Breaking Battlegrounds

This week on Broken Potholes, we catch up with Dan McLaughlin of the National Review and Sean Noble of DC London and American Encore fills in for Sam as Chuck's cohost. Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online. He was formerly an attorney practicing securities and commercial litigation in New York City, a contributing editor of RedState, columnist at the Federalist and the New Ledger, a baseball blogger at BaseballCrank.com, BostonSportsGuy.com, the Providence Journal Online, and a contributor to the Command Post. His writings on politics, baseball, and law have appeared in numerous other newspapers, magazines, websites, and legal journals.Sean Noble is president and founder of American Encore. He is also is a founding partner of DC London, Inc., an award-winning consulting firm that provides political, public relations, and public affairs consulting services to a variety of high-profile clients and campaigns. He is also a frequent contributor to Townhall.com. Sean is also known for his lengthy run with Congressman John Shadegg, ten years of which were spent as Chief of Staff to the Arizona Republican. Additionally, he has managed campaigns for Congress, U.S. Senate, Governor, State Legislature, and ballot initiatives. He was instrumental in turning around Tom Coburn's first U.S. Senate race, guiding Coburn from an 11-point deficit to a 12-point win in the last seven weeks of the campaign in 2004.CONNECT WITH USTwitter: https://twitter.com/BrokenPotholes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brokenpotholes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenpotholes/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broken-potholes Show notes: www.brokenpotholes.vote Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

This week on Broken Potholes, we are joined by Bill Scher and Kaylee McGhee White for an analysis of this week's biggest headlines and what they mean for 2022. Bill Scher is a freelance writer and podcaster exploring politics and history through the lens of pragmatism. He is a Contributing Editor to Politico Magazine and a Contributor to Real Clear Politics. He is the host of the history podcast "When America Worked: True Tales of America's Pragmatist Heroes," as well as co-host of "The DMZ" online show and podcast with conservative writer Matt Lewis produced by Bloggingheads.tv. In 2006, he authored the book "Wait, Don't Move To Canada: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy To Win Back America," which later became an answer on "Jeopardy!" You can follow his political commentary on YouTube and Twitter, and support his work through Patreon.Kaylee McGhee White is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner focusing on religion, politics, and culture. Her work has appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Weekly Standard, the Detroit News, the Orange County Register, and more. She graduated from Hillsdale College with a degree in politics and journalism.CONNECT WITH USTwitter: https://twitter.com/BrokenPotholes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brokenpotholes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenpotholes/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broken-potholes Show notes: www.brokenpotholes.vote Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

This week on Broken Potholes, Chuck and Sam are joined in studio by Rachel Walden, a candidate for school board in the Mesa Unified School District.Rachel is a first generation college graduate with a degree from ASU in psychology and post-graduate work in history. She has worked for the university as a research and teaching assistant and received a fellowship to study in England. She later managed retirement plans for Fortune 500 companies. Rachel also serves as the president of her church's children's organization, the treasurer for her homeowners association, a precinct committeeman in LD16. Rachel and her husband have a daughter in kindergarten. CONNECT WITH USTwitter: https://twitter.com/BrokenPotholes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brokenpotholes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenpotholes/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broken-potholes Show notes: www.brokenpotholes.vote Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

This week on Broken Potholes, Republican candidate for Arizona Attorney General, Rodney Glassman, joins us in studio to talk about how the AG's office has a crucial role to play in protecting Arizonans from government overreach at all levels. Rodney Glassman moved to Tucson over twenty years ago to run his family business and study at the University of Arizona. Prior to graduating from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law and joining the United States Air Force JAG Corps Reserve, Rodney worked full time while earning his undergraduate degree in agricultural economics and a PhD in Arid Land Resource Sciences. While in law school, at age 29, Rodney met his future wife and was elected to the Tucson City Council. He currently lives in Phoenix with his wife, Sasha and their two daughters.CONNECT WITH USTwitter: https://twitter.com/BrokenPotholes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brokenpotholes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenpotholes/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broken-potholes Show notes: www.brokenpotholes.vote Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

Big news this week in Phoenix: Mayor Pete is in town to celebrate the expansion of Phoenix's light rail. Sam Stone breaks down the hypocrisy of light rail supporters in this special short edition of Broken Potholes. Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

This week on Broken Potholes, Sam and Chuck are joined by Republican candidate for Attorney General, Abraham Hamadeh. Abraham is an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserve and just returned from a 14 month long deployment to Saudi Arabia. On behalf of the United States Army, Abraham negotiated military sales and managed the training for Saudi Arabia's domestic security forces both in the Kingdom and in the United States. He implemented the first of its kind new enhanced security vetting in response to the 2019 Pensacola terrorist attack. His direct counterparts were generals, colonels, and lieutenant colonels in the Saudi forces as well as high ranking civilians in their respective ministries. Abraham's awards include the Meritorious Service Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Gold German Armed Forces Proficiency Badge, and Overseas Service Ribbon among others.Abraham is a board member of the Dean's Council of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. Abraham previously served on the board of advisors of the Center for Political Thought and Leadership at ASU which established a curriculum that honors and studies America's founding thinkers and documents. Abraham is a former prosecutor of the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. Abraham has appeared in court to prosecute criminals, uphold victims' rights, and seek justice for the community. Abraham earned his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Arizona State University and earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Arizona College of Law. During his law studies, Abraham was awarded the Udall Fellowship by the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys' Advisory Council which placed him at the city, county, state, and federal prosecutor offices.CONNECT WITH USTwitter: https://twitter.com/BrokenPotholes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brokenpotholes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenpotholes/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broken-potholes Show notes: www.brokenpotholes.vote Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

