Every Thursday, the Spy hosts a conversation with Al From and Craig Fuller on the most topical political news of the moment.
This week, From and Fuller discuss the political impact of the Trump vice-presidential running mate and how relevant that will be for voters in 2024. Al and Craig also trade thoughts on the first of two election debates next week between President Joe Biden and the former president.
This video podcast is approximately 12 minutes in length.
To listen to the audio podcast version, please use this link:
Background
While the Spy’s public affairs mission has always been hyper-local, it has never limited us from covering national, or even international issues, that impact the communities we serve. With that in mind, we were delighted that Al From and Craig Fuller, both highly respected Washington insiders, have agreed to a new Spy video project called “The Analysis of From and Fuller” over the next year.
The Spy and our region are very lucky to have such an accomplished duo volunteer for this experiment. While one is a devoted Democrat and the other a lifetime Republican, both had long careers that sought out the middle ground of the American political spectrum.
Al From, the genius behind the Democratic Leadership Council’s moderate agenda which would eventually lead to the election of Bill Clinton, has never compromised from this middle-of-the-road philosophy. This did not go unnoticed in a party that was moving quickly to the left in the 1980s. Including progressive Howard Dean saying that From’s DLC was the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.
From’s boss, Bill Clinton, had a different perspective. He said it would be hard to think of a single American citizen who, as a private citizen, has had a more positive impact on the progress of American life in the last 25 years than Al From.”
Al now lives in Annapolis and spends his semi-retirement as a board member of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (his alma mater) and authoring New Democrats and the Return to Power. He also is an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins’ Krieger School and recently agreed to serve on the Annapolis Spy’s Board of Visitors. He is the author of “New Democrats and the Return to Power.”
For Craig Fuller, his moderation in the Republican party was a rare phenomenon. With deep roots in California’s GOP culture of centralism, Fuller, starting with a long history with Ronald Reagan, leading to his appointment as Reagan’s cabinet secretary at the White House, and later as George Bush’s chief-of-staff and presidential campaign manager was known for his instincts to find the middle ground. Even more noted was his reputation of being a nice guy in Washington, a rare characteristic for a successful tenure in the White House.
Craig has called Easton his permanent home for the last eight years, where he now chairs the board of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and is a former board member of the Academy Art Museum and Benedictine. He also serves on the Spy’s Board of Visitors and writes an e-newsletter, which is available by clicking on DECADE SEVEN.
With their rich experience and long history of friendship, now joined by their love of the Chesapeake Bay, they have agreed through the magic of Zoom, to talk inside politics and policy with the Spy every Thursday.
William Keppen says
So they want to be Trump’s VP. One has to wonder about: A) Their value systems. B) Their ethics. C) Their self-respect. and D) E) F), you fill in the blanks.
Steven Smith says
With Don, it is always about the money. Who will guarantee his pockets are filled. He represents only the greediest among us, which is why in the end he will not have the votes required to serve the nation. Only those who believe as he does, that the Earth was created for their exclusive right to buy and sell.
Kent Robertson says
Both of these gentlemen are out of touch with the reason Trump appeals. Yes, he’s bombastic. Yes, he is often rude when he fights back against his attackers. Many conservatives don’t like these traits.
What we do like is his policy agenda. We are sick of the inexorable 50-year slide toward socialism. We have had enough of the progressive agenda: including CRT and gender fluidity and tearing down statues and BLM rioting, and open borders (and fentanyl), and failure of the public school system, and spending ourselves into trillions of debt, and inflation, and assault on the Second Amendment, and censoring by big tech, and one-sided reporting by the major news and social media, and one-sided use of the judicial system and federal bureaucracies and their Administrative Law Judges to stymie political opponents, and defunding the police and protecting criminals more than victims…deep breath…
I’ll stop here, and just say that there is no debate in From and Fuller. They both miss the point. They are both so set in concrete that they can’t see why Trump appeals. Conservatives want a return to the Constitutional principles that made this country great. They are embodied in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
It has more to do with a return to personal responsibility and the rule of law than it has to do with Trump. It has to do with the failure of Congress to do its job and its ceding of power to the Executive… ie the “Swamp” (that also includes all the bureaucracies and institutions that have espoused the liberal, now progressive agenda for 5 decades).
We woke up during the COVID debacle, and we are fully awake and alert now. The Spy would do well to include a voice in your “conversation” that understands why half (and growing) the country are aching for a return to those principles that made the Country the envy of the world.