and and other quality cryptocurrencies. Right. This is why, for instance, some cryptos I felt from the beginning were were very scam like because you could print them like Ripple. I don't know what people realize. I just think that's a giant scam, but that's another story. But, I I I like this because then you could say, listen. Here's why you would wanna do this, particularly after the pandemic. It's because x y z a b c, here's 7 major problems you can solve, and here's how we would solve them using crypto ideas that no one's ever thought about, and let's do it. We can we can reduce the price of lawyers, for instance. We could reduce the price of health insurance. We could save our cities. It's inflation and deflation resistant. Correct? Right. It's, I mean, it's not it's hard to say what inflation resistant means. Like, if yes. It's it's resistant to inflation that's denominated in in current US dollars. Right. But Bitcoin itself will not inflate. You and I are 2 creative people. So now I'm getting another idea out of this. So can I run it on you? Okay. Which is you're already gonna win over the millionaire, billionaire class on this idea. In fact, they're gonna swarm to you. I love it. Right? You need to target and hone in on the middle class and the lower class and tell them how it benefits them. That's where I would take that message. You've already got a constituency that's on board with us. Don't go preach to them. They're already gonna come to you. Where the people that don't are the people that go, I don't get it. I don't understand. And so for you to simplify the message of how how it would work or what it means to their wallets or what it means to their life, and then hone in on, you know, I don't care if it's, rural, you know, Midwest or inner city, appealing to those people and saying, here's what it means to you. You you know? And and being very specific, and you make $30,000 a year, and and I am produced New York bucks. That means you're gonna get x amount. That that adds another $10,000 to you over a 10 year period. Think about you could use that to go to city colleges, to go to private schools for your kids. What like, there's so many ways, but you're going to you don't have to appeal to a higher cla*s. They're going to like that idea. So go find the the the target market that doesn't understand it, and that's where the momentum is gonna build. So that's a really good point. And as much as I don't really like populist style rhetoric, the the real truth is is that Bitcoin is a populist sort of currency. It and and the populism aspect is stop letting the banks run your life because they see they basically control everything you do by Oh, yeah. Controlling the currency. The the government and the banks control everything you do because they control the currency you use. So you have fees every step of the way. And these bankers who have destroyed America largely, they have no concept of innovation and and what real capitalism is. The banks have taken over. The lawyers have taken over. It takes power away from banks and lawyers. That's what it does. That's what it was built for was precisely this reason. Take away power from bankers, whether private or or public, and take away power from lawyers because turns out you shouldn't have to pay $20,000 to get an escrow or get a divorce or or write a will. You could do it in in a couple clicks with with correct implementations of cryptocurrency, which is why peep people don't understand that aspect of of crypto. And that's why you could be that voice. And I think you always gotta figure out you know, I I talk about this with you a lot. I don't care if it's on a political campaign, and I don't care. I do this with all of our corporate clients. Let's find you know, I I call it comparatizing in the corporate world because they don't like the word negative advertising. But you gotta kinda find a guy to somebody to go pick a fight with because that's what's gonna draw eyeballs into the message itself. Right? And so, you know, for example, we we were working with a a high end t shirt clothing company, and we ran an ad campaign that says, don't buy your clothes from a shoe company. Just don't do it. Right? So, So, like, we were taking a shot at Nike and the, you know, the people that just make shoes and sell cheap clothes. Right? For you, going after that and saying, like, going after the big banks or Wall Street or as we saw with the GameStop story, hedge funds and and saying, like, they've taken advantage of you enough. It's a very populous message. Right? It's populous, and it and it's true. It's true. It's absolutely you gotta do these things in truth. They you don't pick an enemy and just, like, take it out. Right? Right. I'm saying you gotta be truthful about it, but no one trusts anything coming out of Wall Street or the banks right now. They don't. I I just think that they nor should they? Like like, every little nuance on Wall Street is scammed to to hurt Main Street. I've seen it in action. The big guys win. The little guys lose. That doesn't have to be the case. That's not really a law of the universe that it has to be this way. A 100%. So you the only thing is you're gonna have to do the work to to take the big macro idea, break it into smaller micro ideas, and then figure out how exactly it works, and then the target you're gonna go after. And for me, if I was just looking at this cold, we're you what everybody's listening to is a brainstorming session. It's a legitimate brainstorming session. James and I have not talked about this at all. So, I would say you have a massive opportunity with middle class and lower income people, which is where the populism comes from in this country. You know? It's kinda like the social media networks. Like, social media networks started as a movement. It became a business, and now it's a racket. Well, that's what we're seeing right now with Wall Street and the big banks. And they're, like, these capitalism movements became businesses, and now it's just pure on racket. Right? I say the same thing about social media. Right? It's totally a racket now. There's gonna be a reset, and what you're saying is crypto or blockchain or Bitcoin or whatever is that reset, and there's no way it's gonna turn into a racket. It's protected from that. Yeah. Exact that's exactly right. And a corruption on every level, it's it's almost gonna be I almost feel sorry for corrupt people because they're not gonna have any more opportunities. Like, that's it. It's gonna be over. And, this is the way to do it. Now but I don't wanna seem like this crypto tech this techno You gotta yeah. Totally. You gotta be a human. Yeah. And so so so 2 questions. 