A Conversation with the GU Politics Spring Fellows
Below is a transcript of John Woolley and Christina Luke’s conversation with the GU Politics Fellows for Spring 2020. It has been lightly edited for clarity.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Hello everyone, I’m John.
CHRISTINA LUKE: I’m Christina.
JOHN WOOLLEY: So we’re with On the Record, and we’re just looking to interview you guys, learn a little bit about you. And I hope you’re excited for the coming semester and the GU Politics Fellows program. We wanted to start by having everyone introduce themselves a little bit and say something they’re hoping to get out of the program — the sort of introductory ideas that they want to bring to it.
LILY ADAMS: I’m Lily Adams, I have worked a career in political communications. I’m excited to be here on campus, and I’m hoping to get a little bit of inspiration and hope and optimism from the students on campus. I’m hoping we can have some fun discussions.
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: I’m Robert Traynham, and I’m hoping to get out of this experience more learning, much more wisdom, and a lot of creativity from you and your colleagues on campus.
JOHN ROGERS: I’m John Rogers, I’ve been deeply involved in political campaigns for 20 years. Couldn’t possibly be any more excited to be part of this and just to hear from different viewpoints, and get some new ideas from students about how we do things in politics, and what the future leaders of America think about these things.
JOE CROWLEY: I’m former Congressman Joe Crowley from New York. I served for 30 years plus in elected office, 20 years in the House of Representatives, and I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences, and also learning from the students here at Georgetown and getting some of that enthusiasm rubbed off on me.
KATE NOCERA: I’m Kate Nocera, I’m the DC Bureau Chief for Buzzfeed News. And similarly to my colleagues, I’m looking for that enthusiasm, that spark that — you know, being in this news cycle all the time you forget what it’s like in the real world. And so yeah, really excited to talk to people who have a different point of view than me, are at a different point in their life than me, aren’t spending all day every day thinking about politics but have very strong opinions on it. I kinda want to learn everything from you guys so I’m excited to be here.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Excellent.
CHRISTINA LUKE: Thank you so much. So all of you guys have interacted with campaigns, whether you’re covering it whether it’s through mediums on Facebook, or just working directly through campaigns. So, we want to know how you’ve seen campaigns change, whether it’s presidential or just local politics, change over the years. How has it evolved, and how do you see it playing out in the later years?
LILY ADAMS: Joe?
GROUP: [Laughter]
JOE CROWLEY: A lot has changed over the last three decades, for sure. How we communicate, how we actually communicate with voters, not even on the national level which is, you know, primarily been through television and through media outlets. Instead of leaflets going to the door or mailing, much more is being done now on social media than ever before, and that has really changed the dynamics of elections. I think also given the certain climate we’re living under right now, which is really dynamically different from anything I’ve experienced in my lifetime, and for better or for worse, quite frankly.
I think there have been changes, at the same time we recognize that we’ve been around for 250 years, democracy has been in the country, and we’ve had some highs and lows. As low as we feel we may be right now, there have been worse times, and there have certainly been better times as well, and we’re looking forward to having that discussion, maybe relating that to our experiences. And again, looking forward to learning in terms of how young people here at Georgetown — or all people here at Georgetown who are coming to the class — feel about the circumstances we’re living in right now.
KATE NOCERA: I think Lily and I were talking about this a little bit yesterday. Just about how much we use social media both on the campaign side and on the reporter side. I mean my life at work — I have one screen with my actual work and one screen with my tweet deck so I can see what the campaigns are saying, what reporters on the ground are saying. And that has been useful in many ways, and I think detrimental in many ways to how we run campaigns and how we write news stories. It can be an absolute echo chamber, where we’re just talking to each other and about the thing that matters the most on Twitter in that moment — literally no one outside of the people on Twitter at that moment care. But, you know, you get a ton of news stories out of it, and I think people on campaigns have to pay attention to what reporters are saying and tweeting about in a way they didn’t have to do six years ago.