This week on Broken Potholes, Chuck and Sam talked to Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen and Chris Wilson, CEO and partner of WPA Intelligence. Henry and Chris break down exactly what happened in last week's election and what it means for 2022 and 2024. Henry Olsen is a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Olsen began his career as a political consultant at the California firm of Hoffenblum-Mollrich. After three years working for the California Assembly Republican Caucus, he returned to school to become a lawyer. Following law school he clerked for the Honorable Danny J. Boggs on the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and as an associate in the Philadelphia office of Dechert, Price & Rhoads. He then joined the think tank world where he spent the next eighteen years as an executive at a variety of institutions, serving as the President of the Commonwealth Foundation, a Vice President at the Manhattan Institute, and as Vice President and Director, National Research Initiative, at the American Enterprise Institute. He left AEI in 2013 to pursue a career in political analysis and writing at EPPC. During that time his work has appeared in variety of leading publications in America and the United Kingdom. He is the author or co-author of two books, "The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism" and (with Dante J. Scala) "The Four Faces of the Republican Party". His biennial election predictions have been widely praised for the uncanny accuracy, and he is a frequent guest on television and radio programs. Olsen regularly speaks about American political trends and global populism in the United State, Europe, and Australia. Prior to starting WPA Intelligence in 2004, Chris was Global Director of Research for Weber Shandwick International, the world's largest public relations firm at the time. While at Weber Shandwick, Chris led research for Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola, American Airlines, Kodak, Wells Fargo, and Boeing. In 2016, as the Director of Research, Analytics and Digital Strategy for the Cruz for President campaign, Chris is widely credited for playing a key role in Cruz's triumph in Iowa and helping the Texas Senator finish with the most delegates earned by a 2nd place finisher since Ronald Reagan in 1976. Using a meticulous, technologically advanced, and highly individual approach, Chris led the campaign to reach voters by predicting voter behavior based on ideological segments, personality modeling targeting each voter based on the issue most important to them. You can read more about Chris' Iowa work in Sasha Issenberg's seminal Bloomberg piece, "How Ted Cruz Engineered His Iowa Triumph."An Oklahoma native, Chris is a graduate of University of Oklahoma and Georgetown and remains an avid Sooner fan. In the rare instances that Chris isn't working, he enjoys watching OU football and Thunder basketball, spending time with his sons, Denver and Carson, reading, and racking up impressive amounts of frequent flyer miles. He is a regular political analyst on both Fox News and MSNBC. CONNECT WITH USTwitter: https://twitter.com/BrokenPotholes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brokenpotholes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenpotholes/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broken-potholes Show notes: www.brokenpotholes.vote Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

This week on Broken Potholes, Chuck and Sam are joined in studio by Kevin McCarthy of the Arizona Tax Research Association (ATRA). Later in the show, Brent Buchanan gives us an update on the Virginia governor's election.Kevin McCarthy has served ATRA since 1986. A recognized expert in the public finance and taxation field, Kevin has extensive experience representing taxpayers before policy makers at the state and local level. He has been appointed to and served on numerous legislative and executive committees. He currently serves on the Arizona State Retirement System Board and the Property Tax Oversight Commission.Brent Buchanan is CEO & Founder of Cygnal, an innovation-driven public opinion polling and predictive analytics firm. He started the company in 2007 as a regional general consulting firm but transitioned the organization in 2017 to focus fully on solving the problems with political polling and the insights industry. It worked! The New York Times recognized Cygnal as the most accurate private polling firm in the nation in the 2018 election cycle, and FiveThirtyEight ranked them the most accurate Republican pollster. The firm has served as pollster on presidential, US Senate, gubernatorial, congressional, state legislative, and local races. Brent doesn't know what free time is, because his most important priority is his wife of 12 years and five children age 11 and under.CONNECT WITH USTwitter: https://twitter.com/BrokenPotholes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brokenpotholes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenpotholes/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broken-potholes Show notes: www.brokenpotholes.vote Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

This week on Broken Potholes, we are joined by professional soccer player Cali Farquharson to discuss the recent controversies in the National Women's Soccer League. Cali has played for KIF Örebro and the Washington Spirit. She is the 2nd all-time leading goal scorer for the ASU women's team and was the 12th overall pick in the 2016 draft. Later in the show, Jon Healey of the Los Angeles Times joins the show to give an overview of our recent supply chain problems. Jon is a senior editor on the Utility Journalism team, which tries to help readers solve problems, answer questions and make big decisions about life in and around Los Angeles. He has been with the Los Angeles Times since 2000, previously reporting on technology news and writing opinion pieces. CONNECT WITH USTwitter: https://twitter.com/BrokenPotholes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brokenpotholes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenpotholes/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broken-potholes Show notes: www.brokenpotholes.vote Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe

This week on Broken Potholes, Sam and Chuck are joined by Maricopa County Recorder, Stephen Richer. He was elected in November 2020 and took office January 2021. Since then, Stephen and his office have been at the forefront of the national discussion over election integrity. Prior to his election as Recorder, Stephen worked as a lawyer and business person. He holds a bachelor's degree from Tulane University, a master's degree from the University of Chicago, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. Stephen and his wife live in South Phoenix.CONNECT WITH USTwitter: https://twitter.com/BrokenPotholes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brokenpotholes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenpotholes/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/broken-potholes Show notes: www.brokenpotholes.vote Get full access to Breaking Battlegrounds at breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com/subscribe