1 is, in general, how does someone like an Andrew Yang really get out there? Like, he had never held office. I don't really know how he did it. Because, like like, how would I do it? I'm like, yes. I have a social media platform. I have this podcast. But how do you like, how is Andrew taken seriously ultimately? Is it because he also happened to have a very specific community that was was listening to him and was supporting him? Just like like if if you're, an indie from India and you came to America and an Indian person's running for president, you're gonna have an audience. Everybody from India who came here is gonna listen to you. Yeah. I worked for Bobby Jindal's presidential campaign briefly in 2016. That's exactly he's from I mean, he was born in America, but he's of Indian descent. So, yes, I I know exactly how that works. I ran his governor's race, so I So so if you look at I know you're using that example. I've actually done that. So So so if you look at right. That that's amazing. I I forgot. Yeah. I knew you had worked for Jindal. I forgot that. But but but, like, if look at the independents who have stood out, they either are an Andrew Yang who has a very specific community that will get hyper passionate about him. Plus, he's a very likable guy. There's a charisma factor. Or you have Trump or Ross Perot who are billionaires. Like, you know, the Bloomberg raised more money than any other candidate in this election, and he still wasn't even taken that seriously. Right. Or you have someone who is part of the traditional system, so people know him from that, but he is has a a a contrarian point of view, like a Ron Paul. Or or people forget John Anderson in 1980, who was just a congressman from, I believe, Illinois. Yep. So so those three categories of independence seem to do well, and I'm I don't really fit into any of those buckets. So there there is a pattern to follow, and that is, let's take Pete Buttigieg. So, one of the things that I like about the way the presidential primaries work right now, and everybody hate some people complain about, oh, why does Iowa get to be the first people to decide? And then New Hampshire and then South Carolina. Like, this is so ridiculous. You know? Why not the big population centers? Well, because you have to see who's gonna go humble themselves and go knock on doors and go sit in a room with 3 people and tell them you wanna run for president, and you're it's the most, it it's the I always say this. It's like, nothing will crush your ego and your narcissism, like, running for president and not getting any traction. Like, it's miserable. Right? What a lot of What's what's an experience you had where you were on the campaign trail and just with a candidate, and just no one was showing up. Yeah. The candidate was trying to be helpful. Yeah. Then, eventually, he just quit. A thousand times, you wanna quit, but the people that don't quit are the ones that come through and and and have a shot. Andrew Yang was speaking in front of 3 people in, in California trying to, like, gin up momentum, but he had a specific idea. He went into Silicon Valley. He went over a bunch of them. You know, he went up into the tech people in Austin and in New York, and he went over them, and there started being a buzz about him. And then he went crate you know, he tried everything he could in some of these early primary states. And although he didn't get very far, as far as, like, presidential primary wins or even, you know and that's and votes. I think he put all his eggs in New Hampshire if I remember right, but, he raised a ton of money. He got a ton of press out of it, and he's using it that experience to now go run for me. He's like, oh, I did all these things. Ridiculously stupid mistakes. And the presidential campaign, now I know how to really be a candidate and run for office. So I'm gonna run for mayor, and he's probably gonna be a 1000 time he'll he'll do be much more successful running for mayor. He may not win, but he may he is gonna be much more successful because he's had that experience. Ultimately, I'm saying this. You you're gonna have to figure out, how do I get momentum and understand that for 6 months in a year, I'm not gonna get much momentum at all? Yeah. They're Like like, who would be It's it's it's like compound interest. Right? It's the best way to describe it. You know, it's small positive gains incrementally, and then all of a sudden, it's exponentially. And I think that's what every successful candidate has most successful candidates have experienced. So so let me ask you. So, like, what would be the first step then? Let let let's say you're almost convincing me to take this seriously. I'm getting excited. Like, what would be You should take it seriously. What what would be the first step I would take to have to like, I don't want people to think already, like, people think, oh, it's that crazy guy who who just so happened to predict everything correctly in terms of all these different predictions on CNBC. Oh, it only took 8 years, so everybody forgot that you actually got it right. Yeah. I know. So, first of all, it would be an I would look at I mean, again, I would actually think through this, but if