Elaine Chao Talks About What it Takes to Throw Your Hat Into the Political Arena

representative democracy is one of the cornerstones of the u.s but the process of bringing people to serve in politics is not exactly straightforward some people enter through family business connections or other avenues of public service but in an increasingly diverse nation how can we get more elected officials that reflect the makeup of our country so joining us now with tips on how underrepresented communities can get into elected politics is elaine chao she is a former u.s labor secretary under president george w bush and former two-time transportation secretary under presidents bush senior and president trump secretary chao welcome to quick take so good to see you in person thanks for having me so you've never run for elected office but you know firsthand what's involved because you're married to senator mitch mcconnell who needs to run for election every six years and you've observed plenty and a lot of people come to you for tips so you've kind of distilled everything into three points and your first recommendation or suggestion for people who want to run for office if they're underrepresented minority is pick the right district what do you mean by that you really have to pick the right district because you know the majority of districts or even states sometimes in the united states the seat itself there's a track record there are voter results from previous elections that will tell you which way this particular district or seat will lean so many times it's pretty clear that the seat will be very much red or it will be very much blue and if you if you don't really fall if your philosophy doesn't fall within that camp it's very difficult for you to win so find the district that suits your own particular philosophy that will enable you to succeed okay i hear what you're saying but sometimes people get approached to run for office and they're like i think you would be a great candidate for the republican ticket or the democrat ticket and you're talking about a seat that is in the opposite district what's going on there well of course it's very enticing and very appealing to have someone come to you and you know ask you to run and say you know you're really needed for the country and we need you to do this but i think it's really important to do your own homework to understand you know again what is the voter's proclivity and their leanings in that seat in that district because many times the people who are involved in these campaigns they want a body someone to occupy that ballot space because if for whatever reason the wind is at your back and uh the whole slate of tick you know of ballots get elected they want to make sure that every single spot on their ballot is filled with somebody so that when lightning strikes if it does there'll be somebody who will be swept into office that is their team but realistically it's unlikely that you would if it's um a district in the other party so you're just being used in a way well that's why you have to be careful do your homework okay do your homework the second one and i think anyone who's in elected politics can understand this is you have to raise money that can be a difficult ask especially if you've never really done it before oh it's really easy it's it must be easy and that's what if you're going to run for politics it must be easy well you know i i've always uh because your ability to separate a voter from their hard-earned resource is an indication of their passion for you your campaign your ideas so that is the first hurdle to selling yourself selling your philosophy selling your ideas because once they give even that one dollar they're bound to you and they're going to watch you with greater interest and they're going to follow you and most likely they will vote for you how do you ask for money without actually coming out to say can you give me money you must do that you ask them i need a thousand dollars from you i need a hundred dollars from you and will you please help me you put it as simple as that you've you've got to put it on your business or anything oh no no not at all there's no need to hey listen the donor is busy also okay so let's just be really efficient they know why you're there they know that having financial resources is really useful and helpful and necessary for getting your message out so the fact that they are talking to you already is an indication they are interested they want to help and they are very likely to be won over so you basically have to close the deal make a pitch for yourself and then must must must you must close the deal which is this is going to be a campaign in which i'm going to need your help will you step up and give me a hundred dollars and how much of your time don't ask for anything small okay okay so that's think big in other words so i was head of united way yeah and i helped to do a lot of fundraising for united way and the worst thing that can happen is that you ask a person for less than what they were willing to give initially although unspoken so you need to go go big they can always come down but if you go small and they were ready to give something big you can't go back again to the larger number right right right okay that's that's a really good take okay so you have to do your research you have to know how much they're willing to part with and you have to just be bold and ask for the money and close the deal okay the third tip you have is you have to have support of the party and by party you mean either the democrat party or the republican party it doesn't you don't really need it and we have seen candidates who have done very well without the party's establishment support but if for instance oh i think uh you know you have um a lot of the tea party people who came in 2010 uh they did not have a lot of party support initially and they started their own movement of volunteers and supporters and on the left and on the other side you have some of the new the squad for example they were just newcomers to the political