LILY ADAMS: Yeah, I think with it too comes a certain amount of individualization that didn’t exist ten years ago when I started in campaigns. Reporters have personalities that they didn’t have when they were just a name on a byline. They have their own opinions that they’re sharing far more frequently than they did when I first started out. And the same goes for folks who are on campaigns. I would venture to guess that most people who were at Georgetown didn’t know who the communications directors or who the campaign managers were for campaigns ten or fifteen years ago. But now they have their own sort of profile, and their own following and people who want to hear what they have to say. And that’s good and it’s bad — it can detract from the overall goal of trying to get your candidate elected.
I think a lot has changed, but also at its core, what we’re trying to do is exactly the same thing that Joe did in his first race, that anybody who’s ever gotten elected in America has tried to do. Speak to the aspirations of people, speak to the problems of people, and make the best case why you’re the person who they should trust to go and do something about it. All that, whether we’re tweeting about it or doing a Facebook ad on it or, you know, having a leaflet on a printing press, is hopefully the same.
JOHN ROGERS: Tactically, we’re in such an interesting time right now because the evolution of paid media, polling, digital, is still underway where you basically have to run two different campaigns effectively. You have older voters who still have a landline, or who are still sitting around watching “Wheel of Fortune” at night, that’ll consume a 30-second ad with a traditional story arc that starts low and then builds up and then ends a little bit lower. And at the same time you have to run an entire second campaign to folks that are 35, where they’re consuming a six-second ad on Facebook, or on digital. And if you’re airing a 30 to them, you have to start with so much punch right at the front of your spot, and then build down from there. Even your messaging is changing within there.
And polling is changing as we go. People are disconnecting their landlines, so that’s all evolving, and I think that we’re in this really interesting spot right now where we’re kind of halfway through this evolution, and you see — what is it, like 57% of people are still connected to TV right now — and every year you see that decay further and further. It just becomes more interesting, you have to run two simultaneous campaigns to older voters and younger voters.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Lily, you mentioned in particular the increase in voice that journalists have in the recent decade, versus in the past when they’d been seen as more “hard-news” reporters. Do you think that — and I want to pose this to the room because I thought it was an interesting point — do you think that has changed fundamentally how the media landscape operates? And in what ways do you think it changes?
LILY ADAMS: I’ll say a little bit, but I think Kate is probably better than any of us. I mean, I think it’s good, because reporters have more access to more people, to more voices. There are more checks on media institutions than there have been before. But again, there’s good and bad to everything. I think also too much feedback can be a bad thing. I think if reporters are getting attacked for writing a story, sometimes it makes them hesitant to write another one — not Kate, because Kate is fearless, and the wonderful people at Buzzfeed news — but I think that it can. Or you’re seeing a dominant trend in your tweet deck, but that’s only existing on Twitter. It’s not existing out there, but it can be a really — it’s hard to set your levels. It’s like when you’re trying to set your sound levels for music. You’re just trying to take in a little bit of everything, but not get too swayed one way or the other and not think that the people that you’re talking to mean everything. And I think there was just less access to feedback. There wasn’t like a comment section when Murrow was on the air —
JOE CROWLEY: Yeah, Walter Cronkite —
LILY ADAMS: Right, when Walter Cronkite was on the air.
GROUP: [Laughter]
LILY ADAMS: Right, no one is tweeting emojis at Cronkite. And that’s good and bad. Newsrooms have become also more diverse, which is good, but not near diverse enough. Obviously when Cronkite was reporting I think it was all guys who looked like Joe Crowley.
JOE CROWLEY: Hey! It’s not so bad!
GROUP: [Laughter]
LILY ADAMS: Some of them are good, yeah. Anyways, Kate would know better.
KATE NOCERA: I think I would just say that I’ve always been a believer that it is okay to have a place that you have come from, and a bias and a point of view. I think it is sort of this ridiculous notion to believe that we grow up in the world and then we become these neutral, gray creatures. I think that that’s okay, and it’s okay to approach reporting and stories in that way, as long as you are willing to listen and be open to developing a new opinion about something. And I think it actually does a disservice to readers to pretend like that just doesn’t exist.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Yeah.