we're brainstorming here Yeah. I'd announce I'd be very deliberate and very organized in announcing things on your own platform and trying to get people to sign up and trying to get momentum inside there. Right? And then asking people to donate, but not donate the legal limit. Donate, you know, a fraction of that. And then you need to figure out because you did this with your, with your book. Your first book or not your first book, but the last book, you know, you you should take, if you can take figure out the how you could take, you know, crypto or whatever or Bitcoin as as fractions of Bitcoin as as, a contribution. And then you have a huge network. I would go after you've done that, you can point to what you're doing to your network, all the people that have platforms out there, and say, let's have this fun discussion. This is an issue whether you take my candidacy seriously or not. This is a really good issue that we should be talking about in America, and it's not partisan. It's the least partisan thing. It's actually helping Americans, and it's taking fraud out of the system. Let's have that conversation. So, like, you know, Tom Bilyeu is is starting to pay attention to these types of issues. Like, you've been on his show before. Like, it's like going on these shows, and then you're gonna get some momentum out of that, and you're gonna again, you know, I always tell businesses, you eventually wanna take your business off Amazon. It's impossible to do now if you're an ecommerce business, but, ultimately, you're renting from Amazon. Right? They get to keep the data. You don't know all the like, you need to own your own data. So you need to be able to collect the people, build a movement, ask those people that have signed up. Let's say you get 50,000 people signed up within the 1st 6 months, then you're gonna ask those people and you're gonna retarget and add run ads to those people, and you're gonna get them to forward it on and and pass it on and have people hear your message, and you're gonna put stuff out, and, like, it just grows from there. And it takes time, and it takes a lot of effort, but it's using your platform, leveraging that for other people's platforms, and then starting to really build a structure and infrastructure. You know what it reminds me of? Tell me. I'm going through this right now. So you've probably done this too. There are incremental changes that businesses go through. Right? And so when you go through like, we were a wacky corporate marketing startup, and we were really successful the last years. And now we're like, oh god. We can't be a chaotic creative agency anymore. We have to bring order and systems and processes. We have to go to sort of a 2 point o as a company. And it's tough inside the company for people that have been here for a long time. They're like, with me, work for me, and they're like, hold on. Who are these new people? And how come, you know, they're doing this? And, like, everybody doesn't know where they stand, and you're trying to put new systems and processes. But it and that's how a political campaign goes. You're you're crazy progressive start up, and then all of a sudden, you get all this momentum, and you get all this money, and you're actually gonna run this thing. And you're like, hold on. I gotta put real systems and processes. I gotta go win Iowa. I gotta go put infrastructure in New Hampshire and in South Carolina, and then you gotta play the game the way the game's supposed to be played. But you've got an opportunity to be on a on a level that no one else is playing on in that crazy start up phase. So I really hate the thought of raising money. Like, another idea that I've had in the past is that campaign and this is why I like something that's very democratic using electronic, I you know, media is you don't have to raise as much money. Look how much free advertising Trump got on Twitter, for instance. And how much money do you think one needs to have? Like, how much did Andrew have, raise before he was taken seriously? I don't know. He didn't raise a ton, but it eventually, it snowballed. He raised he he did really well in fundraising, like, when it was all said and done. Do you think it's because you have, like, 1 or 2 benefactors initially who then get their friends to help you out? Yeah. You and fundraising is really easy. You go to your low hanging fruit first, and then then you sort of expand that tree out. And that that's what he did. It's the same way I'd to get your message out, all that stuff. Yep. So interesting. So maybe maybe for someone like me, maybe the right, sequence of events is a, use my own personal platform, like social media, email list, whatever, to just express what I believe in and get feedback and and and see how people respond and so on. You know, as that gets taken more and more seriously, the more I repeat it and the more people like it, presumably, then eventually it gets media and so on. And then eventually, I start talking about it at events, and and then I start raising money. Something like that. Thing so here's the other the opposite, which is Marianne Williamson, who ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020. She pandered after a while. Right? You lose when you pander. What do you mean pander? Well, so she started going on shows and trying to act like she's a big dancer. And, like, she just started doing goofy things that didn't look authentic. This idea that we're rolling with right now is very authentic to who you are. That is who you are. You're very I I can know you're passionate about that. So the second you try to get out of that zone and the good thing about Andrew Yang I mean, again, let's just use that as the model. He never he never wavered. He never, like, went on Ellen and started dancing and acting like he was something he wasn't. Right? Yeah. And so the key is stay authentic, stay true to yourself, but you also have to build something that's structural