scene and yet they were able to garner enough support and enthusiasm to be able to you know spark a movement literally but if you don't have that so if you don't have the or you know you don't or unless you may not have the movement you can appeal to the party that's where the party is helpful because they will have built-in infrastructure like volunteers and people who have had previous experience volunteering helping out on past campaigns so their wisdom their experience is helpful so you can have that again that whole army of volunteers and sometimes if you need legal help in this contest of the results you know the party can help you with that as well so there's a lot of just uh practical assistance that the party with this infrastructure can offer so you use the machine to help you move forward are you saying don't ever run as an independent as a third-party candidate i think it's hard to run as a third-party candidate because again both parties democrat and republican have the infrastructure foremost being for example volunteers they will turn out because you are the republican candidate or you are the democrat candidate but if you're independent it's not to say that that is impossible but it's harder to build up the infrastructure what if you have the name recognition already for instance i'm thinking andrew yang he ran for president as a democrat as one of many democrats he ran for mayor of new york city in the primary as one of many democrats and now he's formed his own party called the ford party well i wish him luck andrew yang will be forever a figure of history for what he has done he's the first asian-american candidate to run for president and for that he will always have a place in history so i'm glad you mentioned first asian american because you are the first api woman to serve in the president's cabinet did you see the recent snl skit where um the guest host simulu and the cast member bon yang who's the first asian american cast member were poking fun at their first asian titles they're kind of competing each other one-upping each other on representational wins i mean he was really cute i actually used to watch simul i watched every episode of lee's convenience kim's convenience you're a semu fan absolutely and i'm so delighted that he gets to be a marvel hero i think it's really important for our country for our society and actually for the world as well i'm really proud of him how does it feel for you to always have the first asian american fill in the blank following your name when i was younger you know it was it was tough but because i thought that everything i did was reflective of our community it was probably too heavy a burden for me to take that i didn't have to necessarily take on but that's how i felt and so i wanted everything that i did to reflect well on the community because i didn't want me to be a barrier to future advancement of other asian americans and i'm glad that i was able to blaze the trail and you know provide more open up the doors more for more opportunities for our community yeah that must have been like you said a lot of pressure um one way or another and but it was also self-imposed you know i'm asian american as you well know we put a lot of pressure on ourselves yeah we do do that let's talk about asian americans as a voting bloc because in the last couple of elections people have noticed that this is a critical population a critical community maybe even a swing vote what's your take on that how things have evolved decades asian americans are they can be a swing vote they are increasingly becoming a swing vote in certain key states asian americans are located primarily in urban areas and in blue states so that's like washington uh california new york new jersey illinois massachusetts they're going into florida which is no longer a um a blue state and texas and asian americans are also now increasingly visible in arizona nevada north carolina georgia so they are branching you know moving out in from these white from these blue states and they are increasingly a swing uh vote and i think there uh there's this trend has been spurred obviously uh by what's happened uh with the anti-asian violence and harassment during covet did you see the election where michelle wu won uh the mayor's race in boston there are actually two women of color yes in that race in a city like boston which i think caught a lot of people by surprise there was a lot of incorrect press a lot of incorrect uh claims made before she won the election um welcome to the club yeah but i mean people would equate her with someone who is from china when in fact she's not her parents immigrated from taiwan well running for office is tough that's part of the game i hate to call it a game and i don't want to it's not a game but you know the stakes are so high and the ultra partisanship which our country now is experiencing contributes to that kind of vitriol and i've been attacked um and i think uh and what i'm concerned most is if someone like me who you know can be attacked and what does that mean for people who may not be as visible so i'm concerned about what these i'm concerned about i mean this whole issue and i've been helping many other asian american groups and organizations to establish themselves to come up to provide more voices for our community and i was among the very first to come out against asian american violence around march 18th in atlanta when that happened so i think our consciousness as a group as a community is being raised and i hope that there will be more candidates and i hope that the tips that i've given will be helpful i think it'll be good for our country elaine chao thank you so much thank you elaine chao's former labor labor secretary and former transportation secretaries as well

Channel: Bloomberg Quicktake

Views: 1,599

Keywords: Elaine Chao, Mitch McConnell, Washington, Politics, Vote, Campaiging, Money, Campaign Money, Asian-American, Swing Voters, election

Id: rD7SPnS7qYU

Length: 12min 3sec (723 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 23 2021