KATE NOCERA: Yeah, and it’s a complicated environment. It’s a complicated environment right now. Journalism is being weaponized as a political thing.
JOHN WOOLLEY: A tool?
KATE NOCERA: A tool, yeah. I mean you saw it yesterday, Martha McSally, who’s a senator from Arizona, called Manu Raju, who’s like one of the best reporters on Capitol Hill, a CNN reporter. He asked her a very fair question and she said, “You’re a liberal hack, Manu.” And then she was fundraising off of it, like immediately. Like it was a very clear, you know. And I think that reporters mess up, they make mistakes. I think that the feedback loop, as I said, is not useful or particularly productive to our craft all the time. But I also don’t know that I feel like reporters having opinions — and there’s a difference between having an opinion on something and just being snarky about everything, which is what it tends to be right now. But if you have an informed opinion about something, I think it is okay generally to say that.
CHRISTINA LUKE: And I think these new elements in the American media landscape really just shows — it contributes to this hyperpolarization that I kind of overheard you guys talking about earlier. And so, polarization being one of the most dire issues in our country, how have you guys individually encountered it in your experiences? And how have you, or would you want to respond to it?
JOE CROWLEY: Oh, look at me now.
JOHN ROGERS: Let’s all stare at Joe.
JOE CROWLEY: I think part of it though is that it’s not only the new media. It’s also the 24/7 news that exists today. That didn’t exist the day of the Cronkite, so to speak, the most trusted man in America, because he was only on once a day, you know? You got your news in that one little snippet of a time — not exclusively, in terms of reading papers — but now you have Facebook, you have Google, you have MSNBC, NBC, CNBC, Fox, ABC, CBS. All of these different venues and newspapers and outlets. And newspapers themselves, sometimes weekly newspapers, and locally, they’re constantly driven for news now. It’s not even like, “I have a 5 o’clock deadline.” If something comes out at 5:05, they’re going to work to get that out as soon as possible to beat the next person. So there’s no way of winding that back, quite frankly either.
In terms of polarization, it happens internally as well as — intra as well as inter. And we see the polarization happening. We first saw it in terms of the Republican party, and the Tea Party movement and the Freedom Caucus movement. And to some degree, it’s happening now in the Democratic party as well. Probably more reflective of the fact that we’re not a parliamentarian state, that we only have a two-party system and that within those parties you’re going to have varying degrees of affiliation towards the party itself, the “D” or the “R.”
And that’s just a reality, and we’ve gone through these kinds of fits before, and there’s a lot of reasons that we’re probably going to talk about a good number of reasons for that within our sessions as well. We don’t have all of the answers, and all of the answers aren’t easily instituted as well. But Georgetown is as good, if not the — if not the best place to do that, because of where we’re located, and the expectation of what we were talking about earlier today: Many of the students here at Georgetown are the future editors of newspapers, or team producers, or elected officials, or entertainers and opinion-makers of the world to come.
JOHN ROGERS: A thought to consider is maybe if you take a step back and look at a long view of American history, we could be in the midst of a pendulum swing here. There are times that — multiple times throughout history — that things were very divisive, and then were calmed down, and then divisive again, and then calmed down. You see that in — your lifetime seems like a long period of time, but move out over 200 years and look at it, and it’s gone back and forth a couple of times. And we just may be in the midst of that. We could be sitting around here — you could be fellows, and somebody would be interviewing and be like, “Hey remember when it was so partisan? When is that going to happen again?”
LILY ADAMS: Miss those days.
GROUP: [Laughter]
JOHN ROGERS: They weren’t that long ago! When you really step back, when it was a lot different than that. Just something to consider.
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: John F. Kennedy had a famous quote that said, “Sometimes my party asks too much.” And in this context I think it’s okay to be a proud partisan, it’s okay to be a strong Republican or a strong Democrat, whatever that means to you, but it’s not okay to put that ahead of your country. And what I mean by that is distorting the truth, or finding your version of the truth, and putting your partisanship ahead of your country. And I think we’ve seen a lot of that now, and unfortunately, social media can be a vehicle for that. Where you just double down on a “known-unknown,” as Donald Rumsfeld would say. And so it’s painful, to [Roger’s] point, that’s why I smiled, because I was going to say something similar. In terms of just looking at the long arc of history, there’s no question about it that we’re going through a painful time right now. But I think the question is, in this painful time how will we as a people rise up and either: A.) double-down and say, “Okay, this is the new norm;” or B.) push back and say, “I don’t accept this to be true,” and “What am I gonna do about it?” To push back on this uncomfortable situation.