and traditional if you're gonna actually really win. Right. So but what what stage do you have to do that? Not until, like, stage 2, stage 3. Right. And you can stay in stage 1 for 3 years. So Yeah. I mean so authentic is is getting all the Phil Stutz of the world. So you need kinda like your data guy. Your you know, you're like a digital campaign manager. You need a traditional campaign manager. You need a body person to handle all your administrative needs. You need, fundraising people. You gotta eat lawyers because you don't wanna violate the law. You do If you're gonna be railing against people that are gaming the system, you you better make sure that you're following the election laws. Yeah. Right. They get people. People don't realize this too that if you criticize the system in a big way, they will come after you. Mhmm. Oh, for sure. So And the other thing is because, you have started businesses, you failed, you lost money, that vulnerability is what's lacking and what really really resonates with people. So telling your authentic story, which is very real to you, is very important for especially, like, hey, You you know, for the people that are in the middle class, people are broke. I've been there. I've been there twice, actually. Right? And what I'm trying to do is take you out of there as well. Yeah. It's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. You got me really thinking about this, Phil. Thank you. I think that's the main stuff I wanted to talk about. Cool. And it's interesting because I do think issues like this have to be broached because the cities the cities are dead, and nobody knows what to do. I've talked to congressman. I've talked to candidates for mayor in New York. I even talked to the Federal Reserve about how to potentially one could go about bailing out New York, and no one no one realizes what's happening. I mean, you see the articles. You know, New York City has had its biggest exodus ever. The biggest drop in property taxes. The biggest drop in sales taxes. The biggest drop in velocity of money, which people don't quite understand, but it's a real issue. I mean, this is why de Blasio has a plan, and he'll he'll figure it out and solve all these problems. Yeah. I that's I'm I'm that's the one thing I'm hoping for is that because I know he's so competent. I mean, he had a press conference about me and Jerry Seinfeld's articles. That's how, much he really gave a s**t about anything, which is 0 if he if he if I were him, and this is just a side thing that I know you have to go, but if I had been de Blasio, I would have been in Washington, DC every week lobbying for stimulus and bailouts and and saying New York City here's the main argument against a bailout for New York City is that then we gotta bail out everybody. But New York City is the capital the financial capital of the planet, and it's in the US. He should have been saying that to people who would have listened. Maybe it's maybe trending in a different direction. May not be very much for very much longer. Well, unfortunately, that's correct now because of what's happening. Yeah. If you think about it, I mean, was 70 financial firms last month like Goldman Sachs Asset Manager, not small ones, big ones, moved relocated to Miami. So it's a it's a it's a different world right now, and and and people are slowly realizing that or not. I don't know. Let's continue this brainstorm. Hopefully, people find this interesting. I I love it. I mean, this is all I've ever done. I sit with candidates, and we talk about these things, and then we develop plans out of them. So Was there any candidate you met that you just, like, hated when you met them? You don't have to say a name, but just, like, a yes or no? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Now I'm running for congress out of Pennsylvania. Oh, okay. So, like, a a local candidate, not a presidential one. You like that? No. No. No. No. I'm a presidential. I like all the the ones who've worked with the presidential. I really like that. Because they've just the guys who make it to that level have such charisma, guys and girls Yes. Who who make Yeah. What's special about their charisma? Have you ever seen them learn charisma? I don't know about that. I I don't know because usually I haven't been with them from the beginning. So, but when you sit down with them, you're you're you're taken pretty easily. Like, I feel like I have like, I'm likable in the sense that, you know, I perform, and I know I can see audience's reactions to me and but I have, like, a like, I'm crazy. I got crazy sort of charisma. Like, people look at me and say, oh, he's quirky. And but they don't like, I look like a I look at a Pete Buttigieg or or a a a Joe Biden or even an Andrew Yang, and I'm like, oh, he's polished. Like, he's Right. He's a smooth guy. He's competent. And they they give off that charisma. Yeah. But we'll see. Alright, Phil. I know you have to go. Thank you so much. I'll give you a call later. We got a update on various topics, and, good luck in your meeting. Thanks, man. Alright. Thanks, Phil Stutz. Wait. What's the name of your company, and what's your when's your next book coming out? Oh, I have, the book is called the The Undefeated Marketing System, How to Grow Your Business and Build Your Audience Using the Secret Formula That Elects Presidents. Can go to philippstutz.com backslash, book, and, you can preorder it. It'd be out in April. Yeah. It'd be out in April, and you're coming out again. Ban it's been banned by Facebook, and you can read all about it on that particular page as well. Yeah. I remember when you when when you wrote that. So, we'll have you back on for the book, and, as, you know, if this conversation goes further, we'll certainly have you back on. You're gonna be my campaign manager. Cool. Sounds good. I promise Jay he's gonna be my chief of staff. You guys are crazy. Thanks, Phil. See you later. Alright. Bye. See you, guys.