Graham Platner

Yeah, we launched the campaign on August 19th.

Yeah, it's been quite the whirlwind.

Uh, what I've taken away, I mean, I was already pretty cynical about money in politics and that has, that, that cynicism has just been supercharged.

I mean, it is like, and I, and like, and the problem is like, you clearly need to raise money to compete for this stuff, but there's just a whole apparatus that seems to exist just to suck up money.

Yeah.

And, and like, and that has been really eyeopening.

I mean, the political industrial complex or the campaign industrial complex, whatever you want to call it.

And it is this kind of like – it's a wild thing to actually interact with personally.

I mean, we're lucky because our fundraising has been so much small dollar stuff and because –

frankly, the establishment of even my party wants nothing to do with me.

It kind of keeps all of that at arm's length, like, automatically.

So I'm not that mad.

But you're, like, just interacting with it.

It's like, man, there's a whole industry around this stuff.

Is it the time suck that's really... It's the time.

Totally.

And, like, it's...

I'm not going to say I understand why people go the kind of like corporate pack, dark money route, because I mean, just ideologically, I can never really grasp that.

But from a practical perspective, there is an element where I can see someone who might not have the same sort of political foundation that I have.

I mean, if somebody comes along and says, hey, you never have to make a phone call again, and you don't have to go beg anybody for money, I can see someone being like, oh, well, that would mean that I could do more other stuff.