And that’s where I think social media can really help. To use a rogue example, think of the African American lady who’s driving in Texas and gets pulled over, and she’s going the speed limit. She pulls out her iPhone and does a Facebook live and says, “I’m going to record this right now, because this phone is my only witness to what may happen to me — in case something else happens to me.” And because of that, because she posts that on social media, she starts a movement because of that. So those are the real positive points of some of the pain that we’re going through, it’s that more and more people are finding a voice. The real question is will even more people find a voice, where we can collectively push back and say that this is not normal.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Thank you. In talking about partisanship, that is kind of the zeitgeist of our time. It’s what most of these sort of analytical pieces always center around as controlling the political landscape in our country. All of you have different experiences, and I was wondering if you could speak on some other challenges — other than hyperpartisanship — that you faced in your line of work, and how students who are looking to enter politics might deal with those different challenges that maybe they don’t learn about as much as polarization.
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: Personal or professional, does it matter —
JOHN ROGERS: How to exist on four hours of sleep —
GROUP: [Laughter]
JOHN ROGERS: — only eating pizza and drinking coffee.
LILY ADAMS: Something students really need —
JOHN WOOLLEY: Sounds like college life.
LILY ADAMS: — yeah, yeah!
GROUP: [Laughter]
JOHN ROGERS: You’re good, you’re good!
JOHN WOOLLEY: Excellent.
LILY ADAMS: One thing that’s not — partisanship is a part of it, but I think it’s a bigger, broader question for young people, for students thinking critically about how they want to spend their lives, about where they want to live, about where they want to work, is the self-selection that we do that informs what we think. So what media we read, what people we follow on Twitter and social media if we do, what neighborhood we live in, what workplace we work in, and if people who are around us are different or the same as us. I think that we have just continued more and more and more to find this self-selection — talking to people who either look like us or think like us. It’s one of the great blessings of campaigns, they inherently make you move to places that you’ve never been to, where you don’t know people, and where you meet people who have completely different experiences than you do.
And that I think is one of the reasons why we’re all here at Georgetown. I would venture to say that most of us have not been on a college campus — Robert has taught on college campuses — but for most of us, we haven’t been back to college in a long time. And I think this is a good time for all of us to check in and say, “Have we self-selected too much?” and “Is it time to have some really young, smart people — like you guys — say ‘Why are you doing stuff this way?’ or ‘Why are you thinking this way?’ or ‘Why are you talking this way?’” I think we could all — Georgetown students could probably use some of that, we could probably use some of that. But it does take real effort to not self-select yourself into a bubble, you know?
JOHN WOOLLEY: Yeah.
LILY ADAMS: And I think it’ll be a big challenge, especially with technology and social media, for the next generation. Like, how do you make sure that you go out there and see other human beings who are unlike you?
KATE NOCERA: Great answer.
JOHN ROGERS: Yeah, I’m like, “How am I gonna top that?”
GROUP: [Laughter]
LILY ADAMS: Thanks Kate.
KATE NOCERA: You’re welcome!
JOHN WOOLLEY: Excellent. Christina, do you have anything else you want to add, or should we go with our final, ultimate question?
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: Oh wow, ultimate?
LILY ADAMS: Wow.
JOHN WOOLLEY: That’s right.
JOHN ROGERS: Just gonna, brace myself over here.
GROUP: [Laughter]
LILY ADAMS: It’s a thunderdome.
JOHN WOOLLEY: If you have a question, go for it then.
CHRISTINA LUKE: That was a very thorough answer, and if any other advice you have for students comes to mind, we’d love to hear it.
JOHN ROGERS: I’d at least check out each of the groups. I mean, having seen the agendas for all of them, I want to check out each of the groups. That would be one of my pieces of advice. And, just get to know us, stop by office hours, get to know us. You’ve got some really good folks here, who I’ve now spent the last 24 hours of my life with, who genuinely care about the well being of students, and want to help, and want to help mentor and answer your questions. Of whatever variety. Just set up a time and come see us during office hours, just get to know a fun group of people. Hopefully one day we’ll get to hear Joe Crowley sing.
GROUP: [Laughter]
KATE NOCERA: We’re all hoping for it. It’s why we became fellows.
JOHN ROGERS: Let’s start a movement on campus!
JOHN WOOLLEY: The people want it.
JOE CROWLEY: You know —
JOHN ROGERS: It could be a bipartisan effort to get Joe Crowley to sing.
JOE CROWLEY: I didn’t come here to sing, but I can be easily swayed.
GROUP: [Laughter]
JOE CROWLEY: But, I also think what’s interesting and intriguing here is, as much as we’re on the record right now, I think what is really interesting to me in terms of this experience is that it is off the record, in terms of the sessions themselves. So people can feel free to ask questions, and I feel free to maybe answer questions in a way in which I would not necessarily do at a town hall meeting, or something more on the record. For instance, from my own session, the experiences that I’ve had — not just about how to get elected, or how Congress works, but experiences I’ve had that I’m not at liberty necessarily to write about because people are still living. So —
KATE NOCERA: Joe’s gonna spill the tea.
GROUP: [Laughter]
JOHN WOOLLEY: Can’t wait for that.
KATE NOCERA: Yeah.
JOE CROWLEY: — and, and if people are really lucky, I might on my last day bring my guitar. We’ll have to have some sort of sing-song —
LILY ADAMS: You’ll have to sing some John Denver songs.
JOE CROWLEY: Some John Denver will do.
LILY ADAMS: See if they know who John Denver is.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Some of us do! Some of us do.
GROUP: [Laughter]
CHRISTINA LUKE: We’ll book out Gaston Hall.
JOE CROWLEY: It might not be big enough. I think I’m expecting a much larger crowd.
JOHN ROGERS: Yeah that only fits like 700 people.
JOHN WOOLLEY: We need more than that. We’ll take over the lawn outside, set up a stage.
JOE CROWLEY: Sounds good.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Alright.
KATE NOCERA: Yeah I think we all are here because we are ready and willing to talk about our experiences and the paths we’ve taken, the things we’ve seen. So come with questions, and we’re ready to answer them.
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: I would say to the Hoyas that are listening: It’s almost like being a kid in a candy store here, because, I believe, the enormous resources the university gives you. Whether it’s bringing a presidential candidate from the hard left, or someone from the hard right, and their staff coming here. And you, the listener, being able to benefit from all those points of view, and forming your own point of view. I mean, if you just think about all of the collective wisdom around this table right now, there’s probably almost a hundred years worth of experience, and that’s in a good way. You have a former member of Congress that was at the highest depths of power, and you have someone that was a journalist that’s covering power, you have someone on the left and someone on the right that’s trying to elect people in power.
My point is that over the next eight weeks, I think your listeners will be able to unpack that in a really meaningful way off the record, which candidly I think they could ask questions which they probably couldn’t ask at Gaston. Because at Gaston, it’s on the record, there’s a person in the room, and so by default people on the stage are going to answer a certain way, right? But in the living room here, you could ask the questions of these insiders in a way that hopefully the answers are much more thoughtful. So, in closing I would just simply say to the listeners — do your homework, come very well researched, but come with an open mind to the extent that you can.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Alright. For our final, ultimate question that I teased earlier. What is your favorite place to eat in D.C., if you have one? It’s a tough question, it’s probably the hardest one I asked so far.
KATE NOCERA: I do, and it’s not hard for me at all.
GROUP: [Laughter]
JOHN WOOLLEY: Alright!
KATE NOCERA: I would say Ellē Bakery and Restaurant, in Mt Pleasant. Shoutout, it’s really good. I mean, I know Mt Pleasant is kind of far from here, but they have incredible breakfast, like the best pastries, and then amazing dinner. It’s in my neighborhood, I eat there far too often. I give them all my money.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Awesome.
GROUP: [Laughter]
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: Can we have two choices or just one? I have a high end and a low end.
JOHN WOOLLEY: You can go with two.
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: My low end, which I go to at Lauriol Plaza. It’s a Mexican restaurant, and I just think their food is just awesome. So that’s kind of low end, just price point. And then high end is Blue Duck Tavern, which is not too far from here. They have really good food.
LILY ADAMS: Okay, I have mine. Mine’s Florida Avenue Grill —
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: Love it!
LILY ADAMS: — which has some of the best breakfast in D.C. Also, the other one is, if you go to Eastern Market, to the — what do they call it? Market lunch? Whatever the place is with the pancakes, that place is good.
KATE NOCERA: Do you have a fancy restaurant that you like the best?
LILY ADAMS: I think my fancy restaurant, I would go eat at Rasika. So when your parents come to town and want to take you to dinner, take them to Rasika. It’s great Indian food. It’s excellent.
JOHN ROGERS: For me, I don’t understand what sorcery goes on there, but despite being a huge barbecue fan, my answer is Bonchon. It’s just ridiculously good, I don’t understand how they make —
LILY ADAMS: What’s Bonchon?
JOHN ROGERS: You’ve never been to Bonchon!
KATE NOCERA: No.
JOHN ROGERS: Oh my word, let’s get out people! There’s one in Navy Yard.
JOHN WOOLLEY: You’ll have to go after this.
JOHN ROGERS: Sure, I’ll take you. It’s like double-fried chicken that is boneless and delicious. There’s magic involved, there has to be magic involved. There’s no other explanation.
JOE CROWLEY: My favorite D.C. restaurant would be Mama’s, Leo’s Latticini. It’s in Corona, Queens. It’s absolutely fantastic.
LILY ADAMS: That’s not in D.C.!
GROUP: [Laughter]
JOE CROWLEY: Oh sorry, the politician in me came out, I thought it’d be better than no comment. Has to be somewhere?
JOHN WOOLLEY: We’re looking for the real scoop here.
JOE CROWLEY: The real? I like Aqua Al Due, it’s a little bit of a higher-end, but it’s really, really good. They have that buffalo mozzarella, it’s really top-notch.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Alright, excellent.
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: Did we pass the test? This was the ultimate question.
JOHN WOOLLEY: You did. You did with flying colors.
KATE NOCERA: Everyone’s so obsessed with food here, it’s great.
JOHN WOOLLEY: It’s a way to bond, I think it’s a —
CHRISTINA LUKE: We have a whole eating club.
JOHN ROGERS: You have an eating club, wow.
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: What’s your favorite restaurant? If your parents were coming into town, where would they take you?
JOHN WOOLLEY: Well, it’s a tough question! Oftentimes we’ll go to Clyde’s, because it’s relatively close by.
JOE CROWLEY: The other question is, who’s your favorite restaurateur?
JOHN ROGERS: What, like Gordon Ramsay?
KATE NOCERA: Oh, no, I want to know what your favorite restaurant is. Don’t listen to him.
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: What’s your favorite restaurant?
CHRISTINA LUKE: Oh we always go to this one place, mainly because we can find parking in D.C. and that’s hard, but the food is consistently delicious. It’s Lupo Verde, but it’s not the one that most people go to, it’s kind of more boutiquey feeling. It’s on MacArthur Boulevard. So it’s like up in the Palisades.
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: Okay, cool.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Clyde’s and Martin’s Tavern, both in the area, the Georgetown area. Both very good.
ROBERT TRAYNHAM: I like their chili.
LILY ADAMS: I’ve been to Martin’s before.
JOHN WOOLLEY: Okay. I think we did it! Thank you very much —
GROUP: Thank you.
John Woolley is a reporter, musician, and executive editor for On the Record. He is a sophomore and studies government and journalism in the College.
Christina Luke is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service studying international politics.